1 # zsh-history-substring-search
3 This is a clean-room implementation of the [Fish shell][1]'s history search
4 feature, where you can type in any part of any command from history and then
5 press chosen keys, such as the UP and DOWN arrows, to cycle through matches.
7 [1]: http://fishshell.com
8 [2]: http://www.zsh.org/mla/users/2009/msg00818.html
9 [3]: http://sourceforge.net/projects/fizsh/
10 [4]: https://github.com/robbyrussell/oh-my-zsh/pull/215
11 [5]: https://github.com/zsh-users/zsh-history-substring-search
12 [6]: https://github.com/zsh-users/zsh-syntax-highlighting
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18 * [ZSH](http://zsh.sourceforge.net) 4.3 or newer
21 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
23 Using the [Homebrew]( https://brew.sh ) package manager:
25 brew install zsh-history-substring-search
26 echo 'source /usr/local/share/zsh-history-substring-search/zsh-history-substring-search.zsh' >> ~/.zshrc
28 Using [Oh-my-zsh](https://github.com/robbyrussell/oh-my-zsh):
30 1. Clone this repository in oh-my-zsh's plugins directory:
32 git clone https://github.com/zsh-users/zsh-history-substring-search ${ZSH_CUSTOM:-~/.oh-my-zsh/custom}/plugins/zsh-history-substring-search
34 2. Activate the plugin in `~/.zshrc`:
36 plugins=( [plugins...] history-substring-search)
38 3. Source `~/.zshrc` to take changes into account:
43 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
45 1. Load this script into your interactive ZSH session:
47 % source zsh-history-substring-search.zsh
49 If you want to use [zsh-syntax-highlighting][6] along with this script,
50 then make sure that you load it *before* you load this script:
52 % source zsh-syntax-highlighting.zsh
53 % source zsh-history-substring-search.zsh
55 2. Bind keyboard shortcuts to this script's functions.
57 Users typically bind their UP and DOWN arrow keys to this script, thus:
58 * Run `cat -v` in your favorite terminal emulator to observe key codes.
59 (**NOTE:** In some cases, `cat -v` shows the wrong key codes. If the
60 key codes shown by `cat -v` don't work for you, press `<C-v><UP>` and
61 `<C-v><DOWN>` at your ZSH command line prompt for correct key codes.)
62 * Press the UP arrow key and observe what is printed in your terminal.
63 * Press the DOWN arrow key and observe what is printed in your terminal.
64 * Press the Control and C keys simultaneously to terminate the `cat -v`.
65 * Use your observations from the previous steps to create key bindings.
66 For example, if you observed `^[[A` for UP and `^[[B` for DOWN, then:
68 bindkey '^[[A' history-substring-search-up
69 bindkey '^[[B' history-substring-search-down
71 However, if the observed values don't work, you can try using terminfo:
73 bindkey "$terminfo[kcuu1]" history-substring-search-up
74 bindkey "$terminfo[kcud1]" history-substring-search-down
76 You might also want to bind the Control-P/N keys for use in EMACS mode:
78 bindkey -M emacs '^P' history-substring-search-up
79 bindkey -M emacs '^N' history-substring-search-down
81 You might also want to bind the `k` and `j` keys for use in VI mode:
83 bindkey -M vicmd 'k' history-substring-search-up
84 bindkey -M vicmd 'j' history-substring-search-down
86 3. Type any part of any previous command and then:
88 * Press the `history-substring-search-up` key, which was configured in
89 step 2 above, to select the nearest command that (1) contains your query
90 and (2) is also older than the current command in your command history.
92 * Press the `history-substring-search-down` key, which was configured in
93 step 2 above, to select the nearest command that (1) contains your query
94 and (2) is also newer than the current command in your command history.
96 * Press `^U` the Control and U keys simultaneously to abort the search.
98 4. If a matching command spans more than one line of text, press the LEFT
99 arrow key to move the cursor away from the end of the command, and then:
101 * Press the `history-substring-search-up` key, which was configured in
102 step 2 above, to move the cursor to the line above the cursored line.
103 When the cursor reaches the first line of the command, pressing the
104 `history-substring-search-up` key again will cause this script to
105 perform another search.
107 * Press the `history-substring-search-down` key, which was configured in
108 step 2 above, to move the cursor to the line below the cursored line.
