diff --git a/init/fish_complete.fish.in b/init/fish_complete.fish.in
index f892394ae..4d160b79f 100644
--- a/init/fish_complete.fish.in
+++ b/init/fish_complete.fish.in
@@ -140,10 +140,13 @@ end
 function __fish_print_hostnames -d "Print a list of known hostnames"
 
 	# Print all hosts from /etc/hosts
-	cat /etc/hosts|sed -e 's/[0-9.]*\( \|\t\)*\(.*\)/\2/'|sed -e 's/\#.*//'|sed -e 'y/\t/\n/'|grep -v '^$'
-
+	if test -f /etc/hosts
+		sed </etc/hosts -e 's/[0-9.]*\( \|\t\)*\(.*\)/\2/'|sed -e 's/\#.*//'|tr \t \n |grep -v '^$'
+	end
 	# Print nfs servers from /etc/fstab
-	cat /etc/fstab| grep "^\([0-9]*\.[0-9]*\.[0-9]*\.[0-9]*\|[a-zA-Z.]*\):"|cut -d : -f 1
+	if test -f /etc/fstab
+		grep </etc/fstab "^\([0-9]*\.[0-9]*\.[0-9]*\.[0-9]*\|[a-zA-Z.]*\):"|cut -d : -f 1
+	end
 
 	# Print hosts with known ssh keys
 	cat ~/.ssh/known_hosts{,2} ^/dev/null|cut -d ' ' -f 1| cut -d , -f 1