Chapter 1: Efficient Git Workflow

A significant part of being a software engineer involves effectively using Git to manage your work within a codebase. Another crucial component is the ability to swiftly find and utilize relevant information, particularly in Git. Below, you'll find a couple of fzf scripts that I've modified to better suit my workflow. Feel free to adapt these scripts, and if you have any updates or additional scripts that you find useful, please share!

I maintain a file in my home directory (e.g., ~/fsb.sh) and have created an alias in my ~/.zshrc to reference it (e.g., alias fsb=~/fsb.sh).

Walkthrough

The script begins by retrieving all Git branches with git branch --all and subsequently opens a selection window using fzf-tmux to choose from the available branches. If no branch is selected, the function exits early. The final step involves executing git checkout on the chosen branch after sanitizing the input to remove any extraneous text.

#!/bin/bash

# Fuzzy search Git branches in a repo

# Looks for local and remote branches

function fsb() {

local pattern=$*

local branches branch

branches=$(git branch --all | awk 'tolower($0) ~ /'"$pattern"'/') &&

branch=$(echo "$branches" | fzf-tmux -p --reverse -1 -0 +m) &&

if [ "$branch" = "" ]; then

echo "[$0] No branch matches the provided pattern"; return;

fi;

git checkout $(echo "$branch" | sed "s/.* //" | sed "s#remotes/[^/]*/##")

}

fsb "$@"

If you're looking for a way to fuzzy search branches and quickly check them out using fzf, this script is your solution.

Walkthrough

The script starts by executing git log with a visually appealing format. This output is piped into fzf, which includes a preview window and a function to display the corresponding git diff. The header option in fzf provides a user-friendly title for usage instructions, along with several key mappings for quitting, paging up/down, and checking out the selected commit.

#!/bin/bash

# Fuzzy search over Git commits

# Enter will view the commit

# Ctrl-o will checkout the selected commit

function fshow() {

git log --graph --color=always

--format="%C(auto)%h%d %s %C(black)%C(bold)%cr" "$@" |

fzf --ansi --no-sort --reverse --tiebreak=index --bind=ctrl-s:toggle-sort --preview

'f() { set -- $(echo -- "$@" | grep -o "[a-f0-9]{7}"); [ $# -eq 0 ] || git show --color=always $1 ; }; f {}'

—header "Enter to view, Ctrl-o to checkout"

--bind "q:abort,ctrl-f:preview-page-down,ctrl-b:preview-page-up"

—bind "ctrl-o:become:(echo {} | grep -o '[a-f0-9]{7}' | head -1 | xargs git checkout)"

--bind "ctrl-m:execute:

(grep -o '[a-f0-9]{7}' | head -1 |

xargs -I % sh -c 'git show --color=always % | less -R') << 'FZF-EOF'

{}

FZF-EOF" --preview-window=right:60%

}

fshow "$@"

It took me some time to master the correct usage of the bind command and to understand the become option for fzf, which allows the current fzf process to be taken over by the git checkout process. This script is surprisingly powerful given its brevity and feels like a more extensive program due to its capabilities.

If you have any suggestions to enhance it, I'd love to hear them!

Chapter 2: Conclusion

Fzf is an incredibly versatile tool that can be leveraged in numerous ways to search and navigate files, Git commits, branches, and much more. My exploration and modification of these scripts have taught me a lot about fzf, and I hope you can reap some benefits from them as well. Please share any other fzf scripts you may have!

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Discover how to search Git branches and commits rapidly with fzf.

Learn how to utilize fzf with Git for an efficient workflow.