Nushell 0.86

Nushell, or Nu for short, is a new shell that takes a modern, structured approach to your command line. It works seamlessly with the data from your filesystem, operating system, and a growing number of file formats to make it easy to build powerful command line pipelines.

Today, we're releasing version 0.86 of Nu. This release adds fish-like directory completions, type system improvements, our first officially supported uutils command, and much more.

Where to get it

Nu 0.86 is available as pre-built binaries or from crates.io. If you have Rust installed you can install it using cargo install nu.

💡 Note The optional dataframe functionality is available by cargo install nu --features=dataframe.

As part of this release, we also publish a set of optional plugins you can install and use with Nu. To install, use cargo install nu_plugin_<plugin name>.

Table of content

• Themes of this release / New features
  • Hall of fame
    • Bug fixes
    • Enhancing the documentation
    • Internal changes
    • Platform support
    • Making errors better
  • Improving the completions in the REPL
  • The type system
  • Some news with the standard library
  • Miscellaneous
  • Our set of commands is evolving
    • New commands
    • Changes to existing commands
      • A few updates on the explore command
    • Deprecated commands
    • Removed commands
• Breaking changes
• Full changelog

Themes of this release / New features [toc]

Hall of fame [toc]

Bug fixes [toc]

Thanks to all the contributors below for helping us solve issues and bugs 🙏. This effort is a major part of what is moving Nushell closer to 1.0 with each release.

Enhancing the documentation [toc]

Thanks to all the contributors below for helping us making the documentation of Nushell commands better 🙏

Internal changes [toc]

Thanks to all the contributors below for working on the internals of Nushell, doing refactoring and bookkeeping, ... 🙏

Platform support [toc]

Thanks to all the contributors below for helping Nushell be used on more platforms easily 🙏

Making errors better [toc]

Thanks to all the contributors below for making errors better and less confusing for users 🙏

Improving the completions in the REPL [toc]

With Nushell 0.86.0 come a few improvements to the completions!

@ZerdoX-x did add built-in support for the doas command in addition to sudo in #10256.

In #10543, @lavafroth have implement Fish-like completions for nested directories. This means that now typing tar/de/inc in the REPL of Nushell and hitting TAB will autocomplete to ./target/debug/incremental if you are in a Rust directory with compiled artifact.

As a consequence to #10543, @sophiajt helped remove the cd with abbreviation feature from Nushell. This feature will be taken care of by the Fish-like completions described above and the removal mainly means that $env.config.cd.abbreviations is not longer a valid config field: do not forget to update your configs 😉

The type system [toc]

With this new release, we are still working on the type system of Nushell.

@WindSoilder has been working on the arguments and options of custom commands. With #10424, default values won't overwrite type annotations anymore, i.e. the following is now possible:

def foo [x: any = null] { print $"$x" }

foo "string"  # will show `x: string`
foo null      # will show `x: `

Continuing with the options on custom commands, let's talk about an important change introduced by #10456 about boolean switches:

• annotating a boolean option will create an option and will require to pass a boolean value

def foo [--option: bool] { if $option { print "yeah" } }

foo --option        # will give an error
foo --option false  # won't print anything
foo --option true   # will print "yeah"

• to create a boolean switch, you need to omit the type annotation

def bar [--switch] { if $switch { print "yeah" } }

bar           # won't print anything
bar --switch  # will print "yeah"

💡 Note Boolean options are one step towards addressing a major pain point of Nushell: Passing flags around to other commands. Calling a command with a flag, such as def inner [--foo] { ... }, from another command used to require if-else to pass the flag:

def outer [--foo] {
   if $foo {
       inner --foo
   } else {
       inner
   }
}

With boolean options, it is now possible to define def inner [--foo: bool] { ... } and then call simply as

def outer [--foo] {
   inner --foo $foo
}

Once again, @NotLebedev has been pushing forward type annotations to their limits, this time by allowing complex types in input/output signaturate for custom commands and in let assignments. This means that #10405 allows one to write things like:

let my_r: record<a :int> = { a: 123 }

or

def my_complex_command []: nothing -> record<a: int> { { a: 123 } }

💡 Note other contributions worth mentioning about the type system:

author	title	pr
@sholderbach	Use int type name consistently	#10579
@sholderbach	Relax type-check of key-less table/record	#10629
@fdncred	change Type::Float => SyntaxShape::Number to SyntaxShape::Float	#10689

Unified command definitions

Nushell currently has three ways to define a command:

• def to define a regular command
• def-env to define a command that preserves the environment
• extern-wrapped to define a command with a signature where unknown flags and parameters are collected into strings without throwing an error
• (extern defines an external signature, not a real command)

In this release, @kubouch unified the syntax in #10566 such that the def-env and extern-wrapped are now defined with the --env and --wrapped options to the def keyword. We made this change to go in line with the let-env removal and simplifying the language in general. Also, confusingly, extern-wrapped has nothing to do with extern apart from the permissive signature. We hope the new notation makes it clearer. A bonus feature of this change is that now you can define def --env --wrapped!

