[Bug 1167533] Re: Completions for some long options are missing. (doesn't parse --help output perfectly)

[Peter Cordes]

fixed it:

echo ' -r, --recursive  like --directories=recurse' | sed -ne 's/\([^-]\|-[^-]\)*\(--[-A-Za-z0-9]\{1,\}=\{0,1\}\).*/\2/p'
--recursive

using \([^-]\|-[^-]\)* instead of .* at the front of the pattern makes the greedy match at the front stop at the first --.  If there are commands that use -- as formatting in their --help output, then this won't work, e.g.
 -r  --   equivalent to --recursive
but otherwise this should be good.  It's pretty much standard to list the actual options early in a line, rather than
  like --directories=recurse      -r, --recursive

This goes in _longopt(), line 1801 of bash_completion.

I'll submit this upstream, too

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1167533

Title:
  Completions for some long options are missing.  (doesn't parse --help
  output perfectly)

Status in bash-completion package in Ubuntu:
  New

Bug description:
  I noticed today that "--recursive" is missing from the completions for
  grep. A quick glance grep's man page reveals that other long options
  such as "--text" are also missing. I'm not sure what the pattern is.

  Steps to reproduce:

    1) Type "grep --".
    2) Press <Tab> twice.
    3) Observe that "--recursive" is missing.

  ProblemType: Bug
  DistroRelease: Ubuntu 13.04
  Package: bash-completion 1:2.0-1ubuntu3
  ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.8.0-17.27-generic 3.8.6
  Uname: Linux 3.8.0-17-generic x86_64
  NonfreeKernelModules: nvidia zfs zunicode zavl zcommon znvpair
  ApportVersion: 2.9.2-0ubuntu5
  Architecture: amd64
  Date: Wed Apr 10 12:32:24 2013
  InstallationDate: Installed on 2013-04-07 (2 days ago)
  InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 13.04 "Raring Ringtail" - Alpha amd64 (20130402.1)
  MarkForUpload: True
  PackageArchitecture: all
  ProcEnviron:
   TERM=xterm
   PATH=(custom, no user)
   XDG_RUNTIME_DIR=<set>
   LANG=en_US.UTF-8
   SHELL=/bin/bash
  SourcePackage: bash-completion
  UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)

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