Fuzzy Search with Linux

This is a quick look at several handy utilities that will allow you to find, navigate, and edit directories and files easily. This overview includes such tools as fzf, rg, fd-find, bat, and the fzf.vim plugin for VIM.

The fzf is a general-purpose command-line fuzzy finder. ¹. The rg – aka ripgrep – is a recursive line-search tool. ² The fd – aka fd-find – is a faster alternative to the find command with more intuitive syntax. ³ The bat – aka batcat – is a powerful syntax highlither. ⁴ Finally, the fzf.vim plugin allows searching for files and content from within VIM. ⁵

Installation

All of these tools should be available from standard repos for the newer versions of Fedora, RHEL, Ubuntu, etc. If you’re running an older OS, I also included some alternative installation methods.

# Install fd-find:
apt install fd-find

# Alternatively, install fd-find from source:
cd ~ && git clone https://github.com/sharkdp/fd.git && cd fd/ && make && make install

# Alternatively, get a pre-compiled version for your CPU arch
cd ~ && wget https://github.com/sharkdp/fd/releases/download/v8.6.0/fd-v8.6.0-x86_64-unknown-linux-musl.tar.gz
gzip -d fd-v8.6.0-x86_64-unknown-linux-musl.tar.gz
tar xvf fd-v8.6.0-x86_64-unknown-linux-musl.tar
cd fd-v8.6.0-x86_64-unknown-linux-musl
cp ./fd /usr/local/bin/
cp ./fd.1 /usr/local/share/man/man1/
mandb

# Install bat
apt install bat

# Alternatively, download a precompiled package from the developer's site:
wget https://github.com/sharkdp/bat/releases/download/v0.22.1/bat-musl_0.22.1_amd64.deb
dpkg -i bat-musl_0.22.1_amd64.deb

# Alternatively, get a pre-compiled version for your CPU arch
cd ~ && wget https://github.com/sharkdp/bat/releases/download/v0.22.1/bat-v0.22.1-x86_64-unknown-linux-musl.tar.gz
gzip -d bat-v0.22.1-x86_64-unknown-linux-musl.tar.gz
tar xvf bat-v0.22.1-x86_64-unknown-linux-musl.tar
cd bat-v0.22.1-x86_64-unknown-linux-musl
cp ./bat /usr/local/bin/
cp ./bat.1 /usr/local/share/man/man1/
mandb

# Install cargo
apt install cargo
yum -y install cargo

# Install fzf
apt install fzf

# Alternatively, install fzf from source:
cd ~ && git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/junegunn/fzf.git ~/.fzf && \ |
echo y | ~/.fzf/install

# Add to ~/.bashrc

cat << EOF >> ~/.bashrc
if type rg &> /dev/null; then
  export FZF_DEFAULT_COMMAND='rg --files'
  export FZF_DEFAULT_OPTS='-m --height 50% --border'
fi
[ -f ~/.fzf.bash ] && source ~/.fzf.bash
alias h='history | fzf'
EOF

# Install ripgrep

apt install ripgrep

# Alternatively, install ripgrep using cargo
cargo install ripgrep
# Append to PATH in ~/.profile
  export PATH=$PATH:/root/.cargo/bin

# Install vim-plug VIM plugin manager
curl -fLo ~/.vim/autoload/plug.vim --create-dirs https://raw.githubusercontent.com/junegunn/vim-plug/master/plug.vim

# Add to ~/.vimrc

cat << EOF >> ~/.vimrc
call plug#begin()
Plug 'junegunn/fzf.vim'
Plug 'junegunn/fzf', { 'do': { -> fzf#install() } }
call plug#end()
set grepprg=rg\ --vimgrep\ --smart-case\ --follow
EOF

# Open vim and run:
:PlugInstall

Usage

Now within VIM, you can run :Files to fuzzy-search filenames or :Rg to fuzzy-search file contents with previews and syntax highlighting.

You can select multiple files by hitting Tab, and you can even do search-and-replace on multiple files and all subfolders:

# In VIM go the to the folder where you want to start your search-and-replace operation:
:cd ~/tempdir/

# Then run the search-and-replace commands:
:grep "old_pattern"
:cfdo %s/old_pattern/new_pattern/g | update

# Close out all open files
:qa

As a sysadmin, I spend much of my time searching the log files. Tools like Splunk and Elasticsearch are not always an option. The fzf tool can come in very handy:

# Even simple search cases like these can save you a lot of time
{ cat /var/log/messages & zcat /var/log/messages*gz; } | sort -k1Mr -k2nr -k3r | fzf
 { cat $(find /var/log/httpd/ -type f -mtime -7 -name "*_log" | grep igor); zcat $(find /var/log/httpd/ -type f -mtime -7 -name "*_log*gz" | grep igor); } | sort -k1Mr -k2nr -k3r | fzf

 

1. junegunn. “fzf.” GitHub, 25 Nov. 2022, github.com/junegunn/fzf.
2. BurntSushi. “ripgrep.” GitHub, 25 Nov. 2022, github.com/BurntSushi/ripgrep.
3. sharkdp. “fd.” GitHub, 25 Nov. 2022, github.com/sharkdp/fd.
4. sharkdp. “bat.” GitHub, 25 Nov. 2022, github.com/sharkdp/bat.
5. junegunn. “fzf.vim.” GitHub, 25 Nov. 2022, github.com/junegunn/fzf.vim.