💡 Note In the next release, def-env and extern-wrapped will get deprecated. If you have any of those definitions in your scripts, simply replace them with def --env or def --wrapped. In the following releases, they will be removed completely.

Some news with the standard library [toc]

Thanks to @Yethal and their work in #10545, the use of the test runner and the std testing run-tests command should be faster!

Work has been done to improve the std log module:

• @gaetschwartz allow specifying a custom date format with #10603
• @fdncred remove the underline from NU_LOG_FORMAT with #10604

Finally, a bug with std dirs goto, a shell command in the prelude of the library, has been fixed by @bobhy in #10706.

Miscellaneous [toc]

Nushell now supports the keyboard enhancement protocol from Kitty with the work of @Abdillah in #10540. This feature is off by default but can be turned on in config.nu with the $env.use_kitty_protocol config option.

Nushell and Direnv are now integrated with each other thanks to @amtoine in direnv/direnv#1175 and #10675.

With the changes from #10593 written by @gaetschwartz, open can now read tar.gz file because from can handle multiple extensions. To be more precise, if from tar.gz and from gz are defined at the same time, open foo.tar.gz will try to call from tar.gz first and then fall back to from gz.

Let's finish with some delight to make the Nushell experience a bit nicer:

• transient prompts are now possible introduced in #10391 by @ysthakur
• LS_COLORS supports .fb2 files as text documents thanks to @1256-bits in #10532
• a few more grid icons have been added by @fdncred in #10583

Our set of commands is evolving [toc]

As usual, new release rhyms with changes to commands!

It's official! 🥳 With the landing of PR 10678 the uutils/coreutils version of cp is now the default copy command in nushell. We're so happy to have this command landed and we're working on several other commands. If you'd like to help out please visit our Discord and ask about helping. The coreutils team would also appreciate your help since changes need to be made there before integrating into nushell.

New commands [toc]

• when parsing raw data streams from external commands, a common task in Nushell is to give explicit types to all fields and columns of the parsed data structure. Until now, this had to be done manually but, thanks to @fdncred and #10427, the new into value command should help make that task easier by trying to infer the types for you:

# should help you catch integer user and group IDs in the `/etc/passwd` file on *nix systems
open /etc/passwd | lines | split column ":" user . uid gid desc home shell | into value

• @zhiburt did add an --abbreviated option to table to truncate the output of long tables in #10399
• to get the content of the default config files of Nushell without overwriting the true config.nu and env.nu, @poliorcetics have added the --default option to both config nu and config env in #10480
• to know about all the available escapes that Nushell supports, @vedaRadev have added help escapes in #10522
• tired of crawling the internet or computing series of number with loops and mutable variables? @hudclark got your back with the new unfold command from #10489! The first 10 Fibonacci numbers can now be computed very easily with something like

unfold [0, 1] {|fib| {out: $fib.0, next: [$fib.1, ($fib.0 + $fib.1)]} } | first 10

To crawl multi-page API responses, e.g. when listing issues of a GitHub repository, the unfold is very handy and allows to transform

mut pages = []
for page in 1.. {
  let resp = http get (
    {
      scheme: https,
      host: "api.github.com",
      path: "/repos/nushell/nushell/issues",
      params: { page: $page, per_page: $PAGE_SIZE }
    } | url join)

  $pages = ($pages | append $resp)

  if ($resp | length) < $PAGE_SIZE {
    break
  }
}
$pages

into

unfold 1 {|page|
  let resp = http get (
    {
      scheme: https,
      host: "api.github.com",
      path: "/repos/nushell/nushell/issues",
      params: { page: $page, per_page: $PAGE_SIZE }
    } | url join)

  if ($resp | length) < $PAGE_SIZE {
    {out: $resp}
  } else {
    {out: $resp, next: ($page + 1)}
  }
}

• in previous release, from ndjson and from jsonl have been added to the standard library. In this new release, @amtoine has added their to counterpart in #10519
• to complete url encode, url decode has been added by @lpchaim in #10611
• dfr to get some help on dataframes by @sholderbach in #10683
• our mascot ellie has been added to the standard library by @amtoine in #10686
• complementary to the sys command, debug info, added by @fdncred in #10711, should give more insight into the resources Nushell is using at runtime

Changes to existing commands [toc]

The open command is now case-insensitive when it comes to file extensiens thanks to @poketch in #10451.

