# Description
in https://github.com/nushell/nushell/issues/8311 and the discord
server, the idea of moving the default banner from the `rust` source to
the `nushell` standar library has emerged 😋
however, in order to do this, one need to have access to all the
variables used in the default banner => all of them are accessible
because known constants, except for the startup time of the shell, which
is not anywhere in the shell...
#### this PR adds exactly this, i.e. the new `startup_time` to the `$nu`
variable, which is computed to have the exact same value as the value
shown in the banner.
## the changes
in order to achieve this, i had to
- add `startup_time` as an `i64` to the `EngineState` => this is, to the
best of my knowledge, the easiest way to pass such an information around
down to where the banner startup time is computed and where the `$nu`
variable is evaluated
- add `startup-time` to the `$nu` variable and use the `EngineState`
getter for `startup_time` to show it as a `Value::Duration`
- pass `engine_state` as a `&mut`able argument from `main.rs` down to
`repl.rs` to allow the setter to change the value of `startup_time` =>
without this, the value would not change and would show `-1ns` as the
default value...
- the value of the startup time is computed in `evaluate_repl` in
`repl.rs`, only once at the beginning, and the same value is used in the
default banner 👌
# User-Facing Changes
one can now access to the same time as shown in the default banner with
```bash
$nu.startup-time
```
# Tests + Formatting
- 🟢 `cargo fmt --all`
- 🟢 `cargo clippy --workspace -- -D warnings -D
clippy::unwrap_used -A clippy::needless_collect`
- 🟢 `cargo test --workspace`
# After Submitting
```
$nothing
```
Add two rows in `$nu`, `$nu.is-interactive` and `$nu.is-login`, which
are true when nu is run in interactive and login mode respectively.
The `-i` flag now behaves a bit more like that of bash's, where the any
provided command or file is run without REPL but in "interactive mode".
This should entail sourcing interactive-mode config files, but since we
are planning on overhauling the config system soon, I'm holding off on
that. For now, all `-i` does is set `$nu.is-interactive` to be true.
About testing, I can't seem to find where cli-args get tested, so I
haven't written any new tests for this. Also I don't think there are any
docs that need updating. However if I'm wrong please tell me.
I noticed that `$nu.loginshell-path` was using backward *and* forward
slashes on Windows.
#### Before
`C:\Users\reill\AppData\Roaming\nushell/login.nu`
#### After
`C:\Users\reill\AppData\Roaming\nushell\login.nu`
Fixed up 2 other similar issues while I was at it.
This is an attempt to implement a new `Value::LazyRecord` variant for
performance reasons.
`LazyRecord` is like a regular `Record`, but it's possible to access
individual columns without evaluating other columns. I've implemented
`LazyRecord` for the special `$nu` variable; accessing `$nu` is
relatively slow because of all the information in `scope`, and [`$nu`
accounts for about 2/3 of Nu's startup time on
Linux](https://github.com/nushell/nushell/issues/6677#issuecomment-1364618122).
### Benchmarks
I ran some benchmarks on my desktop (Linux, 12900K) and the results are
very pleasing.
Nu's time to start up and run a command (`cargo build --release;
hyperfine 'target/release/nu -c "echo \"Hello, world!\""' --shell=none
--warmup 10`) goes from **8.8ms to 3.2ms, about 2.8x faster**.
Tests are also much faster! Running `cargo nextest` (with our very slow
`proptest` tests disabled) goes from **7.2s to 4.4s (1.6x faster)**,
because most tests involve launching a new instance of Nu.
### Design (updated)
I've added a new `LazyRecord` trait and added a `Value` variant wrapping
those trait objects, much like `CustomValue`. `LazyRecord`
implementations must implement these 2 functions:
```rust
// All column names
fn column_names(&self) -> Vec<&'static str>;
// Get 1 specific column value
fn get_column_value(&self, column: &str) -> Result<Value, ShellError>;
```
### Serializability
`Value` variants must implement `Serializable` and `Deserializable`, which poses some problems because I want to use unserializable things like `EngineState` in `LazyRecord`s. To work around this, I basically lie to the type system:
1. Add `#[typetag::serde(tag = "type")]` to `LazyRecord` to make it serializable
2. Any unserializable fields in `LazyRecord` implementations get marked with `#[serde(skip)]`
3. At the point where a `LazyRecord` normally would get serialized and sent to a plugin, I instead collect it into a regular `Value::Record` (which can be serialized)
