FreeBSD Manual Pages
FISH-DOC(1) fish-shell FISH-DOC(1)
This is the documentation for fish, the friendly interactive shell.
A shell is a program that helps you operate your computer by starting other
programs. fish offers a command-line interface focused on usability and inter-
active use.
Some of the special features of fish are:
• Extensive UI: Syntax highlighting, Autosuggestions, tab completion
and selection lists that can be navigated and filtered.
• No configuration needed: fish is designed to be ready to use immedi-
ately, without requiring extensive configuration.
• Easy scripting: New functions can be added on the fly. The syntax is
easy to learn and use.
This page explains how to install and set up fish and where to get more
information.
WHERE TO GO?
If this is your first time using fish, see the tutorial.
If you are already familiar with other shells like bash and want to see
the scripting differences, see Fish For Bash Users.
For an overview of fish's scripting language, see The Fish Language. If
it would be useful in a script file, it's here.
For information on using fish interactively, see Interactive use. If
it's about key presses, syntax highlighting or anything else that needs
an interactive terminal session, look here.
If you need to install fish first, read on, the rest of this document
will tell you how to get, install and configure fish.
SETUP
This section describes how to install, uninstall, start, and exit fish.
It also explains how to make fish the default shell.
Installation
Up-to-date instructions for installing the latest version of fish are
on the fish homepage <https://fishshell.com/>.
To install the development version of fish, see the instructions on the
project's GitHub page <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell>.
Starting and Exiting
Once fish has been installed, open a terminal. If fish is not the de-
fault shell:
• Type fish to start a shell:
> fish
• Type exit to end the session:
> exit
Default Shell
There are multiple ways to switch to fish (or any other shell) as your
default.
The simplest method is to set your terminal emulator (e.g. GNOME Termi-
nal, Apple's Terminal.app, or Konsole) to start fish directly. See its
configuration and set the program to start to /usr/local/bin/fish (the
exact path depends on how you installed fish).
Alternatively, you can set fish as your login shell so that it will be
started by all terminal logins, including SSH.
WARNING:
Setting fish as your login shell may cause issues, such as an incor-
rect PATH. Some operating systems, including a number of Linux dis-
tributions, require the login shell to be Bourne-compatible and to
read configuration from /etc/profile. fish may not be suitable as a
login shell on these systems.
To change your login shell to fish:
1. Add the shell to /etc/shells with:
> command -v fish | sudo tee -a /etc/shells
2. Change your default shell with:
> chsh -s "$(command -v fish)"
To change it back to another shell, substitute fish with bash, tcsh or
zsh as appropriate in the above command.
Uninstalling
For uninstalling fish: see FAQ: Uninstalling fish.
Shebang Line
Because shell scripts are written in many different languages, they
need to carry information about which interpreter should be used to ex-
ecute them. For this, they are expected to have a first line, the she-
bang line, which names the interpreter executable.
A script written in bash would need a first line like this:
#!/bin/bash
When the shell tells the kernel to execute the file, it will use the
interpreter /bin/bash.
For a script written in another language, just replace /bin/bash with
the interpreter for that language. For example: /usr/bin/python for a
python script, or /usr/local/bin/fish for a fish script, if that is
where you have them installed.
If you want to share your script with others, you might want to use env
to allow for the interpreter to be installed in other locations. For
example:
#!/usr/bin/env fish
echo Hello from fish $version
This will call env, which then goes through PATH to find a program
called "fish". This makes it work, whether fish is installed in (for
example) /usr/local/bin/fish, /usr/bin/fish, or ~/.local/bin/fish, as
long as that directory is in PATH.
The shebang line is only used when scripts are executed without speci-
fying the interpreter. For functions inside fish or when executing a
script with fish /path/to/script, a shebang is not required (but it
doesn't hurt!).
When executing files without an interpreter, fish, like other shells,
tries your system shell, typically /bin/sh. This is needed because some
scripts are shipped without a shebang line.
CONFIGURATION
To store configuration write it to a file called ~/.config/fish/con-
fig.fish.
.fish scripts in ~/.config/fish/conf.d/ are also automatically executed
before config.fish.
These files are read on the startup of every shell, whether interactive
and/or if they're login shells. Use status --is-interactive and status
--is-login to do things only in interactive/login shells, respectively.
This is the short version; for a full explanation, like for sysadmins
or integration for developers of other software, see Configuration
files.
If you want to see what you changed over fish's defaults, see
fish_delta.
Examples:
To add ~/linux/bin to PATH variable when using a login shell, add this
to ~/.config/fish/config.fish file:
if status --is-login
set -gx PATH $PATH ~/linux/bin
end
This is just an example; using fish_add_path e.g. fish_add_path
~/linux/bin which only adds the path if it isn't included yet is eas-
ier.
To run commands on exit, use an event handler that is triggered by the
exit of the shell:
function on_exit --on-event fish_exit
echo fish is now exiting
end
RESOURCES
• The GitHub page <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/>
• The official Matrix room <https://matrix.to/#/#fish-shell:matrix.org>
• The official mailing list at fish-users@lists.sourceforge.net
<https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/fish-users>
If you have an improvement for fish, you can submit it via the GitHub
page.
OTHER HELP PAGES
Frequently asked questions
What is the equivalent to this thing from bash (or other shells)?
See Fish for bash users
How do I set or clear an environment variable?
Use the set command:
set -x key value # typically set -gx key value
set -e key
Since fish 3.1 you can set an environment variable for one command us-
ing the key=value some command syntax, like in other shells. The two
lines below behave identically - unlike other shells, fish will output
value both times:
key=value echo $key
begin; set -lx key value; echo $key; end
Note that "exported" is not a scope, but an additional bit of state. A
variable can be global and exported or local and exported or even uni-
versal and exported. Typically it makes sense to make an exported vari-
able global.
How do I check whether a variable is defined?
Use set -q var. For example, if set -q var; echo variable defined;
end. To check multiple variables you can combine with and and or like
so:
if set -q var1; or set -q var2
echo either variable defined
end
Keep in mind that a defined variable could also be empty, either by
having no elements (if set like set var) or only empty elements (if set
like set var ""). Read on for how to deal with those.
How do I check whether a variable is not empty?
Use string length -q -- $var. For example, if string length -q --
$var; echo not empty; end. Note that string length will interpret a
list of multiple variables as a disjunction (meaning any/or):
if string length -q -- $var1 $var2 $var3
echo at least one of these variables is not empty
end
Alternatively, use test -n "$var", but remember that the variable must
be double-quoted. For example, if test -n "$var"; echo not empty; end.
The test command provides its own and (-a) and or (-o):
if test -n "$var1" -o -n "$var2" -o -n "$var3"
echo at least one of these variables is not empty
end
If you want to know if a variable has no elements, use set -q var[1].
Why doesn't set -Ux (exported universal variables) seem to work?
A global variable of the same name already exists.
Environment variables such as EDITOR or TZ can be set universally using
set -Ux. However, if there is an environment variable already set be-
fore fish starts (such as by login scripts or system administrators),
it is imported into fish as a global variable. The variable scopes are
searched from the "inside out", which means that local variables are
checked first, followed by global variables, and finally universal
variables.
This means that the global value takes precedence over the universal
value.
To avoid this problem, consider changing the setting which fish inher-
its. If this is not possible, add a statement to your configuration
file (usually ~/.config/fish/config.fish):
set -gx EDITOR vim
How do I run a command every login? What's fish's equivalent to .bashrc or
.profile?
Edit the file ~/.config/fish/config.fish [1], creating it if it does
not exist (Note the leading period).
Unlike .bashrc and .profile, this file is always read, even in non-in-
teractive or login shells.
To do something only in interactive shells, check status is-interactive
like:
if status is-interactive
# use the coolbeans theme
fish_config theme choose coolbeans
end
[1] The "~/.config" part of this can be set via $XDG_CONFIG_HOME,
that's just the default.
How do I set my prompt?
The prompt is the output of the fish_prompt function. Put it in ~/.con-
fig/fish/functions/fish_prompt.fish. For example, a simple prompt is:
function fish_prompt
set_color $fish_color_cwd
echo -n (prompt_pwd)
set_color normal
echo -n ' > '
end
You can also use the Web configuration tool, fish_config, to preview
and choose from a gallery of sample prompts.
Or you can use fish_config from the commandline:
> fish_config prompt show
# displays all the prompts fish ships with
> fish_config prompt choose disco
# loads the disco prompt in the current shell
> fish_config prompt save
# makes the change permanent
If you want to modify your existing prompt, you can use funced and
funcsave like:
>_ funced fish_prompt
# This opens up your editor (set in $EDITOR).
# Modify the function,
# save the file and repeat to your liking.
# Once you are happy with it:
>_ funcsave fish_prompt
This also applies to fish_right_prompt and fish_mode_prompt.
Why does my prompt show a [I]?
That's the fish_mode_prompt. It is displayed by default when you've ac-
tivated vi mode using fish_vi_key_bindings.
If you haven't activated vi mode on purpose, you might have installed a
third-party theme or plugin that does it.
If you want to change or disable this display, modify the
fish_mode_prompt function, for instance via funced.
How do I customize my syntax highlighting colors?
Use the web configuration tool started by fish_config, or alter the
fish_color family of environment variables, or use the fish_config
theme subcommand, like:
> fish_config theme show
# to demonstrate all the colorschemes
> fish_config theme choose coolbeans
# to load the "coolbeans" theme
How do I change the greeting message?
Change the value of the variable fish_greeting or create a
fish_greeting function. For example, to remove the greeting use:
set -U fish_greeting
Or if you prefer not to use a universal variable, use:
set -g fish_greeting
in config.fish.
How do I run a command from history?
Type some part of the command, and then hit the up () or down () arrow
keys to navigate through history matches, or press ctrl-r to open the
history in a searchable pager. In this pager you can press ctrl-r or
ctrl-s to move to older or younger history respectively.
Additional default key bindings include ctrl-p (up) and ctrl-n (down).
See Searchable command history for more information.
Why doesn't history substitution ("!$" etc.) work?
Because history substitution is an awkward interface that was invented
before interactive line editing was even possible. Instead of adding
this pseudo-syntax, fish opts for nice history searching and recall
features. Switching requires a small change of habits: if you want to
modify an old line/word, first recall it, then edit.
As a special case, most of the time history substitution is used as
sudo !!. In that case press alt-s, and it will recall your last comman-
dline with sudo prefixed (or toggle a sudo prefix on the current com-
mandline if there is anything).
In general, fish's history recall works like this:
• Like other shells, the Up arrow, up recalls whole lines, starting
from the last executed line. So instead of typing !!, you would hit
the up-arrow.
• If the line you want is far back in the history, type any part of the
line and then press Up one or more times. This will filter the re-
called lines to ones that include this text, and you will get to the
line you want much faster. This replaces "!vi", "!?bar.c" and the
like. If you want to see more context, you can press ctrl-r to open
the history in the pager.
• alt-up recalls individual arguments, starting from the last argument
in the last executed line. This can be used instead of "!$".
See documentation for more details about line editing in fish.
That being said, you can use Abbreviations to implement history substi-
tution. Here's !! only:
function last_history_item; echo $history[1]; end
abbr -a !! --position anywhere --function last_history_item
Run this and !! will be replaced with the last history entry, anywhere
on the commandline. Put it into config.fish to keep it.
How do I run a subcommand? The backtick doesn't work!
fish uses parentheses for subcommands. For example:
for i in (ls)
echo $i
end
It also supports the familiar $() syntax, even in quotes. Backticks are
not supported because they are discouraged even in POSIX shells. They
nest poorly and are hard to tell from single quotes ('').
My command (pkg-config) gives its output as a single long string?
Unlike other shells, fish splits command substitutions only on new-
lines, not spaces or tabs or the characters in $IFS.
That means if you run
count (printf '%s ' a b c)
It will print 1, because the "a b c " is used in one piece. But if you
do
count (printf '%s\n' a b c)
it will print 3, because it gave count the arguments "a", "b" and "c"
separately.
In the overwhelming majority of cases, splitting on spaces is unwanted,
so this is an improvement. This is why you hear about problems with
filenames with spaces, after all.
However sometimes, especially with pkg-config and related tools, split-
ting on spaces is needed.
In these cases use string split -n " " like:
g++ example_01.cpp (pkg-config --cflags --libs gtk+-2.0 | string split -n " ")
The -n is so empty elements are removed like POSIX shells would do.
How do I get the exit status of a command?
Use the $status variable. This replaces the $? variable used in other
shells.
somecommand
if test $status -eq 7
echo "That's my lucky number!"
end
If you are only interested in success or failure, you can run the com-
mand directly as the if-condition:
if somecommand
echo "Command succeeded"
else
echo "Command failed"
end
Or if you just want to do one command in case the first succeeded or
failed, use and or or:
somecommand
or someothercommand
See the Conditions and the documentation for test and if for more in-
formation.
My command prints "No matches for wildcard" but works in bash
In short: quote or escape the wildcard:
scp user@ip:/dir/"string-*"
When fish sees an unquoted *, it performs wildcard expansion. That
means it tries to match filenames to the given string.
If the wildcard doesn't match any files, fish prints an error instead
of running the command:
> echo *this*does*not*exist
fish: No matches for wildcard '*this*does*not*exist'. See `help expand`.
echo *this*does*not*exist
^
Now, bash also tries to match files in this case, but when it doesn't
find a match, it passes along the literal wildcard string instead.
That means that commands like the above
scp user@ip:/dir/string-*
or
apt install postgres-*
appear to work, because most of the time the string doesn't match and
so it passes along the string-*, which is then interpreted by the re-
ceiving program.
But it also means that these commands can stop working at any moment
once a matching file is encountered (because it has been created or the
command is executed in a different working directory), and to deal with
that bash needs workarounds like
for f in ./*.mpg; do
# We need to test if the file really exists because
# the wildcard might have failed to match.
test -f "$f" || continue
mympgviewer "$f"
done
(from http://mywiki.wooledge.org/BashFAQ/004)
For these reasons, fish does not do this, and instead expects asterisks
to be quoted or escaped if they aren't supposed to be expanded.
This is similar to bash's "failglob" option.
Why won't SSH/SCP/rsync connect properly when fish is my login shell?
This problem may show up as messages like "Received message too long",
"open terminal failed: not a terminal", "Bad packet length", or "Con-
nection refused" with strange output in ssh_exchange_identification
messages in the debug log.
This usually happens because fish reads the user configuration file
(~/.config/fish/config.fish) always, whether it's in an interactive or
login or non-interactive or non-login shell.
This simplifies matters, but it also means when config.fish generates
output, it will do that even in non-interactive shells like the one
ssh/scp/rsync start when they connect.
Anything in config.fish that produces output should be guarded with
status is-interactive (or status is-login if you prefer):
if status is-interactive
...
end
The same applies for example when you start tmux in config.fish without
guards, which will cause a message like sessions should be nested with
care, unset $TMUX to force.
I'm getting weird graphical glitches (a staircase effect, ghost characters,
cursor in the wrong position,...)?
In a terminal, the application running inside it and the terminal it-
self need to agree on the width of characters in order to handle cursor
movement.
This is more important to fish than other shells because features like
syntax highlighting and autosuggestions are implemented by moving the
cursor.
Sometimes, there is disagreement on the width. There are numerous
causes and fixes for this:
• It is possible the character is too new for your system to know - in
this case you need to refrain from using it.
• Fish or your terminal might not know about the character or handle it
wrong - in this case fish or your terminal needs to be fixed, or you
need to update to a fixed version.
• The character has an "ambiguous" width and fish thinks that means a
width of X while your terminal thinks it's Y. In this case you either
need to change your terminal's configuration or set $fish_ambigu-
ous_width to the correct value.
• The character is an emoji and the host system only supports Unicode
8, while you are running the terminal on a system that uses Unicode
>= 9. In this case set $fish_emoji_width to 2.
This also means that a few things are unsupportable:
• Non-monospace fonts - there is no way for fish to figure out what
width a specific character has as it has no influence on the termi-
nal's font rendering.
• Different widths for multiple ambiguous width characters - there is
no way for fish to know which width you assign to each character.
fish does not work in a specific terminal
The terminal might not meet all of fish's requirements. Please report
this to your terminal's and to fish's issue tracker.
Uninstalling fish
If you want to uninstall fish, first make sure fish is not set as your
shell. Run chsh -s /bin/bash if you are not sure.
If you installed it with a package manager, use that package manager's
uninstall function. If you built fish yourself, assuming you installed
it to /usr/local, do this:
rm -Rf /usr/local/etc/fish /usr/local/share/fish ~/.config/fish
rm /usr/local/share/man/man1/fish*.1
cd /usr/local/bin
rm -f fish fish_indent
Interactive use
Fish prides itself on being really nice to use interactively. That's
down to a few features we'll explain in the next few sections.
Fish is used by giving commands in the fish language, see The Fish Lan-
guage for information on that.
Help
Fish has an extensive help system. Use the help command to obtain help
on a specific subject or command. For instance, writing help syntax
displays the syntax section of this documentation.
Fish also has man pages for its commands, and translates the help pages
to man pages. For example, man set will show the documentation for set
as a man page.
Help on a specific builtin can also be obtained with the -h parameter.
For instance, to obtain help on the fg builtin, either type fg -h or
help fg.
The main page can be viewed via help index (or just help) or man
fish-doc. The tutorial can be viewed with help tutorial or man fish-tu-
torial.
Autosuggestions
fish suggests commands as you type, based on command history, comple-
tions, and valid file paths. As you type commands, you will see a sug-
gestion offered after the cursor, in a muted gray color (which can be
changed with the fish_color_autosuggestion variable).
To accept the autosuggestion (replacing the command line contents),
press right () or ctrl-f. To accept the first suggested word, press
alt-right () or alt-f. If the autosuggestion is not what you want, ig-
nore it: it won't execute unless you accept it.
Autosuggestions are a powerful way to quickly summon frequently entered
commands, by typing the first few characters. They are also an effi-
cient technique for navigating through directory hierarchies.
If you don't like autosuggestions, you can disable them by setting
$fish_autosuggestion_enabled to 0:
set -g fish_autosuggestion_enabled 0
Tab Completion
Tab completion is a time saving feature of any modern shell. When you
type tab, fish tries to guess the rest of the word under the cursor. If
it finds exactly one possibility, it inserts it. If it finds more, it
inserts the longest unambiguous part and then opens a menu (the
"pager") that you can navigate to find what you're looking for.
The pager can be navigated with the arrow keys, pageup / pagedown, tab
or shift-tab. Pressing ctrl-s (the pager-toggle-search binding - / in
vi mode) opens up a search menu that you can use to filter the list.
Fish provides some general purpose completions, like for commands,
variable names, usernames or files.
It also provides a large number of program specific scripted comple-
tions. Most of these completions are simple options like the -l option
for ls, but a lot are more advanced. For example:
• man and whatis show the installed manual pages as completions.
• make uses targets in the Makefile in the current directory as comple-
tions.
• mount uses mount points specified in fstab as completions.
• apt, rpm and yum show installed or installable packages
You can also write your own completions or install some you got from
someone else. For that, see Writing your own completions.
Completion scripts are loaded on demand, like functions are. The dif-
ference is the $fish_complete_path list is used instead of $fish_func-
tion_path. Typically you can drop new completions in ~/.con-
fig/fish/completions/name-of-command.fish and fish will find them auto-
matically.
Syntax highlighting
Fish interprets the command line as it is typed and uses syntax high-
lighting to provide feedback. The most important feedback is the detec-
tion of potential errors. By default, errors are marked red.
Detected errors include:
• Non-existing commands.
• Reading from or appending to a non-existing file.
• Incorrect use of output redirects
• Mismatched parenthesis
To customize the syntax highlighting, you can set the environment vari-
ables listed in the Variables for changing highlighting colors section.
Fish also provides pre-made color themes you can pick with fish_config.
Running just fish_config opens a browser interface, or you can use
fish_config theme from fish:
# disable nearly all coloring
fish_config theme choose none
# restore fish's default theme
fish_config theme choose default
Or, to see all themes, right in your terminal:
fish_config theme show
To update the theme of all shell sessions without restarting them,
first have those sessions define an event handler by adding the follow-
ing to your config.fish and restarting them:
function apply-my-theme --on-variable=my_theme
fish_config theme choose $my_theme
end
Then, set the corresponding universal variable from any session:
> set -U my_theme lava
> set -U my_theme snow-day
Syntax highlighting variables
The colors used by fish for syntax highlighting can be configured by
changing the values of various variables. The value of these variables
can be one of the colors accepted by the set_color command. Options
accepted by set_color like --background=, --bold, --dim, --italics,
--reverse, --underline and --underline-color= are also accepted.
Example: to make errors highlighted and red, use:
set fish_color_error red --bold
The following variables are available to change the highlighting colors
in fish:
+--------------------------------+----------------------------+
| Variable | Meaning |
+--------------------------------+----------------------------+
| | default color |
| fish_color_normal | |
+--------------------------------+----------------------------+
| | commands like echo |
| fish_color_command | |
+--------------------------------+----------------------------+
| | keywords like if - this |
| fish_color_keyword | falls back on the command |
| | color if unset |
+--------------------------------+----------------------------+
| | quoted text like "abc" |
| fish_color_quote | |
+--------------------------------+----------------------------+
| | IO redirections like |
| fish_color_redirec- | >/dev/null |
| tion | |
+--------------------------------+----------------------------+
| | process separators like ; |
| fish_color_end | and & |
+--------------------------------+----------------------------+
| | syntax errors |
| fish_color_error | |
+--------------------------------+----------------------------+
| | ordinary command parame- |
| fish_color_param | ters |
+--------------------------------+----------------------------+
| | parameters and redirection |
| fish_color_valid_path | targets that are filenames |
| | (if the file exists) |
+--------------------------------+----------------------------+
| | options starting with "-", |
| fish_color_option | up to the first "--" para- |
| | meter |
+--------------------------------+----------------------------+
| | comments like '# impor- |
| fish_color_comment | tant' |
+--------------------------------+----------------------------+
| | selected text in vi visual |
| fish_color_selection | mode |
+--------------------------------+----------------------------+
| | parameter expansion opera- |
| fish_color_operator | tors like * and ~ |
+--------------------------------+----------------------------+
| | character escapes like \n |
| fish_color_escape | and \x70 |
+--------------------------------+----------------------------+
| | autosuggestions (the pro- |
| fish_color_autosug- | posed rest of a command) |
| gestion | |
+--------------------------------+----------------------------+
| | the current working direc- |
| fish_color_cwd | tory in the default prompt |
+--------------------------------+----------------------------+
| | the current working direc- |
| fish_color_cwd_root | tory in the default prompt |
| | for the root user |
+--------------------------------+----------------------------+
| | the username in the de- |
| fish_color_user | fault prompt |
+--------------------------------+----------------------------+
| | the hostname in the de- |
| fish_color_host | fault prompt |
+--------------------------------+----------------------------+
| | the hostname in the de- |
| fish_color_host_re- | fault prompt for remote |
| mote | sessions (like ssh) |
+--------------------------------+----------------------------+
| | the last command's nonzero |
| fish_color_status | exit code in the default |
| | prompt |
+--------------------------------+----------------------------+
| | the '^C' indicator on a |
| fish_color_cancel | canceled command |
+--------------------------------+----------------------------+
| | history search matches and |
| fish_color_search_match | selected pager items |
| | (background only) |
+--------------------------------+----------------------------+
| | the current position in |
| fish_color_history_cur- | the history for commands |
| rent | like dirh and cdh |
+--------------------------------+----------------------------+
If a variable isn't set or is empty after subtracting any --theme=THEME
options, fish usually tries $fish_color_normal, except for:
• $fish_color_keyword, where it tries $fish_color_command first.
