A new type of shell
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Stefan Holderbach 0569a9c92e
Disallow duplicated columns in table literals (#10875)
# Description
Pretty much all operations/commands in Nushell assume that the column
names/keys in a record and thus also in a table (which consists of a
list of records) are unique.
Access through a string-like cell path should refer to a single column
or key/value pair and our output through `table` will only show the last
mention of a repeated column name.

```nu
[[a a]; [1 2]]
╭─#─┬─a─╮
│ 0 │ 2 │
╰───┴───╯
```

While the record parsing already either errors with the
`ShellError::ColumnDefinedTwice` or silently overwrites the first
occurence with the second occurence, the table literal syntax `[[header
columns]; [val1 val2]]` currently still allowed the creation of tables
(and internally records with more than one entry with the same name.

This is not only confusing, but also breaks some assumptions around how
we can efficiently perform operations or in the past lead to outright
bugs (e.g. #8431 fixed by #8446).

This PR proposes to make this an error.
After this change another hole which allowed the construction of records
with non-unique column names will be plugged.

## Parts
- Fix `SE::ColumnDefinedTwice` error code
- Remove previous tests permitting duplicate columns
- Deny duplicate column in table literal eval
- Deny duplicate column in const eval
- Deny duplicate column in `from nuon`

# User-Facing Changes
`[[a a]; [1 2]]` will now return an error:

```
Error: nu:🐚:column_defined_twice

  × Record field or table column used twice
   ╭─[entry #2:1:1]
 1 │ [[a a]; [1 2]]
   ·   ┬ ┬
   ·   │ ╰── field redefined here
   ·   ╰── field first defined here
   ╰────
```

this may under rare circumstances block code from evaluating.

Furthermore this makes some NUON files invalid if they previously
contained tables with repeated column names.

# Tests + Formatting
Added tests for each of the different evaluation paths that materialize
tables.
2023-11-01 21:25:35 +01:00
.cargo optimize aarch64 when able (#10433) 2023-09-21 03:57:07 +12:00
.githooks Add git hooks for formatting and running clippy (#8820) 2023-04-13 07:34:23 -05:00
.github Bump hustcer/setup-nu from 3.6 to 3.7 (#10878) 2023-10-30 12:53:22 +00:00
assets REFACTOR: clean the root of the repo (#9231) 2023-05-20 07:57:51 -05:00
benches Move Value to helpers, separate span call (#10121) 2023-09-03 07:27:29 -07:00
crates Disallow duplicated columns in table literals (#10875) 2023-11-01 21:25:35 +01:00
docker Fix cross-compiling with cross-rs (#9972) 2023-08-09 22:08:35 -07:00
scripts Add long options for path (#10775) 2023-10-19 22:07:01 +02:00
src Disallow duplicated columns in table literals (#10875) 2023-11-01 21:25:35 +01:00
tests Disallow duplicated columns in table literals (#10875) 2023-11-01 21:25:35 +01:00
wix Revert install context of windows terminal profile to per-system (#9514) 2023-06-23 14:53:59 -05:00
.gitattributes Add Nushell Language detect for linguist (#9491) 2023-06-21 15:30:10 +08:00
.gitignore Add custom datetime format through strftime strings (#9500) 2023-06-23 15:05:04 -05:00
Cargo.lock Add umkdir command (#10785) 2023-10-30 07:59:48 -05:00
Cargo.toml Make hints aware of the current directory (#10780) 2023-10-20 11:21:58 +02:00
CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md First pass at updating all documentation formatting and cleaning up output of examples (#2031) 2020-06-24 06:21:47 +12:00
CONTRIBUTING.md docs: fix typos in CONTRIBUTING.md (#10727) 2023-10-15 21:42:34 +02:00
Cross.toml Fix cross-compiling with cross-rs (#9972) 2023-08-09 22:08:35 -07:00
LICENSE Update LICENSE 2023-04-03 08:23:19 +12:00
PLATFORM_SUPPORT.md Spell out our platform support policy (#10778) 2023-10-20 11:35:16 +02:00
README.md Spell out our platform support policy (#10778) 2023-10-20 11:35:16 +02:00
rust-toolchain.toml bump rust-toolchain to 1.71.1 (#10634) 2023-10-06 16:29:58 -05:00
toolkit.nu add toolkit run to run a Nushell revision (#10687) 2023-10-20 15:55:46 +02:00

Nushell

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A new type of shell.

Example of nushell

Table of Contents

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 and Twitter; 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:

Packaging status

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  │
├───┼───────┼───────────┼───────┼───────────┼───────────┤
│ 02240 │ Slack.exe │ 16.40 │ 178.3 MiB │ 232.6 MiB │
│ 116948 │ Slack.exe │ 16.32 │ 205.0 MiB │ 197.9 MiB │
│ 217700 │ 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.