fzf - Fuzzy finder for your shell

fzf is a general-purpose fuzzy finder for your shell.

It was heavily inspired by ctrlp.vim and the likes.

Requirements

fzf requires Ruby (>= 1.8.5).

Installation

Clone this repository and run install script.

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

The script will setup:

• fzf executable
• Key bindings (CTRL-T, CTRL-R, etc.)
• Fuzzy auto-completion for bash

Install as Vim plugin

Once you have cloned the repository, add the following line to your .vimrc.

set rtp+=~/.fzf

Or you may use any Vim plugin manager, such as vim-plug.

Usage

usage: fzf [options]

  Options
    -m, --multi          Enable multi-select
    -x, --extended       Extended-search mode
    -e, --extended-exact Extended-search mode (exact match)
    -q, --query=STR      Initial query
    -f, --filter=STR     Filter mode. Do not start interactive finder.
    -s, --sort=MAX       Maximum number of matched items to sort (default: 1000)
    +s, --no-sort        Do not sort the result. Keep the sequence unchanged.
    -i                   Case-insensitive match (default: smart-case match)
    +i                   Case-sensitive match
    +c, --no-color       Disable colors
    +2, --no-256         Disable 256-color
        --no-mouse       Disable mouse

  Environment variables
    FZF_DEFAULT_COMMAND  Default command to use when input is tty
    FZF_DEFAULT_OPTS     Defaults options. (e.g. "-x -m --sort 10000")

fzf will launch curses-based finder, read the list from STDIN, and write the selected item to STDOUT.

find * -type f | fzf > selected

Without STDIN pipe, fzf will use find command to fetch the list of files excluding hidden ones. (You can override the default command with FZF_DEFAULT_COMMAND)

vim $(fzf)

If you want to preserve the exact sequence of the input, provide --no-sort (or +s) option.

history | fzf +s

Key binding

Use CTRL-J and CTRL-K (or CTRL-N and CTRL-P) to change the selection, press enter key to select the item. CTRL-C, CTRL-G, or ESC will terminate the finder.

The following readline key bindings should also work as expected.

• CTRL-A / CTRL-E
• CTRL-B / CTRL-F
• CTRL-W / CTRL-U
• ALT-B / ALT-F

If you enable multi-select mode with -m option, you can select multiple items with TAB or Shift-TAB key.

You can also use mouse. Double-click on an item to select it or shift-click (or ctrl-click) to select multiple items. Use mouse wheel to move the cursor up and down.

Extended-search mode

With -x or --extended option, fzf will start in "extended-search mode".

In this mode, you can specify multiple patterns delimited by spaces, such as: ^music .mp3$ sbtrkt !rmx

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

If you don't need fuzzy matching and do not wish to "quote" every word, start fzf with -e or --extended-exact option.

Useful examples

# vimf - Open selected file in Vim
vimf() {
  FILE=$(fzf) && vim "$FILE"
}

# fd - cd to selected directory
fd() {
  DIR=$(find ${1:-*} -path '*/\.*' -prune -o -type d -print 2> /dev/null | fzf) && cd "$DIR"
}

# fda - including hidden directories
fda() {
  DIR=$(find ${1:-.} -type d 2> /dev/null | fzf) && cd "$DIR"
}

# fh - repeat history
fh() {
  eval $(history | fzf +s | sed 's/ *[0-9]* *//')
}

# fkill - kill process
fkill() {
  ps -ef | sed 1d | fzf -m | awk '{print $2}' | xargs kill -${1:-9}
}

Key bindings for command line

The install script will setup the following key bindings.

bash

• CTRL-T - Paste the selected file path(s) into the command line
• CTRL-R - Paste the selected command from history into the command line

The source code can be found in ~/.fzf.bash.

zsh

• CTRL-T - Paste the selected file path(s) into the command line
• CTRL-R - Paste the selected command from history into the command line
• ALT-C - cd into the selected directory

The source code can be found in ~/.fzf.zsh.

Auto-completion

Disclaimer: Auto-completion feature is currently experimental, it can change over time

bash

Files and directories

Fuzzy completion for files and directories can be triggered if the word before the cursor ends with the trigger sequence which is by default **.

• COMMAND [DIRECTORY/][FUZZY_PATTERN]**<TAB>

# Files under current directory
# - You can select multiple items with TAB key
vim **<TAB>

# Files under parent directory
vim ../**<TAB>

# Files under parent directory that match `fzf`
vim ../fzf**<TAB>

# Files under your home directory
vim ~/**<TAB>


# Directories under current directory (single-selection)
cd **<TAB>

# Directories under ~/github that match `fzf`
cd ~/github/fzf**<TAB>

Process IDs

Fuzzy completion for PIDs is provided for kill command. In this case there is no trigger sequence, just press tab key after kill command.

# Can select multiple processes with <TAB> or <Shift-TAB> keys
kill -9 <TAB>

Host names

For ssh and telnet commands, fuzzy completion for host names is provided. The names are extracted from /etc/hosts and ~/.ssh/config.

ssh **<TAB>
telnet **<TAB>

Settings

# Use ~~ as the trigger sequence instead of the default **
export FZF_COMPLETION_TRIGGER='~~'

# Options to fzf command
export FZF_COMPLETION_OPTS='+c -x'

zsh

TODO 😃

(Pull requests are appreciated.)

Usage as Vim plugin

If you install fzf as a Vim plugin, :FZF command will be added.

" Look for files under current directory
:FZF

" Look for files under your home directory
:FZF ~

" With options
:FZF --no-sort -m /tmp

You can override the source command which produces input to fzf.

let g:fzf_source = 'find . -type f'

And you can predefine default options to fzf command.

let g:fzf_options = '--no-color --extended'

For more advanced uses, you can call fzf#run function as follows.

:call fzf#run('tabedit', '-m +c')

Most of the time, you will prefer native Vim plugins with better integration with Vim. The only reason one might consider using fzf in Vim is its speed. For a very large list of files, fzf is significantly faster and it does not block.

Tips

Faster startup with --disable-gems options

If you're running Ruby 1.9 or above, you can improve the startup time with --disable-gems option to Ruby.

• time ruby ~/bin/fzf -h
  • 0.077 sec
• time ruby --disable-gems ~/bin/fzf -h
  • 0.025 sec

You can define fzf function with the option as follows:

fzf() {
  ruby --disable-gems ~/bin/fzf "$@"
}
export -f fzf

However, this is automatically set up in your .bashrc and .zshrc if you use the bundled install script.

Incorrect display on Ruby 1.8

It is reported that the output of fzf can become unreadable on some terminals when it's running on Ruby 1.8. If you experience the problem, upgrade your Ruby to 1.9 or above. Ruby 1.9 or above is also required for displaying Unicode characters.

Ranking algorithm

fzf sorts the result first by the length of the matched substring, then by the length of the whole string. However it only does so when the number of matches is less than the limit which is by default 1000, in order to avoid the cost of sorting a large list and limit the response time of the query.

This limit can be adjusted with -s option, or with the environment variable FZF_DEFAULT_OPTS.

export FZF_DEFAULT_OPTS="--sort 20000"

License

MIT

Author

Junegunn Choi