• $fish_color_option, where it tries $fish_color_param first.
• For $fish_color_valid_path, if that doesn't have a color, but only
modifiers, it adds those to the color that would otherwise be used,
like $fish_color_param. But if valid paths have a color, it uses that
and adds in modifiers from the other color.
Pager color variables
fish will sometimes present a list of choices in a table, called the
pager.
Example: to set the background of each pager row, use:
set fish_pager_color_background --background=white
To have black text on alternating white and gray backgrounds:
set fish_pager_color_prefix black
set fish_pager_color_completion black
set fish_pager_color_description black
set fish_pager_color_background --background=white
set fish_pager_color_secondary_background --background=brwhite
Variables affecting the pager colors:
+----------------------------------+----------------------------+
| Variable | Meaning |
+----------------------------------+----------------------------+
| | the progress bar at the |
| fish_pager_color_progress | bottom left corner |
+----------------------------------+----------------------------+
| | the background color of a |
| fish_pager_color_back- | line |
| ground | |
+----------------------------------+----------------------------+
| | the prefix string, i.e. |
| fish_pager_color_prefix | the string that is to be |
| | completed |
+----------------------------------+----------------------------+
| | the completion itself, |
| fish_pager_color_comple- | i.e. the proposed rest of |
| tion | the string |
+----------------------------------+----------------------------+
| | the completion description |
| fish_pager_color_descrip- | |
| tion | |
+----------------------------------+----------------------------+
| | background of the selected |
| fish_pager_color_se- | completion |
| lected_background | |
+----------------------------------+----------------------------+
| | prefix of the selected |
| fish_pager_color_se- | completion |
| lected_prefix | |
+----------------------------------+----------------------------+
| | suffix of the selected |
| fish_pager_color_se- | completion |
| lected_completion | |
+----------------------------------+----------------------------+
| | description of the se- |
| fish_pager_color_se- | lected completion |
| lected_description | |
+----------------------------------+----------------------------+
| | background of every second |
| fish_pager_color_sec- | unselected completion |
| ondary_background | |
+----------------------------------+----------------------------+
| | prefix of every second un- |
| fish_pager_color_sec- | selected completion |
| ondary_prefix | |
+----------------------------------+----------------------------+
| | suffix of every second un- |
| fish_pager_color_sec- | selected completion |
| ondary_completion | |
+----------------------------------+----------------------------+
| | description of every sec- |
| fish_pager_color_sec- | ond unselected completion |
| ondary_description | |
+----------------------------------+----------------------------+
When the secondary or selected variables aren't set or are empty, the
normal variables are used, except for $fish_pager_color_selected_back-
ground, where the background of $fish_color_search_match is tried
first.
Abbreviations
To avoid needless typing, a frequently-run command like git checkout
can be abbreviated to gco using the abbr command.
abbr -a gco git checkout
After entering gco and pressing space or enter, a gco in command posi-
tion will turn into git checkout in the command line. If you want to
use a literal gco sometimes, use ctrl-space [1].
Abbreviations are a lot more powerful than just replacing literal
strings. For example you can make going up a number of directories eas-
ier with this:
function multicd
echo cd (string repeat -n (math (string length -- $argv[1]) - 1) ../)
end
abbr --add dotdot --regex '^\.\.+$' --function multicd
Now, .. transforms to cd ../, while ... turns into cd ../../ and ....
expands to cd ../../../.
The advantage over aliases is that you can see the actual command be-
fore using it, add to it or change it, and the actual command will be
stored in history.
[1] Any binding that executes the expand-abbr or execute bind function
will expand abbreviations. By default ctrl-space is bound to just
inserting a space.
Programmable prompt
When it is fish's turn to ask for input (like after it started or the
command ended), it will show a prompt. Often this looks something like:
you@hostname ~>
This prompt is determined by running the fish_prompt and
fish_right_prompt functions.
The output of the former is displayed on the left and the latter's out-
put on the right side of the terminal. For vi mode, the output of
fish_mode_prompt will be prepended on the left.
If fish_transient_prompt is set to 1, fish will redraw the prompt with
a --final-rendering argument before running a commandline, allowing you
to change it before pushing it to the scrollback.
Fish ships with a few prompts which you can see with fish_config. If
you run just fish_config it will open a web interface [2] where you'll
be shown the prompts and can pick which one you want. fish_config
prompt show will show you the prompts right in your terminal.
For example fish_config prompt choose disco will temporarily select the
"disco" prompt. If you like it and decide to keep it, run fish_config
prompt save.
You can also change these functions yourself by running funced
fish_prompt and funcsave fish_prompt once you are happy with the result
(or fish_right_prompt if you want to change that).
[2] The web interface runs purely locally on your computer and re-
quires python to be installed.
Configurable greeting
When it is started interactively, fish tries to run the fish_greeting
function. The default fish_greeting prints a simple message. You can
change its text by changing the $fish_greeting variable, for instance
using a universal variable:
set -U fish_greeting
or you can set it globally in config.fish:
set -g fish_greeting 'Hey, stranger!'
or you can script it by changing the function:
function fish_greeting
random choice "Hello!" "Hi" "G'day" "Howdy"
end
save this in config.fish or a function file. You can also use funced
and funcsave to edit it easily.
Programmable title
Most terminals allow setting the text displayed in the titlebar of the
terminal window. Fish does this by running the fish_title function.
It is executed before and after a command and the output is used as a
titlebar message.
The status current-command builtin will always return the name of the
job to be put into the foreground (or fish if control is returning to
the shell) when the fish_title function is called. The first argument
will contain the most recently executed foreground command as a string.
The default title shows the hostname if connected via ssh, the cur-
rently running command (unless it is fish) and the current working di-
rectory. All of this is shortened to not make the tab too wide.
Examples:
To show the last command and working directory in the title:
function fish_title
# `prompt_pwd` shortens the title. This helps prevent tabs from becoming very wide.
echo $argv[1] (prompt_pwd)
pwd
end
Command line editor
The fish editor features copy and paste, a searchable history and many
editor functions that can be bound to special keyboard shortcuts.
Like bash and other shells, fish includes two sets of keyboard short-
cuts (or key bindings): one inspired by the Emacs text editor, and one
by the vi text editor. The default editing mode is Emacs. You can
switch to vi mode by running fish_vi_key_bindings and switch back with
fish_default_key_bindings. You can also make your own key bindings by
creating a function and setting the fish_key_bindings variable to its
name. For example:
function fish_hybrid_key_bindings --description \
"Vi-style bindings that inherit emacs-style bindings in all modes"
for mode in default insert visual
fish_default_key_bindings -M $mode
end
fish_vi_key_bindings --no-erase
end
set -g fish_key_bindings fish_hybrid_key_bindings
While the key bindings included with fish include many of the shortcuts
popular from the respective text editors, they are not a complete im-
plementation. They include a shortcut to open the current command line
in your preferred editor (alt-e by default) if you need the full power
of your editor.
Shared bindings
Some bindings are common across Emacs and vi mode, because they aren't
text editing bindings, or because what vi/Vim does for a particular key
doesn't make sense for a shell.
• tab completes the current token. shift-tab completes the current to-
ken and starts the pager's search mode. tab is the same as ctrl-i.
• left () and right () move the cursor left or right by one character.
If the cursor is already at the end of the line, and an autosugges-
tion is available, right () accepts the autosuggestion.
• enter executes the current commandline or inserts a newline if it's
not complete yet (e.g. a ) or end is missing).
• alt-enter inserts a newline at the cursor position. This is useful to
add a line to a commandline that's already complete.
• alt-left () and alt-right () move the cursor left or right by one ar-
gument (or one word on macOS). If the command line is empty, they
move forward/backward in the directory history. If the cursor is al-
ready at the end of the line, and an autosuggestion is available,
alt-right () (or alt-f) accepts the first argument (or word on macOS)
in the suggestion.
• ctrl-left () and ctrl-right () move the cursor left or right by one
word. These accept one word of the autosuggestion - the part they'd
move over.
• shift-left () and shift-right () move the cursor one word left or
right, without stopping on punctuation. These accept one big word of
the autosuggestion.
• up () and down () (or ctrl-p and ctrl-n for emacs aficionados) search
the command history for the previous/next command containing the
string that was specified on the commandline before the search was
started. If the commandline was empty when the search started, all
commands match. See the history section for more information on his-
tory searching.
• alt-up () and alt-down () search the command history for the previ-
ous/next token containing the token under the cursor before the
search was started. If the commandline was not on a token when the
search started, all tokens match. See the history section for more
information on history searching.
• ctrl-c interrupts/kills whatever is running (SIGINT).
• ctrl-d deletes one character to the right of the cursor. If the com-
mand line is empty, ctrl-d will exit fish.
• ctrl-u removes contents from the beginning of line to the cursor
(moving it to the killring).
• ctrl-l pushes any text above the prompt to the terminal's scrollback,
then clears and repaints the screen.
• ctrl-w removes the previous path component (everything up to the pre-
vious "/", ":" or "@") (moving it to the Copy and paste (Kill Ring)).
• ctrl-x copies the current buffer to the system's clipboard, ctrl-v
inserts the clipboard contents. (see fish_clipboard_copy and
fish_clipboard_paste)
• alt-d moves the next word to the Copy and paste (Kill Ring).
• ctrl-delete moves the next word (or next argument on macOS) to the
Copy and paste (Kill Ring).
• alt-d lists the directory history if the command line is empty.
• alt-delete moves the next argument (or word on macOS) to the Copy and
paste (Kill Ring).
• shift-delete removes the current history item or autosuggestion from
the command history.
• alt-h (or f1) shows the manual page for the current command, if one
exists.
• alt-l lists the contents of the current directory, unless the cursor
is over a directory argument, in which case the contents of that di-
rectory will be listed.
• alt-o opens the file at the cursor in a pager. If the cursor is in
command position and the command is a script, it will instead open
that script in your editor. The editor is chosen from the first
available of the $VISUAL or $EDITOR variables.
• alt-p adds the string &| less; to the end of the job under the cur-
sor. The result is that the output of the command will be paged. If
you set the PAGER variable, its value is used instead of less.
• alt-w prints a short description of the command under the cursor.
• alt-e edits the current command line in an external editor. The edi-
tor is chosen from the first available of the $VISUAL or $EDITOR
variables.
• alt-v Same as alt-e.
• alt-s Prepends sudo to the current commandline. If the commandline is
empty, prepend sudo to the last commandline. If sudo is not in-
stalled, various similar commands are tried: doas, please, and run0.
• ctrl-space Inserts a space without expanding an abbreviation. For vi
mode, this only applies to insert-mode.
Emacs mode commands
To enable emacs mode, use fish_default_key_bindings. This is also the
default.
• home or ctrl-a moves the cursor to the beginning of the line.
• end or ctrl-e moves to the end of line. If the cursor is already at
the end of the line, and an autosuggestion is available, end or
ctrl-e accepts the autosuggestion.
• ctrl-b, ctrl-f move the cursor one character left or right or accept
the autosuggestion just like the left () and right () shared bindings
(which are available as well).
• alt-b, alt-f move the cursor one word left or right, or accept one
word of the autosuggestion. If the command line is empty, moves for-
ward/backward in the directory history instead.
• ctrl-n, ctrl-p move the cursor up/down or through history, like the
up and down arrow shared bindings.
• delete or backspace or ctrl-h removes one character forwards or back-
wards respectively.
• ctrl-backspace removes one word backwards and alt-backspace removes
one argument backwards. On macOS, it's the other way round.
• alt-< moves to the beginning of the commandline, alt-> moves to the
end.
• ctrl-k deletes from the cursor to the end of line (moving it to the
Copy and paste (Kill Ring)).
• escape and ctrl-g cancel the current operation. Immediately after an
unambiguous completion this undoes it.
• alt-c capitalizes the current word.
• alt-u makes the current word uppercase.
• ctrl-t transposes the last two characters.
• alt-t transposes the last two words.
• ctrl-z, ctrl-_ (ctrl-/ on some terminals) undo the most recent edit
of the line.
• alt-/ or ctrl-shift-z reverts the most recent undo.
• ctrl-r opens the history in a pager. This will show history entries
matching the search, a few at a time. Pressing ctrl-r again will
search older entries, pressing ctrl-s (that otherwise toggles pager
search) will go to newer entries. The search bar will always be se-
lected.
You can change these key bindings using the bind builtin.
Vi mode commands
Vi mode allows for the use of vi-like commands at the prompt. Ini-
tially, insert mode is active. escape enters command mode. The commands
available in command, insert and visual mode are described below. Vi
mode shares some bindings with Emacs mode.
To enable vi mode, use fish_vi_key_bindings. It is also possible to
add all Emacs mode bindings to vi mode by using something like:
function fish_user_key_bindings
# Execute this once per mode that emacs bindings should be used in
fish_default_key_bindings -M insert
# Then execute the vi-bindings so they take precedence when there's a conflict.
# Without --no-erase fish_vi_key_bindings will default to
# resetting all bindings.
# The argument specifies the initial mode (insert, "default" or visual).
fish_vi_key_bindings --no-erase insert
end
When in vi mode, the fish_mode_prompt function will display a mode in-
dicator to the left of the prompt. To disable this feature, override it
with an empty function. To display the mode elsewhere (like in your
right prompt), use the output of the fish_default_mode_prompt function.
When a binding switches the mode, it will repaint the mode-prompt if it
exists, and the rest of the prompt only if it doesn't. So if you want a
mode-indicator in your fish_prompt, you need to erase fish_mode_prompt
e.g. by adding an empty file at ~/.config/fish/func-
tions/fish_mode_prompt.fish. (Bindings that change the mode are sup-
posed to call the repaint-mode bind function, see bind)
The fish_vi_cursor function will be used to change the cursor's shape
depending on the mode in supported terminals. The following snippet can
be used to manually configure cursors after enabling vi mode:
# Emulates vim's cursor shape behavior
# Set the normal and visual mode cursors to a block
set fish_cursor_default block
# Set the insert mode cursor to a line
set fish_cursor_insert line
# Set the replace mode cursors to an underscore
set fish_cursor_replace_one underscore
set fish_cursor_replace underscore
# Set the external cursor to a line. The external cursor appears when a command is started.
# The cursor shape takes the value of fish_cursor_default when fish_cursor_external is not specified.
set fish_cursor_external line
# The following variable can be used to configure cursor shape in
# visual mode, but due to fish_cursor_default, is redundant here
set fish_cursor_visual block
Additionally, blink can be added after each of the cursor shape parame-
ters to set a blinking cursor in the specified shape.
Fish knows the shapes "block", "line" and "underscore", other values
will be ignored.
If the cursor shape does not appear to be changing after setting the
above variables, it's likely your terminal emulator does not support
the capabilities necessary to do this.
Command mode
Command mode is also known as normal mode.
• h moves the cursor left.
• l moves the cursor right.
• k and j search the command history for the previous/next command con-
taining the string that was specified on the commandline before the
search was started. If the commandline was empty when the search
started, all commands match. See the history section for more infor-
mation on history searching. In multi-line commands, they move the
cursor up and down respectively.
• i enters insert mode at the current cursor position.
• I enters insert mode at the beginning of the line.
• v enters visual mode at the current cursor position.
• a enters insert mode after the current cursor position.
• A enters insert mode at the end of the line.
• o inserts a new line under the current one and enters insert mode
• O (capital-"o") inserts a new line above the current one and enters
insert mode
• 0 (zero) moves the cursor to beginning of line (remaining in command
mode).
• d,d deletes the current line and moves it to the Copy and paste (Kill
Ring).
• D deletes text after the current cursor position and moves it to the
Copy and paste (Kill Ring).
• p pastes text from the Copy and paste (Kill Ring).
• u undoes the most recent edit of the command line.
• ctrl-r redoes the most recent edit.
• [ and ] search the command history for the previous/next token con-
taining the token under the cursor before the search was started. See
the history section for more information on history searching.
• / opens the history in a pager. This will show history entries match-
ing the search, a few at a time. Pressing it again will search older
entries, pressing ctrl-s (that otherwise toggles pager search) will
go to newer entries. The search bar will always be selected.
• backspace moves the cursor left.
• g,g / G moves the cursor to the beginning/end of the commandline, re-
spectively.
• ~ toggles the case (upper/lower) of the character and moves to the
next character.
• g,u lowercases to the end of the word.
• g,U uppercases to the end of the word.
• :,q exits fish.
Insert mode
• escape enters command mode.
• backspace removes one character to the left.
• ctrl-n accepts the autosuggestion.
Visual mode
• left (```) and right`(```) extend the selection backward/forward by
one character.
• h moves the cursor left.
• l moves the cursor right.
• k moves the cursor up.
• j moves the cursor down.
• b and w extend the selection backward/forward by one word.
• d and x move the selection to the Copy and paste (Kill Ring) and en-
ter command mode.
• escape and ctrl-c enter command mode.
• c and s remove the selection and switch to insert mode.
• X moves the entire line to the Copy and paste (Kill Ring), and enters
command mode.
• y copies the selection to the Copy and paste (Kill Ring), and enters
command mode.
• ~ toggles the case (upper/lower) on the selection, and enters command
mode.
• g,u lowercases the selection, and enters command mode.
• g,U uppercases the selection, and enters command mode.
• ",*,y copies the selection to the clipboard, and enters command mode.
Custom bindings
In addition to the standard bindings listed here, you can also define
your own with bind:
# Prints ``^C`` and a new prompt
bind ctrl-c cancel-commandline
Put bind statements into config.fish or a function called
fish_user_key_bindings.
If you change your mind on a binding and want to go back to fish's de-
fault, you can erase it again:
bind --erase ctrl-c
Fish remembers its preset bindings and so it will take effect again.
This saves you from having to remember what it was before and add it
again yourself.
If you use vi bindings, note that bind will by default bind keys in
command mode. To bind something in insert mode:
bind --mode insert ctrl-c 'commandline -r ""'
Key sequences
To find out the name of a key, you can use fish_key_reader.
> fish_key_reader # Press Alt + right-arrow
Press a key:
bind alt-right 'do something'
Note that the historical way the terminal encodes keys and sends them
to the application (fish, in this case) makes a lot of combinations in-
distinguishable or unbindable. In the usual encoding, ctrl-i is the
same as the tab key, and shift cannot be detected when ctrl is also
pressed.
There are more powerful encoding schemes, and fish tries to tell the
terminal to turn them on, but there are still many terminals that do
not support them. When fish_key_reader prints the same sequence for two
different keys, then that is because your terminal sends the same se-
quence for them, and there isn't anything fish can do about it. It is
our hope that these schemes will become more widespread, making input
more flexible.
In the historical scheme, escape is the same thing as alt in a termi-
nal. To distinguish between pressing escape and then another key, and
pressing alt and that key (or an escape sequence the key sends), fish
waits for a certain time after seeing an escape character. This is con-
figurable via the fish_escape_delay_ms variable.
If you want to be able to press escape and then a character and have it
count as alt+that character, set it to a higher value, e.g.:
set -g fish_escape_delay_ms 100
Similarly, to disambiguate other keypresses where you've bound a subse-
quence and a longer sequence, fish has fish_sequence_key_delay_ms:
# This binds the sequence j,k to switch to normal mode in vi mode.
# If you kept it like that, every time you press "j",
# fish would wait for a "k" or other key to disambiguate
bind -M insert -m default j,k cancel repaint-mode
# After setting this, fish only waits 200ms for the "k",
# or decides to treat the "j" as a separate sequence, inserting it.
set -g fish_sequence_key_delay_ms 200
Copy and paste (Kill Ring)
Fish uses an Emacs-style kill ring for copy and paste functionality.
For example, use ctrl-k (kill-line) to cut from the current cursor po-
sition to the end of the line. The string that is cut (a.k.a. killed in
emacs-ese) is inserted into a list of kills, called the kill ring. To
paste the latest value from the kill ring (emacs calls this "yanking")
use ctrl-y (the yank input function). After pasting, use alt-y
(yank-pop) to rotate to the previous kill.
Copy and paste from outside are also supported, both via the ctrl-x /
ctrl-v bindings (the fish_clipboard_copy and fish_clipboard_paste func-
tions [3]) and via the terminal's paste function, for which fish en-
ables "Bracketed Paste Mode", so it can tell a paste from manually en-
tered text. In addition, when pasting inside single quotes, pasted
single quotes and backslashes are automatically escaped so that the re-
sult can be used as a single token by closing the quote after. Kill
ring entries are stored in fish_killring variable.
The commands begin-selection and end-selection (unbound by default;
used for selection in vi visual mode) control text selection together
with cursor movement commands that extend the current selection. The
variable fish_cursor_selection_mode can be used to configure if that
selection should include the character under the cursor (inclusive) or
not (exclusive). The default is exclusive, which works well with any
cursor shape. For vi mode, and particularly for the block or underscore
cursor shapes you may prefer inclusive.
[3] These rely on external tools. Currently xsel, xclip,
wl-copy/wl-paste and pbcopy/pbpaste are supported.
Multiline editing
The fish commandline editor can be used to work on commands that are
several lines long. There are three ways to make a command span more
than a single line:
• Pressing the enter key while a block of commands is unclosed, such as
when one or more block commands such as for, begin or if do not have
a corresponding end command.
• Pressing alt-enter instead of pressing the enter key.
• By inserting a backslash (\) character before pressing the enter key,
escaping the newline.
The fish commandline editor works exactly the same in single line mode
and in multiline mode. To move between lines use the left and right ar-
row keys and other such keyboard shortcuts.
Searchable command history
After a command has been executed, it is remembered in the history
list. Any duplicate history items are automatically removed. By press-
ing the up and down keys, you can search forwards and backwards in the
history. If the current command line is not empty when starting a his-
tory search, only the commands containing the string entered into the
command line are shown.
By pressing alt-up () and alt-down (), a history search is also per-
formed, but instead of searching for a complete commandline, each com-
mandline is broken into separate elements like it would be before exe-
cution, and the history is searched for an element matching that under
the cursor.
For more complicated searches, you can press ctrl-r to open a pager
that allows you to search the history. It shows a limited number of en-
tries in one page, press ctrl-r [4] again to move to the next page and
ctrl-s [5] to move to the previous page. You can change the text to re-
fine your search.
