One of my favorite features in the fish shell is the ability to define abbreviations using the abbr command.

Here’s a quick note about abbr, and how to set the cursor to the right position without breaking your flow.

The problem #

As a Quarkus core team contributor, I frequently need to rebuild extensions and run integration tests. These require some boilerplate Maven commands, such as:

./mvnw -Dno-build-cache -Dstart-containers -Dtest-containers -Pnative clean install -f integration-tests/resteasy-jackson/

or:

./mvnw -Dno-build-cache -Dstart-containers -Dtest-containers clean install -f extensions/vertx-http/

First attempt #

In most cases abbr behaves like an alias in other shells, with the difference being that the abbreviation is expanded to its content. So I initially went with something like this:

abbr -a -- qbex './mvnw -Dno-build-cache -Dstart-containers -Dtest-containers clean install -f extensions/'
abbr -a -- qbit './mvnw -Dno-build-cache -Dstart-containers -Dtest-containers -Pnative clean install -f integration-tests/'

This defined qbex (to build a Quarkus extension) and qbit (to build a Quarkus integration test).

The problem was that when I typed, say, qbit + Tab, the expansion of qbit was followed by a space character. So to run the resteasy-jackson integration test, I had to type:

qbit + Tab + Backspace + resteasy-jackson + Enter

This is not a fluid experience.

Second attempt #

The --set-cursor flag of the abbr command can be used to move the cursor after expansion:

abbr -a --set-cursor=^ -- qbex './mvnw -Dno-build-cache -Dstart-containers -Dtest-containers clean install -f extensions/^'
abbr -a --set-cursor=^ -- qbit './mvnw -Dno-build-cache -Dstart-containers -Dtest-containers -Pnative clean install -f integration-tests/^'

With this, qbit + Tab places the cursor right where it should be, and I can even benefit from shell completion right away to select the target.