Terminal: Expand list of similar filename shortcut

Question

I remember reading a trick in a stackoverflow comment somewhere for getting a list of filenames in the terminal, but I can't exactly remember it.

If you have a bunch of files like:

foo-a.txt
foo-b.txt
foo-c.txt

There is a trick that goes something along the lines of:

1. type cat foo-*
2. Press something like tab, backspace, esc (this does not work, but is the step I want to know)
3. The command line should now have cat foo-a foo-b foo-c

Note that is is different to the basic tab completion which shows a list of filenames below the command. This will put all the filenames in the command input so that pressing "enter" will execute cat with all the files.

Can anyone enlighten me?

Answer 1

1. Type cat foo-*
2. Press Ctrl+X then * (asterisk/star) to expand the glob
   • If that doesn't work, run bind -p | grep glob-expand-word and check if it says "\C-x*": glob-expand-word. If not, you can set it:

     bind '"\C-x*": glob-expand-word'
     

3. The command line should now be cat foo-a.txt foo-b.txt foo-c.txt

---

glob-expand-word vs insert-completions

OP's answer is about insert-completions (Esc, * or Alt+*), which is similar but different to glob-expand-word:

• glob-expand-word expands filename globs.
• insert-completions inserts all the possible completions that pressing Tab would show.

So that means you can also use insert-completions for things besides filenames, like options. For example type ls --f, press Esc, *, and you will get ls --file-type --format=, though I'm not sure how useful that is.

And that means that it behaves differently when expanding globs. For example if you type cat foo-* and press Esc, *, it will expand to only the first completion: cat foo-a.txt.

Answer 2

I found the original comment here. (Can someone with more points upvote him for me? :P)

The sequence is:

• Type cat foo-
• Press esc
• Press * (asterisk)

The same sequence seems to work with any program (not just cat)