History searches are case-insensitive unless the search string contains
an uppercase character. You can stop a search to edit your search
string by pressing escape or pagedown.
Prefixing the commandline with a space will prevent the entire line
from being stored in the history. It will still be available for recall
until the next command is executed, but will not be stored on disk.
This is to allow you to fix misspellings and such.
The command history is stored in the file ~/.local/share/fish/fish_his-
tory (or $XDG_DATA_HOME/fish/fish_history if that variable is set) by
default. However, you can set the fish_history environment variable to
change the name of the history session (resulting in a <session>_his-
tory file); both before starting the shell and while the shell is run-
ning.
See the history command for other manipulations.
Examples:
To search for previous entries containing the word 'make', type make in
the console and press the up key.
If the commandline reads cd m, place the cursor over the m character
and press alt-up () to search for previously typed words containing
'm'.
[4] Or another binding that triggers the history-pager input function.
See bind for a list.
[5] Or another binding that triggers the pager-toggle-search input
function.
Private mode
Fish has a private mode, in which command history will not be written
to the history file on disk. To enable it, either set $fish_pri-
vate_mode to a non-empty value, or launch with fish --private (or fish
-P for short).
If you launch fish with -P, it both hides old history and prevents
writing history to disk. This is useful to avoid leaking personal in-
formation (e.g. for screencasts) or when dealing with sensitive infor-
mation.
You can query the variable fish_private_mode (if test -n "$fish_pri-
vate_mode" ...) if you would like to respect the user's wish for pri-
vacy and alter the behavior of your own fish scripts.
Navigating directories
Navigating directories is usually done with the cd command, but fish
offers some advanced features as well.
The current working directory can be displayed with the pwd command, or
the $PWD special variable. Usually your prompt already does this.
Directory history
Fish automatically keeps a trail of the recent visited directories with
cd by storing this history in the dirprev and dirnext variables.
Several commands are provided to interact with this directory history:
• dirh prints the history
• cdh displays a prompt to quickly navigate the history
• prevd moves backward through the history. It is bound to alt-left ()
• nextd moves forward through the history. It is bound to alt-right ()
Directory stack
Another set of commands, usually also available in other shells like
bash, deal with the directory stack. Stack handling is not automatic
and needs explicit calls of the following commands:
• dirs prints the stack
• pushd adds a directory on top of the stack and makes it the current
working directory
• popd removes the directory on top of the stack and changes the cur-
rent working directory
The fish language
This document is a comprehensive overview of fish's scripting language.
For interactive features see Interactive use.
Syntax overview
Shells like fish are used by giving them commands. A command is exe-
cuted by writing the name of the command followed by any arguments. For
example:
echo hello world
echo command writes its arguments to the screen. In this example the
output is hello world.
Everything in fish is done with commands. There are commands for re-
peating other commands, commands for assigning variables, commands for
treating a group of commands as a single command, etc. All of these
commands follow the same basic syntax.
Every program on your computer can be used as a command in fish. If the
program file is located in one of the PATH directories, you can just
type the name of the program to use it. Otherwise the whole filename,
including the directory (like /home/me/code/checkers/checkers or
../checkers) is required.
Here is a list of some useful commands:
• cd: Change the current directory
• ls: List files and directories
• man: Display a manual page - try man ls to get help on your "ls" com-
mand, or man mv to get information about "mv".
• mv: Move (rename) files
• cp: Copy files
• open: Open files with the default application associated with each
filetype
• less: Display the contents of files
Commands and arguments are separated by the space character ' '. Every
command ends with either a newline (by pressing the return key) or a
semicolon ;. Multiple commands can be written on the same line by sepa-
rating them with semicolons.
A switch is a very common special type of argument. Switches almost al-
ways start with one or more hyphens - and alter the way a command oper-
ates. For example, the ls command usually lists the names of all files
and directories in the current working directory. By using the -l
switch, the behavior of ls is changed to not only display the filename,
but also the size, permissions, owner, and modification time of each
file.
Switches differ between commands and are usually documented on a com-
mand's manual page. There are some switches, however, that are common
to most commands. For example, --help will usually display a help text,
--version will usually display the command version, and -i will often
turn on interactive prompting before taking action. Try man your-com-
mand-here to get information on your command's switches.
So the basic idea of fish is the same as with other unix shells: It
gets a commandline, runs expansions, and the result is then run as a
command.
Terminology
Here we define some of the terms used on this page and throughout the
rest of the fish documentation:
• Argument: A parameter given to a command. In echo foo, the "foo" is
an argument.
• Builtin: A command that is implemented by the shell. Builtins are so
closely tied to the operation of the shell that it is impossible to
implement them as external commands. In echo foo, the "echo" is a
builtin.
• Command: A program that the shell can run, or more specifically an
external program that the shell runs in another process. External
commands are provided on your system, as executable files. In echo
foo the "echo" is a builtin command, in command echo foo the "echo"
is an external command, provided by a file like /bin/echo.
• Function: A block of commands that can be called as if they were a
single command. By using functions, it is possible to string together
multiple simple commands into one more advanced command.
• Job: A running pipeline or command.
• Pipeline: A set of commands strung together so that the output of one
command is the input of the next command. echo foo | grep foo is a
pipeline.
• Redirection: An operation that changes one of the input or output
streams associated with a job.
• Switch or Option: A special kind of argument that alters the behavior
of a command. A switch almost always begins with one or two hyphens.
In echo -n foo the "-n" is an option.
Quotes
Sometimes you want to give a command an argument that contains charac-
ters special to fish, like spaces or $ or *. To do that, you can use
quotes:
rm "my file.txt"
to remove a file called my file.txt instead of trying to remove two
files, my and file.txt.
Fish understands two kinds of quotes: Single (') and double ("), and
both work slightly differently.
Between single quotes, fish performs no expansions. Between double
quotes, fish only performs variable expansion and command substitution
in the $(command). No other kind of expansion (including brace expan-
sion or parameter expansion) is performed, and escape sequences (for
example, \n) are ignored. Within quotes, whitespace is not used to sep-
arate arguments, allowing quoted arguments to contain spaces.
The only meaningful escape sequences in single quotes are \', which es-
capes a single quote and \\, which escapes the backslash symbol. The
only meaningful escapes in double quotes are \", which escapes a double
quote, \$, which escapes a dollar character, \ followed by a newline,
which deletes the backslash and the newline, and \\, which escapes the
backslash symbol.
Single quotes have no special meaning within double quotes and vice
versa.
More examples:
grep 'enabled)$' foo.txt
searches for lines ending in enabled) in foo.txt (the $ is special to
grep: it matches the end of the line).
apt install "postgres-*"
installs all packages with a name starting with "postgres-", instead of
looking through the current directory for files named "postgres-some-
thing".
Escaping Characters
Some characters cannot be written directly on the command line. For
these characters, so-called escape sequences are provided. These are:
• \a represents the alert character.
• \e represents the escape character.
• \f represents the form feed character.
• \n represents a newline character.
• \r represents the carriage return character.
• \t represents the tab character.
• \v represents the vertical tab character.
• \xHH or \XHH, where HH is a hexadecimal number, represents a byte of
data with the specified value. For example, \x9 is the tab character.
If you are using a multibyte encoding, this can be used to enter in-
valid strings. Typically fish is run with the ASCII or UTF-8 encod-
ing, so anything up to \X7f is an ASCII character.
• \ooo, where ooo is an octal number, represents the ASCII character
with the specified value. For example, \011 is the tab character. The
highest allowed value is \177.
• \uXXXX, where XXXX is a hexadecimal number, represents the 16-bit
Unicode character with the specified value. For example, \u9 is the
tab character.
• \UXXXXXXXX, where XXXXXXXX is a hexadecimal number, represents the
32-bit Unicode character with the specified value. For example, \U9
is the tab character. The highest allowed value is U10FFFF.
• \cX, where X is a letter of the alphabet, represents the control se-
quence generated by pressing the control key and the specified let-
ter. For example, \ci is the tab character
Some characters have special meaning to the shell. For example, an
apostrophe ' disables expansion (see Quotes). To tell the shell to
treat these characters literally, escape them with a backslash. For ex-
ample, the command:
echo \'hello world\'
outputs 'hello world' (including the apostrophes), while the command:
echo 'hello world'
outputs hello world (without the apostrophes). In the former case the
shell treats the apostrophes as literal ' characters, while in the lat-
ter case it treats them as special expansion modifiers.
The special characters and their escape sequences are:
• \ (backslash space) escapes the space character. This keeps the
shell from splitting arguments on the escaped space.
• \$ escapes the dollar character.
• \\ escapes the backslash character.
• \* escapes the star character.
• \? escapes the question mark character (this is not necessary if the
qmark-noglob feature flag is enabled).
• \~ escapes the tilde character.
• \# escapes the hash character.
• \( escapes the left parenthesis character.
• \) escapes the right parenthesis character.
• \{ escapes the left curly bracket character.
• \} escapes the right curly bracket character.
• \[ escapes the left bracket character.
• \] escapes the right bracket character.
• \< escapes the less than character.
• \> escapes the more than character.
• \& escapes the ampersand character.
• \| escapes the vertical bar character.
• \; escapes the semicolon character.
• \" escapes the quote character.
• \' escapes the apostrophe character.
As a special case, \ immediately followed by a literal new line is a
"continuation" and tells fish to ignore the line break and resume input
at the start of the next line (without introducing any whitespace or
terminating a token).
Input/Output Redirection
Most programs use three input/output (I/O) streams:
• Standard input (stdin) for reading. Defaults to reading from the key-
board.
• Standard output (stdout) for writing output. Defaults to writing to
the screen.
• Standard error (stderr) for writing errors and warnings. Defaults to
writing to the screen.
Each stream has a number called the file descriptor (FD): 0 for stdin,
1 for stdout, and 2 for stderr.
The destination of a stream can be changed using something called redi-
rection. For example, echo hello > output.txt, redirects the standard
output of the echo command to a text file.
• To read standard input from a file, use <SOURCE_FILE.
• To read standard input from a file or /dev/null if it can't be read,
use <?SOURCE_FILE.
• To write standard output to a file, use >DESTINATION.
• To write standard error to a file, use 2>DESTINATION. [1]
• To append standard output to a file, use >>DESTINATION_FILE.
• To append standard error to a file, use 2>>DESTINATION_FILE.
• To not overwrite ("clobber") an existing file, use >?DESTINATION or
2>?DESTINATION. This is known as the "noclobber" redirection.
DESTINATION can be one of the following:
• A filename to write the output to. Often >/dev/null to silence output
by writing it to the special "sinkhole" file.
• An ampersand (&) followed by the number of another file descriptor
like &2 for standard error. The output will be written to the desti-
nation descriptor.
• An ampersand followed by a minus sign (&-). The file descriptor will
be closed. Note: This may cause the program to fail because its
writes will be unsuccessful.
As a convenience, the redirection &> can be used to direct both stdout
and stderr to the same destination. For example, echo hello &> all_out-
put.txt redirects both stdout and stderr to the file all_output.txt.
This is equivalent to echo hello > all_output.txt 2>&1. You can also
use &>> to append both stdout and stderr to the same destination.
Any arbitrary file descriptor can be used in a redirection by prefixing
the redirection with the FD number.
• To redirect the input of descriptor N, use N<DESTINATION.
• To redirect the output of descriptor N, use N>DESTINATION.
• To append the output of descriptor N to a file, use N>>DESTINA-
TION_FILE.
File descriptors cannot be used with a <? input redirection, only a
regular < one.
For example:
# Write `foo`'s standard error (file descriptor 2)
# to a file called "output.stderr":
foo 2> output.stderr
# if $num doesn't contain a number,
# this test will be false and print an error,
# so by ignoring the error we can be sure that we're dealing
# with a number in the "if" block:
if test "$num" -gt 2 2>/dev/null
# do things with $num as a number greater than 2
else
# do things if $num is <= 2 or not a number
end
# Save `make`s output in a file:
make &>/log
# Redirections stack and can be used with blocks:
begin
echo stdout
echo stderr >&2 # <- this goes to stderr!
end >/dev/null # ignore stdout, so this prints "stderr"
# print all lines that include "foo" from myfile, or nothing if it doesn't exist.
string match '*foo*' <?myfile
It is an error to redirect a builtin, function, or block to a file de-
scriptor above 2. However this is supported for external commands.
[1] Previous versions of fish also allowed specifying this as ^DESTI-
NATION, but that made another character special so it was depre-
cated and removed. See feature flags.
Piping
Another way to redirect streams is a pipe. A pipe connects streams with
each other. Usually the standard output of one command is connected
with the standard input of another. This is done by separating commands
with the pipe character |. For example:
cat foo.txt | head
The command cat foo.txt sends the contents of foo.txt to stdout. This
output is provided as input for the head program, which prints the
first 10 lines of its input.
It is possible to pipe a different output file descriptor by prepending
its FD number and the output redirect symbol to the pipe. For example:
make fish 2>| less
will attempt to build fish, and any errors will be shown using the less
pager. [2]
As a convenience, the pipe &| redirects both stdout and stderr to the
same process. This is different from bash, which uses |&.
[2] A "pager" here is a program that takes output and "paginates" it.
less doesn't just do pages, it allows arbitrary scrolling (even
back!).
Combining pipes and redirections
It is possible to use multiple redirections and a pipe at the same
time. In that case, they are read in this order:
1. First the pipe is set up.
2. Then the redirections are evaluated from left-to-right.
This is important when any redirections reference other file descrip-
tors with the &N syntax. When you say >&2, that will redirect stdout to
where stderr is pointing to at that time.
Consider this helper function:
# Make a function that prints something to stdout and stderr
function print
echo out
echo err >&2
end
Now let's see a few cases:
# Redirect both stderr and stdout to less
print 2>&1 | less
# or
print &| less
# Show the "out" on stderr, silence the "err"
print >&2 2>/dev/null
# Silence both
print >/dev/null 2>&1
Job control
When you start a job in fish, fish itself will pause, and give control
of the terminal to the program it just started. Sometimes, you want to
continue using the commandline, and have the job run in the background.
To create a background job, append an & (ampersand) to your command.
This will tell fish to run the job in the background. Background jobs
are very useful when running programs that have a graphical user inter-
face.
Example:
emacs &
will start the emacs text editor in the background. fg can be used to
bring it into the foreground again when needed.
Most programs allow you to suspend the program's execution and return
control to fish by pressing ctrl-z (also referred to as ^Z). Once back
at the fish commandline, you can start other programs and do anything
you want. If you then want you can go back to the suspended command by
using the fg (foreground) command.
If you instead want to put a suspended job into the background, use the
bg command.
To get a listing of all currently started jobs, use the jobs command.
These listed jobs can be removed with the disown command.
At the moment, functions cannot be started in the background. Functions
that are stopped and then restarted in the background using the bg com-
mand will not execute correctly.
If the & character is followed by a non-separating character, it is not
interpreted as background operator. Separating characters are white-
space and the characters ;<>&|.
Functions
Functions are programs written in the fish syntax. They group together
various commands and their arguments using a single name.
For example, here's a simple function to list directories:
function ll
ls -l $argv
end
The first line tells fish to define a function by the name of ll, so it
can be used by writing ll on the commandline. The second line tells
fish that the command ls -l $argv should be called when ll is invoked.
$argv is a list variable, which always contains all arguments sent to
the function. In the example above, these are passed on to the ls com-
mand. The end on the third line ends the definition.
Calling this as ll /tmp/ will end up running ls -l /tmp/, which will
list the contents of /tmp.
This is a kind of function known as an alias.
Fish's prompt is also defined in a function, called fish_prompt. It is
run when the prompt is about to be displayed and its output forms the
prompt:
function fish_prompt
# A simple prompt. Displays the current directory
# (which fish stores in the $PWD variable)
# and then a user symbol - a '' for a normal user and a '#' for root.
set -l user_char ''
if fish_is_root_user
set user_char '#'
end
echo (set_color yellow)$PWD (set_color purple)$user_char
end
To edit a function, you can use funced, and to save a function
funcsave. This will store it in a function file that fish will autoload
when needed.
The functions builtin can show a function's current definition (and
type will also do if given a function).
For more information on functions, see the documentation for the
function builtin.
Defining aliases
One of the most common uses for functions is to slightly alter the be-
havior of an already existing command. For example, one might want to
redefine the ls command to display colors. The switch for turning on
colors on GNU systems is --color=auto. An alias around ls might look
like this:
function ls
command ls --color=auto $argv
end
There are a few important things that need to be noted about aliases:
• Always take care to add the $argv variable to the list of parameters
to the wrapped command. This makes sure that if the user specifies
any additional parameters to the function, they are passed on to the
underlying command.
• If the alias has the same name as the aliased command, you need to
prefix the call to the program with command to tell fish that the
function should not call itself, but rather a command with the same
name. If you forget to do so, the function would call itself until
the end of time. Usually fish is smart enough to figure this out and
will refrain from doing so (which is hopefully in your interest).
To easily create a function of this form, you can use the alias com-
mand. Unlike other shells, this just makes functions - fish has no sep-
arate concept of an "alias", we just use the word for a simple wrapping
function like this. alias immediately creates a function. Consider us-
ing alias --save or funcsave to save the created function into an au-
toload file instead of recreating the alias each time.
For an alternative, try abbreviations. These are words that are ex-
panded while you type, instead of being actual functions inside the
shell.
Autoloading functions
Functions can be defined on the commandline or in a configuration file,
but they can also be automatically loaded. This has some advantages:
• An autoloaded function becomes available automatically to all running
shells.
• If the function definition is changed, all running shells will auto-
matically reload the altered version, after a while.
• Startup time and memory usage is improved, etc.
When fish needs to load a function, it searches through any directories
in the list variable $fish_function_path for a file with a name con-
sisting of the name of the function plus the suffix .fish and loads the
first it finds.
For example if you try to execute something called banana, fish will go
through all directories in $fish_function_path looking for a file
called banana.fish and load the first one it finds.
By default $fish_function_path contains the following:
• A directory for users to keep their own functions, usually ~/.con-
fig/fish/functions (controlled by the XDG_CONFIG_HOME environment
variable).
• A directory for functions for all users on the system, usually
/etc/fish/functions (really $__fish_sysconfdir/functions).
• Directories for other software to put their own functions. These are
in the directories under $__fish_user_data_dir (usually ~/.lo-
cal/share/fish, controlled by the XDG_DATA_HOME environment variable)
and in the XDG_DATA_DIRS environment variable, in a subdirectory
called fish/vendor_functions.d. The default value for XDG_DATA_DIRS
is usually /usr/share/fish/vendor_functions.d and /usr/lo-
cal/share/fish/vendor_functions.d.
If you are unsure, your functions probably belong in ~/.con-
fig/fish/functions.
As we've explained, autoload files are loaded by name, so, while you
can put multiple functions into one file, the file will only be loaded
automatically once you try to execute the one that shares the name.
Autoloading also won't work for event handlers, since fish cannot know
that a function is supposed to be executed when an event occurs when it
hasn't yet loaded the function. See the event handlers section for more
information.
If a file of the right name doesn't define the function, fish will not
read other autoload files, instead it will go on to try builtins and
finally commands. This allows masking a function defined later in
$fish_function_path, e.g. if your administrator has put something into
/etc/fish/functions that you want to skip.
If you are developing another program and want to install fish func-
tions for it, install them to the "vendor" functions directory. As this
path varies from system to system, you can use pkgconfig to discover it
with the output of pkg-config --variable functionsdir fish. Your in-
stallation system should support a custom path to override the pkgcon-
fig path, as other distributors may need to alter it easily.
Comments
Anything after a # until the end of the line is a comment. That means
it's purely for the reader's benefit, fish ignores it.
This is useful to explain what and why you are doing something:
function ls
# The function is called ls,
# so we have to explicitly call `command ls` to avoid calling ourselves.
command ls --color=auto $argv
end
There are no multiline comments. If you want to make a comment span
multiple lines, start each line with a #.
Comments can also appear after a line like so:
set -gx EDITOR emacs # I don't like vim.
Conditions
Fish has some builtins that let you execute commands only if a specific
criterion is met: if, switch, and and or, and also the familiar &&/||
syntax.
The if statement
The if statement runs a block of commands if the condition was true.
Like other shells, but unlike typical programming languages you might
know, the condition here is a command. Fish runs it, and if it returns
a true exit status (that's 0), the if-block is run. For example:
if test -e /etc/os-release
cat /etc/os-release
end
This uses the test command to see if the file /etc/os-release exists.
If it does, it runs cat, which prints it on the screen.
Unlike other shells, the condition command ends after the first job,
there is no then here. Combiners like and and or extend the condition.
A more complicated example with a command substitution:
if test "$(uname)" = Linux
echo I like penguins
end
Because test can be used for many different tests, it is important to
quote variables and command substitutions. If the $(uname) was not
quoted, and uname printed nothing it would run test = Linux, which is
an error.
if can also take else if clauses with additional conditions and an
else clause that is executed when everything else was false:
if test "$number" -gt 10
echo Your number was greater than 10
else if test "$number" -gt 5
echo Your number was greater than 5
else if test "$number" -gt 1
echo Your number was greater than 1
else
echo Your number was smaller or equal to 1
end
The not keyword can be used to invert the status:
# Check if the file contains the string "fish" anywhere.
# This executes the `grep` command, which searches for a string,
# and if it finds it returns a status of 0.
# The `not` then turns 0 into 1 or anything else into 0.
# The `-q` switch stops it from printing any matches.
if not grep -q fish myanimals
echo "You don't have fish!"
else
echo "You have fish!"
end
Other things commonly used in if-conditions:
• contains - to see if a list contains a specific element (if contains
-- /usr/bin $PATH)
• string - to e.g. match strings (if string match -q -- '*-' $arg)
• path - to check if paths of some criteria exist (if path is -rf --
~/.config/fish/config.fish)
• type - to see if a command, function or builtin exists (if type -q
git)
The switch statement
The switch command is used to execute one of possibly many blocks of
commands depending on the value of a string. It can take multiple case
blocks that are executed when the string matches. They can take
wildcards. For example:
switch (uname)
case Linux
echo Hi Tux!
case Darwin
echo Hi Hexley!
case DragonFly '*BSD'
echo Hi Beastie! # this also works for FreeBSD and NetBSD
case '*'
echo Hi, stranger!
end
Unlike other shells or programming languages, there is no fallthrough -
the first matching case block is executed and then control jumps out of
the switch.
Combiners (and / or / && / ||)
For simple checks, you can use combiners. and or && run the second com-
mand if the first succeeded, while or or || run it if the first failed.
For example:
# $XDG_CONFIG_HOME is a standard place to store configuration.
# If it's not set applications should use ~/.config.
set -q XDG_CONFIG_HOME; and set -l configdir $XDG_CONFIG_HOME
or set -l configdir ~/.config
Note that combiners are lazy - only the part that is necessary to de-
termine the final status is run.
