c4dcfdb77b
Related: - #15683 - #14551 - #849 - #12701 - #11527 # Description Currently various commands have differing behavior regarding cell-paths ```nushell {a: 1, A: 2} | get a A # => ╭───┬───╮ # => │ 0 │ 2 │ # => │ 1 │ 2 │ # => ╰───┴───╯ {a: 1, A: 2} | select a A # => ╭───┬───╮ # => │ a │ 1 │ # => │ A │ 2 │ # => ╰───┴───╯ {A: 1} | update a 2 # => Error: nu:🐚:column_not_found # => # => × Cannot find column 'a' # => ╭─[entry #62:1:1] # => 1 │ {A: 1} | update a 2 # => · ───┬── ┬ # => · │ ╰── cannot find column 'a' # => · ╰── value originates here # => ╰──── ``` Proposal: making cell-path access case-sensitive by default and adding new syntax for case-insensitive parts, similar to optional (?) parts. ```nushell {FOO: BAR}.foo # => Error: nu:🐚:name_not_found # => # => × Name not found # => ╭─[entry #60:1:21] # => 1 │ {FOO: BAR}.foo # => · ─┬─ # => · ╰── did you mean 'FOO'? # => ╰──── {FOO: BAR}.foo! # => BAR ``` This would solve the problem of case sensitivity for all commands without causing an explosion of flags _and_ make it more granular Assigning to a field using a case-insensitive path is case-preserving. ```nushell mut val = {FOO: "I'm FOO"}; $val # => ╭─────┬─────────╮ # => │ FOO │ I'm FOO │ # => ╰─────┴─────────╯ $val.foo! = "I'm still FOO"; $val # => ╭─────┬───────────────╮ # => │ FOO │ I'm still FOO │ # => ╰─────┴───────────────╯ ``` For `update`, case-insensitive is case-preserving. ```nushell {FOO: 1} | update foo! { $in + 1 } # => ╭─────┬───╮ # => │ FOO │ 2 │ # => ╰─────┴───╯ ``` `insert` can insert values into nested values so accessing into existing columns is case-insensitive, but creating new columns uses the cell-path as it is. So `insert foo! ...` and `insert FOO! ...` would work exactly as they do without `!` ```nushell {FOO: {quox: 0}} # => ╭─────┬──────────────╮ # => │ │ ╭──────┬───╮ │ # => │ FOO │ │ quox │ 0 │ │ # => │ │ ╰──────┴───╯ │ # => ╰─────┴──────────────╯ {FOO: {quox: 0}} | insert foo.bar 1 # => ╭─────┬──────────────╮ # => │ │ ╭──────┬───╮ │ # => │ FOO │ │ quox │ 0 │ │ # => │ │ ╰──────┴───╯ │ # => │ │ ╭─────┬───╮ │ # => │ foo │ │ bar │ 1 │ │ # => │ │ ╰─────┴───╯ │ # => ╰─────┴──────────────╯ {FOO: {quox: 0}} | insert foo!.bar 1 # => ╭─────┬──────────────╮ # => │ │ ╭──────┬───╮ │ # => │ FOO │ │ quox │ 0 │ │ # => │ │ │ bar │ 1 │ │ # => │ │ ╰──────┴───╯ │ # => ╰─────┴──────────────╯ ``` `upsert` is tricky, depending on the input, the data might end up with different column names in rows. We can either forbid case-insensitive cell-paths for `upsert` or trust the user to keep their data in a sensible shape. This would be a breaking change as it would make existing cell-path accesses case-sensitive, however the case-sensitivity is already inconsistent and any attempt at making it consistent would be a breaking change. > What about `$env`? 1. Initially special case it so it keeps its current behavior. 2. Accessing environment variables with non-matching paths gives a deprecation warning urging users to either use exact casing or use the new explicit case-sensitivity syntax 3. Eventuall remove `$env`'s special case, making `$env` accesses case-sensitive by default as well. > `$env.ENV_CONVERSIONS`? In addition to `from_string` and `to_string` add an optional field to opt into case insensitive/preserving behavior. # User-Facing Changes - `get`, `where` and other previously case-insensitive commands are now case-sensitive by default. - `get`'s `--sensitive` flag removed, similar to `--ignore-errors` there is now an `--ignore-case` flag that treats all parts of the cell-path as case-insensitive. - Users can explicitly choose the case case-sensitivity of cell-path accesses or commands. # Tests + Formatting Existing tests required minimal modification. ***However, new tests are not yet added***. - 🟢 toolkit fmt - 🟢 toolkit clippy - 🟢 toolkit test - 🟢 toolkit test stdlib # After Submitting - Update the website to include the new syntax - Update [tree-sitter-nu](https://github.com/nushell/tree-sitter-nu) --------- Co-authored-by: Bahex <17417311+Bahex@users.noreply.github.com>
Nushell
A new type of shell.
