Enhancing Bash Command Line with fzf Fuzzy Finder

Let’s make completion (autocomplete) and search more convenient with fzf, a command-line software equipped with fuzzy search (fuzzy finder) functionality, which provides features such as command history search and file selection using these capabilities.

Installation is super simple.

git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/junegunn/fzf.git ~/.fzf
~/.fzf/install

junegunn/fzf: A command-line fuzzy finder Examples · junegunn/fzf Wiki

• Search syntax

Token Match type Description sbtrkt fuzzy-match Items that match sbtrkt ‘wild exact-match (quoted) Items that include wild ^music prefix-exact-match Items that start with music .mp3$ suffix-exact-match Items that end with .mp3 !fire inverse-exact-match Items that do not include fire !^music inverse-prefix-exact-match Items that do not start with music !.mp3$ inverse-suffix-exact-match Items that do not end with .mp3

On multi-select mode (-m), TAB and Shift-TAB to mark multiple items

Now, let me introduce how to use it.

String Search Becomes More Convenient

This can be used for searching within files. You can use it when you want to search the results of —help, for example.

cat <<EOT  |fzf
hoge
fuga
foo
EOT

Command History Search Becomes More Convenient

This is probably the most convenient and handy feature of fzf.

You probably know that you can view command history with ctrl-R, but this makes it more convenient.

Completion (Autocomplete) Becomes More Convenient

fzf’s autocomplete is not triggered by pressing tab twice, but by typing ** (two asterisks) and then tab.

cd **<TAB>
cd ~/github/fzf**<TAB>
head /docker/**<TAB>

However, some are overridden by normal autocomplete. Try each one.

kill -9 <TAB>

Implementing Custom Autocomplete

fzf also allows you to create your own tab completion candidates.

You can specify strings like this,

_fzf_complete_history() {
  _fzf_complete "--multi --reverse" "$@" < <(
    echo very
    echo wow
    echo such
    echo history
  )
}

[ -n "$BASH" ] && complete -F _fzf_complete_history -o default -o bashdefault history

With some ingenuity, you can also pass command execution results. Very convenient.

_fzf_complete_sym() {
  _fzf_complete "--multi --reverse" "$@" < <(command ls -1 ${HOME}/sym)
}

[ -n "$BASH" ] && complete -F _fzf_complete_sym -o default -o bashdefault sym

Code I Actually Use

Here’s some code I actually wrote and use as examples.

Completes scripts frequently connected to man [commandName]. It becomes like man bash > ~/tmp.txt && sublime_text ~/tmp.txt, but I’m displaying manual pages with sublime from WSL via x11 forwarding from a Windows environment. It’s more convenient to view man pages with sublime, whether for copy-pasting or searching, or rather I’m more used to it.

_fzf_complete_man() {
  _fzf_complete "--multi --reverse" "$@" < <(
    # view the man pages with sublime via x-server
    echo "> ~/tmp.txt && sublime_text ~/tmp.txt "
  )
}

[ -n "$BASH" ] && complete -F _fzf_complete_man -o default -o bashdefault man

sym [dirname] allows easy navigation to your favorite directories from any directory. In my case, I have some symbolic links to Windows file system in my sym folder, mainly for videos and music, so when I want to listen to classical music on random shuffle, I do sym cla**->sym _Classic to move to the directory, then shufmusic, something like that.

sym(){

: <<'HELP'
e.g. sym
e.g. sym hinabita
e.g. sym **
HELP

  [ ! -z ${1} ] && cd "${HOME}/sym/${1}" || cd "${HOME}/sym"
}

_fzf_complete_sym() {
  _fzf_complete "--multi --reverse" "$@" < <(command ls -1 ${HOME}/sym)
}

[ -n "$BASH" ] && complete -F _fzf_complete_sym -o default -o bashdefault sym

Interesting Samples

When you select from command history, the command is executed immediately. Honestly, the efficiency is the same as selecting from ctrl-R and pressing enter, so I don’t think it’s worth implementing. However, it can be utilized in built-in systems.

# fh - repeat history
fh() {
  eval $( ([ -n "$ZSH_NAME" ] && fc -l 1 || history) | fzf +s --tac | sed 's/ *[0-9]* *//')
}