Reading and tab-completing a directory name in a bash script

Question

I want to prompt the user for a directory name, and have them able to tab-complete to a valid directory.

So far, I've got tab-completion working for both files and directories using "read -e". I only want directories to be autocompleted when the user presses tab.

Here's what I have:

echo "Enter a directory"
read -e -p "> " DEST

How can I make bash only return a list of directories when the user presses tab, rather than a list of files and directories?

Answer 1

An alternate approach that gives you a lot of flexibility is to use compgen; see my answer here for details.

Answer 2

Here's my quick take at the problem. For some reason I had to actually use bash and not sh on my computer, due to the use of pushd and popd. I think it's well commented enough for me to not explain it any further.

#!/bin/sh
tempdir=`mktemp -d`

# save the current directory
pushd .  

# make a new folder, then make a bunch of new directories 
# mirroring those in our current directory
for i in $(find . -type d); do mkdir "$tempdir/$i" ; done

# change to the temporary directory
cd "$tempdir"

echo "Enter a directory"
read -e -p ">" DEST

echo "You told me $DEST"

# return to our original directory
popd

# clear out that temporary directory we made
rm -rf "$tempdir"

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But Jacob's response is probably more efficient and cleaner than mine.