A bug inside from ics and from vcf has been fixed thanks to @joergsch in #10577.

With #10526 from @WindSoilder, the --column option of the rename command now takes a record instead of a list:

> ls | where type == file | rename --column {name: filename, size: nb_bytes}
#┬filename─┬type┬nb_bytes┬─────modified──────
0│LICENSE  │file│ 35.1 KB│2022-12-23 11:34:42
1│README.md│file│  9.3 KB│2023-10-04 18:41:25
─┴─────────┴────┴────────┴───────────────────

The do command can now mutate its outside environment with a new --env option added by @ClipplerBlood in #10572. This means that the following will now be possible:

do --env { cd some/where }

A few updates on the explore command [toc]

Once again, @rgwood has done work to simplify the explore command

• the highlighting of selected cells has been made easier to see in #10533 |
• some config options have been removed in#10559, #10562 and #10570

Deprecated commands [toc]

The following commands and options are being deprecated and will be removed soon:

• random int in favor of random integer in #10520
• the $nothing built-in variable in favor of the null value in #10478
• to xml --pretty {int} in favor of to xml --indent {int} in #10660

Removed commands [toc]

The following commands are being removed from Nushell:

• random decimal in favor of random float in #10342
• into decimal in favor of into float in #10341

Breaking changes [toc]

• #10456 differentiating between --x and --x: bool

In 0.86, we now differentiate between a switch --x and a flag with a boolean argument --x: bool. If you declare a flag as a parameter and give it the : bool type annotation, we now require that the flag is followed by a boolean value. Previously, we took the boolean type to mean that the flag was actually a switch.

• #10680 Use heck for string casing (again)

Before

> [UserID ABCdefGHI foo123bar] | str camel-case
╭───┬───────────╮
│ 0 │ userID    │
│ 1 │ abcdefGHI │
│ 2 │ foo123Bar │
╰───┴───────────╯
> [UserID ABCdefGHI foo123bar] | str snake-case
╭───┬─────────────╮
│ 0 │ user_id     │
│ 1 │ ab_cdef_ghi │
│ 2 │ foo_12_3bar │
╰───┴─────────────╯

After

> [UserID ABCdefGHI foo123bar] | str camel-case
╭───┬───────────╮
│ 0 │ userId    │
│ 1 │ abCdefGhi │
│ 2 │ foo123bar │
╰───┴───────────╯
> [UserID ABCdefGHI foo123bar] | str snake-case
╭───┬─────────────╮
│ 0 │ user_id     │
│ 1 │ ab_cdef_ghi │
│ 2 │ foo123bar   │
╰───┴─────────────╯

• #10341 remove into decimal
• #10342 remove random decimal
• #10588 Remove cd w/ abbreviations

cd with abbreviations was a feature you could enable to expand an abbreviated path for you automatically. It would do so after you hit return. In comparing the experience between this and the fish-like path abbreviation completions added in 0.86, we decided the new style of completions satisfied this in a much more visual way.

• #10526 Rename: change the SyntaxShape of -c flag from list to record

After this change, we need to use -c flag like this:

> [[a, b, c]; [1, 2, 3]] | rename -c { a: ham }
But we can rename many columns easily, here is another example:

> [[a, b, c]; [1, 2, 3]] | rename -c { a: ham, b: ham2 }

Full changelog [toc]

