Zsh’s autocompletion options from variable

## General overview I have to set a values auto-completion in zsh for a command (in the following minimal example, I will show it with testcmd). So my current code work quiet well with hardcoded values: #### Current auto-completion code (the one who works)

function testcmd()
{
	echo "Nothing to do, just a test command"
}


_test_complete() {
	_values \
		"Possible values" \
		foo'[Foo]' \
		bar'[Bar baz]' \
}

compdef _test_complete testcmd

#### Current auto-completion behavior When I type testcmd , I correctly get the following desired rendering:

$ testcmd
Possible values
bar  -- Bar baz
foo  -- Foo

## What is the goal I search to reach But as you see, the values are hard-coded inside the function, ideally, the function should retrieve them from a variable. ## What I already try So naturaly, I put the values inside the variable values_variable as following: #### The tried code (the one who doesn’t works)

function testcmd()
{
	echo "Nothing to do, just a test command"
}


_test_complete() {
	local values_variable
	values_variable="foo'[Foo]' \
		bar'[Bar baz]' \ "
	_values \
		"Possible values" \
		${values_variable}
}

compdef _test_complete testcmd

#### The behavior of the tried code But then, when I try testcmd it completely fail:

$ testcmd
_values:compvalues:11: invalid value definition: foo'[Foo]' \t\tbar'[Bar baz]' \
_values:compvalues:11: invalid value definition: foo'[Foo]' \t\tbar'[Bar baz]' \
_values:compvalues:11: invalid value definition: foo'[Foo]' \t\tbar'[Bar baz]' \
$ testcmd

### What I _also_ did - I tried to escape the spaces with echo ${values_variable} | sed "s/ /\\ /g" ; - I tried to use $values_variable with the eval command to pretend as if it content was directly typed inside the _values definition ; - I tried both eval and escaping with eval $(echo ${values_variable} | sed "s/ /\\ /g") ; - I tried to eveal line by line with a loop :

echo "$values_variable" | while read -r line; do
    eval "$line"
  done

- Expansion with ${(@f)values_variable}̀ ; - Many other ideas. But it also failed. ### The nearest solution I found In [_How to pass the contents of a file using cat to _values (zsh completion)_](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/21356370/how-to-pass-the-contents-of-a-file-using-cat-to-values-zsh-completion) tread I found a solution for values imported from an external file, but the user seems to be fronted to the same space escape problem. However, I can’t adjust it to the case with the $values_variables internal variable. I naturally tried this one, who doesn’t works either:

_test_complete() {
	local values_variable
	values_variable="foo'[Foo]' \
		bar'[Bar baz]' \ "
	OLD_IFS=$IFS
	IFS=$'\n'
	_values \
		"Possible values" \
		${values_variable}
	IFS=$OLD_IFS
}

## The question How can I load the values to give to _values inside auto-completion function from a variable?