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fzf(1) fzf - a command-line fuzzy finder fzf(1)

NAME

fzf - a command-line fuzzy finder

SYNOPSIS

fzf [options]

DESCRIPTION

fzf is a general-purpose command-line fuzzy finder.

OPTIONS

Search mode

-x, --extended
Extended-search mode. Since 0.10.9, this is enabled by default. You can disable it with +x or --no-extended.
-e, --exact
Enable exact-match
-i
Case-insensitive match (default: smart-case match)
+i
Case-sensitive match
--literal
Do not normalize latin script letters for matching.
--algo=TYPE
Fuzzy matching algorithm (default: v2)

v2 Optimal scoring algorithm (quality)
v1 Faster but not guaranteed to find the optimal result (performance)

-n, --nth=N[,..]
Comma-separated list of field index expressions for limiting search scope. See FIELD INDEX EXPRESSION for the details.
--with-nth=N[,..]
Transform the presentation of each line using field index expressions
-d, --delimiter=STR
Field delimiter regex for --nth and --with-nth (default: AWK-style)

Search result

+s, --no-sort
Do not sort the result
--tac
Reverse the order of the input

e.g. history | fzf --tac --no-sort
--tiebreak=CRI[,..]
Comma-separated list of sort criteria to apply when the scores are tied.

length Prefers line with shorter length
begin Prefers line with matched substring closer to the beginning
end Prefers line with matched substring closer to the end
index Prefers line that appeared earlier in the input stream

- Each criterion should appear only once in the list
- index is only allowed at the end of the list
- index is implicitly appended to the list when not specified
- Default is length (or equivalently length,index)
- If end is found in the list, fzf will scan each line backwards

Interface

-m, --multi
Enable multi-select with tab/shift-tab
+m, --no-multi
Disable multi-select
--no-mouse
Disable mouse
--bind=KEYBINDS
Comma-separated list of custom key bindings. See KEY BINDINGS for the details.
--cycle
Enable cyclic scroll
--no-hscroll
Disable horizontal scroll
--hscroll-off=COL
Number of screen columns to keep to the right of the highlighted substring (default: 10). Setting it to a large value will cause the text to be positioned on the center of the screen.
--filepath-word
Make word-wise movements and actions respect path separators. The following actions are affected:

backward-kill-word
backward-word
forward-word
kill-word

--jump-labels=CHARS
Label characters for jump and jump-accept

Layout

--height=HEIGHT[%]
Display fzf window below the cursor with the given height instead of using the full screen.
--min-height=HEIGHT
Minimum height when --height is given in percent (default: 10). Ignored when --height is not specified.
--layout=LAYOUT
Choose the layout (default: default)

default Display from the bottom of the screen
reverse Display from the top of the screen
reverse-list Display from the top of the screen, prompt at the bottom

--reverse
A synonym for --layout=reverse

--border
Draw border above and below the finder
--margin=MARGIN
Comma-separated expression for margins around the finder.

TRBL Same margin for top, right, bottom, and left
TB,RL Vertical, horizontal margin
T,RL,B Top, horizontal, bottom margin
T,R,B,L Top, right, bottom, left margin

Each part can be given in absolute number or in percentage relative to the terminal size with % suffix.

e.g. fzf --margin 10% fzf --margin 1,5%

--inline-info
Display finder info inline with the query
--prompt=STR
Input prompt (default: '> ')
--header=STR
The given string will be printed as the sticky header. The lines are displayed in the given order from top to bottom regardless of --layout option, and are not affected by --with-nth. ANSI color codes are processed even when --ansi is not set.
--header-lines=N
The first N lines of the input are treated as the sticky header. When --with-nth is set, the lines are transformed just like the other lines that follow.

Display

--ansi
Enable processing of ANSI color codes
--tabstop=SPACES
Number of spaces for a tab character (default: 8)
--color=[BASE_SCHEME][,COLOR:ANSI]
Color configuration. The name of the base color scheme is followed by custom color mappings. Ansi color code of -1 denotes terminal default foreground/background color. You can also specify 24-bit color in #rrggbb format.

e.g. fzf --color=bg+:24 fzf --color=light,fg:232,bg:255,bg+:116,info:27

BASE SCHEME: (default: dark on 256-color terminal, otherwise 16)

dark Color scheme for dark 256-color terminal light Color scheme for light 256-color terminal 16 Color scheme for 16-color terminal bw No colors

COLOR: fg Text bg Background hl Highlighted substrings fg+ Text (current line) bg+ Background (current line) hl+ Highlighted substrings (current line) info Info border Border of the preview window and horizontal separators (--border) prompt Prompt pointer Pointer to the current line marker Multi-select marker spinner Streaming input indicator header Header

--no-bold
Do not use bold text
--black
Use black background

History

--history=HISTORY_FILE
Load search history from the specified file and update the file on completion. When enabled, CTRL-N and CTRL-P are automatically remapped to next-history and previous-history.
--history-size=N
Maximum number of entries in the history file (default: 1000). The file is automatically truncated when the number of the lines exceeds the value.

