remove file from zsh autocomplete

Question

if I type

vim pack

and hit tab zsh autocompletes to package-lock.json, but 10 times out of 10 I would rather it complete to package.json as the first option.

How can I either:

• make it autocomplete to package.json first
• stop it completing package-lock.json at all

Answer 1

If you are using Zsh's "new" completion system (that is, the one released in the year 🛸2000🛸, which you need to initialize with autoload -Uz compinit; compinit) —and you should— then the following will work:

zstyle ':completion:*' ignored-patterns 'package-lock.json'

Documentation: http://zsh.sourceforge.net/Doc/Release/Completion-System.html#index-ignored_002dpatterns_002c-completion-style