Compare:
if sleep 2; and false
echo 'How did I get here? This should be impossible'
end
and:
if false; and sleep 2
echo 'How did I get here? This should be impossible'
end
These do essentially the same thing, but the former takes 2 seconds
longer because the sleep always needs to run.
Or you can have a case where it is necessary to stop early:
if command -sq foo; and foo
If this went on after seeing that the command "foo" doesn't exist, it
would try to run foo and error because it wasn't found!
Combiners execute step-by-step, so it isn't recommended to build longer
chains of them because they might do something you don't want. Con-
sider:
test -e /etc/my.config
or echo "OH NO WE NEED A CONFIG FILE"
and return 1
This will execute return 1 also if the test succeeded. This is because
fish runs test -e /etc/my.config, sets $status to 0, then skips the
echo, keeps $status at 0, and then executes the return 1 because $sta-
tus is still 0.
So if you have more complex conditions or want to run multiple things
after something failed, consider using an if. Here that would be:
if not test -e /etc/my.config
echo "OH NO WE NEED A CONFIG FILE"
return 1
end
Loops and blocks
Like most programming language, fish also has the familiar while and
for loops.
while works like a repeated if:
while true
echo Still running
sleep 1
end
will print "Still running" once a second. You can abort it with ctrl-c.
for loops work like in other shells, which is more like python's
for-loops than e.g. C's:
for file in *
echo file: $file
end
will print each file in the current directory. The part after the in is
a list of arguments, so you can use any expansions there:
set moreanimals bird fox
for animal in {cat,}fish dog $moreanimals
echo I like the $animal
end
If you need a list of numbers, you can use the seq command to create
one:
for i in (seq 1 5)
echo $i
end
break is available to break out of a loop, and continue to jump to the
next iteration.
Input and output redirections (including pipes) can also be applied to
loops:
while read -l line
echo line: $line
end < file
In addition there's a begin block that just groups commands together so
you can redirect to a block or use a new variable scope without any
repetition:
begin
set -l foo bar # this variable will only be available in this block!
end
Parameter expansion
When fish is given a commandline, it expands the parameters before
sending them to the command. There are multiple different kinds of ex-
pansions:
• Wildcards, to create filenames from patterns - *.jpg
• Variable expansion, to use the value of a variable - $HOME
• Command substitution, to use the output of another command - $(cat
/path/to/file)
• Brace expansion, to write lists with common pre- or suffixes in a
shorter way {/usr,}/bin
• Tilde expansion, to turn the ~ at the beginning of paths into the
path to the home directory ~/bin
Parameter expansion is limited to 524288 items. There is a limit to how
many arguments the operating system allows for any command, and 524288
is far above it. This is a measure to stop the shell from hanging doing
useless computation.
Wildcards ("Globbing")
When a parameter includes an unquoted * star (or "asterisk") or a ?
question mark, fish uses it as a wildcard to match files.
• * matches any number of characters (including zero) in a file name,
not including /.
• ** matches any number of characters (including zero), and also de-
scends into subdirectories. If ** is a segment by itself, that seg-
ment may match zero times, for compatibility with other shells.
• ? can match any single character except /. This is deprecated and can
be disabled via the qmark-noglob feature flag, so ? will be an ordi-
nary character.
Wildcard matches are sorted case insensitively. When sorting matches
containing numbers, they are naturally sorted, so that the strings '1'
'5' and '12' would be sorted like 1, 5, 12.
Hidden files (where the name begins with a dot) are not considered when
wildcarding unless the wildcard string has a dot in that place.
Examples:
• a* matches any files beginning with an 'a' in the current directory.
• ** matches any files and directories in the current directory and all
of its subdirectories.
• ~/.* matches all hidden files (also known as "dotfiles") and directo-
ries in your home directory.
For most commands, if any wildcard fails to expand, the command is not
executed, $status is set to nonzero, and a warning is printed. This be-
havior is like what bash does with shopt -s failglob. There are excep-
tions, namely set and path, overriding variables in overrides, count
and for. Their globs will instead expand to zero arguments (so the com-
mand won't see them at all), like with shopt -s nullglob in bash.
Examples:
# List the .foo files, or warns if there aren't any.
ls *.foo
# List the .foo files, if any.
set foos *.foo
if count $foos >/dev/null
ls $foos
end
Unlike bash (by default), fish will not pass on the literal glob char-
acter if no match was found, so for a command like apt install that
does the matching itself, you need to add quotes:
apt install "ncurses-*"
Variable expansion
One of the most important expansions in fish is the "variable expan-
sion". This is the replacing of a dollar sign ($) followed by a vari-
able name with the _value_ of that variable.
A simple example:
echo $HOME
which will replace $HOME with the home directory of the current user,
and pass it to echo, which will then print it.
Some variables like $HOME are already set because fish sets them by de-
fault or because fish's parent process passed them to fish when it
started it. You can define your own variables by setting them with set:
set my_directory /home/cooluser/mystuff
ls $my_directory
# shows the contents of /home/cooluser/mystuff
For more on how setting variables works, see Shell variables and the
following sections.
Sometimes a variable has no value because it is undefined or empty, and
it expands to nothing:
echo $nonexistentvariable
# Prints no output.
To separate a variable name from text you can encase the variable
within double-quotes or braces:
set WORD cat
echo The plural of $WORD is "$WORD"s
# Prints "The plural of cat is cats" because $WORD is set to "cat".
echo The plural of $WORD is {$WORD}s
# ditto
Without the quotes or braces, fish will try to expand a variable called
$WORDs, which may not exist.
The latter syntax {$WORD} is a special case of brace expansion.
If $WORD here is undefined or an empty list, the "s" is not printed.
However, it is printed if $WORD is the empty string (like after set
WORD "").
For more on shell variables, read the Shell variables section.
Quoting variables
Variable expansion also happens in double quoted strings. Inside double
quotes ("these"), variables will always expand to exactly one argument.
If they are empty or undefined, it will result in an empty string. If
they have one element, they'll expand to that element. If they have
more than that, the elements will be joined with spaces, unless the
variable is a path variable - in that case it will use a colon (:) in-
stead [3].
Fish variables are all lists, and they are split into elements when
they are set - that means it is important to decide whether to use
quotes or not with set:
set foo 1 2 3 # a variable with three elements
rm $foo # runs the equivalent of `rm 1 2 3` - trying to delete three files: 1, 2 and 3.
rm "$foo" # runs `rm '1 2 3'` - trying to delete one file called '1 2 3'
set foo # an empty variable
rm $foo # runs `rm` without arguments
rm "$foo" # runs the equivalent of `rm ''`
set foo "1 2 3"
rm $foo # runs the equivalent of `rm '1 2 3'` - trying to delete one file
rm "$foo" # same thing
This is unlike other shells, which do what is known as "Word Split-
ting", where they split the variable when it is used in an expansion.
E.g. in bash:
foo="1 2 3"
rm $foo # runs the equivalent of `rm 1 2 3`
rm "$foo" # runs the equivalent of `rm '1 2 3'`
This is the cause of very common problems with filenames with spaces in
bash scripts.
In fish, unquoted variables will expand to as many arguments as they
have elements. That means an empty list will expand to nothing, a vari-
able with one element will expand to that element, and a variable with
multiple elements will expand to each of those elements separately.
If a variable expands to nothing, it will cancel out any other strings
attached to it. See the Combining Lists section for more information.
Most of the time, not quoting a variable is correct. The exception is
when you need to ensure that the variable is passed as one element,
even if it might be unset or have multiple elements. This happens often
with test:
set -l foo one two three
test -n $foo
# prints an error that it got too many arguments, because it was executed like
test -n one two three
test -n "$foo"
# works, because it was executed like
test -n "one two three"
[3] Unlike bash or zsh, which will join with the first character of
$IFS (which usually is space).
Dereferencing variables
The $ symbol can also be used multiple times, as a kind of "derefer-
ence" operator (the * in C or C++), like in the following code:
set foo a b c
set a 10; set b 20; set c 30
for i in (seq (count $$foo))
echo $$foo[$i]
end
# Output is:
# 10
# 20
# 30
$$foo[$i] is "the value of the variable named by $foo[$i]".
This can also be used to give a variable name to a function:
function print_var
for arg in $argv
echo Variable $arg is $$arg
end
end
set -g foo 1 2 3
set -g bar a b c
print_var foo bar
# prints "Variable foo is 1 2 3" and "Variable bar is a b c"
Of course the variable will have to be accessible from the function, so
it needs to be global/universal or exported. It also can't clash with a
variable name used inside the function. So if we had made $foo there a
local variable, or if we had named it "arg" instead, it would not have
worked.
When using this feature together with slices, the slices will be used
from the inside out. $$foo[5] will use the fifth element of $foo as a
variable name, instead of giving the fifth element of all the variables
$foo refers to. That would instead be expressed as $$foo[1..-1][5]
(take all elements of $foo, use them as variable names, then give the
fifth element of those).
Some more examples:
set listone 1 2 3
set listtwo 4 5 6
set var listone listtwo
echo $$var
# Output is 1 2 3 4 5 6
echo $$var[1]
# Output is 1 2 3
echo $$var[2][3]
# $var[2] is listtwo, third element of that is 6, output is 6
echo $$var[..][2]
# The second element of every variable, so output is 2 5
Variables as command
Like other shells, you can run the value of a variable as a command.
> set -g EDITOR emacs
> $EDITOR foo # opens emacs, possibly the GUI version
If you want to give the command an argument inside the variable it
needs to be a separate element:
> set EDITOR emacs -nw
> $EDITOR foo # opens emacs in the terminal even if the GUI is installed
> set EDITOR "emacs -nw"
> $EDITOR foo # tries to find a command called "emacs -nw"
Also like other shells, this only works with commands, builtins and
functions - it will not work with keywords because they have syntacti-
cal importance.
For instance set if $if won't allow you to make an if-block, and set
cmd command won't allow you to use the command decorator, but only uses
like $cmd -q foo.
Command substitution
A command substitution is an expansion that uses the output of a com-
mand as the arguments to another. For example:
echo $(pwd)
This executes the pwd command, takes its output (more specifically what
it wrote to the standard output "stdout" stream) and uses it as argu-
ments to echo. So the inner command (the pwd) is run first and has to
complete before the outer command can even be started.
If the inner command prints multiple lines, fish will use each separate
line as a separate argument to the outer command. Unlike other shells,
the value of $IFS is not used [4], fish splits on newlines.
Command substitutions can also be double-quoted:
echo "$(pwd)"
When using double quotes, the command output is not split up by lines,
but trailing empty lines are still removed.
If the output is piped to string split or string split0 as the last
step, those splits are used as they appear instead of splitting lines.
Fish also allows spelling command substitutions without the dollar,
like echo (pwd). This variant will not be expanded in double-quotes
(echo "(pwd)" will print (pwd)).
The exit status of the last run command substitution is available in
the status variable if the substitution happens in the context of a set
command (so if set -l (something) checks if something returned true).
To use only some lines of the output, refer to slices.
Examples:
# Outputs 'image.png'.
echo (basename image.jpg .jpg).png
# Convert all JPEG files in the current directory to the
# PNG format using the 'convert' program.
for i in *.jpg; convert $i (basename $i .jpg).png; end
# Set the ``data`` variable to the contents of 'data.txt'
# without splitting it into a list.
set data "$(cat data.txt)"
# Set ``$data`` to the contents of data, splitting on NUL-bytes.
set data (cat data | string split0)
Sometimes you want to pass the output of a command to another command
that only accepts files. If it's just one file, you can usually pass it
via a pipe, like:
grep fish myanimallist1 | wc -l
but if you need multiple or the command doesn't read from standard in-
put, "process substitution" is useful. Other shells allow this via foo
<(bar) <(baz), and fish uses the psub command:
# Compare only the lines containing "fish" in two files:
diff -u (grep fish myanimallist1 | psub) (grep fish myanimallist2 | psub)
This creates a temporary file, stores the output of the command in that
file and prints the filename, so it is given to the outer command.
Fish has a default limit of 1 GiB on the data it will read in a command
substitution. If that limit is reached the command (all of it, not just
the command substitution - the outer command won't be executed at all)
fails and $status is set to 122. This is so command substitutions can't
cause the system to go out of memory, because typically your operating
system has a much lower limit, so reading more than that would be use-
less and harmful. This limit can be adjusted with the fish_read_limit
variable (0 meaning no limit). This limit also affects the read com-
mand.
[4] One exception: Setting $IFS to empty will disable line splitting.
This is deprecated, use string split instead.
Brace expansion
Curly braces can be used to write comma-separated lists. They will be
expanded with each element becoming a new parameter, with the surround-
ing string attached. This is useful to save on typing, and to separate
a variable name from surrounding text.
Examples:
> echo input.{c,h,txt}
input.c input.h input.txt
# Move all files with the suffix '.c' or '.h' to the subdirectory src.
> mv *.{c,h} src/
# Make a copy of `file` at `file.bak`.
> cp file{,.bak}
> set -l dogs hot cool cute "good "
> echo {$dogs}dog
hotdog cooldog cutedog good dog
If there is no "," or variable expansion between the curly braces, they
will not be expanded:
# This {} isn't special
> echo foo-{}
foo-{}
# This passes "HEAD@{2}" to git
> git reset --hard HEAD@{2}
> echo {{a,b}}
{a} {b} # because the inner brace pair is expanded, but the outer isn't.
If after expansion there is nothing between the braces, the argument
will be removed (see the Combining Lists section):
> echo foo-{$undefinedvar}
# Output is an empty line, like a bare `echo`.
If there is nothing between a brace and a comma or two commas, it's in-
terpreted as an empty element:
> echo {,,/usr}/bin
/bin /bin /usr/bin
To use a "," as an element, quote or escape it.
The very first character of a command token is never interpreted as ex-
panding brace, because it's the beginning of a compound statement:
> {echo hello, && echo world}
hello,
world
Combining lists
Fish expands lists like brace expansions:
>_ set -l foo x y z
>_ echo 1$foo
# Any element of $foo is combined with the "1":
1x 1y 1z
>_ echo {good,bad}" apples"
# Any element of the {} is combined with the " apples":
good apples bad apples
# Or we can mix the two:
>_ echo {good,bad}" "$foo
good x bad x good y bad y good z bad z
Any string attached to a list will be concatenated to each element.
Two lists will be expanded in all combinations - every element of the
first with every element of the second:
>_ set -l a x y z; set -l b 1 2 3
>_ echo $a$b # same as {x,y,z}{1,2,3}
x1 y1 z1 x2 y2 z2 x3 y3 z3
A result of this is that, if a list has no elements, this combines the
string with no elements, which means the entire token is removed!
>_ set -l c # <- this list is empty!
>_ echo {$c}word
# Output is an empty line - the "word" part is gone
This can be quite useful. For example, if you want to go through all
the files in all the directories in PATH, use
for file in $PATH/*
Because PATH is a list, this expands to all the files in all the direc-
tories in it. And if there are no directories in PATH, the right answer
here is to expand to no files.
Sometimes this may be unwanted, especially that tokens can disappear
after expansion. In those cases, you should double-quote variables -
echo "$c"word.
This also happens after command substitution. To avoid tokens disap-
pearing there, make the inner command return a trailing newline, or
double-quote it:
>_ set b 1 2 3
>_ echo (echo x)$b
x1 x2 x3
>_ echo (printf '%s' '')banana
# the printf prints nothing, so this is nothing times "banana",
# which is nothing.
>_ echo (printf '%s\n' '')banana
# the printf prints a newline,
# so the command substitution expands to an empty string,
# so this is `''banana`
banana
>_ echo "$(printf '%s' '')"banana
# quotes mean this is one argument, the banana stays
Slices
Sometimes it's necessary to access only some of the elements of a list
(all fish variables are lists), or some of the lines a command substi-
tution outputs. Both are possible in fish by writing a set of indices
in brackets, like:
# Make $var a list of four elements
set var one two three four
# Print the second:
echo $var[2]
# prints "two"
# or print the first three:
echo $var[1..3]
# prints "one two three"
In index brackets, fish understands ranges written like a..b ('a' and
'b' being indices). They are expanded into a sequence of indices from a
to b (so a a+1 a+2 ... b), going up if b is larger and going down if a
is larger. Negative indices can also be used - they are taken from the
end of the list, so -1 is the last element, and -2 the one before it.
If an index doesn't exist the range is clamped to the next possible in-
dex.
If a list has 5 elements the indices go from 1 to 5, so a range of
2..16 will only go from element 2 to element 5.
If the end is negative the range always goes up, so 2..-2 will go from
element 2 to 4, and 2..-16 won't go anywhere because there is no way to
go from the second element to one that doesn't exist, while going up.
If the start is negative the range always goes down, so -2..1 will go
from element 4 to 1, and -16..2 won't go anywhere because there is no
way to go from an element that doesn't exist to the second element,
while going down.
A missing starting index in a range defaults to 1. This is allowed if
the range is the first index expression of the sequence. Similarly, a
missing ending index, defaulting to -1 is allowed for the last index in
the sequence.
Multiple ranges are also possible, separated with a space.
Some examples:
echo (seq 10)[1 2 3]
# Prints: 1 2 3
# Limit the command substitution output
echo (seq 10)[2..5]
# Uses elements from 2 to 5
# Output is: 2 3 4 5
echo (seq 10)[7..]
# Prints: 7 8 9 10
# Use overlapping ranges:
echo (seq 10)[2..5 1..3]
# Takes elements from 2 to 5 and then elements from 1 to 3
# Output is: 2 3 4 5 1 2 3
# Reverse output
echo (seq 10)[-1..1]
# Uses elements from the last output line to
# the first one in reverse direction
# Output is: 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
# The command substitution has only one line,
# so these will result in empty output:
echo (echo one)[2..-1]
echo (echo one)[-3..1]
The same works when setting or expanding variables:
# Reverse path variable
set PATH $PATH[-1..1]
# or
set PATH[-1..1] $PATH
# Use only n last items of the PATH
set n -3
echo $PATH[$n..-1]
Variables can be used as indices for expansion of variables, like so:
set index 2
set letters a b c d
echo $letters[$index] # returns 'b'
However using variables as indices for command substitution is cur-
rently not supported, so:
echo (seq 5)[$index] # This won't work
set sequence (seq 5) # It needs to be written on two lines like this.
echo $sequence[$index] # returns '2'
When using indirect variable expansion with multiple $ ($$name), you
have to give all indices up to the variable you want to slice:
> set -l list 1 2 3 4 5
> set -l name list
> echo $$name[1]
1 2 3 4 5
> echo $$name[1..-1][1..3] # or $$name[1][1..3], since $name only has one element.
1 2 3
Home directory expansion
The ~ (tilde) character at the beginning of a parameter, followed by a
username, is expanded into the home directory of the specified user. A
lone ~, or a ~ followed by a slash, is expanded into the home directory
of the process owner:
ls ~/Music # lists my music directory
echo ~root # prints root's home directory, probably "/root"
Combining different expansions
All of the above expansions can be combined. If several expansions re-
sult in more than one parameter, all possible combinations are created.
When combining multiple parameter expansions, expansions are performed
in the following order:
• Command substitutions
• Variable expansions
• Bracket expansion
• Wildcard expansion
Expansions are performed from right to left, nested bracket expansions
and command substitutions are performed from the inside and out.
Example:
If the current directory contains the files 'foo' and 'bar', the com-
mand echo a(ls){1,2,3} will output abar1 abar2 abar3 afoo1 afoo2 afoo3.
Table Of Operators
Putting it together, here is a quick reference to fish's operators, all
of the special symbols it uses:
+------------+---------------------+---------------------+
| Symbol | Meaning | Example |
+------------+---------------------+---------------------+
| $ | Variable expansion | echo $foo |
+------------+---------------------+---------------------+
| $() and () | Command substitu- | cat (grep foo bar) |
| | tion | or cat $(grep foo |
| | | bar) |
+------------+---------------------+---------------------+
| < and > | Redirection, like | git shortlog -nse . |
| | command > file | > authors |
+------------+---------------------+---------------------+
| | | Pipe, connect two | foo | grep bar | |
| | or more commands | grep baz |
+------------+---------------------+---------------------+
| ; | End of the command, | command1; command2 |
| | instead of a new- | |
| | line | |
+------------+---------------------+---------------------+
| & | Backgrounding | sleep 5m & |
+------------+---------------------+---------------------+
| {} | Brace expansion | ls {/usr,}/bin |
+------------+---------------------+---------------------+
| && and || | Combiners | mkdir foo && cd foo |
| | | or rm foo || exit |
+------------+---------------------+---------------------+
| * and ** | Wildcards | cat *.fish or count |
| | | **.jpg |
+------------+---------------------+---------------------+
| \\ | Escaping | echo foo\nbar or |
| | | echo \$foo |
+------------+---------------------+---------------------+
| '' and "" | Quoting | rm "file with |
| | | spaces" or echo |
| | | '$foo' |
+------------+---------------------+---------------------+
| ~ | Home directory ex- | ls ~/ or ls ~root/ |
| | pansion | |
+------------+---------------------+---------------------+
| # | Comments | echo Hello # this |
| | | isn't printed |
+------------+---------------------+---------------------+
Shell variables
Variables are a way to save data and pass it around. They can be used
just by the shell, or they can be "exported", so that a copy of the
variable is available to any external command the shell starts. An ex-
ported variable is referred to as an "environment variable".
To set a variable value, use the set command. A variable name can not
be empty and can contain only letters, digits, and underscores. It may
begin and end with any of those characters.
Example:
To set the variable smurf_color to the value blue, use the command set
smurf_color blue.
After a variable has been set, you can use the value of a variable in
the shell through variable expansion.
Example:
set smurf_color blue
echo Smurfs are usually $smurf_color
set pants_color red
echo Papa smurf, who is $smurf_color, wears $pants_color pants
So you set a variable with set, and use it with a $ and the name.
Variable Scope
All variables in fish have a scope. For example they can be global or
local to a function or block:
# This variable is global, we can use it everywhere.
set --global name Patrick
# This variable is local, it will not be visible in a function we call from here.
set --local place "at the Krusty Krab"
function local
# This can find $name, but not $place
echo Hello this is $name $place
# This variable is local, it will not be available
# outside of this function
set --local instrument mayonnaise
echo My favorite instrument is $instrument
# This creates a local $name, and won't touch the global one
set --local name Spongebob
echo My best friend is $name
end
local
# Will print:
# Hello this is Patrick
# My favorite instrument is mayonnaise
# My best friend is Spongebob
echo $name, I am $place and my instrument is $instrument
# Will print:
# Patrick, I am at the Krusty Krab and my instrument is
There are four kinds of variable scopes in fish: universal, global,
function and local variables.
• Universal variables are shared between all fish sessions a user is
running on one computer. They are stored on disk and persist even af-
ter reboot.
• Global variables are specific to the current fish session. They can
be erased by explicitly requesting set -e.
• Function variables are specific to the currently executing function.