109 When the cursor reaches the last line of the command, pressing the
110 `history-substring-search-down` key, which was configured in step 2
111 above, again will cause this script to perform another search.
115 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
117 This script defines the following global variables. You may override their
118 default values only after having loaded this script into your ZSH session.
120 * `HISTORY_SUBSTRING_SEARCH_HIGHLIGHT_FOUND` is a global variable that defines
121 how the query should be highlighted inside a matching command. Its default
122 value causes this script to highlight using bold, white text on a magenta
123 background. See the "Character Highlighting" section in the zshzle(1) man
124 page to learn about the kinds of values you may assign to this variable.
126 * `HISTORY_SUBSTRING_SEARCH_HIGHLIGHT_NOT_FOUND` is a global variable that
127 defines how the query should be highlighted when no commands in the
128 history match it. Its default value causes this script to highlight using
129 bold, white text on a red background. See the "Character Highlighting"
130 section in the zshzle(1) man page to learn about the kinds of values you
131 may assign to this variable.
133 * `HISTORY_SUBSTRING_SEARCH_GLOBBING_FLAGS` is a global variable that defines
134 how the command history will be searched for your query. Its default value
135 causes this script to perform a case-insensitive search. See the "Globbing
136 Flags" section in the zshexpn(1) man page to learn about the kinds of
137 values you may assign to this variable.
139 * `HISTORY_SUBSTRING_SEARCH_FUZZY` is a global variable that defines
140 how the command history will be searched for your query. If set to a non-empty
141 value, causes this script to perform a fuzzy search by words, matching in
142 given order e.g. `ab c` will match `*ab*c*`
144 * `HISTORY_SUBSTRING_SEARCH_ENSURE_UNIQUE` is a global variable that defines
145 whether all search results returned are _unique_. If set to a non-empty
146 value, then only unique search results are presented. This behaviour is off
147 by default. An alternative way to ensure that search results are unique is
148 to use `setopt HIST_IGNORE_ALL_DUPS`. If this configuration variable is off
149 and `setopt HIST_IGNORE_ALL_DUPS` is unset, then `setopt HIST_FIND_NO_DUPS`
150 is still respected and it makes this script skip duplicate _adjacent_ search
151 results as you cycle through them, but this does not guarantee that search
152 results are unique: if your search results were "Dog", "Dog", "HotDog",
153 "Dog", then cycling them gives "Dog", "HotDog", "Dog". Notice that the "Dog"
154 search result appeared twice as you cycled through them. If you wish to
155 receive globally unique search results only once, then use this
156 configuration variable, or use `setopt HIST_IGNORE_ALL_DUPS`.
160 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
162 * September 2009: [Peter Stephenson][2] originally wrote this script and it
163 published to the zsh-users mailing list.
165 * January 2011: Guido van Steen (@guidovansteen) revised this script and
166 released it under the 3-clause BSD license as part of [fizsh][3], the
167 Friendly Interactive ZSHell.
169 * January 2011: Suraj N. Kurapati (@sunaku) extracted this script from
170 [fizsh][3] 1.0.1, refactored it heavily, and finally repackaged it as an
171 [oh-my-zsh plugin][4] and as an independently loadable [ZSH script][5].
173 * July 2011: Guido van Steen, Suraj N. Kurapati, and Sorin Ionescu
174 (@sorin-ionescu) [further developed it][4] with Vincent Guerci (@vguerci).
176 * March 2016: Geza Lore (@gezalore) greatly refactored it in pull request #55.
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179 Oh My Zsh Distribution Notes
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182 What you are looking at now is Oh My Zsh's repackaging of zsh-history-substring-search
183 as an OMZ module inside the Oh My Zsh distribution.
185 The upstream repo, zsh-users/zsh-history-substring-search, can be found on GitHub at
186 https://github.com/zsh-users/zsh-history-substring-search.
188 This downstream copy was last updated from the following upstream commit:
190 SHA: 0f80b8eb3368b46e5e573c1d91ae69eb095db3fb
191 Commit date: 2019-05-12 17:35:54 -0700
193 Everything above this section is a copy of the original upstream's README, so things
194 may differ slightly when you're using this inside OMZ. In particular, you do not
195 need to set up key bindings for the up and down arrows yourself in `~/.zshrc`; the OMZ
196 plugin does that for you. You may still want to set up additional emacs- or vi-specific
197 bindings as mentioned above.