"Dedicated completion key" for bash

[connorbeckerle]

• I have read through the manual page (man fzf)
• I have the latest version of fzf
• I have searched through the existing issues

Info

• OS
  • Linux
  • Mac OS X
  • Windows
  • Etc.
• Shell
  • bash
  • zsh
  • fish

Problem / Steps to reproduce

Not sure how to implement "Dedicated completion key" (https://github.com/junegunn/fzf/wiki/Configuring-fuzzy-completion) for bash. Here is my attempt at it (complete with commented out failed attempts):

[ -f ~/.fzf.bash ] && source ~/.fzf.bash
[ -f ~/.git.bash ] && . ~/.git.bash

export FZF_COMPLETION_TRIGGER=''  # previously '**'
bind -x '"\C-e": fzf-completion'
# alias ^E='fzf-completion'  # doesn't work

Thanks!

[junegunn]

The exact equivalent is not possible in bash because unlike in zsh, you have to register a completion function for each command, command by command. So, we have to use a different mechanism to implement similar functionality.

Write a function for a specific type of list and bind it to a dedicated key like so:

# Complete word. Works on bash 4+
fzf-word-widget() {
  local prefix=${READLINE_LINE:0:$READLINE_POINT}
  local token=$(sed 's/.* //' <<< "$prefix")
  [ ${#token} -gt 0 ] && prefix=${prefix::-${#token}}

  local selected="$(fzf --height=10 --reverse --border --info=inline --query="$token" < /usr/share/dict/words)"
  [ -z "$selected" ] && return

  READLINE_LINE="$prefix$selected${READLINE_LINE:$READLINE_POINT}"
  READLINE_POINT=$(( READLINE_POINT - ${#token} + ${#selected} ))
}

bind -m emacs-standard -x '"\C-x\C-w": "fzf-word-widget"'

Similarly, you can write functions for directories, processes, etc and bind them to different keys. Or, you could write a smarter "one-size-fits-all" function that extracts the name of the command on the prompt and automatically starts fzf with the most appropriate type of list. That would be really cool.