They are erased ("go out of scope") when the current function ends.
Outside of a function, they don't go out of scope.
• Local variables are specific to the current block of commands, and
automatically erased when a specific block goes out of scope. A block
of commands is a series of commands that begins with one of the com-
mands for, while , if, function, begin or switch, and ends with the
command end. Outside of a block, this is the same as the function
scope.
Variables can be explicitly set to be universal with the -U or --uni-
versal switch, global with -g or --global, function-scoped with -f or
--function and local to the current block with -l or --local. The
scoping rules when creating or updating a variable are:
• When a scope is explicitly given, it will be used. If a variable of
the same name exists in a different scope, that variable will not be
changed.
• When no scope is given, but a variable of that name exists, the vari-
able of the smallest scope will be modified. The scope will not be
changed.
• When no scope is given and no variable of that name exists, the vari-
able is created in function scope if inside a function, or global
scope if no function is executing.
There can be many variables with the same name, but different scopes.
When you use a variable, the smallest scoped variable of that name will
be used. If a local variable exists, it will be used instead of the
global or universal variable of the same name.
Example:
There are a few possible uses for different scopes.
Typically inside functions you should use local scope:
function something
set -l file /path/to/my/file
if not test -e "$file"
set file /path/to/my/otherfile
end
end
# or
function something
if test -e /path/to/my/file
set -f file /path/to/my/file
else
set -f file /path/to/my/otherfile
end
end
If you want to set something in config.fish, or set something in a
function and have it available for the rest of the session, global
scope is a good choice:
# Don't shorten the working directory in the prompt
set -g fish_prompt_pwd_dir_length 0
# Set my preferred cursor style:
function setcursors
set -g fish_cursor_default block
set -g fish_cursor_insert line
set -g fish_cursor_visual underscore
end
# Set my language
set -gx LANG de_DE.UTF-8
Here is an example of local vs function-scoped variables:
function test-scopes
begin
# This is a nice local scope where all variables will die
set -l pirate 'There be treasure in them thar hills'
set -f captain Space, the final frontier
# If no variable of that name was defined, it is function-local.
set gnu "In the beginning there was nothing, which exploded"
end
# This will not output anything, since the pirate was local
echo $pirate
# This will output the good Captain's speech
# since $captain had function-scope.
echo $captain
# This will output Sir Terry's wisdom.
echo $gnu
end
When a function calls another, local variables aren't visible:
function shiver
set phrase 'Shiver me timbers'
end
function avast
set --local phrase 'Avast, mateys'
# Calling the shiver function here can not
# change any variables in the local scope
# so phrase remains as we set it here.
shiver
echo $phrase
end
avast
# Outputs "Avast, mateys"
When in doubt, use function-scoped variables. When you need to make a
variable accessible everywhere, make it global. When you need to per-
sistently store configuration, make it universal. When you want to use
a variable only in a short block, make it local.
Overriding variables for a single command
If you want to override a variable for a single command, you can use
"var=val" statements before the command:
# Call git status on another directory
# (can also be done via `git -C somerepo status`)
GIT_DIR=somerepo git status
Unlike other shells, fish will first set the variable and then perform
other expansions on the line, so:
set foo banana
foo=gagaga echo $foo
# prints gagaga, while in other shells it might print "banana"
Multiple elements can be given in a brace expansion:
# Call bash with a reasonable default path.
PATH={/usr,}/{s,}bin bash
Or with a glob:
# Run vlc on all mp3 files in the current directory
# If no file exists it will still be run with no arguments
mp3s=*.mp3 vlc $mp3s
Unlike other shells, this does not inhibit any lookup (aliases or simi-
lar). Calling a command after setting a variable override will result
in the exact same command being run.
This syntax is supported since fish 3.1.
Universal Variables
Universal variables are variables that are shared between all the
user's fish sessions on the computer. All changes to universal vari-
ables are persistent and instantly propagated across fish sessions.
Universal variables are stored in the file .config/fish/fish_variables.
Do not edit this file directly, as your edits may be overwritten. Edit
the variables through fish scripts or by using fish interactively in-
stead.
Do not append to universal variables in config.fish, because these
variables will then get longer with each new shell instance. Instead,
set them once at the command line.
Exporting variables
Variables in fish can be exported, so they will be inherited by any
commands started by fish. In particular, this is necessary for vari-
ables used to configure external commands like PAGER or GOPATH, but
also for variables that contain general system settings like PATH or
LANGUAGE. If an external command needs to know a variable, it needs to
be exported. Exported variables are also often called "environment
variables".
This also applies to fish - when it starts up, it receives environment
variables from its parent (usually the terminal). These typically in-
clude system configuration like PATH and locale variables.
Variables can be explicitly set to be exported with the -x or --export
switch, or not exported with the -u or --unexport switch. The export-
ing rules when setting a variable are similar to the scoping rules for
variables - when an option is passed it is respected, otherwise the
variable's existing state is used. If no option is passed and the vari-
able didn't exist yet it is not exported.
As a naming convention, exported variables are in uppercase and unex-
ported variables are in lowercase.
For example:
set -gx ANDROID_HOME ~/.android # /opt/android-sdk
set -gx CDPATH . ~ (test -e ~/Videos; and echo ~/Videos)
set -gx EDITOR emacs -nw
set -gx GOPATH ~/dev/go
set -gx GTK2_RC_FILES "$XDG_CONFIG_HOME/gtk-2.0/gtkrc"
set -gx LESSHISTFILE "-"
Note: Exporting is not a scope, but an additional state. It typically
makes sense to make exported variables global as well, but local-ex-
ported variables can be useful if you need something more specific than
Overrides. They are copied to functions so the function can't alter
them outside, and still available to commands. Global variables are ac-
cessible to functions whether they are exported or not.
Lists
Fish can store a list (or an "array" if you wish) of multiple strings
inside of a variable:
> set mylist first second third
> printf '%s\n' $mylist # prints each element on its own line
first
second
third
To access one element of a list, use the index of the element inside of
square brackets, like this:
echo $PATH[3]
List indices start at 1 in fish, not 0 like in other languages. This is
because it requires less subtracting of 1 and many common Unix tools
like seq work better with it (seq 5 prints 1 to 5, not 0 to 5). An in-
valid index is silently ignored resulting in no value (not even an
empty string, no argument at all).
If you don't use any brackets, all the elements of the list will be
passed to the command as separate items. This means you can iterate
over a list with for:
for i in $PATH
echo $i is in the path
end
This goes over every directory in PATH separately and prints a line
saying it is in the path.
To create a variable smurf, containing the items blue and small, write:
set smurf blue small
It is also possible to set or erase individual elements of a list:
# Set smurf to be a list with the elements 'blue' and 'small'
set smurf blue small
# Change the second element of smurf to 'evil'
set smurf[2] evil
# Erase the first element
set -e smurf[1]
# Output 'evil'
echo $smurf
If you specify a negative index when expanding or assigning to a list
variable, the index will be taken from the end of the list. For exam-
ple, the index -1 is the last element of the list:
> set fruit apple orange banana
> echo $fruit[-1]
banana
> echo $fruit[-2..-1]
orange
banana
> echo $fruit[-1..1] # reverses the list
banana
orange
apple
As you see, you can use a range of indices, see slices for details.
All lists are one-dimensional and can't contain other lists, although
it is possible to fake nested lists using dereferencing - see variable
expansion.
When a list is exported as an environment variable, it is either space
or colon delimited, depending on whether it is a path variable:
> set -x smurf blue small
> set -x smurf_PATH forest mushroom
> env | grep smurf
smurf=blue small
smurf_PATH=forest:mushroom
Fish automatically creates lists from all environment variables whose
name ends in PATH (like PATH, CDPATH or MANPATH), by splitting them on
colons. Other variables are not automatically split.
Lists can be inspected with the count or the contains commands:
> count $smurf
2
> contains blue $smurf
# blue was found, so it exits with status 0
# (without printing anything)
> echo $status
0
> contains -i blue $smurf
1
A nice thing about lists is that they are passed to commands one ele-
ment as one argument, so once you've set your list, you can pass it:
set -l grep_args -r "my string"
grep $grep_args . # will run the same as `grep -r "my string"` .
Unlike other shells, fish does not do "word splitting" - elements in a
list stay as they are, even if they contain spaces or tabs.
Argument Handling
An important list is $argv, which contains the arguments to a function
or script. For example:
function myfunction
echo $argv[1]
echo $argv[3]
end
This function takes whatever arguments it gets and prints the first and
third:
> myfunction first second third
first
third
> myfunction apple cucumber banana
apple
banana
That covers the positional arguments, but commandline tools often get
various options and flags, and $argv would contain them intermingled
with the positional arguments. Typical unix argument handling allows
short options (-h, also grouped like in ls -lah), long options (--help)
and allows those options to take arguments (--color=auto or --position
anywhere or complete -C"git ") as well as a -- separator to signal the
end of options. Handling all of these manually is tricky and er-
ror-prone.
A more robust approach to option handling is argparse, which checks the
defined options and puts them into various variables, leaving only the
positional arguments in $argv. Here's a simple example:
function mybetterfunction
# We tell argparse about -h/--help and -s/--second
# - these are short and long forms of the same option.
# The "--" here is mandatory,
# it tells it from where to read the arguments.
argparse h/help s/second -- $argv
# exit if argparse failed because
# it found an option it didn't recognize
# - it will print an error
or return
# If -h or --help is given, we print a little help text and return
if set -ql _flag_help
echo "mybetterfunction [-h|--help] [-s|--second] [ARGUMENT ...]"
return 0
end
# If -s or --second is given, we print the second argument,
# not the first and third.
# (this is also available as _flag_s because of the short version)
if set -ql _flag_second
echo $argv[2]
else
echo $argv[1]
echo $argv[3]
end
end
The options will be removed from $argv, so $argv[2] is the second posi-
tional argument now:
> mybetterfunction first -s second third
second
For more information on argparse, like how to handle option arguments,
see the argparse documentation.
PATH variables
Path variables are a special kind of variable used to support colon-de-
limited path lists including PATH, CDPATH, MANPATH, PYTHONPATH,
LANGUAGE (for localization) etc. All variables that end in "PATH"
(case-sensitive) become PATH variables by default.
PATH variables act as normal lists, except they are implicitly joined
and split on colons.
set MYPATH 1 2 3
echo "$MYPATH"
# 1:2:3
set MYPATH "$MYPATH:4:5"
echo $MYPATH
# 1 2 3 4 5
echo "$MYPATH"
# 1:2:3:4:5
Path variables will also be exported in the colon form, so set -x MY-
PATH 1 2 3 will have external commands see it as 1:2:3.
> set -gx MYPATH /bin /usr/bin /sbin
> env | grep MYPATH
MYPATH=/bin:/usr/bin:/sbin
This is for compatibility with other tools. Unix doesn't have variables
with multiple elements, the closest thing it has are colon-lists like
PATH. For obvious reasons this means no element can contain a :.
Variables can be marked or unmarked as PATH variables via the --path
and --unpath options to set.
Special variables
You can change the settings of fish by changing the values of certain
variables.
PATH A list of directories in which to search for commands. This is a
common unix variable also used by other tools.
CDPATH A list of directories in which the cd builtin looks for a new
directory.
Locale Variables
Locale variables such as LANG, LC_ALL, LC_MESSAGES, LC_NUMERIC
and LC_TIME set the language option for the shell and subpro-
grams. See the section Locale variables and status language for
more information.
Color variables
A number of variable starting with the prefixes fish_color and
fish_pager_color. See Variables for changing highlighting colors
for more information.
fish_term24bit
If this is set to 0, fish will not output 24-bit RGB true-color
sequences but the nearest color on the 256 color palette (or the
16 color palette, if fish_term256 is 0). See also set_color.
The default is 1 but for historical reasons, fish defaults to
behaving as if it was 0 on some terminals that are known to not
support true-color sequences.
fish_term256
If this is set to 0 and fish_term24bit is 0, translate RGB col-
ors down to the 16 color palette. Also, if this is set to 0,
set_color commands such as set_color ff0000 red will prefer the
named color.
fish_ambiguous_width
controls the computed width of ambiguous-width characters. This
should be set to 1 if your terminal renders these characters as
single-width (typical), or 2 if double-width.
fish_emoji_width
controls whether fish assumes emoji render as 2 cells or 1 cell
wide. This is necessary because the correct value changed from 1
to 2 in Unicode 9, and some terminals may not be aware. Set this
if you see graphical glitching related to emoji (or other "spe-
cial" characters). It should usually be auto-detected.
fish_autosuggestion_enabled
controls if Autosuggestions are enabled. Set it to 0 to disable,
anything else to enable. By default they are on.
fish_transient_prompt
If this is set to 1, fish will redraw prompts with a --fi-
nal-rendering argument before running a commandline, allowing
you to change it before pushing it to the scrollback. This en-
ables transient prompts.
fish_handle_reflow
determines whether fish should try to repaint the commandline
when the terminal resizes. In terminals that reflow text this
should be disabled. Set it to 1 to enable, anything else to dis-
able.
fish_key_bindings
the name of the function that sets up the keyboard shortcuts for
the command-line editor.
fish_escape_delay_ms
sets how long fish waits for another key after seeing an escape,
to distinguish pressing the escape key from the start of an es-
cape sequence. The default is 30ms. Increasing it increases the
latency but allows pressing escape instead of alt for alt+char-
acter bindings. For more information, see the chapter in the
bind documentation.
fish_sequence_key_delay_ms
sets how long fish waits for another key after seeing a key that
is part of a longer sequence, to disambiguate. For instance if
you had bound \cx\ce to open an editor, fish would wait for this
long in milliseconds to see a ctrl-e after a ctrl-x. If the time
elapses, it will handle it as a ctrl-x (by default this would
copy the current commandline to the clipboard). See also Key se-
quences.
fish_complete_path
determines where fish looks for completion. When trying to com-
plete for a command, fish looks for files in the directories in
this variable.
fish_cursor_selection_mode
controls whether the selection is inclusive or exclusive of the
character under the cursor (see Copy and Paste).
fish_function_path
determines where fish looks for functions. When fish autoloads a
function, it will look for files in these directories.
fish_greeting
the greeting message printed on startup. This is printed by a
function of the same name that can be overridden for more com-
plicated changes (see funced)
fish_history
the current history session name. If set, all subsequent com-
mands within an interactive fish session will be logged to a
separate file identified by the value of the variable. If unset,
the default session name "fish" is used. If set to an empty
string, history is not saved to disk (but is still available
within the interactive session).
fish_trace
if set and not empty, will cause fish to print commands before
they execute, similar to set -x in bash. The trace is printed
to the path given by the --debug-output option to fish or the
FISH_DEBUG_OUTPUT variable. It goes to stderr by default. Set
it to all to also trace execution of key bindings, event han-
dlers as well as prompt and title functions.
FISH_DEBUG
Controls which debug categories fish enables for output, analo-
gous to the --debug option.
FISH_DEBUG_OUTPUT
Specifies a file to direct debug output to.
fish_user_paths
a list of directories that are prepended to PATH. This can be a
universal variable.
umask the current file creation mask. The preferred way to change the
umask variable is through the umask function. An attempt to set
umask to an invalid value will always fail.
BROWSER
your preferred web browser. If this variable is set, fish will
use the specified browser instead of the system default browser
to display the fish documentation.
Fish also provides additional information through the values of certain
environment variables. Most of these variables are read-only and their
value can't be changed with set.
_ the name of the currently running command (though this is depre-
cated, and the use of status current-command is preferred).
argv a list of arguments to the shell or function. argv is only de-
fined when inside a function call, or if fish was invoked with a
list of arguments, like fish myscript.fish foo bar. This vari-
able can be changed.
argv_opts
argparse sets this to the list of successfully parsed options,
including option-arguments. This variable can be changed.
CMD_DURATION
the runtime of the last command in milliseconds.
COLUMNS and LINES
the current size of the terminal in height and width. These val-
ues are only used by fish if the operating system does not re-
port the size of the terminal. Both variables must be set in
that case otherwise a default of 80x24 will be used. They are
updated when the window size changes.
fish_kill_signal
the signal that terminated the last foreground job, or 0 if the
job exited normally.
fish_killring
a list of entries in fish's kill ring of cut text.
fish_read_limit
how many bytes fish will process with read or in a command sub-
stitution.
fish_pid
the process ID (PID) of the shell.
fish_terminal_color_theme
a read-only variable; set to light or dark when the terminal
uses a light or dark color theme respectively; set to unknown if
the terminal does not report its colors. Like status terminal,
this is only populated once the first interactive prompt is
shown. This is used in an --on-variable event handler to update
syntax highlighting variables whenever the terminal's color
theme changes. See here for how to specify light and dark vari-
ants in your theme.
history
a list containing the last commands that were entered.
HOME the user's home directory. This variable can be changed.
hostname
the machine's hostname.
IFS the internal field separator that is used for word splitting
with the read builtin. Setting this to the empty string will
also disable line splitting in command substitution. This vari-
able can be changed.
last_pid
the process ID (PID) of the last background process.
PWD the current working directory.
pipestatus
a list of exit statuses of all processes that made up the last
executed pipe. See exit status.
SHLVL the level of nesting of shells. Fish increments this in interac-
tive shells, otherwise it only passes it along.
status the exit status of the last foreground job to exit. If the job
was terminated through a signal, the exit status will be 128
plus the signal number.
status_generation
the "generation" count of $status. This will be incremented only
when the previous command produced an explicit status. (For ex-
ample, background jobs will not increment this).
USER the current username. This variable can be changed.
EUID the current effective user id, set by fish at startup. This
variable can be changed.
version
the version of the currently running fish (also available as
FISH_VERSION for backward compatibility).
As a convention, an uppercase name is usually used for exported vari-
ables, while lowercase variables are not exported. (CMD_DURATION is an
exception for historical reasons). This rule is not enforced by fish,
but it is good coding practice to use casing to distinguish between ex-
ported and unexported variables.
Fish also uses some variables internally, their name usually starting
with __fish. These are internal and should not typically be modified
directly.
The status variable
Whenever a process exits, an exit status is returned to the program
that started it (usually the shell). This exit status is an integer
number, which tells the calling application how the execution of the
command went. In general, a zero exit status means that the command ex-
ecuted without problem, but a non-zero exit status means there was some
form of problem.
Fish stores the exit status of the last process in the last job to exit
in the status variable.
If fish encounters a problem while executing a command, the status
variable may also be set to a specific value:
• 0 is generally the exit status of commands if they successfully per-
formed the requested operation.
• 1 is generally the exit status of commands if they failed to perform
the requested operation.
• 121 is generally the exit status of commands if they were supplied
with invalid arguments.
• 123 means that the command was not executed because the command name
contained invalid characters.
• 124 means that the command was not executed because none of the wild-
cards in the command produced any matches.
• 125 means that while an executable with the specified name was lo-
cated, the operating system could not actually execute the command.
• 126 means that while a file with the specified name was located, it
was not executable.
• 127 means that no function, builtin or command with the given name
could be located.
If a process exits through a signal, the exit status will be 128 plus
the number of the signal.
The status can be negated with not (or !), which is useful in a
condition. This turns a status of 0 into 1 and any non-zero status into
0.
There is also $pipestatus, which is a list of all status values of
processes in a pipe. One difference is that not applies to $status, but
not $pipestatus, because it loses information.
For example:
not cat file | grep -q fish
echo status is: $status pipestatus is $pipestatus
Here $status reflects the status of grep, which returns 0 if it found
something, negated with not (so 1 if it found something, 0 otherwise).
$pipestatus reflects the status of cat (which returns non-zero for ex-
ample when it couldn't find the file) and grep, without the negation.
So if both cat and grep succeeded, $status would be 1 because of the
not, and $pipestatus would be 0 and 0.
It's possible for the first command to fail while the second succeeds.
One common example is when the second program quits early.
For example, if you have a pipeline like:
cat file1 file2 | head -n 50
This will tell cat to print two files, "file1" and "file2", one after
the other, and the head will then only print the first 50 lines. In
this case you might often see this constellation:
> cat file1 file2 | head -n 50
# 50 lines of output
> echo $pipestatus
141 0
Here, the "141" signifies that cat was killed by signal number 13 (128
+ 13 == 141) - a SIGPIPE. You can also use fish_kill_signal to see the
signal number. This happens because it was still working, and then head
closed the pipe, so cat received a signal that it didn't ignore and so
it died.
Whether cat here will see a SIGPIPE depends on how long the file is and
how much it writes at once, so you might see a pipestatus of "0 0", de-
pending on the implementation. This is a general unix issue and not
specific to fish. Some shells feature a "pipefail" feature that will
call a pipeline failed if one of the processes in it failed, and this
is a big problem with it.
Locale Variables
The "locale" of a program is its set of language and regional settings.
In UNIX, these are made up of several categories. The categories used
by fish are:
LANG This is the typical environment variable for specifying a lo-
cale. A user may set this variable to express the language they
speak, their region, and a character encoding. The encoding
part is ignored, fish always assumes UTF-8. The actual values
are specific to their platform, except for special values like C
or POSIX.
The value of LANG is used for each category unless the variable
for that category was set or LC_ALL is set. So typically you
only need to set LANG.
Example values are en_US.UTF-8 for the American English or
de_AT.UTF-8 for Austrian German. Your operating system might
have a locale command that you can call as locale -a to see a
list of defined locales.
LANGUAGE
This is treated like LC_MESSAGES except that it can hold multi-
ple values, which allows to specify a priority list of languages
for translation. It's a PATH variable, like in GNU gettext
<https://www.gnu.org/software/gettext/manual/html_node/The-LAN-
GUAGE-variable.html>.
Language identifiers without a region specified (e.g. zh) result
in all available variants of this language being tried in arbi-
trary order. In this example, we might first look for messages
in the zh_CN catalog, followed by zh_TW, or the other way
around. This is different from GNU gettext, which uses a "de-
fault" variant of the language instead. If you prefer a certain
variant, specify it earlier in the list, e.g. zh_TW:zh if your
preferred language is zh_TW, and you prefer any other variants
of zh over the English default. If zh_TW is the only variant of
zh you want, specifying zh_TW in the LANGUAGE variable will re-
sult in messages which are not available in zh_TW being dis-
played in English.
See also builtin _ (underscore).
LC_ALL Overrides the LANG and all other LC_* variables. Please use
LC_ALL only as a temporary override.
LC_MESSAGES
Determines the language in which messages are displayed, see
builtin _ (underscore).
LC_NUMERIC
Sets the locale for formatting numbers.
LC_TIME
Determines how date and time are displayed. Used in the history
builtin.
Builtin commands
Fish includes a number of commands in the shell directly. We call these
"builtins". These include:
• Builtins that manipulate the shell state - cd changes directory, set
sets variables
• Builtins for dealing with data, like string for strings and math for
numbers, count for counting lines or arguments, path for dealing with
path
• status for asking about the shell's status
• printf and echo for creating output
• test for checking conditions
• argparse for parsing function arguments
• source to read a script in the current shell (so changes to variables
stay) and eval to execute a string as script
• random to get random numbers or pick a random element from a list
• read for reading from a pipe or the terminal
For a list of all builtins, use builtin -n.
