Fzf

Get more info about fzf here. fzf is a general-purpose command-line fuzzy finder. In its most basic form, fzf works as a filter, processing text from standard input (stdin), then outputting a matching selection to standard output (stdout). In more simpler terms, it takes the input from the output of other programs(for eg. find or fd) and output the matching selection(query).

Features¶

Some of the cool features are as follows, 1. Fuzzy finding capabilities allow approximate searches by any part of the match in any order. 2. Super-fast processing speed 3. Interactive match selection lets the user select the desired match after initial filtering.

Installation¶

fzf can be installed using Package Manager for specific distribution. For example,

Fedora¶

sudo dnf install fzf

Ubuntu¶

sudo apt install fzf

fzf can be installed as plugins in Vim and Neovim. For example, using [[vim-plug]], add this line to Vim configuration file :

Plug 'junegunn/fzf', { 'do': { -> fzf#install() } }

Upgrading `fzf`¶

It can be installed like other applications, using Package Manager or depending upon the installation method, this GitHub Link has proper instructions to do that. Also read how to Install Vim plugins, if [[vim-plug]] is used to install fzf.

Usage¶

By default, fzf searches all files under the current directory, allows you to filter and search interactively, then prints the result to standard output. fzf updates the matches dynamically while we type the search terms in any order.

Example 1 : Search for file and open in EDITOR¶

Suppose we want to search for a file and open it in Vim for editing, we can use fzf to obtain the file name and pass it like this: This will open an interacting panel and we can enter our query and upon selecting the the file, it will open in Vim

vim $(fzf)

Example 2 : Search and copy file to destination folder¶

Suppose we want to search for a text file and place it in our Templates folder, we can do,

cp $(fzf) ~/Templates

Example 3 : Previewing file content¶

We will be using bat program to preview the text files on the fly by using the --preview command line flag :

fzf --preview 'bat --color=always {}'

Tip

By default, when we execute fzf with no arguments, it uses the find command to search for files. For faster and more feature-rich searches, you can replace the default search command with fd by setting the environment variable FZF_DEFAULT_COMMAND like this:

export FZF_DEFAULT_COMMAND="fd --type f"

For permanent changes, set this environment variable in the shell initialization script like .zshrc or .bashrc.

export FZF_DEFAULT_OPTS="--height=80% --layout=reverse --info=inline --border --margin=1 --padding=1 --preview 'bat --color=always {}'"

export FZF_DEFAULT_COMMAND="fd --type f"

Tip

To enable key bindings, source the corresponding file for the shell. For example, for Zsh, source /usr/share/fzf/shell/key-bindings.zsh: Add this line in the .zshrc file like above to make the changes consistent across sessions and reboots. Get the file from here if not found in the above directory.

Once loaded, we can three key bindings for quickly triggering fzf

Ctrl+t: To select files, similar to autocompletion but with fewer keystrokes

Alt+c: To quickly switch into a selected subdirectory

Ctrl+r: For smart searching your command history

Fzf