zsh: Better history searching with arrow keys

Desired behaviour:

Search through history for previous commands matching everything up to current cursor position. Move the cursor to the end of line after each match.

Example:

[] indicates the current cursor position. With the partial command:

$ rbenv exec[]

We want up arrow keypresses to result in:

$ rbenv exec rake generate[]
$ rbenv exec rake preview[]
....

and down arrow keypresses to result in:

....
$ rbenv exec rake preview[]
$ rbenv exec rake generate[]
$ rbenv exec[]

Solution:

Add to ~/.zshrc:

autoload -U up-line-or-beginning-search
autoload -U down-line-or-beginning-search
zle -N up-line-or-beginning-search
zle -N down-line-or-beginning-search
bindkey "^[[A" up-line-or-beginning-search # Up
bindkey "^[[B" down-line-or-beginning-search # Down

More info:

• man zshzle. Search for "History Control".
• man zshcontrib. Search for "up-line-or-beginning-search".