zsh - autocomplete with braces in the middle of a directory

Suppose I have the following directory structure:

folder/
  aaa/
    f.txt
  bbb/
    f.txt

I want to compare the file f.txt as it is common to both directories. So in zsh I type this:

% diff folder/{aaa,bbb}/

Pleasingly, zsh autocompletes both the aaa and bbb directories even inside the brace. Next, I press the Tab key hoping that zsh will autocomplete any files common to both the aaa and bbb directories, so I'm hoping that pressing Tab will result in this:

% diff folder/{aaa,bbb}/f.txt

However, what zsh actually does is expand the braces resulting in this:

% diff folder/aaa/ folder/bbb/

Is there a way to get zsh to keep the braces in the middle of the directory and autocomplete the common file name as I described?

posted 29 days ago

CC BY-SA 4.0

Trevor‭

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