Awesome
fzf-tab-completion
Tab completion using fzf in zsh, bash, GNU readline apps (e.g. python
, php -a
etc.)
This is distinct from fzf's own implementation for completion, in that it works with the existing completion mechanisms rather than creating a new mechanism.
Example
<details><summary>Click here to show screencast</summary> </details>Installation
-
You need to install fzf first.
-
If you are using OSX you may need to install some additional things:
- e.g.
brew install gawk grep gnu-sed coreutils
- e.g.
-
Clone this repository:
git clone https://github.com/lincheney/fzf-tab-completion ...
- you can also choose to download only the scripts you need, up to you.
-
Follow instructions on how to set up for:
-
The following environment variables are supported, just as in fzf's "vanilla" completion.
$FZF_TMUX_HEIGHT
$FZF_COMPLETION_OPTS
$FZF_DEFAULT_OPTS
See also https://github.com/junegunn/fzf#settings
Avoid changing these
fzf
flags:-n
,--nth
,--with-nth
,-d
zsh
Add to your ~/.zshrc
:
source /path/to/fzf-tab-completion/zsh/fzf-zsh-completion.sh
bindkey '^I' fzf_completion
If you have also enabled fzf's zsh completion, then the bindkey
line is optional.
Note that this does not provide **
-style triggers,
you will need to enable fzf's zsh completion as well.
--tiebreak=chunk
The default fzf
tiebreak setting is line: Prefers line with shorter length
.
The length of the zsh display strings may skew the ordering of the results even though they are not part of the match.
You may find that adding the fzf
flag --tiebreak=chunk
to the environment variable $FZF_COMPLETION_OPTS
provides better behaviour.
tmux
$FZF_TMUX_OPTS
is respected same as in fzf
however you must have fzf's keybindings enabled as well.
Searching display strings
By default, display strings are shown but cannot be searched in fzf.
This is configurable via zstyle
:
# only for git
zstyle ':completion:*:*:git:*' fzf-search-display true
# or for everything
zstyle ':completion:*' fzf-search-display true
Specifying keybindings
You can specify fzf
keybindings to execute shell commands after fzf
has closed.
This is configurable via the fzf-completion-keybindings
zstyle.
Keybinds look like: KEY:SCRIPT
When KEY
is pressed, fzf
will exit and the zsh SCRIPT
will run.
If the keybind is given in the form KEY:accept:SCRIPT
then the selected matches will also be completed before SCRIPT
is run.
KEY
is any valid fzf
key.
There is an additional function repeat-fzf-completion
that can be called in the SCRIPT
to retrigger fzf
completion.
No keybinds are configured by default.
# press ctrl-r to repeat completion *without* accepting i.e. reload the completion
# press right to accept the completion and retrigger it
# press alt-enter to accept the completion and run it
keys=(
ctrl-r:'repeat-fzf-completion'
right:accept:'repeat-fzf-completion'
alt-enter:accept:'zle accept-line'
)
zstyle ':completion:*' fzf-completion-keybindings "${keys[@]}"
# also accept and retrigger completion when pressing / when completing cd
zstyle ':completion::*:cd:*' fzf-completion-keybindings "${keys[@]}" /:accept:'repeat-fzf-completion'
Note that you can still specify the normal --bind ...
options in e.g. $FZF_COMPLETION_OPTS
if you need to perform fzf
specific actions or don't need to run zsh commands.
Specifying custom fzf options
You can specify custom fzf
options with the fzf-completion-opts
style.
This allows you to have different options based on the command being completed
(as opposed to the $FZF_DEFAULT_OPTS
etc environment variables which are global).
This is most useful for changing the --preview
option.
Use {1}
for the selected text (or {+1}
if using multi-select).
Note {1}
or {+1}
will come through "shell-escaped", so you will need to unescape it, e.g. using eval
or printf %b
# basic file preview for ls (you can replace with something more sophisticated than head)
zstyle ':completion::*:ls::*' fzf-completion-opts --preview='eval head {1}'
# preview when completing env vars (note: only works for exported variables)
# eval twice, first to unescape the string, second to expand the $variable
zstyle ':completion::*:(-command-|-parameter-|-brace-parameter-|export|unset|expand):*' fzf-completion-opts --preview='eval eval echo {1}'
# preview a `git status` when completing git add
zstyle ':completion::*:git::git,add,*' fzf-completion-opts --preview='git -c color.status=always status --short'
# if other subcommand to git is given, show a git diff or git log
zstyle ':completion::*:git::*,[a-z]*' fzf-completion-opts --preview='
eval set -- {+1}
for arg in "$@"; do
{ git diff --color=always -- "$arg" | git log --color=always "$arg" } 2>/dev/null
done'
changing display string color
By default, the display string and the input prefix (i.e. the parts of the strings that are not searchable)
are highlighted with \x1b[37m
which should come out as a light grey.
You can change this with the fzf-completion-secondary-color
zstyle, e.g.:
# make it red instead
zstyle ':completion:*' fzf-completion-secondary-color red
It supports anything that can be used in the zsh prompt escape %F{...}
, e.g. certain names like red
or hex sequences like #ff0000
.
Consult man --pager='less -p ^\\s*fg=colour' zshzle
for other possible values.
If set to an empty string, no color will be applied at all.
bash
Add to your ~/.bashrc
:
source /path/to/fzf-tab-completion/bash/fzf-bash-completion.sh
bind -x '"\t": fzf_bash_completion'
Note that this does not provide **
-style triggers,
you will need to enable fzf's bash completion as well.
