Unable to successfully set up FZF_DEFAULT_COMMAND

Unable to successfully set up FZF_DEFAULT_COMMAND

[Steve Dondley]

I'm running MacOS on a fresh user install.

I'm trying to integrate the 'rg' command with fzf. The README page for 
fzf says to insert the following line into .zshrc:

INITIAL_QUERY=""
RG_PREFIX="rg --column --line-number --no-heading --color=always 
--smart-case "
FZF_DEFAULT_COMMAND="$RG_PREFIX '$INITIAL_QUERY'" \
   fzf --bind "change:reload:$RG_PREFIX {q} || true" \
       --ansi --disabled --query "$INITIAL_QUERY" \
       --height=50% --layout=reverse

When I do add these lines, there are two problems:

1) When I reload zsh, the fzf command gets run with the rg command 
immediately.
2) When I type 'echo $FZF_DEFAULT_COMMAND' at the command prompt, the 
FZF_DEFAULT_COMMAND is not set. And then when I run 'fzf', I'll just get 
the default fzf behavior.

When I try adding the "export" keyword to export the FZF_DEFAULT_COMMAND 
but that results in an error:

/Users/test/.zshrc:export:3: not valid in this context: --bind. And 
'echo $FZF_DEFAULT_COMMAND' shows just:

rg --column --line-number --no-heading --color=always --smart-case  ''

I've searched around a great deal but I'm coming up empty. Can someone 
explain why I can't get this working?

Re: Unable to successfully set up FZF_DEFAULT_COMMAND

[Lawrence Velázquez]

On Sun, Aug 29, 2021, at 8:36 PM, Steve Dondley wrote:
> I'm running MacOS on a fresh user install.
> 
> I'm trying to integrate the 'rg' command with fzf. The README page for 
> fzf says to insert the following line into .zshrc:

I assume you're referring to this?  It doesn't say anything about
.zshrc.

https://github.com/junegunn/fzf#3-interactive-ripgrep-integration

> INITIAL_QUERY=""
> RG_PREFIX="rg --column --line-number --no-heading --color=always 
> --smart-case "
> FZF_DEFAULT_COMMAND="$RG_PREFIX '$INITIAL_QUERY'" \
>    fzf --bind "change:reload:$RG_PREFIX {q} || true" \
>        --ansi --disabled --query "$INITIAL_QUERY" \
>        --height=50% --layout=reverse
> 
> When I do add these lines, there are two problems:
> 
> 1) When I reload zsh, the fzf command gets run with the rg command 
> immediately.
> 2) When I type 'echo $FZF_DEFAULT_COMMAND' at the command prompt, the 
> FZF_DEFAULT_COMMAND is not set. And then when I run 'fzf', I'll just get 
> the default fzf behavior.

Indeed.  The command you quoted is of the form

    FOO=bar cmd arg1 arg2 arg3

which runs cmd with FOO in its environment.  FOO is (generally) not
put into the environment of the executing shell.  (In your example,
"cmd" is fzf and "FOO" is FZF_DEFAULT_COMMAND.)

I'm not familiar with fzf or how it's intended to be used, but the
fact that that command runs fzf immediately makes me think it's not
supposed to go into a shell startup file.

> When I try adding the "export" keyword to export the FZF_DEFAULT_COMMAND 
> but that results in an error:
> 
> /Users/test/.zshrc:export:3: not valid in this context: --bind. And 
> 'echo $FZF_DEFAULT_COMMAND' shows just:
> 
> rg --column --line-number --no-heading --color=always --smart-case  ''

You took

    FOO=bar cmd arg1 arg2 arg3

and turned it into

    export FOO=bar cmd arg1 arg2 arg3

which exports FOO.  In your example it also exports a variable named
"fzf".  The other arguments become arguments to the export command
itself, which causes some trouble.

> I've searched around a great deal but I'm coming up empty. Can someone 
> explain why I can't get this working?

Perhaps you want this section?  You will have to adapt their example
to use ripgrep instead of fd.

https://github.com/junegunn/fzf#respecting-gitignore

-- 
vq

Re: Unable to successfully set up FZF_DEFAULT_COMMAND

[Steve Dondley]

> I assume you're referring to this?  It doesn't say anything about
> .zshrc.

Indeed! So I simply dropped the example code into an executable at ~/bin 
and run that. It works perfectly. The fact that it ran when I reloaded 
zsh should have been a big clue but I'm new to zsh so I'm a little 
disoriented.

Thanks for your help and explanation!