Nushell

• fdncred created
  • add coreutils to cp search terms
  • add a debug info command to show memory info
  • change Type::Float => SyntaxShape::Number to SyntaxShape::Float
  • change canonicalize test use a more deeply rooted folder
  • rename nushell's cp command to cp-old making coreutils the default cp
  • bump rust-toolchain to 1.71.1
  • remove underline from std NU_LOG_FORMAT
  • add a few more grid icons
  • fix magenta_reverse and friends
  • evaluate $nu during --ide-check
  • new command: into value
  • allow values command to support LazyRecords
  • optimize aarch64 when able
• 0scvr created
  • docs: fix typos in CONTRIBUTING.md
• sholderbach created
  • Pin uu_cp to the 0.0.22 release.
  • Update polars to 0.33
  • Fix output types of math commands to be narrower
  • Add a stub dfr command
  • Relax type-check of key-less table/record
  • Move SyntaxShape specifier parsing into own file
  • Parse custom completer annotation only in args
  • Use int type name consistently
  • Rename SyntaxShape::Custom to CompleterWrapper
  • Fix editor config for reedline and config nu/env
  • Docstring some intricacies around SyntaxShape
  • Remove parsing literals of unrepresentable SyntaxShapes
  • Remove unused SyntaxShape::Variable
  • Rename random integer to random int
  • Bump dialoguer to 0.11.0
  • Improve select row perf for large N
  • Split up nu-protocol/src/engine/engine_state.rs
  • Improve assertions in src/tests.rs
  • Simplify nu! test macros.
  • Remove dead BSON related tests
  • Bump to 0.85.1 development version
• zhiburt created
  • nu-table: Use config color scheme in kv tables and table -e
  • nu-explore: Try to fix a truncation issue in expand view
  • nu-table: Fix failing test (relied on termwidth assumptions)
  • nu-table: Add table option --abbreviated
• lavafroth created
  • fix: only escape path containing numbers if they can be valid floating points
  • refactor: move the partial_from function to the single place it is invoked
  • Preserve relative paths for local files
  • fix: complete paths surrounded by quotes or backticks
  • Fish-like completions for nested directories
• gaetschwartz created
  • allow multiple extensions
  • fix labelled error from shell error
  • Allow specifying a custom date format in std log
• bobhy created
  • dirs goto: update current ring slot before leaving it.
  • toolkit check pr does same clippy checks as github CI
  • glob with ../ prefix now works;
  • std dt datetime-diff: fix uninitialized field ref when borrowing
• quat1024 created
  • Use heck for string casing (again)
• amtoine created
  • add Ellie to the standard library
  • remove into decimal
  • add Direnv to the integrations
  • remove random decimal
  • add examples with .. and / to path join
  • make "can't follow stream paths" error a bit better
  • add to ndjson and to jsonl to the standard library
  • improve assertion error messages in std assert
  • break the definition of LS_COLORS onto multiple lines
  • remove the $nothing variable
  • show the full directory / file path in "directory not found" error
  • show the whole path in "missing mod.nu" errors
  • fix public boolean switches in the standard library
• app/dependabot created
  • Bump trash from 3.0.6 to 3.1.0
  • Bump byteorder from 1.4.3 to 1.5.0
  • Bump crate-ci/typos from 1.16.15 to 1.16.17
  • Bump shadow-rs from 0.23.0 to 0.24.1
  • Bump wax from 0.5.0 to 0.6.0
  • Bump crate-ci/typos from 1.16.13 to 1.16.15
  • Bump ureq from 2.7.1 to 2.8.0
  • Bump crate-ci/typos from 1.16.11 to 1.16.13
  • Bump rayon from 1.7.0 to 1.8.0
• brunerm99 created
  • give better error if required field of url join is invalid
  • Add warning to url join when input key is not supported (#10506)
• DanyPDev created
  • Add themes to help command when available #10318
• Hofer-Julian created
  • Let run_in_login_mode succeed even with broken local config
  • Deprecate to xml --pretty {int} in favor of --indent {int}
  • Add long options for formats
  • Add long options for filters
  • Add long options for core and dataframes
  • Use long options for debug
  • Add long options for conversions
  • Add long options for bits and bytes
  • Port command examples to long option
  • chore: Small refactor of eval.rs
• WindSoilder created
  • fix clippy
  • Rename: change the SyntaxShape of -c flag from list to record
  • allow early return outside of main
  • make better error message for not operator
  • differentiating between --x and --x: bool
  • don't overwrite arg's type if it's annotated explicitly
  • update lock file
• CAD97 created
  • Fix clippy in registry_query.rs
  • Fix registry query flag validation
• kubouch created
  • Fix parsing of signature inp/out types in predecls
  • Fix wrong parsing of signatures in predecl scan
  • Add --env and --wrapped flags to def
• dmatos2012 created
  • ucp: Change error when directory is specified but not recursive
• lpchaim created
  • Add url decode command
• sophiajt created
  • Revert "Port command examples to long option"
  • Remove cd w/ abbreviations
  • Allow auto-cd on trailing slash
  • fix windows default prompt slash direction
• joergsch created
  • Correct line folding in from ics/from vcf
• stormasm created
  • engine eval.rs remove pub from fn eval_element_with_input
  • update the doc in toolchain.toml describing the update plan
• ClipplerBlood created
  • Add --env flag to do command
• rgwood created
  • explore: remove unused colour config code
  • explore: remove 4 line config options
  • explore: remove Bottom and Right orientations
  • explore: highlight selected cell using background colour instead of cursor
• Yethal created
  • stdlib: Reduce test file parsing overhead
• hustcer created
  • Update build flags for riscv64gc and armv7 targets
  • Improve release script for github release workflow
  • Update winget submission workflow include only default msi files
  • feat: Update nightly build workflow add full release support
  • Add full releases of Nu binaries along with the standard releases
• hudclark created
  • feat: Add unfold command
• vedaRadev created
  • Add 'help escapes' command for quick reference of nushell string escapes
• poketch created
  • Making open case-insensitive to file extensions
• fennewald created
  • Fix Default Prompt Tilde Insertion Logic
• Abdillah created
  • Add kitty protocol config to nushell
• 1256-bits created
  • Change LS_COLORS to highlight .fb2 files as text documents
• ZerdoX-x created
  • Completions: add support for doas as for sudo
• fnuttens created
  • Add support for HTTP proxy in network commands
• poliorcetics created
  • Command: Add config env/nu --default to print defaults
• NotLebedev created
  • Fix default argument value type checking
  • Allow complex types in input/output and let
• ysthakur created
  • Transient prompt
• anka-213 created
  • Prevent cubic time on nested parentheses
  • Fix tilde-expansion for multi-byte unicode chars
  • [Fix exponential parser time on sequence of [[[
• GPadley created
  • Map DirectoryNotFound to FileNotFound for open command (issue #10085)