Preview

--preview=COMMAND
Execute the given command for the current line and display the result on the preview window. {} in the command is the placeholder that is replaced to the single-quoted string of the current line. To transform the replacement string, specify field index expressions between the braces (See FIELD INDEX EXPRESSION for the details).

e.g. fzf --preview='head -$LINES {}' ls -l | fzf --preview="echo user={3} when={-4..-2}; cat {-1}" --header-lines=1

fzf overrides $LINES and $COLUMNS so that they represent the exact size of the preview window.

A placeholder expression starting with + flag will be replaced to the space-separated list of the selected lines (or the current line if no selection was made) individually quoted.

e.g. fzf --multi --preview='head -10 {+}' git log --oneline | fzf --multi --preview 'git show {+1}'

When using a field index expression, leading and trailing whitespace is stripped from the replacement string. To preserve the whitespace, use the s flag.

Also, {q} is replaced to the current query string.

Note that you can escape a placeholder pattern by prepending a backslash.

Preview window will be updated even when there is no match for the current query if any of the placeholder expressions evaluates to a non-empty string.

--preview-window=[POSITION][:SIZE[%]][:wrap][:hidden]
Determine the layout of the preview window. If the argument ends with :hidden, the preview window will be hidden by default until toggle-preview action is triggered. Long lines are truncated by default. Line wrap can be enabled with :wrap flag.

If size is given as 0, preview window will not be visible, but fzf will still execute the command in the background.

POSITION: (default: right) up down left right

e.g. fzf --preview="head {}" --preview-window=up:30% fzf --preview="file {}" --preview-window=down:1

Scripting

-q, --query=STR
Start the finder with the given query
-1, --select-1
Automatically select the only match
-0, --exit-0
Exit immediately when there's no match
-f, --filter=STR
Filter mode. Do not start interactive finder. When used with --no-sort, fzf becomes a fuzzy-version of grep.
--print-query
Print query as the first line
--expect=KEY[,..]
Comma-separated list of keys that can be used to complete fzf in addition to the default enter key. When this option is set, fzf will print the name of the key pressed as the first line of its output (or as the second line if --print-query is also used). The line will be empty if fzf is completed with the default enter key. If --expect option is specified multiple times, fzf will expect the union of the keys. --no-expect will clear the list.

e.g. fzf --expect=ctrl-v,ctrl-t,alt-s --expect=f1,f2,~,@
--read0
Read input delimited by ASCII NUL characters instead of newline characters
--print0
Print output delimited by ASCII NUL characters instead of newline characters
--no-clear
Do not clear finder interface on exit. If fzf was started in full screen mode, it will not switch back to the original screen, so you'll have to manually run tput rmcup to return. This option can be used to avoid flickering of the screen when your application needs to start fzf multiple times in order.
--sync
Synchronous search for multi-staged filtering. If specified, fzf will launch ncurses finder only after the input stream is complete.

e.g. fzf --multi | fzf --sync
--version
Display version information and exit

Note that most options have the opposite versions with --no- prefix.

ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES

FZF_DEFAULT_COMMAND
Default command to use when input is tty. On *nix systems, fzf runs the command with sh -c, so make sure that it's POSIX-compliant.
FZF_DEFAULT_OPTS
Default options. e.g. export FZF_DEFAULT_OPTS="--extended --cycle"

EXIT STATUS

0 Normal exit
1 No match
2 Error
130 Interrupted with CTRL-C or ESC

FIELD INDEX EXPRESSION

A field index expression can be a non-zero integer or a range expression ([BEGIN]..[END]). --nth and --with-nth take a comma-separated list of field index expressions.

Examples

1 The 1st field
2 The 2nd field
-1 The last field
-2 The 2nd to last field
3..5 From the 3rd field to the 5th field
2.. From the 2nd field to the last field
..-3 From the 1st field to the 3rd to the last field
.. All the fields

EXTENDED SEARCH MODE

Unless specified otherwise, fzf will start in "extended-search mode". In this mode, you can specify multiple patterns delimited by spaces, such as: 'wild ^music .mp3$ sbtrkt !rmx

You can prepend a backslash to a space (\ ) to match a literal space character.