If you are using a bash
that is dynamically linked against readline (LD_PRELOAD= ldd $(which bash)
)
you may prefer (or not!) to use the readline method instead.
Changing fzf prompt
The FZF_TAB_COMPLETION_PROMPT
environment variable sets the prompt prefix
The default is '> '
.
You could, for example, change it to FZF_TAB_COMPLETION_PROMPT='❯ '
.
Autocomplete common prefix
By default, fzf is always shown whenever there are at least 2 matches. You can change this to a more "vanilla" tab completion experience where it attempts to complete the longest common prefix before showing matches in fzf.
This is controlled by the variables
FZF_COMPLETION_AUTO_COMMON_PREFIX=true
- completes the common prefix if it is also a matchFZF_COMPLETION_AUTO_COMMON_PREFIX_PART=true
- with the above variable, completes the common prefix even if it is not a match
For example, if we have following files in a directory:
abcdef-1234
abcdef-5678
abc
other
With FZF_COMPLETION_AUTO_COMMON_PREFIX=true
:
- when completing
ls <tab>
, it will display fzf with all 4 files (as normal) - when completing
ls a<tab>
, it will automatically complete tols abc
. Pressing tab again will show fzf with the first 3 files. - when completing
ls abcd<tab>
it will show fzf with the first 2 files (as normal) - With
FZF_COMPLETION_AUTO_COMMON_PREFIX_PART=true
set as well:- when completing
ls abcd<tab>
, it will automatically complete tols abcdef-
. Pressing tab again will show fzf with the first 2 files.
- when completing
tmux
$FZF_TMUX_OPTS
is respected same as in fzf
however you must have fzf's keybindings enabled as well.
Custom loading message
bash
clears the prompt and input line before running the completion,
so a loading message is printed instead.
You can customise the message by overriding the _fzf_bash_completion_loading_msg()
function.
For example the following "re-prints" the prompt and input line
to make this less jarring
(note this may or may not work, there's no detection of $PS2
and there is always some unavoidable flicker):
_fzf_bash_completion_loading_msg() { echo "${PS1@P}${READLINE_LINE}" | tail -n1; }
readline
NOTE: This uses a LD_PRELOAD
hack, is only supported on Linux and only for GNU readline
(not e.g. libedit or other readline alternatives).
- Run:
cd /path/to/fzf-tab-completion/readline/ && cargo build --release
- Copy/symlink
/path/to/fzf-tab-completion/readline/bin/rl_custom_complete
into your$PATH
- Add to your
~/.inputrc
:$include function rl_custom_complete /path/to/fzf-tab-completion/readline/target/release/librl_custom_complete.so "\t": rl_custom_complete
- Build https://github.com/lincheney/rl_custom_function/
- this should produce a file
librl_custom_function.so
which you will use withLD_PRELOAD
in the next step.
- this should produce a file
- Run something interactive that uses readline, e.g. python:
LD_PRELOAD=/path/to/librl_custom_function.so python
- To apply this all applications more permanently,
you will need to set
LD_PRELOAD
somewhere like/etc/environment
or~/.pam_environment
.- NOTE: if you set
LD_PRELOAD
in your.bashrc
, or similar, it will affect applications run frombash
but not the parentbash
process itself. - See also: link
- NOTE: if you set
These are the applications that I have seen working:
python2
,python3
- only
PYTHON_BASIC_REPL=1 python3
if python 3.13+, otherwise see python3
- only
php -a
R
lftp
irb --legacy
(the newirb
in ruby 2.7 usesruby-reline
instead of readline)gdb
sqlite3
bash
(only when not statically but dynamically linked to libreadline)
nodejs repl
- Copy/symlink
/path/to/fzf-tab-completion/node/rl_custom_complete
into your$PATH
- Then run
node -r /path/to/fzf-tab-completion.git/node/fzf-node-completion.js
- You may wish to add a shell alias to your
~/.zshrc
/~/.bashrc
to avoid typing out the full command each time, e.g.:alias node='node -r /path/to/fzf-tab-completion.git/node/fzf-node-completion.js
- You may wish to add a shell alias to your
python3
- Copy/symlink
/path/to/fzf-tab-completion/python/rl_custom_complete
into your$PATH
- Add the code below to either:
- your
~/.pythonstartup
- your
$PYTHONPATH/usercustomize.py
- see https://docs.python.org/3/tutorial/appendix.html#the-customization-modules
- for example, I have
export PYTHONPATH=$HOME/dotfiles/pythonpath
and a file$HOME/dotfiles/pythonpath/usercustomize.py
- your
with open('/path/to/fzf-tab-completion.git/python/fzf_python_completion.py') as file:
exec(file.read())
This should work with:
- a normal python shell
python3
, including the new interactive shell from 3.13+ - the old interactive shell i.e.
PYTHON_BASIC_REPL=1 python3
- (only when added to
usercustomize.py
) anything that usesreadline.set_completer(...)
, including:python3 -m asyncio
pdb
/breakpoint()
Related projects
- https://github.com/rockandska/fzf-obc (fzf tab completion in bash)
- https://github.com/Aloxaf/fzf-tab (fzf tab completion in zsh)
- https://github.com/lincheney/rl_custom_isearch (fzf for history search in all readline applications)