zsh adds tab character when autocompleting

Question

I have zsh 4.3.10 installed on a RHEL 6.4 box. I'm not sure why this happens, but when I but Tab to autocomplete things, it also adds a tab character.

For example:

rocket@rhelbox www % vim    vim
external command
----------------
vim vimdiff vimtutor

So, when I type VIMTab, after the Tab it adds a tab to my console, then finishes the autocomplete action. The command works fine, it's just annoying. I cannot backspace to remove it either. I don't know what's causing this.

Here's my .zshrc:

# Initialize Autocompletion and Autocorrection
autoload -U compinit promptinit
compinit
promptinit
#prompt redhat
zstyle ':completion:*:descriptions' format '%U%B%d%b%u'
zstyle ':completion:*:warnings' format '%BSorry, no matches for: %d%b'
zstyle ':completion::complete:*' use-cache 1
setopt correctall

# Custom PS1
autoload -U colors && colors
# http://www.understudy.net/custom.html#Z_color
fg_purple=$'\e[0;35m'
#PS1="%n@%m %c %% "
PS1="${fg_purple}%n@%m %{$fg[yellow]%}%c %% %{$reset_color%}"


# cd is automagically added
setopt autocd

# Save History
HISTSIZE=1000
SAVEHIST=1000
HISTFILE=~/.bash_history
setopt hist_ignore_all_dups

# Keybindings
bindkey "^[OH" beginning-of-line
bindkey "^[OF" end-of-line
bindkey '^?' backward-delete-char
bindkey "\e[3~" delete-char

# Aliases
alias ls="ls --color=auto"

# Set (SVN) Editor to vim
export SVN_EDITOR=vim
export EDITOR=vim

Answer 1

This is likely caused by your setting of the prompt confusing zsh about where the cursor is in the terminal. You've included terminal control characters in your prompt without letting zsh know that those won't actually show up on the terminal.

This needs to be done by surrounding those portions of the prompt with %{ and %}. This has already been done when setting the color to yellow and when resetting the color, but has not been done where you set the color to purple at the beginning.