6.3.2 Completion Commands

Here is a list of the completion commands defined in the minibuffer when completion is available.

TAB

Complete the text in the minibuffer as much as possible (minibuffer-complete).

SPC

Complete the minibuffer text, but don’t go beyond one word (minibuffer-complete-word).

RET

Submit the text in the minibuffer as the argument, possibly completing first as described below (minibuffer-complete-and-exit).

?

Print a list of all possible completions of the text in the minibuffer (minibuffer-list-completions).

button2

Select the highlighted text under the mouse as a minibuffer response. When the minibuffer is being used to prompt the user for a completion, any valid completions which are visible on the screen will be highlighted when the mouse moves over them. Clicking button2 will select the highlighted completion and exit the minibuffer. (minibuf-select-highlighted-completion).

SPC completes much like TAB, but never goes beyond the next hyphen or space. If you have ‘auto-f’ in the minibuffer and type SPC, it finds that the completion is ‘auto-fill-mode’, but it stops completing after ‘fill-’. This gives ‘auto-fill-’. Another SPC at this point completes all the way to ‘auto-fill-mode’. SPC in the minibuffer when completion is available runs the command minibuffer-complete-word.

Here are some commands you can use to choose a completion from a window that displays a list of completions:

button2up

Clicking mouse button 2 on a completion in the list of possible completions chooses that completion (mouse-choose-completion). You normally use this command while point is in the minibuffer; but you must click in the list of completions, not in the minibuffer itself.

PRIOR

M-v

Typing PRIOR or M-v, while in the minibuffer, selects the window showing the completion list buffer (switch-to-completions). This paves the way for using the commands below. (Selecting that window in the usual ways has the same effect, but this way is more convenient.)

RET

Typing RET in the completion list buffer chooses the completion that point is in or next to (choose-completion). To use this command, you must first switch windows to the window that shows the list of completions.

RIGHT

TAB

C-f

Typing the right-arrow key RIGHT, TAB or C-f in the completion list buffer moves point to the following completion (next-list-mode-item).

LEFT

C-b

Typing the left-arrow key LEFT or C-b in the completion list buffer moves point toward the beginning of the buffer, to the previous completion (previous-list-mode-item).