For a list of all builtins, functions and commands shipped with fish,
see the list of commands. The documentation is also available by using
the --help switch.
Command lookup
When fish is told to run something, it goes through multiple steps to
find it.
If it contains a /, fish tries to execute the given file, from the cur-
rent directory on.
If it doesn't contain a /, it could be a function, builtin, or external
command, and so fish goes through the full lookup.
In order:
1. It tries to resolve it as a function.
• If the function is already known, it uses that
• If there is a file of the name with a ".fish" suffix in
fish_function_path, it loads that. (If there is more than one file
only the first is used)
• If the function is now defined it uses that
2. It tries to resolve it as a builtin.
3. It tries to find an executable file in PATH.
• If it finds a file, it tells the kernel to run it.
• If the kernel knows how to run the file (e.g. via a #! line -
#!/bin/sh or #!/usr/bin/python), it does it.
• If the kernel reports that it couldn't run it because of a missing
interpreter, and the file passes a rudimentary check, fish tells
/bin/sh to run it.
If none of these work, fish runs the function fish_command_not_found
and sets status to 127.
You can use type to see how fish resolved something:
> type --short --all echo
echo is a builtin
echo is /usr/bin/echo
Querying for user input
Sometimes, you want to ask the user for input, for instance to confirm
something. This can be done with the read builtin.
Let's make up an example. This function will glob the files in all the
directories it gets as arguments, and if there are more than five it
will ask the user if it is supposed to show them, but only if it is
connected to a terminal:
function show_files
# This will glob on all arguments. Any non-directories will be ignored.
set -l files $argv/*
# If there are more than 5 files
if test (count $files) -gt 5
# and both stdin (for reading input)
# and stdout (for writing the prompt)
# are terminals
and isatty stdin
and isatty stdout
# Keep asking until we get a valid response
while read --nchars 1 -l response --prompt-str="Are you sure? (y/n)"
or return 1 # if the read was aborted with ctrl-c/ctrl-d
switch $response
case y Y
echo Okay
# We break out of the while and go on with the function
break
case n N
# We return from the function without printing
echo Not showing
return 1
case '*'
# We go through the while loop and ask again
echo Not valid input
continue
end
end
end
# And now we print the files
printf '%s\n' $files
end
If you run this as show_files /, it will most likely ask you until you
press Y/y or N/n. If you run this as show_files / | cat, it will print
the files without asking. If you run this as show_files ., it might
print something without asking because there are fewer than five files.
Shell variable and function names
The names given to variables and functions (so-called "identifiers")
have to follow certain rules:
• A variable name cannot be empty. It can contain only letters, digits,
and underscores. It may begin and end with any of those characters.
• A function name cannot be empty. It may not begin with a hyphen ("-")
and may not contain a slash ("/"). All other characters, including a
space, are valid. A function name also can't be the same as a re-
served keyword or essential builtin like if or set.
• A bind mode name (e.g., bind -m abc ...) must be a valid variable
name.
Other things have other restrictions. For instance what is allowed for
file names depends on your system, but at the very least they cannot
contain a "/" (because that is the path separator) or NULL byte (be-
cause that is how UNIX ends strings).
Configuration files
When fish is started, it reads and runs its configuration files. Where
these are depends on build configuration and environment variables.
The main file is ~/.config/fish/config.fish (or more precisely
$XDG_CONFIG_HOME/fish/config.fish).
Configuration files are run in the following order:
• Configuration snippets (named *.fish) in the directories:
• $__fish_config_dir/conf.d (by default, ~/.config/fish/conf.d/)
• $__fish_sysconf_dir/conf.d (by default, /etc/fish/conf.d/)
• Directories for others to ship configuration snippets for their
software:
• the directories under $__fish_user_data_dir (usually ~/.lo-
cal/share/fish, controlled by the XDG_DATA_HOME environment vari-
able)
• a fish/vendor_conf.d directory in the directories listed in
$XDG_DATA_DIRS (default /usr/share/fish/vendor_conf.d and
/usr/local/share/fish/vendor_conf.d)
These directories are also accessible in $__fish_vendor_confdirs.
Note that changing that in a running fish won't do anything as by
that point the directories have already been read.
If there are multiple files with the same name in these directories,
only the first will be executed. They are executed in order of their
filename, sorted (like globs) in a natural order (i.e. "01" sorts be-
fore "2").
• System-wide configuration files, where administrators can include
initialization for all users on the system - similar to /etc/profile
for POSIX-style shells - in $__fish_sysconf_dir (usually
/etc/fish/config.fish).
• User configuration, usually in ~/.config/fish/config.fish (controlled
by the XDG_CONFIG_HOME environment variable, and accessible as
$__fish_config_dir).
~/.config/fish/config.fish is sourced after the snippets. This is so
you can copy snippets and override some of their behavior.
These files are all executed on the startup of every shell. If you want
to run a command only on starting an interactive shell, use the exit
status of the command status --is-interactive to determine if the shell
is interactive. If you want to run a command only when using a login
shell, use status --is-login instead. This will speed up the starting
of non-interactive or non-login shells.
If you are developing another program, you may want to add configura-
tion for all users of fish on a system. This is discouraged; if not
carefully written, they may have side-effects or slow the startup of
the shell. Additionally, users of other shells won't benefit from the
fish-specific configuration. However, if they are required, you can in-
stall them to the "vendor" configuration directory. As this path may
vary from system to system, pkg-config should be used to discover it:
pkg-config --variable confdir fish.
For system integration, fish also ships a file called
__fish_build_paths.fish. This can be customized during build, for in-
stance because your system requires special paths to be used.
Future feature flags
Feature flags are how fish stages changes that might break scripts.
Breaking changes are introduced as opt-in, in a few releases they be-
come opt-out, and eventually the old behavior is removed.
You can see the current list of features via status features:
> status features
stderr-nocaret on 3.0 ^ no longer redirects stderr
qmark-noglob on 3.0 ? no longer globs
regex-easyesc on 3.1 string replace -r needs fewer \\'s
ampersand-nobg-in-token on 3.4 & only backgrounds if followed by a separating character
remove-percent-self off 4.0 %self is no longer expanded (use $fish_pid)
test-require-arg off 4.0 builtin test requires an argument
mark-prompt on 4.0 write OSC 133 prompt markers to the terminal
ignore-terminfo on 4.1 do not look up $TERM in terminfo database
query-term on 4.1 query the TTY to enable extra functionality
omit-term-workarounds off 4.3 skip workarounds for incompatible terminals
Here is what they mean:
• stderr-nocaret was introduced in fish 3.0 and cannot be turned off
since fish 3.5. It can still be tested for compatibility, but a
no-stderr-nocaret value will be ignored. The flag made ^ an ordinary
character instead of denoting an stderr redirection. Use 2> instead.
• qmark-noglob was also introduced in fish 3.0 (and made the default in
4.0). It makes ? an ordinary character instead of a single-character
glob. Use a * instead (which will match multiple characters) or find
other ways to match files like find.
• regex-easyesc was introduced in 3.1 (and made the default in 3.5). It
makes it so the replacement expression in string replace -r does one
fewer round of escaping. Before, to escape a backslash you would have
to use string replace -ra '([ab])' '\\\\\\\\$1'. After, just '\\\\$1'
is enough. Check your string replace calls if you use this anywhere.
• ampersand-nobg-in-token was introduced in fish 3.4 (and made the de-
fault in 3.5). It makes it so a & is no longer interpreted as the
backgrounding operator in the middle of a token, so dealing with URLs
becomes easier. Either put spaces or a semicolon after the &. This is
recommended formatting anyway, and fish_indent will have done it for
you already.
• remove-percent-self turns off the special %self expansion. It was in-
troduced in 4.0. To get fish's pid, you can use the fish_pid vari-
able.
• test-require-arg removes builtin test's one-argument form (test
"string". It was introduced in 4.0. To test if a string is non-empty,
use test -n "string". If disabled, any call to test that would change
sends a debug message of category "deprecated-test", so starting fish
with fish --debug=deprecated-test can be used to find offending
calls.
• mark-prompt makes fish report to the terminal the beginning and and
of both shell prompts and command output.
• ignore-terminfo disables lookup of $TERM in the terminfo database.
Use no-ignore-terminfo to turn it back on.
• query-term allows fish to query the terminal by writing escape se-
quences and reading the terminal's response. This enables features
such as scrolling. If you use an incompatible terminal, you can --
for the time being -- work around it by running (once) set -Ua
fish_features no-query-term.
• omit-term-workarounds prevents fish from trying to work around incom-
patible terminals.
These changes are introduced off by default. They can be enabled on a
per session basis:
> fish --features qmark-noglob,regex-easyesc
or opted into globally for a user:
> set -U fish_features regex-easyesc qmark-noglob
Features will only be set on startup, so this variable will only take
effect if it is universal or exported.
You can also use the version as a group, so 3.0 is equivalent to
"stderr-nocaret" and "qmark-noglob". Instead of a version, the special
group all enables all features.
Prefixing a feature with no- turns it off instead. E.g. to reenable the
? single-character glob:
set -Ua fish_features no-qmark-noglob
Event handlers
When defining a new function in fish, it is possible to make it into an
event handler, i.e. a function that is automatically run when a spe-
cific event takes place. Events that can trigger a handler currently
are:
• When a signal is delivered
• When a job exits
• When the value of a variable is updated
• When the prompt is about to be shown
Example:
To specify a signal handler for the WINCH signal, write:
function my_signal_handler --on-signal WINCH
echo Got WINCH signal!
end
Fish already has the following named events for the --on-event switch:
• fish_prompt is emitted whenever a new fish prompt is about to be dis-
played.
• fish_preexec is emitted right before executing an interactive com-
mand. The commandline is passed as the first parameter. Not emitted
if command is empty.
• fish_posterror is emitted right after executing a command with syntax
errors. The commandline is passed as the first parameter.
• fish_postexec is emitted right after executing an interactive com-
mand. The commandline is passed as the first parameter. Not emitted
if command is empty.
• fish_exit is emitted right before fish exits.
• fish_cancel is emitted when a commandline is cleared.
• fish_focus_in is emitted when fish's terminal gains focus.
• fish_focus_out is emitted when fish's terminal loses focus.
Events can be fired with the emit command, and do not have to be de-
fined before. The names just need to match. For example:
function handler --on-event imdone
echo generator is done $argv
end
function generator
sleep 1
# The "imdone" is the name of the event
# the rest is the arguments to pass to the handler
emit imdone with $argv
end
If there are multiple handlers for an event, they will all be run, but
the order might change between fish releases, so you should not rely on
it.
Please note that event handlers only become active when a function is
loaded, which means you need to otherwise source or execute a function
instead of relying on autoloading. One approach is to put it into your
configuration file.
For more information on how to define new event handlers, see the docu-
mentation for the function command.
Debugging fish scripts
Fish includes basic built-in debugging facilities that allow you to
stop execution of a script at an arbitrary point. When this happens you
are presented with an interactive prompt where you can execute any fish
command to inspect or change state (there are no debug commands as
such). For example, you can check or change the value of any variables
using printf and set. As another example, you can run status
print-stack-trace to see how the current breakpoint was reached. To re-
sume normal execution of the script, type exit or ctrl-d.
To start a debug session insert the builtin command breakpoint at the
point in a function or script where you wish to gain control, then run
the function or script. Also, the default action of the TRAP signal is
to call this builtin, meaning a running script can be actively debugged
by sending it the TRAP signal (kill -s TRAP <PID>). There is limited
support for interactively setting or modifying breakpoints from this
debug prompt: it is possible to insert new breakpoints in (or remove
old ones from) other functions by using the funced function to edit the
definition of a function, but it is not possible to add or remove a
breakpoint from the function/script currently loaded and being exe-
cuted.
Another way to debug script issues is to set the fish_trace variable,
e.g. fish_trace=1 fish_prompt to see which commands fish executes when
running the fish_prompt function.
Profiling fish scripts
If you specifically want to debug performance issues, fish can be run
with the --profile /path/to/profile.log option to save a profile to the
specified path. This profile log includes a breakdown of how long each
step in the execution took.
For example:
> fish --profile /tmp/sleep.prof -ic 'sleep 3s'
> cat /tmp/sleep.prof
Time Sum Command
3003419 3003419 > sleep 3s
This will show the time for each command itself in the first column,
the time for the command and every subcommand (like any commands inside
of a function or command substitutions) in the second and the command
itself in the third, separated with tabs.
The time is given in microseconds.
To see the slowest commands last, sort -nk2 /path/to/logfile is useful.
For profiling fish's startup there is also --profile-startup
/path/to/logfile.
See fish for more information.
Commands
This is a list of all the commands fish ships with.
Broadly speaking, these fall into a few categories:
Keywords
Core language keywords that make up the syntax, like
• if and else for conditions.
• for and while for loops.
• break and continue to control loops.
• function to define functions.
• return to return a status from a function.
• begin to begin a block and end to end any block (including ifs and
loops).
• and, or and not to combine commands logically.
• switch and case to make multiple blocks depending on the value of a
variable.
• command or builtin to tell fish what sort of thing to execute
• time to time execution
• exec tells fish to replace itself with a command.
• end to end a block
Tools
Builtins to do a task, like
• cd to change the current directory.
• echo or printf to produce output.
• set_color to colorize output.
• set to set, query or erase variables.
• read to read input.
• string for string manipulation.
• path for filtering paths and handling their components.
• math does arithmetic.
• argparse to make arguments easier to handle.
• count to count arguments.
• type to find out what sort of thing (command, builtin or function)
fish would call, or if it exists at all.
• test checks conditions like if a file exists or a string is empty.
• contains to see if a list contains an entry.
• eval and source to run fish code from a string or file.
• status to get shell information, like whether it's interactive or a
login shell, or which file it is currently running.
• abbr manages Abbreviations.
• bind to change bindings.
• complete manages completions.
• commandline to get or change the commandline contents.
• fish_config to easily change fish's configuration, like the prompt or
colorscheme.
• random to generate random numbers or pick from a list.
Known functions
Known functions are a customization point. You can change them to
change how your fish behaves. This includes:
• fish_prompt and fish_right_prompt and fish_mode_prompt to print your
prompt.
• fish_command_not_found to tell fish what to do when a command is not
found.
• fish_title to change the terminal's title.
• fish_tab_title to change the terminal tab's title.
• fish_greeting to show a greeting when fish starts.
• fish_should_add_to_history to determine if a command should be added
to history
Helper functions
Some helper functions, often to give you information for use in your
prompt:
• fish_git_prompt and fish_hg_prompt to print information about the
current git or mercurial repository.
• fish_vcs_prompt to print information for either.
• fish_svn_prompt to print information about the current svn reposi-
tory.
• fish_status_to_signal to give a signal name from a return status.
• prompt_pwd to give the current directory in a nicely formatted and
shortened way.
• prompt_login to describe the current login, with user and hostname,
and to explain if you are in a chroot or connected via ssh.
• prompt_hostname to give the hostname, shortened for use in the
prompt.
• fish_is_root_user to check if the current user is an administrator
user like root.
• fish_add_path to easily add a path to $PATH.
• alias to quickly define wrapper functions ("aliases").
• fish_delta to show what you have changed from the default configura-
tion.
• export as a compatibility function for other shells.
Helper commands
fish also ships some things as external commands so they can be easily
called from elsewhere.
This includes fish_indent to format fish code and fish_key_reader to
show you what escape sequence a keypress produces.
The full list
And here is the full list:
_ - call fish's translations
Synopsis
_ STRING
Description
_ translates its arguments into the current language, if possible.
This only works with messages which are translated as part of fish's
own sources, so using it as part of your own fish scripts which are not
upstreamed into the fish repo will not work unless the exact same mes-
sage also exists upstream.
It requires fish to be built with gettext support. If that support is
disabled or there is no translation it will echo the argument back.
The language depends on the current locale, set with LANG, LC_MESSAGES,
LC_ALL, and LANGUAGE. These variables do not have to be exported for
fish to use them, and fish's variable scopes are supported. If other
programs launched via fish should respect these locale variables they
have to be exported to make them available outside of fish.
For LANGUAGE you can use a list, or use colons to separate multiple
languages.
If the status language set command was used, its arguments specify the
language precedence, and the environment variables are ignored.
Options
_ takes no options.
Examples
Use German translations:
> set LANG de_DE.UTF-8
> _ file
Datei
Specify a precedence of languages (only works with LANGUAGE):
> set LANGUAGE pt de
> _ file # This message has a Portuguese translation.
arquivo
> _ "Invalid arguments" # This message does not have a Portuguese translation, but a German one.
Ungltige Argumente
> _ untranslatable # No translation in Portuguese, nor in German.
untranslatable
Note that the specific examples may change if translations are
added/modified.
abbr - manage fish abbreviations
Synopsis
abbr --add NAME [--position command | anywhere] [-r | --regex PATTERN] [-c | --command COMMAND]
[--set-cursor[=MARKER]] ([-f | --function FUNCTION] | EXPANSION)
abbr --erase [ [-c | --command COMMAND]... ] NAME ...
abbr --rename [ [-c | --command COMMAND]... ] OLD_WORD NEW_WORD
abbr [--show] [--color WHEN]
abbr --list
abbr --query NAME ...
Description
abbr manages abbreviations - user-defined words that are replaced with
longer phrases when entered.
NOTE:
Only typed-in commands use abbreviations. Abbreviations are not ex-
panded in scripts.
For example, a frequently-run command like git checkout can be abbrevi-
ated to gco. After entering gco and pressing space or enter, the full
text git checkout will appear in the command line. To avoid expanding
something that looks like an abbreviation, the default ctrl-space bind-
ing inserts a space without expanding.
An abbreviation may match a literal word, or it may match a pattern
given by a regular expression. When an abbreviation matches a word,
that word is replaced by new text, called its expansion. This expansion
may be a fixed new phrase, or it can be dynamically created via a fish
function. This expansion occurs after pressing space or enter.
Combining these features, it is possible to create custom syntaxes,
where a regular expression recognizes matching tokens, and the expan-
sion function interprets them. See the Examples section.
Changed in version 3.6.0: Previous versions of this allowed saving ab-
breviations in universal variables. That's no longer possible. Exist-
ing variables will still be imported and abbr --erase will also erase
the variables. We recommend adding abbreviations to config.fish by
just adding the abbr --add command. When you run abbr, you will see
output like this
> abbr
abbr -a -- foo bar # imported from a universal variable, see `help abbr`
In that case you should take the part before the # comment and save it
in config.fish, then you can run abbr --erase to remove the universal
variable:
> abbr >> ~/.config/fish/config.fish
> abbr --erase (abbr --list)
Alternatively you can keep them in a separate configuration file by do-
ing something like the following:
> abbr > ~/.config/fish/conf.d/myabbrs.fish
This will save all your abbreviations in "myabbrs.fish", overwriting
the whole file so it doesn't leave any duplicates, or restore abbrevia-
tions you had erased. Of course any functions will have to be saved
separately, see funcsave.
"add" subcommand
abbr [-a | --add] NAME [--position command | anywhere] [-r | --regex PATTERN]
[-c | --command COMMAND] [--set-cursor[=MARKER]] ([-f | --function FUNCTION] | EXPANSION)
abbr --add creates a new abbreviation. With no other options, the
string NAME is replaced by EXPANSION.
With --position command, the abbreviation will only expand when it is
positioned as a command, not as an argument to another command. With
--position anywhere the abbreviation may expand anywhere in the command
line. The default is command.
With --command COMMAND, the abbreviation will only expand when it is
used as an argument to the given COMMAND. Multiple --command can be
used together, and the abbreviation will expand for each. An empty COM-
MAND means it will expand only when there is no command. --command im-
plies --position anywhere and disallows --position command. Even with
different COMMANDS, the NAME of the abbreviation needs to be unique.
Consider using --regex if you want to expand the same word differently
for multiple commands.
With --regex, the abbreviation matches using the regular expression
given by PATTERN, instead of the literal NAME. The pattern is inter-
preted using PCRE2 syntax and must match the entire token. If multiple
abbreviations match the same token, the last abbreviation added is
used.
With --set-cursor=MARKER, the cursor is moved to the first occurrence
of MARKER in the expansion. The MARKER value is erased. The MARKER may
be omitted (i.e. simply --set-cursor), in which case it defaults to %.
With -f FUNCTION or --function FUNCTION, FUNCTION is treated as the
name of a fish function instead of a literal replacement. When the ab-
breviation matches, the function will be called with the matching token
as an argument. If the function's exit status is 0 (success), the token
will be replaced by the function's output; otherwise the token will be
left unchanged. No EXPANSION may be given separately.
Examples
abbr --add gco git checkout
Add a new abbreviation where gco will be replaced with git checkout.
abbr -a --position anywhere -- -C --color
Add a new abbreviation where -C will be replaced with --color. The --
allows -C to be treated as the name of the abbreviation, instead of an
option.
abbr -a L --position anywhere --set-cursor "% | less"
Add a new abbreviation where L will be replaced with | less, placing
the cursor before the pipe.
function last_history_item
echo $history[1]
end
abbr -a !! --position anywhere --function last_history_item
This first creates a function last_history_item which outputs the last
entered command. It then adds an abbreviation which replaces !! with
the result of calling this function. Taken together, this is similar to
the !! history expansion feature of bash.
function vim_edit
echo vim $argv
end
abbr -a vim_edit_texts --position command --regex ".+\.txt" --function vim_edit
This first creates a function vim_edit which prepends vim before its
argument. It then adds an abbreviation which matches commands ending in
.txt, and replaces the command with the result of calling this func-
tion. This allows text files to be "executed" as a command to open them
in vim, similar to the "suffix alias" feature in zsh.
abbr 4DIRS --set-cursor=! "$(string join \n -- 'for dir in */' 'cd $dir' '!' 'cd ..' 'end')"
This creates an abbreviation "4DIRS" which expands to a multi-line loop
"template." The template enters each directory and then leaves it. The
cursor is positioned ready to enter the command to run in each direc-
tory, at the location of the !, which is itself erased.
abbr --command git co checkout
Turns "co" as an argument to "git" into "checkout". Multiple commands
are possible, --command={git,hg} would expand "co" to "checkout" for
both git and hg.
Other subcommands
abbr --rename [ [-c | --command COMMAND]... ] OLD_NAME NEW_NAME
Renames an abbreviation, from OLD_NAME to NEW_NAME. For command-spe-
cific abbreviations, the --command options must be provided to disam-
biguate which abbreviation to rename.
abbr [-s | --show]
Show all abbreviations in a manner suitable for import and export
abbr [-l | --list]
Prints the names of all abbreviation
abbr [-e | --erase] [ [-c | --command COMMAND]... ] NAME ...
