From 5f952066fb6196c33862d39e7fdf9f0f5960f5a2 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: truffle <truffleagent@gmail.com>
Date: Sun, 10 May 2026 09:19:54 +0000
Subject: [PATCH] fix: only offer language names in zsh tab completion for `-l`

The previous awk script in `bat.zsh.in` split each line of
`bat --list-languages` on `:` or `,` and emitted every field as a
completion candidate, including the second column. That column lists
file matchers, which can be plain extensions (`rs`), globs (`*.rs`),
absolute paths (`/etc/profile`), or filenames (`Containerfile`). None
of those parse as `-l` arguments, so completing them produces
`unknown syntax` errors.

Switch to splitting on `:` only and emit the language name as the
completion value with the file-matcher list as its description, which
matches the bash completion's behavior.

Closes #3735.
---
 CHANGELOG.md                  | 1 +
 assets/completions/bat.zsh.in | 7 ++++++-
 2 files changed, 7 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)

diff --git a/CHANGELOG.md b/CHANGELOG.md
index 89789c54..4e8e8531 100644
--- a/CHANGELOG.md
+++ b/CHANGELOG.md
@@ -43,6 +43,7 @@
 - Fixed bug caused by using `--plain` and `--terminal-width=N` flags simultaneously, see #3529 (@H4k1l)
 - Fixed syntax tests path, see #3610 (@foxfromworld)
 - Fix zsh tab completion word-splitting language names containing spaces (e.g. `HTML (Jinja2)`, `Apache Conf`), see #3693 (@YoshKoz)
+- Fix zsh tab completion offering invalid `-l` arguments (file globs, paths, hidden filenames) sourced from the second column of `--list-languages`. Closes #3735, see #PR_NUMBER (@truffle-dev)
 
 ## Other
 - Use git version of cross. See #3533 (@OctopusET)
diff --git a/assets/completions/bat.zsh.in b/assets/completions/bat.zsh.in
index 4fddcbb4..3991b996 100644
--- a/assets/completions/bat.zsh.in
+++ b/assets/completions/bat.zsh.in
@@ -90,7 +90,12 @@ _{{PROJECT_EXECUTABLE}}_main() {
         languages)
             local IFS=$'\n'
             local -a languages
-            languages=( ${(f)"$({{PROJECT_EXECUTABLE}} --color=never --decorations=never --list-languages | awk -F':|,' '{ for (i = 1; i <= NF; ++i) printf("%s:%s\n", $i, $1) }')"} )
+            # Only offer language names as completion values. The second column
+            # of `--list-languages` mixes plain extensions with globs (`*.rs`),
+            # absolute paths (`/etc/profile`), and full filenames
+            # (`Containerfile`); none of those parse as `-l` arguments. See
+            # https://github.com/sharkdp/bat/issues/3735.
+            languages=( ${(f)"$({{PROJECT_EXECUTABLE}} --color=never --decorations=never --list-languages | awk -F: '{ printf("%s:%s\n", $1, $2) }')"} )
 
             _describe 'language' languages && ret=0
         ;;