Hello and thanks for maintaining qpdf!

I would like to point out that its bash completion seems to be totally
broken.

For instance:

    $ ls
    foo.pdf
    $ qpdf fo

if I now hit [Tab], I get the following awkward result:

    $ qpdf fo
    qpdf: an input file name is required

    For help:
      qpdf --help=usage       usage information
      qpdf --help=topic       help on a topic
      qpdf --help=--option    help on an option
      qpdf --help             general help and a topic list

    o.pdf

The problema seems to lie in the qpdf executable itself, which is
supposed to be able to generated its own bash completion code:

    $ dpkg -L qpdf | grep bash-completion
    /usr/share/bash-completion
    /usr/share/bash-completion/completions
    /usr/share/bash-completion/completions/qpdf
    $ cat /usr/share/bash-completion/completions/qpdf
    eval "$(/usr/bin/qpdf --completion-bash)"

but:

    $ /usr/bin/qpdf --completion-bash
    qpdf_completer() { '/usr/bin/qpdf'; }; complete -o bashdefault -o default -o nospace -F qpdf_completer qpdf

I am no expert of bash completion code, but the qpdf_completer()
function does not look like a working bash completion function...

What's wrong?
Is there anything I failed to understand?

Please clarify or fix the bug.


Thanks for your time and dedication!

So it's not _totally_ broken. Completion still works if you can mentally remove the inline documentation every time you hit tab. But, I agree, that's not a real solution.

I suspect that the breaking change came from commit 
https://github.com/qpdf/qpdf/commit/29631cabd62f8a9790b5ea9c358fc6557fa17d2b because that was the last to touch /usr/share/bash-completion/completions/qpdf . It appears it was over-fixed.

I'm working on a complete redo of the competition support. Hopefully that can put an end to this once and for all. Sorry for the formatting... Sending from my phone.

Whilst we wait for that complete redo, here's a duct tape fix:

# Save to /etc/bash_completion.d/qpdf

_qpdf_completions() {
  local IFS=$' \t\n'

  local cur; cur="${COMP_WORDS[COMP_CWORD]}"

  if [[ "${cur}" == -* ]]
  then
    if [[ ! "${_QPDF_OPTS:-}" ]]
    then
      _QPDF_OPTS=$(man qpdf 2>/dev/null |
        col --no-backspaces |
        grep --only-matching --extended-regexp '\-\-[[:alnum:]-]+|\-[[:alnum:]]+' |
        sort --unique |
        tr '\n' ' ')
    fi
    COMPREPLY=( $(compgen -W "${_QPDF_OPTS}" -- "${cur}") )
    return 0
  fi
  COMPREPLY=( $(compgen -f -X '!*.pdf' -- "${cur}") )
}

complete -F _qpdf_completions qpdf

We believe that the bug you reported is fixed in the latest version of
qpdf, which is due to be installed in the Debian FTP archive.

A summary of the changes between this version and the previous one is
attached.

Thank you for reporting the bug, which will now be closed.  If you
have further comments please address them to 1127788@bugs.debian.org,
and the maintainer will reopen the bug report if appropriate.

Debian distribution maintenance software
pp.
Jay Berkenbilt <qjb@debian.org> (supplier of updated qpdf package)

(This message was generated automatically at their request; if you
believe that there is a problem with it please contact the archive
administrators by mailing ftpmaster@ftp-master.debian.org)
Format: 1.8
Date: Sun, 09 Aug 2026 16:49:00 -0400
Source: qpdf
Architecture: source
Version: 12.4.0-1
Distribution: unstable
Urgency: medium
Maintainer: Jay Berkenbilt <qjb@debian.org>
Changed-By: Jay Berkenbilt <qjb@debian.org>
Closes: 1111421 1127788
Changes:
 qpdf (12.4.0-1) unstable; urgency=medium
 .
   * New upstream release.
   * This version includes completely rewritten bash and zsh completion
     files that no longer invoke the qpdf executable. (Closes: #1127788)
   * Update the manual page to reference the qpdf-doc package.
     (Closes: #1111421)
   * Standards version updated to 4.7.4; no changes needed.
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Files:
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