Get Emojis via Command Line

Today was pretty calm, so I spent some time tinkering with ideas. Among them, I found a link to a bunch of emojis in my bookmarks and thought:

— Why not fetch these emojis via the command line to make things easier?!

So I started writing some basic code and came up with this simple command to help out, even if just in a basic way.

See how to compile and install it on your Unix-like system.

💼 Installation

Of course, you’ll need either GCC or Clang installed.

Then just follow these steps:

⤵️ 01. Download the emoji list:

Using wget:

wget -q bit.ly/emoji-txt -O ~/.emojis.txt

Or using cURL:

curl -sL bit.ly/emoji-txt -o ~/.emojis.txt

📄 02. Create a C++ file:

Example: vim emoji.cpp

Paste this code inside:

#include <iostream>
#include <fstream>

constexpr auto show_emoji = [](const std::string& query){
  const std::string user = std::getenv("USER");
  std::ifstream file("/home/" + user + "/.emojis.txt");
  std::string line;
  bool found = false;
   
  while(std::getline(file, line)){
    const size_t space_pos = line.find(' ');
    if (space_pos == std::string::npos) continue;
    const std::string name = line.substr(0, space_pos);
    const std::string emoji = line.substr(space_pos + 1);
    if(name.find(query) != std::string::npos){
      std::cout << emoji << " " << name << '\n';
      found = true;
    }
  }
   
  if(!found){
    std::cerr << "Emoji not found.\n";
  }
};

int main(int argc, char** argv){
  if (argc < 2) return 1;
  show_emoji(argv[1]);
}

🚧 03. Compile and install:

g++ -O3 -ffast-math emoji.cpp -o emoji
sudo mv emoji /usr/local/bin

📺 04. Add autocomplete to your terminal:

To add autocomplete for Bash:

Add this at the end of your ~/.bashrc

_emoji_complete() {
  local cur=${COMP_WORDS[COMP_CWORD]}
  COMPREPLY=( $(compgen -W "$(grep "^$cur" ${HOME}/.emojis.txt)" -- "$cur") )
}
complete -F _emoji_complete emoji

Then run: source ~/.bashrc

To add autocomplete for ZSH:

Add this at the end of your ~/.zshrc

_emoji_complete() {
  local -a matches
  local cur="$words[2]"

  matches=($(grep "^$cur" "${HOME}/.emojis.txt"))
  compadd -- $matches
}

compdef _emoji_complete emoji

Then run: source ~/.zshrc

Test:

$ emoji game<TAB>
game      game_die

$ emoji game<ENTER>
🎮 game
🎲 game_die

I used this tool to fill in the emojis for this post: I typed things like emoji tv, emoji const (for construction), emoji doc (document), … Soon you’ll get used to the keywords and find them all easily! 😺

Pretty neat, right? 😃

terminal cpp