FZF Vim integration

Installation

Once you have fzf installed, you can enable it inside Vim simply by adding the directory to &runtimepath in your Vim configuration file. The path may differ depending on the package manager.

" If installed using Homebrew
set rtp+=/usr/local/opt/fzf

" If installed using git
set rtp+=~/.fzf

If you use vim-plug, the same can be written as:

" If installed using Homebrew
Plug '/usr/local/opt/fzf'

" If installed using git
Plug '~/.fzf'

But if you want the latest Vim plugin file from GitHub rather than the one included in the package, write:

Plug 'junegunn/fzf'

The Vim plugin will pick up fzf binary available on the system. If fzf is not found on $PATH, it will ask you if it should download the latest binary for you.

To make sure that you have the latest version of the binary, set up post-update hook like so:

Plug 'junegunn/fzf', { 'do': { -> fzf#install() } }

Summary

The Vim plugin of fzf provides two core functions, and :FZF command which is the basic file selector command built on top of them.

fzf#run([spec dict])
- Starts fzf inside Vim with the given spec
- :call fzf#run({'source': 'ls'})
fzf#wrap([spec dict]) -> (dict)
- Takes a spec for fzf#run and returns an extended version of it with additional options for addressing global preferences (g:fzf_xxx)
  - :echo fzf#wrap({'source': 'ls'})
- We usually wrap a spec with fzf#wrap before passing it to fzf#run
  - :call fzf#run(fzf#wrap({'source': 'ls'}))
:FZF [fzf_options string] [path string]
- Basic fuzzy file selector
- A reference implementation for those who don't want to write VimScript to implement custom commands
- If you're looking for more such commands, check out fzf.vim project.

The most important of all is fzf#run, but it would be easier to understand the whole if we start off with :FZF command.

`:FZF[!]`

" Look for files under current directory
:FZF

" Look for files under your home directory
:FZF ~

" With fzf command-line options
:FZF --reverse --info=inline /tmp

" Bang version starts fzf in fullscreen mode
:FZF!

Similarly to ctrlp.vim, use enter key, CTRL-T, CTRL-X or CTRL-V to open selected files in the current window, in new tabs, in horizontal splits, or in vertical splits respectively.

Note that the environment variables FZF_DEFAULT_COMMAND and FZF_DEFAULT_OPTS also apply here.

Configuration

g:fzf_action
- Customizable extra key bindings for opening selected files in different ways
g:fzf_layout
- Determines the size and position of fzf window
g:fzf_colors
- Customizes fzf colors to match the current color scheme
g:fzf_history_dir
- Enables history feature

Examples

" This is the default extra key bindings
let g:fzf_action = {
  \ 'ctrl-t': 'tab split',
  \ 'ctrl-x': 'split',
  \ 'ctrl-v': 'vsplit' }

" An action can be a reference to a function that processes selected lines
function! s:build_quickfix_list(lines)
  call setqflist(map(copy(a:lines), '{ "filename": v:val }'))
  copen
  cc
endfunction

let g:fzf_action = {
  \ 'ctrl-q': function('s:build_quickfix_list'),
  \ 'ctrl-t': 'tab split',
  \ 'ctrl-x': 'split',
  \ 'ctrl-v': 'vsplit' }

" Default fzf layout
" - down / up / left / right
let g:fzf_layout = { 'down': '~40%' }

" You can set up fzf window using a Vim command (Neovim or latest Vim 8 required)
let g:fzf_layout = { 'window': 'enew' }
let g:fzf_layout = { 'window': '-tabnew' }
let g:fzf_layout = { 'window': '10new' }

" Customize fzf colors to match your color scheme
" - fzf#wrap translates this to a set of `--color` options
let g:fzf_colors =
\ { 'fg':      ['fg', 'Normal'],
  \ 'bg':      ['bg', 'Normal'],
  \ 'hl':      ['fg', 'Comment'],
  \ 'fg+':     ['fg', 'CursorLine', 'CursorColumn', 'Normal'],
  \ 'bg+':     ['bg', 'CursorLine', 'CursorColumn'],
  \ 'hl+':     ['fg', 'Statement'],
  \ 'info':    ['fg', 'PreProc'],
  \ 'border':  ['fg', 'Ignore'],
  \ 'prompt':  ['fg', 'Conditional'],
  \ 'pointer': ['fg', 'Exception'],
  \ 'marker':  ['fg', 'Keyword'],
  \ 'spinner': ['fg', 'Label'],
  \ 'header':  ['fg', 'Comment'] }

" Enable per-command history
" - History files will be stored in the specified directory
" - When set, CTRL-N and CTRL-P will be bound to 'next-history' and
"   'previous-history' instead of 'down' and 'up'.
let g:fzf_history_dir = '~/.local/share/fzf-history'