Exact-match (quoted)

A term that is prefixed by a single-quote character (') is interpreted as an "exact-match" (or "non-fuzzy") term. fzf will search for the exact occurrences of the string.

Anchored-match

A term can be prefixed by ^, or suffixed by $ to become an anchored-match term. Then fzf will search for the lines that start with or end with the given string. An anchored-match term is also an exact-match term.

Negation

If a term is prefixed by !, fzf will exclude the lines that satisfy the term from the result. In this case, fzf performs exact match by default.

Exact-match by default

If you don't prefer fuzzy matching and do not wish to "quote" (prefixing with ') every word, start fzf with -e or --exact option. Note that when --exact is set, '-prefix "unquotes" the term.

OR operator

A single bar character term acts as an OR operator. For example, the following query matches entries that start with core and end with either go, rb, or py.

e.g. ^core go$ | rb$ | py$

KEY BINDINGS

You can customize key bindings of fzf with --bind option which takes a comma-separated list of key binding expressions. Each key binding expression follows the following format: KEY:ACTION

e.g. fzf --bind=ctrl-j:accept,ctrl-k:kill-line

AVAILABLE KEYS: (SYNONYMS) ctrl-[a-z] ctrl-space ctrl-alt-[a-z] alt-[a-z] alt-[0-9] f[1-12] enter (return ctrl-m) space bspace (bs) alt-up alt-down alt-left alt-right alt-enter alt-space alt-bspace (alt-bs) alt-/ tab btab (shift-tab) esc del up down left right home end pgup (page-up) pgdn (page-down) shift-up shift-down shift-left shift-right left-click right-click double-click or any single character

Additionally, a special event named change is available which is triggered whenever the query string is changed.

e.g. fzf --bind change:top

ACTION: DEFAULT BINDINGS (NOTES): abort ctrl-c ctrl-g ctrl-q esc accept enter double-click accept-non-empty (same as accept except that it prevents fzf from exiting without selection) backward-char ctrl-b left backward-delete-char ctrl-h bspace backward-kill-word alt-bs backward-word alt-b shift-left beginning-of-line ctrl-a home cancel (clears query string if not empty, aborts fzf otherwise) clear-screen ctrl-l delete-char del delete-char/eof ctrl-d deselect-all down ctrl-j ctrl-n down end-of-line ctrl-e end execute(...) (see below for the details) execute-silent(...) (see below for the details) execute-multi(...) (deprecated in favor of {+} expression) forward-char ctrl-f right forward-word alt-f shift-right ignore jump (EasyMotion-like 2-keystroke movement) jump-accept (jump and accept) kill-line kill-word alt-d next-history (ctrl-n on --history) page-down pgdn page-up pgup half-page-down half-page-up preview-down shift-down preview-up shift-up preview-page-down preview-page-up previous-history (ctrl-p on --history) print-query (print query and exit) replace-query (replace query string with the current selection) select-all toggle (right-click) toggle-all toggle+down ctrl-i (tab) toggle-in (--layout=reverse* ? toggle+up : toggle+down) toggle-out (--layout=reverse* ? toggle+down : toggle+up) toggle-preview toggle-preview-wrap toggle-sort toggle+up btab (shift-tab) top (move to the top result) unix-line-discard ctrl-u unix-word-rubout ctrl-w up ctrl-k ctrl-p up yank ctrl-y

Multiple actions can be chained using + separator.

fzf --bind 'ctrl-a:select-all+accept'

With execute(...) action, you can execute arbitrary commands without leaving fzf. For example, you can turn fzf into a simple file browser by binding enter key to less command like follows.

fzf --bind "enter:execute(less {})"

You can use the same placeholder expressions as in --preview.

If the command contains parentheses, fzf may fail to parse the expression. In that case, you can use any of the following alternative notations to avoid parse errors.

execute[...] execute~...~ execute!...! execute@...@ execute#...# execute$...$ execute%...% execute^...^ execute&...& execute*...* execute;...; execute/.../ execute|...| execute:...

This is the special form that frees you from parse errors as it does not expect the closing character. The catch is that it should be the last one in the comma-separated list of key-action pairs.

fzf switches to the alternate screen when executing a command. However, if the command is expected to complete quickly, and you are not interested in its output, you might want to use execute-silent instead, which silently executes the command without the switching. Note that fzf will not be responsive until the command is complete. For asynchronous execution, start your command as a background process (i.e. appending &).

AUTHOR

Junegunn Choi (junegunn.c@gmail.com)

SEE ALSO

Project homepage:

Extra Vim plugin:

LICENSE

MIT
Oct 2018 fzf 0.17.5