9.3.2 Completion Commands

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

<TAB>

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

<SPC>

Complete the minibuffer text before point, but don't go beyond one word (minibuffer-complete-word). <SPC> for completion is not available when entering a file name, since some users often put spaces in filenames.

<RET>

Submit the text in the minibuffer as the argument, possibly completing first as described in the next node (minibuffer-complete-and-exit). See Strict Completion.

?

Display a list of all possible completions of the text in the minibuffer (minibuffer-completion-help).

<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’. The command that implements this behavior is called minibuffer-complete-word.

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

Mouse-1

Mouse-2

Clicking mouse button 1 or 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 <PAGE-UP>, 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>

Typing the right-arrow key <RIGHT> in the completion list buffer moves point to the following completion (next-completion).

<LEFT>

Typing the left-arrow key <LEFT> in the completion list buffer moves point toward the beginning of the buffer, to the previous completion (previous-completion).