Explanation of `g:fzf_colors`

g:fzf_colors is a dictionary mapping fzf elements to a color specification list:

element: [ component, group1 [, group2, ...] ]

element is an fzf element to apply a color to:

Element	Description
`fg` / `bg` / `hl`	Item (foreground / background / highlight)
`fg+` / `bg+` / `hl+`	Current item (foreground / background / highlight)
`hl` / `hl+`	Highlighted substrings (normal / current)
`gutter`	Background of the gutter on the left
`pointer`	Pointer to the current line (`>`)
`marker`	Multi-select marker (`>`)
`border`	Border around the window (`--border` and `--preview`)
`header`	Header (`--header` or `--header-lines`)
`info`	Info line (match counters)
`spinner`	Streaming input indicator
`prompt`	Prompt before query (`>` )

component specifies the component (fg / bg) from which to extract the color when considering each of the following highlight groups
group1 [, group2, ...] is a list of highlight groups that are searched (in order) for a matching color definition

For example, consider the following specification:

  'prompt':  ['fg', 'Conditional', 'Comment'],

This means we color the prompt

using the fg attribute of the Conditional if it exists,
otherwise use the fg attribute of the Comment highlight group if it exists,
otherwise fall back to the default color settings for the prompt.

You can examine the color option generated according the setting by printing the result of fzf#wrap() function like so:

:echo fzf#wrap()

`fzf#run`

fzf#run() function is the core of Vim integration. It takes a single dictionary argument, a spec, and starts fzf process accordingly. At the very least, specify sink option to tell what it should do with the selected entry.

call fzf#run({'sink': 'e'})

We haven't specified the source, so this is equivalent to starting fzf on command line without standard input pipe; fzf will use find command (or $FZF_DEFAULT_COMMAND if defined) to list the files under the current directory. When you select one, it will open it with the sink, :e command. If you want to open it in a new tab, you can pass :tabedit command instead as the sink.

call fzf#run({'sink': 'tabedit'})

Instead of using the default find command, you can use any shell command as the source. The following example will list the files managed by git. It's equivalent to running git ls-files | fzf on shell.

call fzf#run({'source': 'git ls-files', 'sink': 'e'})

fzf options can be specified as options entry in spec dictionary.

call fzf#run({'sink': 'tabedit', 'options': '--multi --reverse'})

You can also pass a layout option if you don't want fzf window to take up the entire screen.

" up / down / left / right / window are allowed
call fzf#run({'source': 'git ls-files', 'sink': 'e', 'left': '40%'})
call fzf#run({'source': 'git ls-files', 'sink': 'e', 'window': '30vnew'})

source doesn't have to be an external shell command, you can pass a Vim array as the source. In the next example, we pass the names of color schemes as the source to implement a color scheme selector.

call fzf#run({'source': map(split(globpath(&rtp, 'colors/*.vim')),
            \               'fnamemodify(v:val, ":t:r")'),
            \ 'sink': 'colo', 'left': '25%'})

The following table summarizes the available options.

Option name	Type	Description
`source`	string	External command to generate input to fzf (e.g. `find .`)
`source`	list	Vim list as input to fzf
`sink`	string	Vim command to handle the selected item (e.g. `e`, `tabe`)
`sink`	funcref	Reference to function to process each selected item
`sink*`	funcref	Similar to `sink`, but takes the list of output lines at once
`options`	string/list	Options to fzf
`dir`	string	Working directory
`up`/`down`/`left`/`right`	number/string	(Layout) Window position and size (e.g. `20`, `50%`)
`tmux`	string	(Layout) fzf-tmux options (e.g. `-p90%,60%`)
`window` (Vim 8 / Neovim)	string	(Layout) Command to open fzf window (e.g. `vertical aboveleft 30new`)
`window` (Vim 8 / Neovim)	dict	(Layout) Popup window settings (e.g. `{'width': 0.9, 'height': 0.6}`)

options entry can be either a string or a list. For simple cases, string should suffice, but prefer to use list type to avoid escaping issues.

call fzf#run({'options': '--reverse --prompt "C:\\Program Files\\"'})
call fzf#run({'options': ['--reverse', '--prompt', 'C:\Program Files\']})

When window entry is a dictionary, fzf will start in a popup window. The following options are allowed:

Required:
- width [float range [0 ~ 1]]
- height [float range [0 ~ 1]]
Optional:
- yoffset [float default 0.5 range [0 ~ 1]]
- xoffset [float default 0.5 range [0 ~ 1]]
- highlight [string default 'Comment']: Highlight group for border
- border [string default rounded]: Border style
  - rounded / sharp / horizontal / vertical / top / bottom / left / right

`fzf#wrap`

We have seen that several aspects of :FZF command can be configured with a set of global option variables; different ways to open files (g:fzf_action), window position and size (g:fzf_layout), color palette (g:fzf_colors), etc.