Erases the abbreviation with the given name. For command-specific ab-
breviations, the --command options must be provided to disambiguate
which abbreviation to rename.
abbr -q or --query [NAME...]
Return 0 (true) if one of the NAME is an abbreviation.
abbr -h or --help
Displays help for the abbr command.
alias - create a function
Synopsis
alias
alias [--save] NAME DEFINITION
alias [--save] NAME=DEFINITION
Description
NOTE: This page documents the fish builtin alias. To see the documen-
tation on any non-fish versions, use command man alias.
alias is a simple wrapper for the function builtin, which creates a
function wrapping a command. It has similar syntax to POSIX shell
alias. For other uses, it is recommended to define a function.
If you want to ease your interactive use, to save typing, consider us-
ing an abbreviation instead.
fish marks functions that have been created by alias by including the
command used to create them in the function description. You can list
alias-created functions by running alias without arguments. They must
be erased using functions -e.
• NAME is the name of the alias
• DEFINITION is the actual command to execute. alias automatically ap-
pends $argv, so that all parameters used with the alias are passed to
the actual command.
You cannot create an alias to a function with the same name. Note that
spaces need to be escaped in the call to alias just like at the command
line, even inside quoted parts.
The following options are available:
-h or --help
Displays help about using this command.
-s or --save
Saves the function created by the alias into your fish configu-
ration directory using funcsave.
Example
The following code will create rmi, which runs rm with additional argu-
ments on every invocation.
alias rmi="rm -i"
# This is equivalent to entering the following function:
function rmi --wraps rm --description 'alias rmi=rm -i'
rm -i $argv
end
alias sometimes requires escaping, as you can see here:
# This needs to have the spaces escaped or "Chrome.app..."
# will be seen as an argument to "/Applications/Google":
alias chrome='/Applications/Google\ Chrome.app/Contents/MacOS/Google\ Chrome'
See more
1. The function command this builds on.
2. Functions.
3. Defining aliases.
and - conditionally execute a command
Synopsis
PREVIOUS; and COMMAND
Description
and is used to execute a command if the previous command was successful
(returned a status of 0).
and statements may be used as part of the condition in an while or if
block.
and does not change the current exit status itself, but the command it
runs most likely will. The exit status of the last foreground command
to exit can always be accessed using the $status variable.
The -h or --help option displays help about using this command.
Example
The following code runs the make command to build a program. If the
build succeeds, make's exit status is 0, and the program is installed.
If either step fails, the exit status is 1, and make clean is run,
which removes the files created by the build process.
make; and make install; or make clean
See Also
• or command
• not command
argparse - parse options passed to a fish script or function
Synopsis
argparse [OPTIONS] OPTION_SPEC ... -- [ARG ...]
Description
This command makes it easy for fish scripts and functions to handle ar-
guments. You pass arguments that define the known options, followed by
a literal --, then the arguments to be parsed (which might also include
a literal --). argparse then sets variables to indicate the passed op-
tions with their values, sets $argv_opts to the options and their val-
ues, and sets $argv to the remaining arguments. See the usage section
below.
Each option specification (OPTION_SPEC) is written in the domain spe-
cific language described below. All OPTION_SPECs must appear after any
argparse flags and before the -- that separates them from the arguments
to be parsed.
Each option that is seen in the ARG list will result in variables named
_flag_X, where X is the short flag letter and the long flag name (if
they are defined). For example a --help option could cause argparse to
define one variable called _flag_h and another called _flag_help.
The variables will be set with local scope (i.e., as if the script had
done set -l _flag_X). If the flag is a boolean (that is, it is passed
or not, it doesn't have a value) the values are the short and long
flags seen. If the option is not a boolean the values will be zero or
more values corresponding to the values collected when the ARG list is
processed. If the flag was not seen the flag variable will not be set.
Options
The following argparse options are available. They must appear before
all OPTION_SPECs:
-n or --name NAME
Use NAME in error messages. By default the current function name
will be used, or argparse if run outside of a function.
-x or --exclusive OPTIONS
A comma separated list of options that are mutually exclusive.
You can use this more than once to define multiple sets of mutu-
ally exclusive options. You give either the short or long ver-
sion of each option, and you still need to otherwise define the
options.
-N or --min-args NUMBER
The minimum number of acceptable non-option arguments. The de-
fault is zero.
-X or --max-args NUMBER
The maximum number of acceptable non-option arguments. The de-
fault is infinity.
-u or --move-unknown
Allow unknown options, and move them from $argv to $argv_opts.
By default, Unknown options are treated as if they take optional
arguments (i.e. have option spec =?).
The above means that if a group of short options contains an un-
known short option followed by a known short option, the known
short option is treated as an argument to the unknown one (e.g.
--move-unknown h -- -oh will treat h as the argument to -o, and
so _flag_h will not be set). In contrast, if the known option
comes first (and does not take any arguments), the known option
will be recognised (e.g. argparse --move-unknown h -- -ho will
set $_flag_h to -h)
-i or --ignore-unknown
Deprecated. This is like --move-unknown, except that unknown op-
tions and their arguments are kept in $argv and not moved to
$argv_opts. Unlike --move-unknown, this option makes it impossi-
ble to distinguish between an unknown option and non-option ar-
gument that starts with a - (since any -- seperator in $argv
will be removed).
-S or --strict-longopts
This makes the parsing of long options more strict. In particu-
lar, without this flag, if long is a known long option flag,
--long and --long=<value> can be abbreviated as:
• -long and -long=<value>, but only if there is no short flag l.
• --lo and --lo=<value>, but only if there is no other long flag
that starts with lo. Similarly with any other non-empty prefix
of long.
• -lo and -lo=<value> (i.e. combining the above two).
With the --strict-longopts flag, the above three are parse er-
rors: one must use the syntax --long or --long=<value> to use a
long option called long.
This flag has no effect on the parsing of unknown options (which
are parsed as if this flag is on).
This option may be on all the time in the future, so do not rely
on the behaviour without it.
--unknown-arguments KIND
This option implies --move-unknown, unless --ignore-unknown is
also given. This will modify the parsing behaviour of unknown
options depending on the value of KIND:
• optional (the default), allows each unknown option to take
an optional argument (i.e. as if it had =? or =* in its op-
tion specification). For example, argparse --ignore-unknown
--unknown-arguments=optional ab -- -u -a -ub will set
_flag_a but not _flag_b, as the b is treated as an argument
to the second use of -u.
• required requires each unknown option to take an argument
(i.e. as if it had = or =+ in its option specification). If
the above example was changed to use --unknown-argu-
ments=required, neither _flag_a nor _flag_b would be set:
the -a will be treated as an argument to the first use of
-u, and the b as an argument to the second.
• none forbids each unknown option from taking an argument
(i.e. as if it had no = in its option specification). If
the above example was changed to use --unknown-argu-
ments=none, both _flag_a and _flag_b would be set, as nei-
ther use of -u will be passed as taking an argument.
Note that the above assumes that unknown long flags use the
-- "GNU-style" (e.g. if KIND is none, and there is no bar
long option, -bar is interpreted as three short flags, b, a,
and r; but if bar is known, -bar is treated the same as
--bar).
When using --unknown-arguments=required, you will get an er-
ror if the provided arguments end in an unknown option, since
it has no argument. Similarly, with --unknown-arguments=none,
you will get an error if you use the --flag=value syntax and
flag is an unknown option.
-s or --stop-nonopt
Causes scanning the arguments to stop as soon as the first
non-option argument is seen. Among other things, this is useful
to implement subcommands that have their own options.
-h or --help
Displays help about using this command.
Usage
To use this command, pass the option specifications (OPTION_SPEC), a
mandatory --, and then the arguments to be parsed.
A simple example:
argparse 'h/help' 'n/name=' -- $argv
or return
If $argv is empty then there is nothing to parse and argparse returns
zero to indicate success. If $argv is not empty then it is checked for
flags -h, --help, -n and --name. If they are found they are removed
from the arguments and local variables called _flag_OPTION are set so
the script can determine which options were seen. If $argv doesn't have
any errors, like an unknown option or a missing mandatory value for an
option, then argparse exits with a status of zero. Otherwise it writes
appropriate error messages to stderr and exits with a status of one.
The or return means that the function returns argparse's status if it
failed, so if it goes on argparse succeeded.
To use the flags argparse has extracted:
# Checking for _flag_h and _flag_help is equivalent
# We check if it has been given at least once
if set -ql _flag_h
echo "Usage: my_function [-h | --help] [-n | --name=NAME]" >&2
return 1
end
set -l myname somedefault
set -ql _flag_name[1]
and set myname $_flag_name[-1] # here we use the *last* --name=
Any characters in the flag name that are not valid in a variable name
(like - dashes) will be replaced with underscores.
The -- argument is required. You do not have to include any option
specifications or arguments after the -- but you must include the --.
For example, this is acceptable:
set -l argv foo
argparse 'h/help' 'n/name' -- $argv
argparse --min-args=1 -- $argv
But this is not:
set -l argv
argparse 'h/help' 'n/name' $argv
The first -- seen is what allows the argparse command to reliably sepa-
rate the option specifications and options to argparse itself (like
--move-unknown) from the command arguments, so it is required.
Option Specifications
Each option specification consists of:
• An optional alphanumeric short flag character.
• An optional long flag name preceded by a /. If neither a short flag
nor long flag are present, an error is reported.
• If there is no short flag, and the long flag name is more than
one character, the / can be omitted.
• For backwards compatibility, if there is a short and a long
flag, a - can be used in place of the /, if the short flag is
not to be usable by users (in which case it will also not be ex-
posed as a flag variable).
• Nothing if the flag is a boolean that takes no argument or is an in-
teger flag, or
• = if it requires a value and only the last instance of the flag
is saved, or
• =? if it takes an optional value and only the last instance of
the flag is saved, or
• =+ if it requires a value and each instance of the flag is
saved, or
• =* if it takes an optional value and each instance of the flag
is saved, storing the empty string when the flag was not given a
value.
• Optionally a &, indicating that the option and any attached values
are not to be saved in $argv or $argv_opts. This does not affect the
the _flag_ variables.
• Nothing if the flag is a boolean that takes no argument, or
• ! followed by fish script to validate the value. Typically this
will be a function to run. If the exit status is zero the value
for the flag is valid. If non-zero the value is invalid. Any er-
ror messages should be written to stdout (not stderr). See the
section on Flag Value Validation for more information.
See the fish_opt command for a friendlier but more verbose way to cre-
ate option specifications.
If a flag is not seen when parsing the arguments then the corresponding
_flag_X var(s) will not be set.
Integer flag
Sometimes commands take numbers directly as options, like foo -55. To
allow this one option spec can have the # modifier so that any integer
will be understood as this flag, and the last number will be given as
its value (as if = was used).
The # must follow the short flag letter (if any), and other modifiers
like = are not allowed, except for - (for backwards compatibility):
m#maximum
This does not read numbers given as +NNN, only those that look like
flags - -NNN.
Note: Optional arguments
An option defined with =? or =* can take optional arguments. Optional
arguments have to be directly attached to the option they belong to.
That means the argument will only be used for the option if you use it
like:
cmd --flag=value
# or
cmd -fvalue
but not if used like:
cmd --flag value
# "value" here will be used as a positional argument
# and "--flag" won't have an argument.
If this weren't the case, using an option without an optional argument
would be difficult if you also wanted to use positional arguments.
For example:
grep --color auto
# Here "auto" will be used as the search string,
# "color" will not have an argument and will fall back to the default,
# which also *happens to be* auto.
grep --color always
# Here grep will still only use color "auto"matically
# and search for the string "always".
This isn't specific to argparse but common to all things using
getopt(3) (if they have optional arguments at all). That grep example
is how GNU grep actually behaves.
Flag Value Validation
Sometimes you need to validate the option values. For example, that it
is a valid integer within a specific range, or an ip address, or some-
thing entirely different. You can always do this after argparse returns
but you can also request that argparse perform the validation by exe-
cuting arbitrary fish script. To do so append an ! (exclamation-mark)
then the fish script to be run. When that code is executed three vars
will be defined:
• _argparse_cmd will be set to the value of the value of the argparse
--name value.
• _flag_name will be set to the short or long flag that being
processed.
• _flag_value will be set to the value associated with the flag being
processed.
These variables are passed to the function as local exported variables.
The script should write any error messages to stdout, not stderr. It
should return a status of zero if the flag value is valid otherwise a
non-zero status to indicate it is invalid.
Fish ships with a _validate_int function that accepts a --min and --max
flag. Let's say your command accepts a -m or --max flag and the minimum
allowable value is zero and the maximum is 5. You would define the op-
tion like this: m/max=!_validate_int --min 0 --max 5. The default if
you call _validate_int without those flags is to check that the value
is a valid integer with no limits on the min or max value allowed.
Here are some examples of flag validations:
# validate that a path is a directory
argparse 'p/path=!test -d "$_flag_value"' -- --path $__fish_config_dir
# validate that a function does not exist
argparse 'f/func=!not functions -q "$_flag_value"' -- -f alias
# validate that a string matches a regex
argparse 'c/color=!string match -rq \'^#?[0-9a-fA-F]{6}$\' "$_flag_value"' -- -c 'c0ffee'
# validate with a validator function
argparse 'n/num=!_validate_int --min 0 --max 99' -- --num 42
Example OPTION_SPECs
Some OPTION_SPEC examples:
• h/help means that both -h and --help are valid. The flag is a boolean
and can be used more than once. If either flag is used then _flag_h
and _flag_help will be set to however either flag was seen, as many
times as it was seen. So it could be set to -h, -h and --help, and
count $_flag_h would yield "3".
• help means that only --help is valid. The flag is a boolean and can
be used more than once. If it is used then _flag_help will be set as
above. Also h-help (with an arbitrary short letter) for backwards
compatibility.
• help& is similar (it will remove --help from $argv), the difference
is that --help` will not placed in $argv_opts.
• longonly= is a flag --longonly that requires an option, there is no
short flag or even short flag variable.
• n/name= means that both -n and --name are valid. It requires a value
and can be used at most once. If the flag is seen then _flag_n and
_flag_name will be set with the single mandatory value associated
with the flag.
• n/name=? means that both -n and --name are valid. It accepts an op-
tional value and can be used at most once. If the flag is seen then
_flag_n and _flag_name will be set with the value associated with the
flag if one was provided else it will be set with no values.
• n/name=* is similar, but the flag can be used more than once. If the
flag is seen then _flag_n and _flag_name will be set with the values
associated with each occurence. Each value will be the value given to
the option, or the empty string if no value was given.
• name=+ means that only --name is valid. It requires a value and can
be used more than once. If the flag is seen then _flag_name will be
set with the values associated with each occurrence.
• x means that only -x is valid. It is a boolean that can be used more
than once. If it is seen then _flag_x will be set as above.
• /x is similar, but only --x is valid (instead of -x).
• x=, x=?, and x=+ are similar to the n/name examples above but there
is no long flag alternative to the short flag -x.
• #max (or #-max) means that flags matching the regex "^--?\d+$" are
valid. When seen they are assigned to the variable _flag_max. This
allows any valid positive or negative integer to be specified by pre-
fixing it with a single "-". Many commands support this idiom. For
example head -3 /a/file to emit only the first three lines of
/a/file.
• n#max means that flags matching the regex "^--?\d+$" are valid. When
seen they are assigned to the variables _flag_n and _flag_max. This
allows any valid positive or negative integer to be specified by pre-
fixing it with a single "-". Many commands support this idiom. For
example head -3 /a/file to emit only the first three lines of
/a/file. You can also specify the value using either flag: -n NNN or
--max NNN in this example.
• #longonly causes the last integer option to be stored in _flag_lon-
gonly.
After parsing the arguments the argv variable is set with local scope
to any values not already consumed during flag processing. If there are
no unbound values the variable is set but count $argv will be zero.
Similarly, the argv_opts variable is set with local scope to the argu-
ments that were consumed during flag processing. This allows forwarding
$argv_opts to another command, together with additional arguments.
If an error occurs during argparse processing it will exit with a
non-zero status and print error messages to stderr.
Examples
A simple use:
argparse h/help -- $argv
or return
if set -q _flag_help
# TODO: Print help here
return 0
end
This supports one option - -h / --help. Any other option is an error.
If it is given it prints help and exits.
How fish_add_path - add to the path parses its args:
argparse -x g,U -x P,U -x a,p g/global U/universal P/path p/prepend a/append h/help m/move v/verbose n/dry-run -- $argv
There are a variety of boolean flags, all with long and short versions.
A few of these cannot be used together, and that is what the -x flag is
used for. -x g,U means that --global and --universal or their short
equivalents conflict, and if they are used together you get an error.
In this case you only need to give the short or long flag, not the full
option specification.
After this it figures out which variable it should operate on according
to the --path flag:
set -l var fish_user_paths
set -q _flag_path
and set var PATH
# ...
# Check for --dry-run.
# The "-" has been replaced with a "_" because
# it is not valid in a variable name
not set -ql _flag_dry_run
and set $var $result
An example of using $argv_opts to forward known options to another com-
mand, whilst adding new options:
function my-head
# The following option is the only existing one to head that takes arguments
# (we will forward it verbatim).
set -l opt_spec n/lines=
# --qwords is a new option, but --bytes is an existing one which we will modify below
set -a opt_spec "qwords=&" "c/bytes=&"
argparse --strict-longopts --move-unknown --unknown-arguments=none $opt_spec -- $argv || return
if set -q _flag_qwords
# --qwords allows specifying the size in multiples of 8 bytes
set -a argv_opts --bytes=(math -- $_flag_qwords \* 8 || return)
else if set -q _flag_bytes
# Allows using a 'q' suffix, e.g. --bytes=4q to mean 4*8 bytes.
if string match -qr 'q$' -- $_flag_bytes
set -a argv_opts --bytes=(math -- (string replace -r 'q$' '*8' -- $_flag_bytes) || return)
else
# Keep the users setting
set -a argv_opts --bytes=$_flag_bytes
end
end
if test (count $argv) -eq 0
# Default to heading /dev/kmsg (whereas head defaults to stdin)
set -l argv /dev/kmsg
end
# Call the real head with our modified options and arguments.
head $argv_opts -- $argv
end
The argparse call above saves all the options we do not want to process
in $argv_opts. (The --qwords and --bytes options are not saved there as
their option spec's end in a ~). The code then processes the --qwords
and --bytess options using the the $_flag_OPTION variables, and puts
the transformed options in $argv_opts (which already contains all the
original options, other than --qwords and --bytes).
Note that because the argparse call above uses --move-unknown and --un-
known-arguments=none, we only need to tell it the arguments to head
that take a value. This allows the wrapper script to accurately work
out the non-option arguments (i.e. $argv, the filenames that head is to
operate on). Using --unknown-arguments=optional and explicitly listing
all the known options to head however would have the advantage that if
head were to add new options, they could still be used with the wrapper
script using the "stuck" form for arguments (e.g. -o<arg>, or
--opt=<arg>).
Note that the --strict-longopts is required to be able to correctly
pass short options, e.g. without it my-head -q --bytes 10q, will actu-
ally parse the -q as shorthand for --qwords.
begin - start a new block of code
Synopsis
begin; [COMMANDS ...]; end
{ [COMMANDS ...] }
Description
begin is used to create a new block of code.
A block allows the introduction of a new variable scope, redirection of
the input or output of a set of commands as a group, or to specify
precedence when using the conditional commands like and.
The block is unconditionally executed. begin; ...; end is equivalent to
if true; ...; end.
begin does not change the current exit status itself. After the block
has completed, $status will be set to the status returned by the most
recent command.
Some other shells only support the { [COMMANDS ...] ; } notation.
The -h or --help option displays help about using this command.
Example
The following code sets a number of variables inside of a block scope.
Since the variables are set inside the block and have local scope, they
will be automatically deleted when the block ends.
begin
set -l PIRATE Yarrr
...
end
echo $PIRATE
# This will not output anything, since the PIRATE variable
# went out of scope at the end of the block
In the following code, all output is redirected to the file out.html.
begin
echo $xml_header
echo $html_header
if test -e $file
...
end
...
end > out.html
bg - send jobs to background
Synopsis
bg [PID ...]
Description
bg sends jobs to the background, resuming them if they are stopped.
A background job is executed simultaneously with fish, and does not
have access to the keyboard. If no job is specified, the last job to be
used is put in the background. If PID is specified, the jobs containing
the specified process IDs are put in the background.
A PID of the format %n, where n is an integer, will be interpreted as
the PID of job number n. Job numbers can be seen in the output of jobs.
When at least one of the arguments isn't a valid job specifier, bg will
print an error without backgrounding anything.
When all arguments are valid job specifiers, bg will background all
matching jobs that exist.
The -h or --help option displays help about using this command.
Example
The typical use is to run something, stop it with ctrl-z, and then con-
tinue it in the background with bg:
> find / -name "*.js" >/tmp/jsfiles 2>/dev/null # oh no, this takes too long, let's press Ctrl-z!
fish: Job 1, 'find / -name "*.js" >/tmp/jsfil' has stopped
> bg
Send job 1 'find / -name "*.js" >/tmp/jsfiles 2>/dev/null' to background
> # I can continue using this shell!
> # Eventually:
fish: Job 1, 'find / -name "*.js" >/tmp/jsfil' has ended
bg 123 456 789 will background the jobs that contain processes 123, 456
and 789.
If only 123 and 789 exist, it will still background them and print an
error about 456.
bg 123 banana or bg banana 123 will complain that "banana" is not a
valid process ID.
bg %2 will background job 2.
bind - handle fish key bindings
Synopsis
bind [(-M | --mode) MODE] [(-m | --sets-mode) NEW_MODE] [--preset | --user] [-s | --silent] KEYS COMMAND ...
bind [(-M | --mode) MODE] [--preset] [--user] [--color WHEN] [KEYS]
bind [-a | --all] [--preset] [--user] [--color WHEN]
bind (-f | --function-names)
bind (-K | --key-names)
bind (-L | --list-modes)
bind (-e | --erase) [(-M | --mode) MODE] [--preset] [--user] [-a | --all] | KEYS ...
Description
bind manages key bindings.
If both KEYS and COMMAND are given, bind adds (or replaces) a binding
in MODE. If only KEYS is given, any existing binding for those keys in
the given MODE will be printed. If no KEYS argument is provided, all
bindings (in the given MODE) are printed.
KEYS is a comma-separated list of key names. Modifier keys can be
specified by prefixing a key name with a combination of ctrl-, alt-,
shift- and super- (i.e. the "windows" or "command" key). For example,
pressing w while holding the Alt modifier is written as alt-w. Key
names are case-sensitive; for example alt-W is the same as alt-shift-w.
ctrl-x,ctrl-e would mean pressing ctrl-x followed by ctrl-e.
Some keys have names, usually because they don't have an obvious print-
able character representation. They are:
• the arrow keys up, down, left and right,
• backspace,
• comma (,),
• delete,
• end,
• enter,
• escape,
• f1 through f12.
