00-fix_quote_readline_by_ref.patch was introduced in bash-completion v1:2.1-3 as a fix for bug 739835 "filename completion broken with bash 4.3". https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=739835
The patch file was originally pulled from Ubuntu, where it was created to fix two LP bugs: * avoid escaping 1st '~' (LP: #1288314) * avoid quoting if empty, else expansion without args only shows dirs (LP: #1288031) Interestingly, LP: #1288031 includes a comment (#9) saying that this Ubuntu/Debian patch was no longer needed due to upstream Bash fixes, but it's not clear to me whether the same is true for the "unescaped ~*" bug. https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/bash-completion/+bug/1288031 Meanwhile, Ubuntu has just released new versions of the bash-completion package, with a patch (15-add_backslash_for_tilde.patch) to the 00-fix_quote_readline_by_ref.patch file to fix the Un-escaped "~*" bug; see: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/bash-completion/+bug/1390061 Nathan