So how can we make our custom fzf#run calls also respect those variables? Simply by "wrapping" the spec dictionary with fzf#wrap before passing it to fzf#run.

fzf#wrap([name string], [spec dict], [fullscreen bool]) -> (dict)
- All arguments are optional. Usually we only need to pass a spec dictionary.
- name is for managing history files. It is ignored if g:fzf_history_dir is not defined.
- fullscreen can be either 0 or 1 (default: 0).

fzf#wrap takes a spec and returns an extended version of it (also a dictionary) with additional options for addressing global preferences. You can examine the return value of it like so:

echo fzf#wrap({'source': 'ls'})

After we "wrap" our spec, we pass it to fzf#run.

call fzf#run(fzf#wrap({'source': 'ls'}))

Now it supports CTRL-T, CTRL-V, and CTRL-X key bindings and it opens fzf window according to g:fzf_layout setting.

To make it easier to use, let's define LS command.

command! LS call fzf#run(fzf#wrap({'source': 'ls'}))

Type :LS and see how it works.

We would like to make :LS! (bang version) open fzf in fullscreen, just like :FZF!. Add -bang to command definition, and use <bang> value to set the last fullscreen argument of fzf#wrap (see :help <bang>).

" On :LS!, <bang> evaluates to '!', and '!0' becomes 1
command! -bang LS call fzf#run(fzf#wrap({'source': 'ls'}, <bang>0))

Our :LS command will be much more useful if we can pass a directory argument to it, so that something like :LS /tmp is possible.

command! -bang -complete=dir -nargs=* LS
    \ call fzf#run(fzf#wrap({'source': 'ls', 'dir': <q-args>}, <bang>0))

Lastly, if you have enabled g:fzf_history_dir, you might want to assign a unique name to our command and pass it as the first argument to fzf#wrap.

" The query history for this command will be stored as 'ls' inside g:fzf_history_dir.
" The name is ignored if g:fzf_history_dir is not defined.
command! -bang -complete=dir -nargs=* LS
    \ call fzf#run(fzf#wrap('ls', {'source': 'ls', 'dir': <q-args>}, <bang>0))

Tips

fzf inside terminal buffer

The latest versions of Vim and Neovim include builtin terminal emulator (:terminal) and fzf will start in a terminal buffer in the following cases:

On Neovim
On GVim
On Terminal Vim with a non-default layout
- call fzf#run({'left': '30%'}) or let g:fzf_layout = {'left': '30%'}

Starting fzf in a popup window

" Required:
" - width [float range [0 ~ 1]]
" - height [float range [0 ~ 1]]
"
" Optional:
" - xoffset [float default 0.5 range [0 ~ 1]]
" - yoffset [float default 0.5 range [0 ~ 1]]
" - highlight [string default 'Comment']: Highlight group for border
" - border [string default 'rounded']: Border style
"   - 'rounded' / 'sharp' / 'horizontal' / 'vertical' / 'top' / 'bottom' / 'left' / 'right'
let g:fzf_layout = { 'window': { 'width': 0.9, 'height': 0.6 } }

Alternatively, you can make fzf open in a tmux popup window (requires tmux 3.2 or above) by putting fzf-tmux options in tmux key.

" See `man fzf-tmux` for available options
if exists('$TMUX')
  let g:fzf_layout = { 'tmux': '-p90%,60%' }
else
  let g:fzf_layout = { 'window': { 'width': 0.9, 'height': 0.6 } }
endif

Hide statusline

When fzf starts in a terminal buffer, the file type of the buffer is set to fzf. So you can set up FileType fzf autocmd to customize the settings of the window.

For example, if you use the default layout ({'down': '~40%'}) on Neovim, you might want to temporarily disable the statusline for a cleaner look.

if has('nvim') && !exists('g:fzf_layout')
  autocmd! FileType fzf
  autocmd  FileType fzf set laststatus=0 noshowmode noruler
    \| autocmd BufLeave <buffer> set laststatus=2 showmode ruler
endif

License

The MIT License (MIT)

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README-VIM.md

README-VIM.md

FZF Vim integration

Installation

Summary

`:FZF[!]`

Configuration

Examples

Explanation of `g:fzf_colors`

`fzf#run`

`fzf#wrap`

Tips

fzf inside terminal buffer

Starting fzf in a popup window

Hide statusline

License

Files

README-VIM.md

Latest commit

History

README-VIM.md

File metadata and controls

FZF Vim integration

Installation

Summary

:FZF[!]

Configuration

Examples

Explanation of g:fzf_colors

fzf#run

fzf#wrap

Tips

fzf inside terminal buffer

Starting fzf in a popup window

Hide statusline

License

`:FZF[!]`

Explanation of `g:fzf_colors`

`fzf#run`

`fzf#wrap`