Table of Contents
- Status
- Learning About Nu
- Installation
- Configuration
- Philosophy
- Goals
- Officially Supported By
- Contributing
- License
Status
This project has reached a minimum-viable-product level of quality. Many people use it as their daily driver, but it may be unstable for some commands. Nu's design is subject to change as it matures.
Learning About Nu
The Nushell book is the primary source of Nushell documentation. You can find a full list of Nu commands in the book, and we have many examples of using Nu in our cookbook.
We're also active on Discord; come and chat with us!
Installation
To quickly install Nu:
# Linux and macOS
brew install nushell
# Windows
winget install nushell
To use Nu in GitHub Action, check setup-nu for more detail.
Detailed installation instructions can be found in the installation chapter of the book. Nu is available via many package managers:
For details about which platforms the Nushell team actively supports, see our platform support policy.
Configuration
The default configurations can be found at sample_config which are the configuration files one gets when they startup Nushell for the first time.
It sets all of the default configuration to run Nushell. From here one can then customize this file for their specific needs.
To see where config.nu is located on your system simply type this command.
$nu.config-path
Please see our book for all of the Nushell documentation.
Philosophy
Nu draws inspiration from projects like PowerShell, functional programming languages, and modern CLI tools. Rather than thinking of files and data as raw streams of text, Nu looks at each input as something with structure. For example, when you list the contents of a directory what you get back is a table of rows, where each row represents an item in that directory. These values can be piped through a series of steps, in a series of commands called a 'pipeline'.
Pipelines
In Unix, it's common to pipe between commands to split up a sophisticated command over multiple steps. Nu takes this a step further and builds heavily on the idea of pipelines. As in the Unix philosophy, Nu allows commands to output to stdout and read from stdin. Additionally, commands can output structured data (you can think of this as a third kind of stream). Commands that work in the pipeline fit into one of three categories:
- Commands that produce a stream (e.g.,
ls) - Commands that filter a stream (e.g.,
where type == "dir") - Commands that consume the output of the pipeline (e.g.,
table)
Commands are separated by the pipe symbol (|) to denote a pipeline flowing left to right.
ls | where type == "dir" | table
# => ╭────┬──────────┬──────┬─────────┬───────────────╮
# => │ # │ name │ type │ size │ modified │
# => ├────┼──────────┼──────┼─────────┼───────────────┤
# => │ 0 │ .cargo │ dir │ 0 B │ 9 minutes ago │
# => │ 1 │ assets │ dir │ 0 B │ 2 weeks ago │
# => │ 2 │ crates │ dir │ 4.0 KiB │ 2 weeks ago │
# => │ 3 │ docker │ dir │ 0 B │ 2 weeks ago │
# => │ 4 │ docs │ dir │ 0 B │ 2 weeks ago │
# => │ 5 │ images │ dir │ 0 B │ 2 weeks ago │
# => │ 6 │ pkg_mgrs │ dir │ 0 B │ 2 weeks ago │
# => │ 7 │ samples │ dir │ 0 B │ 2 weeks ago │
# => │ 8 │ src │ dir │ 4.0 KiB │ 2 weeks ago │
# => │ 9 │ target │ dir │ 0 B │ a day ago │
# => │ 10 │ tests │ dir │ 4.0 KiB │ 2 weeks ago │
# => │ 11 │ wix │ dir │ 0 B │ 2 weeks ago │
# => ╰────┴──────────┴──────┴─────────┴───────────────╯
Because most of the time you'll want to see the output of a pipeline, table is assumed.
