Bash doesn't expand variables when pressing Tab key

Solution 1:

You have the following two options for expanding a variable in Bash:

• Use the Ctrl+Alt+E keyboard shortcut whenever you want to expand a variable.

  For example, if I write in my terminal:

  $LANG $BASH
  

  and then press the shortcut, the above will expand both variables to:

  en_US.UTF-8 /usr/bin/bash
  

• Enable the shopt builtin's direxpand option by running in your terminal:

  shopt -s direxpand
  

  Now, if you type:

  ls $MY_DIRECTORY/<Tab key>
  

  it will be expanded to:

  ls /path/to/a/folder/
  

  To have the direxpand option enabled for all terminal sessions, append shopt -s direxpand in your ~/.bashrc file either manually or by running:

  echo "shopt -s direxpand" >> ~/.bashrc