zsh-history-substring-search

This is a clean-room implementation of the Fish shell's history search feature, where you can type in any part of any previously entered command and press the UP and DOWN arrow keys to cycle through the matching commands. You can also use K and J in VI mode or ^P and ^N in EMACS mode for the same.

Requirements

• ZSH 4.3 or newer

Usage

1. Load this script into your interactive ZSH session:

   % source zsh-history-substring-search.zsh
   

   If you want to use zsh-syntax-highlighting along with this script, then make sure that you load it before you load this script:

   % source zsh-syntax-highlighting.zsh
   % source zsh-history-substring-search.zsh
   

2. Bind keyboard shortcuts to this script's functions:

   ## Arrow Keys ###########################################
   
   # OPTION 1: for most systems
   zmodload zsh/terminfo
   bindkey "$terminfo[kcuu1]" history-substring-search-up
   bindkey "$terminfo[kcud1]" history-substring-search-down
   
   # OPTION 2: for iTerm2 running on Apple MacBook laptops
   zmodload zsh/terminfo
   bindkey "$terminfo[cuu1]" history-substring-search-up
   bindkey "$terminfo[cud1]" history-substring-search-down
   
   # OPTION 3: for Ubuntu 12.04, Fedora 21, and MacOSX 10.9
   bindkey '^[[A' history-substring-search-up
   bindkey '^[[B' history-substring-search-down
   
   ## EMACS mode ###########################################
   
   bindkey -M emacs '^P' history-substring-search-up
   bindkey -M emacs '^N' history-substring-search-down
   
   ## VI mode ##############################################
   
   bindkey -M vicmd 'k' history-substring-search-up
   bindkey -M vicmd 'j' history-substring-search-down
   

3. Type any part of any previous command and then:

   • Press the UP arrow key to select the nearest command that (1) contains your query and (2) is older than the current command in the command history.

   • Press the DOWN arrow key to select the nearest command that (1) contains your query and (2) is newer than the current command in the command history.

   • Press ^U (the Control and U keys simultaneously) to abort the search.

4. If a matching command spans more than one line of text, press the LEFT arrow key to move the cursor away from the end of the command, and then:

   • Press the UP arrow key to move the cursor to the line above. When the cursor reaches the first line of the command, pressing the UP arrow key again will cause this script to perform another search.

   • Press the DOWN arrow key to move the cursor to the line below. When the cursor reaches the last line of the command, pressing the DOWN arrow key again will cause this script to perform another search.

Configuration

This script defines the following global variables. You may override their default values only after having loaded this script into your ZSH session.

• HISTORY_SUBSTRING_SEARCH_HIGHLIGHT_FOUND is a global variable that defines how the query should be highlighted inside a matching command. Its default value causes this script to highlight using bold, white text on a magenta background. See the "Character Highlighting" section in the zshzle(1) man page to learn about the kinds of values you may assign to this variable.

• HISTORY_SUBSTRING_SEARCH_HIGHLIGHT_NOT_FOUND is a global variable that defines how the query should be highlighted when no commands in the history match it. Its default value causes this script to highlight using bold, white text on a red background. See the "Character Highlighting" section in the zshzle(1) man page to learn about the kinds of values you may assign to this variable.

• HISTORY_SUBSTRING_SEARCH_GLOBBING_FLAGS is a global variable that defines how the command history will be searched for your query. Its default value causes this script to perform a case-insensitive search. See the "Globbing Flags" section in the zshexpn(1) man page to learn about the kinds of values you may assign to this variable.

• HISTORY_SUBSTRING_SEARCH_ENSURE_UNIQUE is a global variable that defines whether all search results returned are unique. If set to a non-empty value, then only unique search results are presented. This behaviour is off by default. An alternative way to ensure that search results are unique is to use setopt HIST_IGNORE_ALL_DUPS. If this configuration variable is off and setopt HIST_IGNORE_ALL_DUPS is unset, then setopt HIST_FIND_NO_DUPS is still respected and it makes this plugin skip duplicate adjacent search results as you cycle through them, but this does not guarantee that search results are unique: if your search results were "Dog", "Dog", "HotDog", "Dog", then cycling them gives "Dog", "HotDog", "Dog". Notice that the "Dog" search result appeared twice as you cycled through them. If you wish to receive globally unique search results only once, then use this configuration variable, or use setopt HIST_IGNORE_ALL_DUPS.

History

• September 2009: Peter Stephenson originally wrote this script and it published to the zsh-users mailing list.

• January 2011: Guido van Steen (@guidovansteen) revised this script and released it under the 3-clause BSD license as part of fizsh, the Friendly Interactive ZSHell.

• January 2011: Suraj N. Kurapati (@sunaku) extracted this script from fizsh 1.0.1, refactored it heavily, and finally repackaged it as an oh-my-zsh plugin and as an independently loadable ZSH script.

• July 2011: Guido van Steen, Suraj N. Kurapati, and Sorin Ionescu (@sorin-ionescu) further developed it with Vincent Guerci (@vguerci).

• March 2016: Geza Lore (@gezalore) greatly refactored it in pull request #55.