Bug#660470: RFP: selector -- A simple command line utility for dynamic file search and shell history search

[Francois Fleuret <francois@fleuret.org>]

Package: wnpp
Severity: wishlist


* Package name    : selector
  Version         : 1.1.6
  Upstream Author : Francois Fleuret <francois@fleuret.org>
* URL             : http://www.idiap.ch/~fleuret/software.html#selector
* License         : GPL3
  Programming Lang: C
  Description     : A simple command line utility for dynamic file search and shell history search

selector 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 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
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.