command completion doesn't work with wildcards

[H . Koenig]

Configuration Information [Automatically generated, do not change]:
Machine: amd64-linux
OS: suse10les
Compiler: gcc
Compilation CFLAGS:  -DPROGRAM='bash' -DCONF_HOSTTYPE='amd64-linux' 
-DCONF_OSTYPE='suse10les' -DCONF_MACHTYPE='x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu' 
-DCONF_VENDOR='unknown' 
-DLOCALEDIR='/scr/os2-sles10/koenig/bash-3.2.25-1/PREINSTALL//usr/local//share/locale'
 -DPACKAGE='bash' -DSHELL -DHAVE_CONFIG_H   -I.  -I. -I./include -I./lib   -O2 
-D_LARGE_FILES -D_LARGEFILE_SOURCE -D_FILE_OFFSET_BITS=64
uname output: Linux atuin 2.6.16.27-0.9-smp #1 SMP Tue Feb 13 09:35:18 UTC 2007 
x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux
Machine Type: x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu

Bash Version: 3.2
Patch Level: 25
Release Status: release

Description:

command completion (1st parameter) doesn't expand exact matches, 
nor does it display matching patterns/files when using wildcards.

doing completion on file paramters (2nd argument etc.) does expand
the same patterns and does show possible matches.


I'm not sure if this might be wanted behaviour (why? docs?), to me this
looks like a bug -- or a nasty feature ;-)  at least for my work style
it would be nice if this would work too.

I just checked older bash versions for this behaviour back to 
bash 1.14.7(1) on a RedHat-6.2 system -- they all don't show
matches for the command completion, and bash 1.14.7 not even
expanded the (uniqe) echo argument /bin/l*d*
(and I was really sure that this worked in some older bash versions :-(

so this doesn't look like a new bug, but a (wanted? why?)  feature?


Repeat-By:

        mkdir dir
        touch dir/foo-bar-baz
        chmod +x dir/foo-bar-baz

does not expand nor show match(es): 
        dir/foo*baz<TAB>

        echo dir/foo*baz<TAB>

expands to
        echo dir/foo-bar-baz 
        

does not expand:        
        cd dir
        ./foo*<TAB>

does not show any match:
        /bin/l*d*<TAB>

shows matches:
        echo /bin/l*d*<TAB> 

        

thanks in advance (either for explaining why, or even better for changing;),

Harald Koenig
-- 
"I hope to die                                      ___       _____
before I *have* to use Microsoft Word.",           0--,|    /OOOOOOO\
Donald E. Knuth, 02-Oct-2001 in Tuebingen.        <_/  /  /OOOOOOOOOOO\
                                                    \  \/OOOOOOOOOOOOOOO\
                                                      \ OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO|//
Harald Koenig                                          \/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/
science+computing ag                                    //  /     \\  \
koenig@science-computing.de                            ^^^^^       ^^^^^
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