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1.5.1 Tab Completion

One of the nicest things about Linux is the tab completion. Tab completion allows you to type in the first few letters of a command or directory and then <Tab> to complete. This can save quite a few keystrokes when entering deep directories with long names. All that is necessary are the first unique characters of the filename followed by a <Tab> and the sytem will complete. If you haven't entered enough characters, hitting <Tab><Tab> will provide all possible matches. Commands can also be completed with <Tab>. If you hit <Tab><Tab> with no arguments you will get something like this:

# <Tab><Tab>

There are 1661 possibilities.

Do you really wish to see them all? (y or n)

However if you enter just the first couple of letters like this:

# log <Tab><Tab>

logger logname logresolve logtail

login logout logrotate

Then you get all the possible commands with the first three letters log.

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