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FZF in vim and bash

DATE: 2021-05-05

AUTHOR: John L. Godlee

I took some time to get my notes in order and to properly implement FZF, both in Bash and Vim. I have known about FZF for a long time, and use it regularly to choose internet radio stations[1], but I know that it's a very adapatable program, and I'd seen some cool FZF applications online, so I wanted to try and use it more deeply for myself.

1: /2020/03/25/radio.html

First are the default variables. Like many others I use ripgrep[2] to list files faster within FZF. By default I choose to show hidden files (--hidden), but exclude files inside .git directories (--glob "!.git/*"). I enable multi-selection with (-m) and enable ANSI colour codes (--ansi). These variables live in my ~/.bashrc.

2: https://github.com/BurntSushi/ripgrep

export FZF_DEFAULT_COMMAND='rg --files --hidden --glob "!.git/*"'
export FZF_DEFAULT_OPTS="-m --ansi"

I have a file-picker script, which smply lists files in the directory tree, with a preview window:

#!/usr/bin/env bash

files=($(fzf \
    --query="$1" \
    --multi \
    --select-1 \
    --exit-0 \
    --preview='bat --color=always --line-range=:100 {}' \
    --preview-window 'right:50%:sharp:+{2}-/3:~3'))
[ -n "$files" ]] && ${EDITOR:-vim} "${files[@

I have the same functionality in vim using junegunn/fzf.vim, with nnoremap <Leader>p :Files<CR>, like the old ctrl-p plugin.

I have a similar script which instead searches both the contents and names of files:

files=($(rg --line-number --no-heading --color=always --smart-case --hidden --glob "!.git/*" "${*:-}" | 
    fzf \
    --multi \
    --delimiter=: \
    --preview='bat --color=always {1} --highlight-line={2}' \
    --preview-window 'right:50%:sharp:+{2}-/3:~3' | 
    sed 's/:.*//'))
[ -n "$files" ]] && ${EDITOR} "${files[@

In vim this is accomplished by nnoremap <Leader>f :Rg<CR>.

File contents search

A neat extra feature I have in vim is to search from the root of a git repository:

command! -bang -nargs=* ProjRg
    \ call fzf#vim#grep(
    \ "rg --column --line-number --no-heading --color=always --smart-case --hidden --glob \"!.git/*\" -- ".shellescape(<q-args>), 1,
    \ fzf#vim#with_preview({'dir': systemlist('git rev-parse --show-toplevel')[0]}), <bang>0)
nnoremap <Leader>g :ProjRg<CR>

This bash script searches the macOS Applications directory to allow me to open GUI apps from the terminal:

#!/usr/bin/env bash

open "$(find /Applications -name '*app' -maxdepth 1 |\
    sed 's|\/Applications\/\(.*\).app|\1|' |\
    fzf |\
    sed 's|$|.app|' |\
    sed 's|^|\/Applications\/|')"

macOS application launcher