We could have also written the above:
ls | where type == "dir"
Being able to use the same commands and compose them differently is an important philosophy in Nu.
For example, we could use the built-in ps command to get a list of the running processes, using the same where as above.
ps | where cpu > 0
# => ╭───┬───────┬───────────┬───────┬───────────┬───────────╮
# => │ # │ pid │ name │ cpu │ mem │ virtual │
# => ├───┼───────┼───────────┼───────┼───────────┼───────────┤
# => │ 0 │ 2240 │ Slack.exe │ 16.40 │ 178.3 MiB │ 232.6 MiB │
# => │ 1 │ 16948 │ Slack.exe │ 16.32 │ 205.0 MiB │ 197.9 MiB │
# => │ 2 │ 17700 │ nu.exe │ 3.77 │ 26.1 MiB │ 8.8 MiB │
# => ╰───┴───────┴───────────┴───────┴───────────┴───────────╯
Opening files
Nu can load file and URL contents as raw text or structured data (if it recognizes the format). For example, you can load a .toml file as structured data and explore it:
open Cargo.toml
# => ╭──────────────────┬────────────────────╮
# => │ bin │ [table 1 row] │
# => │ dependencies │ {record 25 fields} │
# => │ dev-dependencies │ {record 8 fields} │
# => │ features │ {record 10 fields} │
# => │ package │ {record 13 fields} │
# => │ patch │ {record 1 field} │
# => │ profile │ {record 3 fields} │
# => │ target │ {record 3 fields} │
# => │ workspace │ {record 1 field} │
# => ╰──────────────────┴────────────────────╯
We can pipe this into a command that gets the contents of one of the columns:
open Cargo.toml | get package
# => ╭───────────────┬────────────────────────────────────╮
# => │ authors │ [list 1 item] │
# => │ default-run │ nu │
# => │ description │ A new type of shell │
# => │ documentation │ https://www.nushell.sh/book/ │
# => │ edition │ 2018 │
# => │ exclude │ [list 1 item] │
# => │ homepage │ https://www.nushell.sh │
# => │ license │ MIT │
# => │ metadata │ {record 1 field} │
# => │ name │ nu │
# => │ repository │ https://github.com/nushell/nushell │
# => │ rust-version │ 1.60 │
# => │ version │ 0.72.0 │
# => ╰───────────────┴────────────────────────────────────╯
And if needed we can drill down further:
open Cargo.toml | get package.version
# => 0.72.0
Plugins
Nu supports plugins that offer additional functionality to the shell and follow the same structured data model that built-in commands use. There are a few examples in the crates/nu_plugins_* directories.
Plugins are binaries that are available in your path and follow a nu_plugin_* naming convention.
These binaries interact with nu via a simple JSON-RPC protocol where the command identifies itself and passes along its configuration, making it available for use.
If the plugin is a filter, data streams to it one element at a time, and it can stream data back in return via stdin/stdout.
If the plugin is a sink, it is given the full vector of final data and is given free reign over stdin/stdout to use as it pleases.
The awesome-nu repo lists a variety of nu-plugins while the showcase repo shows off informative blog posts that have been written about Nushell along with videos that highlight technical topics that have been presented.
Goals
Nu adheres closely to a set of goals that make up its design philosophy. As features are added, they are checked against these goals.
-
First and foremost, Nu is cross-platform. Commands and techniques should work across platforms and Nu has first-class support for Windows, macOS, and Linux.
-
Nu ensures compatibility with existing platform-specific executables.
-
Nu's workflow and tools should have the usability expected of modern software in 2022 (and beyond).
-
Nu views data as either structured or unstructured. It is a structured shell like PowerShell.
-
Finally, Nu views data functionally. Rather than using mutation, pipelines act as a means to load, change, and save data without mutable state.
Officially Supported By
Please submit an issue or PR to be added to this list.
Contributing
See Contributing for details. Thanks to all the people who already contributed!
License
The project is made available under the MIT license. See the LICENSE file for more information.