+.TH "SELECTOR" 1 "July 2009" "Francois Fleuret" "User Commands"
+
\" This man page was written by Francois Fleuret <francois@fleuret.org>
\" and is distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike
\" 3.0 License.
-.TH "SELECTOR" 1 "July 2009" "Francois Fleuret" "User Commands"
-
.SH "NAME"
selector \- A simple command line utility for dynamic pattern selection
.SH "DESCRIPTION"
-\fBselector\fP is a command line utility for dynamic string
-selection. It reads the content of the specified files, and as the
-user types a list of strings separated by ";" (or a regexp), the
+\fBselector\fP is a command line utility for interactive real-time
+pattern matching. It reads the content of the specified files, and as
+the user types a list of strings separated by ";" (or a regexp), the
display is updated in real time to show only the lines containing all
the said strings (or matching the regexp).
-This command was mainly designed as a way to search in the shell
-history, for which it is substantially more efficient than the
-standard readline ^R binding. With the -v option, it injects the
-selected line into the tty input buffer, hence allowing the user to
-edit the line and execute it as a standard command.
+This command was mainly designed as a way to search efficiently in the
+shell history, for which it is substantially better than the standard
+readline ^R binding. With the -v option, it injects the selected line
+into the tty input buffer, hence allowing the user to edit the line
+and execute it as a standard command.
Selector is also a handy tool to test regexps, or to display menus
with many possible choices. For the latter, the -x option allows to
\fB-f \fI<input_filename>\fR
specify a file to search into (option kept for compatibility reasons)
-.SH "EXAMPLE"
+.SH "EXAMPLES"
To use selector to search into your bash history
To show a list of directories and insert a cd command to the selected
one (using @ as a separator)
-.B selector -v -x @ <(find . -type d | awk \(aq{print $1\(dq@cd \(dq$0}\(aq)
+.B selector -v -x @ <(find . -type d | awk \(aq{print $0\(dq@cd \(dq$0}\(aq)
To select a line in a long text and returns the line number (this
command uses ^A as a separator, hence there will be problems if the
in your
.IR ~/.bashrc .
+This bindings uses the control character ^A to put the cursor to the
+mostleft location and ^K to erase the current content of the readline
+buffer, and it simulates the enter key with ^M.
+
Note that depending on the configuration of your system, the sequence
associated to the M-r key, which is here "C-[r", may differ. To figure
it out, simply press C-q followed by M-r in the console.
-The control character "C-a" puts the cursor to the mostleft location,
-"C-k" erases the current content of the readline buffer, and "C-m"
-simulates the enter key.
-
.SH "BUGS"
There are modeline display problems if the pattern is too long. This
.SH "AUTHOR"
-The selector command was written by Francois Fleuret
-<francois@fleuret.org> and is distributed under the terms of the GNU
-General Public License version 3 as published by the Free Software
-Foundation. This is free software: you are free to change and
-redistribute it. There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law.
+Written by Francois Fleuret <francois@fleuret.org> and distributed
+under the terms of the GNU General Public License version 3 as
+published by the Free Software Foundation. This is free software: you
+are free to change and redistribute it. There is NO WARRANTY, to the
+extent permitted by law.