Completion gone after bash --norc
Problem
After I start a subshell with bash --norc, completion doesn't work anymore.
The command complete -p in the parent shell shows me a list of completions, whereas complete -p in the subshell (started via bash --norc) shows me an empty list.
Solution
Completion is not supposed to be exported to a subshell automatically. I was fooled because SuSE's bash – unexpectedly – automatically executes /etc/bash.bashrc upon invocation of an interactive shell.
See also
Journal
20060425
Things seem to happen because bash silently executes /etc/bash.bashrc? Why isn't this mentioned in info bash?
From this SuSE 9.3 page it looks like bash is compiled to look to /etc/bash.bashrc?
Debian seems to have the same feature: Google Groups: gnu.bash: reading /etc/profile on graphical terminals.
freddy@linux:~> bash --version GNU bash, version 3.00.16(1)-release (i586-suse-linux) Copyright (C) 2004 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
From this page (lpi-discuss)Bash question: it appears one is invited to comment out lines in bash source code which enable /etc/bash.bashrc as a "System-wide .bashrc file for interactive shells".
Download bash sources
20060426
rpm -i bash-3.0-17.src.rpm cd /usr/src/packages/SOURCES
There is a file bash-3.0.dif which contains, among others:
... --- config-top.h +++ config-top.h Mon Oct 11 13:02:26 2004 ... /* System-wide .bashrc file for interactive shells. */ -/* #define SYS_BASHRC "/etc/bash.bashrc" */ +#define SYS_BASHRC "/etc/bash.bashrc" ...
