Running System (External) Commands

Nu provides a set of commands that you can use across different operating systems ("internal" commands) and having this consistency is helpful when creating cross-platform code. Sometimes, though, you want to run an external command that has the same name as an internal Nu command. To run the external ls or date command, for example, preface it with the caret (^) sigil. Prefacing with the caret calls the external command found in the user's PATH (e.g. /bin/ls) instead of Nu's internal ls command).

Nu internal command:

ls

External command (typically /usr/bin/ls):

^ls

Additional Windows Notes

When running an external command on Windows, Nushell forwards some CMD.EXE internal commands to cmd instead of attempting to run external commands. Coming from CMD.EXE contains a list of these commands and describes the behavior in more detail.