/ home / vim / configuration [ / plug / color scheme / nerdtree / CtrlP / vim autoformat / vim fugitive / jsonc / vim airline / neoterm / vim-test / summary ]

CtrlP

Knowing only part of a filename? When you can use CtrlP for doing a fuzzy search on the file system.

Example

You are looking for a ufw init script. After opening vim in the etc folder, you start typing ini

> 3.0/settings.ini
> /etc/machine-id
> /etc/odbc.ini
> /etc/init.d/dbus
> /etc/init.d/lvm2
> /etc/init.d/udev
> /etc/gdb/gdbinit
> /etc/init.d/sssd
> /etc/init.d/ufw
> /etc/init.d/ssh
[...]
>>> ini_

Almost there

> /etc/fonts/conf.avail/20-unhint-small-dejavu-sans-mono.conf
> /etc/fonts/conf.avail/20-unhint-small-dejavu-lgc-serif.conf
> /etc/fonts/conf.avail/20-unhint-small-dejavu-lgc-sans.conf
> /etc/fonts/conf.avail/20-unhint-small-dejavu-serif.conf
> /etc/fonts/conf.avail/20-unhint-small-dejavu-sans.conf
> /etc/initramfs-tools/update-initramfs.conf
> /etc/openmpi/openmpi-default-hostfile
> /etc/fonts/conf.avail/10-hinting-medium.conf
> /etc/fonts/conf.avail/10-hinting-full.conf
> /etc/init.d/ufw
[...]
>>> iniuf_

Hitting Enter will open the last file in the list.

If you want to see sibling files, you can do a NERDTreeFind, to open the filesystem at the right place.

[...]
    nfs-common* [RO]           │ 18
    nfs-kernel-server* [RO]    │ 19 . /lib/lsb/init-functions
    openvpn* [RO]              │ 20
    plymouth* [RO]             │ 21 for s in "/lib/ufw/ufw-init-functions" "/etc/ufw/ufw.conf" "/etc/default/ufw" ; do
    plymouth-log* [RO]         │ 22     if [ -s "$s" ]; then
    pppd-dns* [RO]             │ 23         . "$s"
    procps* [RO]               │ 24     else
    pulseaudio-enable-autospawn│ 25         log_failure_msg "Could not find $s (aborting)"
    rpcbind* [RO]              │ 26         exit 1
    rsync* [RO]                │ 27     fi
    rsyslog* [RO]              │ 28 done
    saned* [RO]                │ 29
    screen-cleanup* [RO]       │ 30 error=0
    speech-dispatcher* [RO]    │ 31 case "$1" in
    spice-vdagent* [RO]        │ 32 start)
    ssh* [RO]                  │ 33     if [ "$ENABLED" = "yes" ] || [ "$ENABLED" = "YES" ]; then
    sssd* [RO]                 │ 34         log_action_begin_msg "Starting firewall:" "ufw"
    udev* [RO]                 │ 35         output=`ufw_start` || error="$?"
    ufw* [RO]                  │ 36         if [ "$error" = "0" ]; then
    unattended-upgrades* [RO]  │ 37             log_action_cont_msg "Setting kernel variables ($IPT_SYSCTL)"
    uuidd* [RO]                │ 38         fi
    virtualbox* [RO]           │ 39         if [ ! -z "$output" ]; then
    whoopsie* [RO]             │ 40             echo "$output" | while read line ; do
    x11-common* [RO]           │ 41                 log_action_cont_msg "$:w
[...]

CtrlP and NERDTree play well together.

configuration

" add an artificial anchor to bigger projects to improve search experience
let g:ctrlp_root_markers = ['.ctrlp_anchor']
if executable('ag')
  " Use ag over grep
  set grepprg=ag\ --nogroup\ --nocolor

  " Use ag in CtrlP for listing files. Lightning fast and respects .gitignore
  let g:ctrlp_user_command = 'ag %s -l --nocolor -g ""'

  " ag is fast enough that CtrlP doesn't need to cache
  let g:ctrlp_use_caching = 0
endif

I use the silver searcher for finding files. As you can see you can override the standard used search method, as soon you can get the output searchable for the plugin.

If you are in a git controlled environment, you can also consider using git grep. This should be a even faster search. But git grep won't consider newly created files.

installation

Plug 'ctrlpvim/ctrlp.vim'