Extension

• glcraft created
  • Update Textmate

Documentation

• app/dependabot created
  • Bump postcss from 8.4.29 to 8.4.31
• petrisch created
  • Fixing #460 changing .html links to .md links
  • Align the DE/book structure to the EN original
• joergsch created
  • repeat variable assignment
  • fix variable name
  • prevent same entry in $env.PATH
  • Update table.md
  • Update dataframes.md
• KAAtheWiseGit created
  • book/overlays: fix tip div formatting
  • Fix a minor typo in working_with_lists
• cptpiepmatz created
  • Added "Use hooks to export state via environment variables" Section in setup.md
• dedebenui created
  • fixed alias normalization
• Hofer-Julian created
  • Improve command docs
  • make_docs: Parallelize command generation
  • Fix broken links
  • Change to an actual link in last blog post
• hustcer created
  • Update CONTRIBUTING.md and lefthook module
  • Update syntax highlighting for Nu
  • Update syntax highlighting for some blog docs
  • Update syntax highlighting for commands docs from shell to nu
  • Add real Nushell syntax highlighting support
  • Fix code formatting hooks
  • Refresh commands' docs for v0.85
• savente93 created
  • finish sentence in pattern matching.md
  • Expand append examples and add match example
• amtoine created
  • add the "style guide" page to the sidebar
• EmilyGraceSeville7cf created
  • Write best practices and style guide
• sholderbach created
  • Fix typo
• ShalokShalom created
  • correct typo
• marcelarie created
  • Update external_completers.md
• ysthakur created
  • Add information on transient prompt

Nu_Scripts

• TechWatching created
  • Move def before extern in winget-completions.nu
• amtoine created
  • make_release: do not annotate boolean switches in public API
  • add a section about after the release in the release README
  • enhance release note PR template
  • update the direnv hook
  • Add cartesian product to math module
  • tix the release note PR opening script
• bobhy created
  • Add widget for nu exe (debug/release, and main vs other branch)
• cptpiepmatz created
  • Use Existing Path Env Var for FNM
• fj0r created
  • mask-completions
  • git-v2: new command gcf for copying files from other branch
  • kubernetes/kn: create namespace when it doesn't exist
• savente93 created
  • add tests to str.nu
  • Add gnu wc wrapper
  • Add str append to stdlib-candidate
• sholderbach created
  • Replace use of $nothing with null
  • Move random/into decimal to random/into float
• schrieveslaach created
  • Fix git-completions.nu
• 1adept created
  • Fix: Completions Broken '-s' flag in man-completions
• Abdillah created
  • completions/git: add filename completion to diff and checkout
• marcelarie created
  • Use new syntax in rbenv module
  • Use 0.85 syntax in direnv module
• baehyunsol created
  • use repeat instead of string multiplication

Reedline

• sholderbach created
  • Fix clippy lint from most recent Rust
  • Update motto title
• horasal created
  • Accept Command with args for BufferEditor