Using a custom list for autocompletion (e.g., a list of files)

Question

what I would like to do is

when I write inside on console a command, for example.

ls

file1.txt folder1 folder2

then I write

cd (I hit some magic shortcut and I can access using down button first file1.text. when I click it again I see "cd folder1" when I hit it again I see "cd folder2".

is it possible?

I do know there is auto-complete with tab, but that is not what I want.

Answer 1

Perhaps you want to try readline's menu-complete for tab-completion?

Try it in an interactive bash session by running

bind '"\C-i": menu-complete'

Then try typing cd followed by a space, then the tab key multiple times.

To make it permanent, put the following line in ~/.inputrc (the file does not exist by default):

"\C-i": menu-complete