Shell – How to you get the current terminal line (the one that is still editable by the user)

shellterminaluser inputzlezsh

I need a way to use the current line which the users typed into as variable for a shell function.

my current code, which can be called by ctrl+r

zle -N search

bindkey "^R" search

search () {
read str;
fc -ln -30 | grep $(printf "%q\n" "$str");
}

or simply, to call it as a function

search () {
fc -ln -30 | grep $(printf "%q\n" "$1");
}

updated: target pseudo code, to call as a function called by ctrl+r that needs no further input prompt

zle -N search

bindkey "^R" search

search ()
echo ""; #for better formatting because ctrl+R is not enter so the BUFFER(current line) gets corrupted and looks messy and the current input is not correctly shown
fc -ln -30 | grep $(printf "%q\n" "$BUFFER"); #edited to be the solution where $BUFFER is the current terminal line
}

Best Answer

In zle widgets, the contents of the editing buffer is made available in the $BUFFER variable. $LBUFFER contains what's left of the cursor (same $BUFFER[1,CURSOR-1]) and $RBUFFER what's to the right (same as $BUFFER[CURSOR,-1]).

For a widget that prints a report of the previous command lines that contain the string entered so far (among the 30 most recent ones), you could do something like:

search() {
  zle -I
  print -rC1 -- ${(M)${history:0:30}:#*$BUFFER*}
}
zle -N search
bindkey '^R' search
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