Interactive fuzzy select feat. FZF

select_interactive.py

from __future__ import annotations
from subprocess import Popen, PIPE
import sys

def select_i(choices: List[str], multi:bool=False) -> (List[int], List[str]):
    """
    Interactively select from a list of choices, returning the selections
    and their indices in the original list of choices.
    """
    stdin_data = '\n'.join(choices).encode('utf-8')

    if multi:
        cmd = ["fzf", "-m"]

    else:
        cmd = ["fzf"]

    fzf = Popen(cmd, stdin=PIPE, stdout=PIPE)
    stdout, _ = fzf.communicate(input=stdin_data)
    # wait up to 10 seconds for fzf to close - avoids stdout corruption
    fzf.wait(timeout=10)
    selections = stdout.decode('utf-8').split('\n')[:-1]
    indices = list(map(lambda sel:choices.index(sel), selections))
    return selections, indices


selections, indices = select_i(["a", "b", "c", "d"], True)
print(selections)
print(indices)