Re: psychiatric help

Have you considered a simpler solution? If I understand your goal I think
this will work for you: bind the space bar to a ZLE function that expands
the alias you just typed in-place. That way you get the whole expanded
command right there at the prompt where you can edit it as needed, and the
whole thing will automatically be what's saved in your history when you
execute it.

expand-alias-and-space() {
  zle _expand_alias    # Expand the alias under the cursor
  zle magic-space       # Insert a space and perform history expansion
}


zle -N expand-alias-and-space


bindkey ' ' expand-alias-and-space




On Sat, Apr 4, 2026 at 6:50 PM Ray Andrews <[email protected]> wrote:

>
>
> On 2026-04-04 15:30, Mark J. Reed wrote:
> > It's not "losing the backslash". There is no backslash. The backslash
> > tells the shell that the space is literal.
> I know.  The problem is that the need to indicate the hard space
> remains.  As the command tail is passed to another function, the need
> for that reminder must be retained.  It's a deep problem -- soft vs.
> hard spaces.  If the shell used '\ ' to insert some character that was
> an explicitly hard space, then of course the problem would vanish, the
> backslash would only be needed the one time and the hard space would
> remain hard.  But without the backslash of course it 'reverts' to being
> a soft space.
> > So if you want access to the specific way the command is typed, you
> > use a normal function or script; by the time it's executed it's too
> > late.You need to hook into the completion or editing (ZLE) functionality.
> Yeah, I'd sure like to know how to do that.  As I mentioned a while back
> that code accessing $BUFFER sounded like the right place to look, but
> it's way above my pay grade.
>
>
>

-- 
Mark J. Reed <[email protected]>