-.TH "SELECTOR" 1 "" "Francois Fleuret"
+\" 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 "SYNOPSIS"
-.PP
-\fBselector\fP [\fBoptions\fP] [<filename1> [<filename2> ...]]
+
+\fBselector\fP [\fIoptions\fR] [\fI<filename1>\fR [\fI<filename2>\fR ...]]
+
.SH "DESCRIPTION"
-.PP
-\fBselector\fP is a command line utility for dynamic string
-selection. As you type 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.
-The main usage of selector is as an efficient search in the shell
-command history. With the correct option, it will inject the selected
-line into the virtual tty input buffer, hence allowing the user to
+\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
+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.
-Selector is also a good tool to test regexps, or a way to display
-menus. The -x option allows to specify a label delimiter: the part of
-each line before that character will appear during the selection, and
-the part after that character will be returned.
+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
+specify a label delimiter: the part of each line before that character
+will appear during the selection, but only the part after that
+character will be returned.
-.SH "KEYS"
-.PP
+Note that because this is an interactive command, the standard input
+can not be used as one of the input files.
+
+.SH "KEY BINDINGS"
Keys corresponding to ASCII codes between " " and "~" add a character
to the pattern string. The Backspace key, "^H" and "^?" delete the
make a flash instead of a beep when there is an edition error
.IP "\fB--\fP" 10
state that all following arguments are filenames
-.IP "\fB-t <title>\fP" 10
+.IP "\fB-t \fI<title>\fP" 10
add a title in the modeline
-.IP "\fB-c <fg modeline> <bg modeline> <fg highlight> <bg highlight>\fP" 10
+.IP "\fB-c \fI<fg_modeline> <bg_modeline> <fg_highlight> <bg_highlight>\fP" 10
select the modeline and highlight color numbers
.IP "\fB-v\fP" 10
inject the selected line into the tty input buffer
.IP "\fB-w\fP" 10
add ^Q between characters during tty injection to quote control characters
-.IP "\fB-o <output filename>\fP" 10
+.IP "\fB-o \fI<output_filename>\fP" 10
write the selected line into the specified file
-.IP "\fB-s <pattern separator>\fP" 10
+.IP "\fB-s \fI<pattern_separator>\fP" 10
specify the symbol to separate the substrings in the search pattern
-.IP "\fB-x <label separator>\fP" 10
+.IP "\fB-x \fI<label_separator>\fP" 10
specify the symbol to separate what to show to the user during the
selection from the line to return
-.IP "\fB-l <max number of lines>\fP" 10
+.IP "\fB-l \fI<max_number_of_lines>\fP" 10
specify the maximum number of lines to take into account
-.IP "\fB-f <input filename>\fP" 10
+.IP "\fB-f \fI<input_filename>\fP" 10
specify a file to search into (option kept for compatibility reasons)
.SH "EXAMPLE"
.B selector -q -b -i -d -v -w -l ${HISTSIZE} <(history)
-.SH "KEY-BINDING IN BASH"
+.SH "KEYBINDING IN BASH"
You can associate selector to a single key in bash by using the
command 'bind' in your bash initialization file. For instance, to
bind '"\\C-[r":"\\C-a\\C-kselector -q -b -i -d -v -w -l ${HISTSIZE} <(history)\\C-m"'
-in your ~/.bashrc.
+in your
+.IR ~/.bashrc .
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
program does not handle multibyte characters.
.SH "AUTHOR"
-.PP
-Written by Francois Fleuret <francois@fleuret.org>, and distributed
-under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License.
+
+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.
projects / selector.git / blobdiff