• home,
• insert,
• menu,
• minus (-),
• pageup,
• pagedown,
• printscreen,
• space and
• tab,
These names are case-sensitive.
An empty value ('') for KEYS designates the generic binding that will
be used if nothing else matches. For most bind modes, it makes sense to
bind this to the self-insert function (i.e. bind '' self-insert). This
will insert any keystrokes that have no bindings otherwise. Non-print-
able characters are ignored by the editor, so this will not result in
control sequences being inserted.
To find the name of a key combination you can use fish_key_reader.
COMMAND can be any fish command, but it can also be one of a set of
special input functions. These include functions for moving the cursor,
operating on the kill-ring, performing tab completion, etc. Use bind
--function-names or see below for a list of these input functions.
NOTE:
If a script changes the commandline, it should finish by calling the
repaint special input function.
Key bindings may use "modes", which mimics vi's modal input behavior.
The default mode is "default" (in vi-mode, that's vi's "normal" mode).
Every key binding applies to a single mode; you can specify which one
with -M MODE. If the key binding should change the mode, you can spec-
ify the new mode with -m NEW_MODE. The mode can be viewed and changed
via the $fish_bind_mode variable. If you want to change the mode from
inside a fish function, use set fish_bind_mode MODE.
To save custom key bindings, put the bind statements into config.fish.
Alternatively, fish also automatically executes a function called
fish_user_key_bindings if it exists.
Options
The following options are available:
-f or --function-names
Display a list of available input functions
-K or --key-names
Display a list of available named keys such as backspace.
-L or --list-modes
Display a list of defined bind modes
-M MODE or --mode MODE
Specify a bind mode that the bind is used in. Defaults to "de-
fault". If you use vi bindings, that's the command mode, what
vi calls "normal" mode.
-m NEW_MODE or --sets-mode NEW_MODE
Change the current mode to NEW_MODE after this binding is exe-
cuted
-e or --erase
Erase the binding with the given sequence and mode instead of
defining a new one. Multiple sequences can be specified with
this flag. Specifying -a or --all with -M or --mode erases all
binds in the given mode regardless of sequence. Specifying -a
or --all without -M or --mode erases all binds in all modes re-
gardless of sequence.
-a or --all
See --erase
--preset and --user
Specify if bind should operate on user or preset bindings. User
bindings take precedence over preset bindings when fish looks up
mappings. By default, all bind invocations work on the "user"
level except for listing, which will show both levels. All in-
vocations except for inserting new bindings can operate on both
levels at the same time (if both --preset and --user are given).
--preset should only be used in full binding sets (like when
working on fish_vi_key_bindings).
-s or --silent
Silences some of the error messages, including for unknown key
names and unbound sequences.
--color WHEN
Controls when to use syntax highlighting colors when listing
bindings. WHEN can be auto (the default, colorize if the output
is a terminal), always, or never.
-h or --help
Displays help about using this command.
Special input functions
The following special input functions are available:
and only execute the next function if the previous succeeded (note:
only some functions report success)
accept-autosuggestion
accept the current autosuggestion. Returns false when there was
nothing to accept.
backward-char
move one character to the left. If the completion pager is ac-
tive, select the previous completion instead.
backward-char-passive
move one character to the left, but do not trigger any non-move-
ment-related operations. If the cursor is at the start of the
commandline, does nothing. Does not change the selected item in
the completion pager UI when shown.
backward-bigword
move one whitespace-delimited word to the left
backward-token
move one argument to the left
backward-delete-char
deletes one character of input to the left of the cursor
backward-kill-bigword
move the whitespace-delimited word to the left of the cursor to
the killring
backward-kill-token
move the argument to the left of the cursor to the killring
backward-kill-line
move everything from the beginning of the line to the cursor to
the killring
backward-kill-path-component
move one path component to the left of the cursor to the kill-
ring. A path component is everything likely to belong to a path
component, i.e. not any of the following: /={,}'":@ |;<>&, plus
newlines and tabs.
backward-kill-word
move the word to the left of the cursor to the killring. The
"word" here is everything up to punctuation or whitespace.
backward-path-component
move one path component to the left.
backward-word
move one word to the left
beginning-of-buffer
moves to the beginning of the buffer, i.e. the start of the
first line
beginning-of-history
move to the beginning of the history
beginning-of-line
move to the beginning of the line
begin-selection
start selecting text
cancel close the pager if it is open, or undo the most recent comple-
tion if one was just inserted
cancel-commandline
cancel the current commandline and replace it with a new empty
one, leaving the old one in place with a marker to show that it
was cancelled
capitalize-word
make the current word begin with a capital letter
clear-commandline
empty the entire commandline
clear-screen
clears the screen and redraws the prompt.
scrollback-push
pushes earlier output to the terminal scrollback, positioning
the prompt at the top. This requires the terminal to implement
the ECMA-48 SCROLL UP command and cursor position reporting.
complete
guess the remainder of the current token
complete-and-search
invoke the searchable pager on completion options (for conve-
nience, this also moves backwards in the completion pager)
delete-char
delete one character to the right of the cursor
delete-or-exit
delete one character to the right of the cursor, or exit the
shell if the commandline is empty
down-line
move down one line
downcase-word
make the current word lowercase
end-of-buffer
moves to the end of the buffer, i.e. the end of the first line
end-of-history
move to the end of the history
end-of-line
move to the end of the line
end-selection
end selecting text
expand-abbr
expands any abbreviation currently under the cursor
execute
run the current commandline
exit exit the shell
forward-bigword
move one whitespace-delimited word to the right
forward-token
move one argument to the right
forward-char
move one character to the right; or if at the end of the comman-
dline, accept the current autosuggestion. If the completion
pager is active, select the next completion instead.
forward-char-passive
move one character to the right, but do not trigger any
non-movement-related operations. If the cursor is at the end of
the commandline, does not accept the current autosuggestion (if
any). Does not change the selected item in the completion pager,
if shown.
forward-path-component
move one path component to the right; or if at the end of the
commandline, accept a path component from the current autosug-
gestion.
forward-single-char
move one character to the right; or if at the end of the comman-
dline, accept a single char from the current autosuggestion.
forward-word
move one word to the right; or if at the end of the commandline,
accept one word from the current autosuggestion.
history-pager
invoke the searchable pager on history (incremental search); or
if the history pager is already active, search further backwards
in time.
history-delete
permanently delete the current history item, either from the
history pager or from an active up-arrow history search
history-search-backward
search the history for the previous match
history-search-forward
search the history for the next match
history-prefix-search-backward
search the history for the previous prefix match
history-prefix-search-forward
search the history for the next prefix match
history-token-search-backward
search the history for the previous matching argument
history-token-search-forward
search the history for the next matching argument
history-last-token-search-backward
search the history for the previous matching last argument
history-last-token-search-forward
search the history for the next matching last argument
forward-jump and backward-jump
read another character and jump to its next occurrence after/be-
fore the cursor
forward-jump-till and backward-jump-till
jump to right before the next occurrence
repeat-jump and repeat-jump-reverse
redo the last jump in the same/opposite direction
jump-to-matching-bracket
jump to matching bracket if the character under the cursor is
bracket; otherwise, jump to the next occurrence of any right
bracket after the cursor. The following brackets are consid-
ered: ([{}])
jump-till-matching-bracket
the same as jump-to-matching-bracket but offset cursor to the
right for left bracket, and offset cursor to the left for right
bracket. The offset is applied for both the position we jump
from and position we jump to. In other words, the cursor will
continuously jump inside the brackets but won't reach them by 1
character. The input function is useful to emulate ib vi text
object. The following brackets are considered: ([{}])
kill-bigword
move the next whitespace-delimited word to the killring
kill-token
move the next argument to the killring
kill-line
move everything from the cursor to the end of the line to the
killring
kill-path-component
move one path component to the killring.
kill-selection
move the selected text to the killring
kill-whole-line
move the line (including the following newline) to the killring.
If the line is the last line, its preceding newline is also re-
moved
kill-inner-line
move the line (without the following newline) to the killring
kill-word
move the next word to the killring
nextd-or-forward-word
if the commandline is empty, then move forward in the directory
history, otherwise move one word to the right; or if at the end
of the commandline, accept one word from the current autosugges-
tion.
or only execute the next function if the previous did not succeed
(note: only some functions report failure)
pager-toggle-search
toggles the search field if the completions pager is visible; or
if used after history-pager, search forwards in time.
prevd-or-backward-word
if the commandline is empty, then move backward in the directory
history, otherwise move one word to the left
repaint
reexecutes the prompt functions and redraws the prompt (also
force-repaint for backwards-compatibility)
repaint-mode
reexecutes the fish_mode_prompt and redraws the prompt. This is
useful for vi mode. If no fish_mode_prompt exists or it prints
nothing, it acts like a normal repaint.
self-insert
inserts the matching sequence into the command line
self-insert-notfirst
inserts the matching sequence into the command line, unless the
cursor is at the beginning
suppress-autosuggestion
remove the current autosuggestion. Returns true if there was a
suggestion to remove.
swap-selection-start-stop
go to the other end of the highlighted text without changing the
selection
transpose-chars
transpose two characters to the left of the cursor
transpose-words
transpose two words to the left of the cursor
togglecase-char
toggle the capitalisation (case) of the character under the cur-
sor
togglecase-selection
toggle the capitalisation (case) of the selection
insert-line-under
add a new line under the current line
insert-line-over
add a new line over the current line
up-line
move up one line
undo and redo
revert or redo the most recent edits on the command line
upcase-word
make the current word uppercase
yank insert the latest entry of the killring into the buffer
yank-pop
rotate to the previous entry of the killring
Additional functions
The following functions are included as normal functions, but are par-
ticularly useful for input editing:
up-or-search and down-or-search
move the cursor or search the history depending on the cursor
position and current mode
edit_command_buffer
open the visual editor (controlled by the VISUAL or EDITOR envi-
ronment variables) with the current command-line contents
fish_clipboard_copy
copy the current selection to the system clipboard
fish_clipboard_paste
paste the current selection from the system clipboard before the
cursor
fish_commandline_append
append the argument to the command-line. If the command-line al-
ready ends with the argument, this removes the suffix instead.
Starts with the last command from history if the command-line is
empty.
fish_commandline_prepend
prepend the argument to the command-line. If the command-line
already starts with the argument, this removes the prefix in-
stead. Starts with the last command from history if the com-
mand-line is empty.
Examples
Exit the shell when ctrl-d is pressed:
bind ctrl-d 'exit'
Perform a history search when pageup is pressed:
bind pageup history-search-backward
Turn on vi key bindings and rebind ctrl-c to clear the input line:
set -g fish_key_bindings fish_vi_key_bindings
bind -M insert ctrl-c kill-whole-line repaint
Launch git diff and repaint the commandline afterwards when ctrl-g is
pressed:
bind ctrl-g 'git diff' repaint
Swap tab and shift-tab, making tab focus the search field. But if the
search field is already active, keep the behavior (tab cycles forward,
shift-tab backward).:
bind tab '
if commandline --search-field >/dev/null
commandline -f complete
else
commandline -f complete-and-search
end
'
bind shift-tab '
if commandline --search-field >/dev/null
commandline -f complete-and-search
else
commandline -f complete
end
'
Terminal Limitations
Unix terminals, like the ones fish operates in, are at heart 70s tech-
nology. They have some limitations that applications running inside
them can't workaround.
For instance, historically the control key modifies a character by set-
ting the top three bits to 0. This means:
• Many characters + control are indistinguishable from other keys:
ctrl-i is tab, ctrl-j is newline (\n).
• Control and shift don't work simultaneously - ctrl-X is the same as
ctrl-x.
Other keys don't have a direct encoding, and are sent as escape se-
quences. For example right () usually sends \e\[C.
Some modern terminals support newer encodings for keys, that allow dis-
tinguishing more characters and modifiers, and fish enables as many of
these as it can, automatically.
When in doubt, run fish_key_reader - explore what characters keyboard
keys send. If that tells you that pressing ctrl-i sends tab, your ter-
minal does not support these better encodings, and so fish is limited
to what it sends.
Key timeout
When you've bound a sequence of multiple characters, there is always
the possibility that fish has only seen a part of it, and then it needs
to disambiguate between the full sequence and part of it.
For example:
bind j,k 'commandline -i foo'
# or `bind jk`
will bind the sequence jk to insert "foo" into the commandline. When
you've only pressed "j", fish doesn't know if it should insert the "j"
(because of the default self-insert), or wait for the "k".
You can enable a timeout for this, by setting the
fish_sequence_key_delay_ms variable to the timeout in milliseconds. If
the timeout elapses, fish will no longer wait for the sequence to be
completed, and do what it can with the characters it already has.
The escape key is a special case, because it can be used standalone as
a real key or as part of a longer escape sequence, like function or ar-
row keys. Holding alt and something else also typically sends escape,
for example holding alt+a will send an escape character and then an
"a". So the escape character has its own timeout configured with
fish_escape_delay_ms.
See also Key sequences.
block - temporarily block delivery of events
Synopsis
block [(--local | --global)]
block --erase
Description
block delays delivery of all events triggered by fish or the emit, thus
delaying the execution of any function registered --on-event,
--on-process-exit, --on-job-exit, --on-variable and --on-signal until
after the block is removed.
Event blocks should not be confused with code blocks, which are created
with begin, if, while or for
Without options, block sets up a block that is released automatically
at the end of the current function scope.
The following options are available:
-l or --local
Release the block automatically at the end of the current inner-
most code block scope.
-g or --global
Never automatically release the lock.
-e or --erase
Release global block.
-h or --help
Display help about using this command.
Example
# Create a function that listens for events
function --on-event foo foo; echo 'foo fired'; end
# Block the delivery of events
block -g
emit foo
# No output will be produced
block -e
# 'foo fired' will now be printed
Notes
Events are only received from the current fish process as there is no
way to send events from one fish process to another.
break - stop the current inner loop
Synopsis
LOOP_CONSTRUCT
[COMMANDS ...]
break
[COMMANDS ...]
end
Description
break halts a currently running loop (LOOP_CONSTRUCT), such as a for or
while loop. It is usually added inside of a conditional block such as
an if block.
The -h or --help option displays help about using this command.
Example
The following code searches all .c files for "smurf", and halts at the
first occurrence.
for i in *.c
if grep smurf $i
echo Smurfs are present in $i
break
end
end
See Also
• the continue command, to skip the remainder of the current iteration
of the current inner loop
breakpoint - launch debug mode
Synopsis
breakpoint
Description
breakpoint is used to halt a running script and launch an interactive
debugging prompt.
For more details, see Debugging fish scripts in the fish manual.
There are no parameters for breakpoint.
builtin - run a builtin command
Synopsis
builtin [OPTIONS] BUILTINNAME
builtin --query BUILTINNAME ...
builtin --names
Description
builtin forces the shell to use a builtin command named BUILTIN, rather
than a function or external program.
The following options are available:
-n or --names
Lists the names of all defined builtins.
-q or --query BUILTIN
Tests if any of the specified builtins exist. If any exist, it
returns 0, 1 otherwise.
-h or --help
Displays help about using this command.
Example
builtin jobs
# executes the jobs builtin, even if a function named jobs exists
case - conditionally execute a block of commands
Synopsis
switch VALUE
[case [GLOB ...]
[COMMAND ...]]
end
Description
switch executes one of several blocks of commands, depending on whether
a specified value matches one of several values. case is used together
with the switch statement in order to determine which block should be
executed.
Each case command is given one or more parameters. The first case com-
mand with a parameter that matches the string specified in the switch
command will be evaluated. case parameters may contain wildcards. These
need to be escaped or quoted in order to avoid regular wildcard expan-
sion using filenames.
Note that fish does not fall through on case statements. Only the first
matching case is executed.
Note that command substitutions in a case statement will be evaluated
even if its body is not taken. All substitutions, including command
substitutions, must be performed before the value can be compared
against the parameter.
Example
Say $animal contains the name of an animal. Then this code would clas-
sify it:
switch $animal
case cat
echo evil
case wolf dog human moose dolphin whale
echo mammal
case duck goose albatross
echo bird
case shark trout stingray
echo fish
# Note that the next case has a wildcard which is quoted
case '*'
echo I have no idea what a $animal is
end
If the above code was run with $animal set to whale, the output would
be mammal.
If $animal was set to "banana", it would print "I have no idea what a
banana is".
cd - change directory
Synopsis
cd [DIRECTORY]
Description
NOTE: This page documents the fish builtin cd. To see the documenta-
tion on any non-fish versions, use command man cd.
cd changes the current working directory.
If DIRECTORY is given, it will become the new directory. If no parame-
ter is given, the HOME environment variable will be used.
If DIRECTORY is a relative path, all the paths in the CDPATH will be
tried as prefixes for it, in addition to PWD. It is recommended to
keep . as the first element of CDPATH, or PWD will be tried last.
Fish will also try to change directory if given a command that looks
like a directory (starting with ., / or ~, or ending with /), without
explicitly requiring cd.
Fish also ships a wrapper function around the builtin cd that under-
stands cd - as changing to the previous directory. See also prevd.
This wrapper function maintains a history of the 25 most recently vis-
ited directories in the $dirprev and $dirnext global variables. If you
make those universal variables your cd history is shared among all fish
instances.
As a special case, cd . is equivalent to cd $PWD, which is useful in
cases where a mountpoint has been recycled or a directory has been re-
moved and recreated.
The --help or -h option displays help about using this command, and
does not change the directory.
Examples
cd
# changes the working directory to your home directory.
cd /usr/src/fish-shell
# changes the working directory to /usr/src/fish-shell
See Also
Navigate directories using the directory history or the directory stack
cdh - change to a recently visited directory
Synopsis
cdh [DIRECTORY]
Description
cdh with no arguments presents a list of recently visited directories.
You can then select one of the entries by letter or number. You can
also press tab to use the completion pager to select an item from the
list. If you give it a single argument it is equivalent to cd DIREC-
TORY.
Note that the cd command limits directory history to the 25 most re-
cently visited directories. The history is stored in the dirprev and
dirnext variables, which this command manipulates. If you make those
universal variables, your cd history is shared among all fish in-
stances.
See Also
• the dirh command to print the directory history
• the prevd command to move backward
• the nextd command to move forward
command - run a program
Synopsis
command [OPTIONS] [COMMANDNAME [ARG ...]]
Description
NOTE: This page documents the fish builtin command. To see the docu-
mentation on any non-fish versions, use command man command.
command forces the shell to execute the program COMMANDNAME and ignore
any functions or builtins with the same name.
In command foo, command is a keyword.
The following options are available:
-a or --all
Prints all COMMAND found in PATH, in the order found.
-q or --query
Return 0 if any of the given commands could be found, 127 other-
wise. Don't print anything. For compatibility, this is also
--quiet (deprecated).
-s or --search (or -v)
Prints the external command that would be executed, or prints
nothing if no file with the specified name could be found in
PATH.
-h or --help
Displays help about using this command.
Examples
command ls executes the ls program, even if an ls function also exists.
command -s ls prints the path to the ls program.
command -q git; and command git log runs git log only if git exists.
command -sq git and command -q git and command -vq git return true (0) if a git command could be found and don't print anything.
commandline - set or get the current command line buffer
Synopsis
commandline [OPTIONS] [CMD]
Description
commandline can be used to set or get the current contents of the com-
mand line buffer.
With no parameters, commandline returns the current value of the com-
mand line.
With CMD specified, the command line buffer is erased and replaced with
the contents of CMD.
The following options are available:
-C or --cursor
Set or get the current cursor position, not the contents of the
buffer. If no argument is given, the current cursor position is
printed, otherwise the argument is interpreted as the new cursor
position. If one of the options -j, -p or -t is given, the po-
sition is relative to the respective substring instead of the
entire command line buffer.
-B or --selection-start
Get current position of the selection start in the buffer.
-E or --selection-end
Get current position of the selection end in the buffer.
-f or --function
Causes any additional arguments to be interpreted as input func-
tions, and puts them into the queue, so that they will be read
before any additional actual key presses are. This option can-
not be combined with any other option. See bind for a list of
input functions.
-h or --help
Displays help about using this command.
The following options change the way commandline updates the command
line buffer:
-a or --append
Do not remove the current commandline, append the specified
string at the end of it.
-i, --insert or --insert-smart
Do not remove the current commandline, insert the specified
string at the current cursor position. The --insert-smart op-
tion turns on a Do-What-I-Mean (DWIM) mode: it strips any $ pre-
fix from the first command on each line.
-r or --replace
Remove the current commandline and replace it with the specified
string (default)
The following options change what part of the commandline is printed or
updated:
-b or --current-buffer
Select the entire commandline, not including any displayed auto-
suggestion (default).
-j or --current-job
Select the current job - a job here is one pipeline. Stops at
logical operators or terminators (;, &, and newlines).
-p or --current-process
Select the current process - a process here is one command.
Stops at logical operators, terminators, and pipes.
-s or --current-selection
Selects the current selection
-t or --current-token
Selects the current token
--search-field
Use the pager search field instead of the command line. Returns
false if the search field is not shown.
--input=INPUT
Operate on this string instead of the commandline. Useful for
using options like --tokens-expanded.
The following options change the way commandline prints the current
commandline buffer:
-c or --cut-at-cursor
Only print selection up until the current cursor position. If
combined with --tokens-expanded, this will print up until the
last completed token - excluding the token the cursor is in.
This is typically what you would want for instance in comple-
tions. To get both, use both commandline --cut-at-cursor --to-
kens-expanded; commandline --cut-at-cursor --current-token, or
commandline -cx; commandline -ct for short.
-x or --tokens-expanded
Perform argument expansion on the selection and print one argu-
ment per line. Command substitutions are not expanded but for-
warded as-is.
-o, tokenize, --tokens-raw
Deprecated; do not use.
If commandline is called during a call to complete a given string using
complete -C STRING, commandline will consider the specified string to
be the current contents of the command line.
The following options output metadata about the commandline state:
-L or --line
If no argument is given, print the line that the cursor is on,
with the topmost line starting at 1. Otherwise, set the cursor
to the given line.
--column
If no argument is given, print the 1-based offset from the start
of the line to the cursor position in Unicode code points. Oth-
erwise, set the cursor to the given code point offset.
-S or --search-mode
Evaluates to true if the commandline is performing a history
search.
-P or --paging-mode
Evaluates to true if the commandline is showing pager contents,
such as tab completions.
--paging-full-mode
Evaluates to true if the commandline is showing pager contents,
such as tab completions and all lines are shown (no "<n> more
rows" message).
--is-valid
Returns true when the commandline is syntactically valid and
complete. If it is, it would be executed when the execute bind
function is called. If the commandline is incomplete, return 2,
if erroneous, return 1.
--showing-suggestion
Evaluates to true (i.e. returns 0) when the shell is currently
showing an automatic history completion/suggestion, available to
be consumed via one of the forward- bindings. For example, can
be used to determine if moving the cursor to the right when al-
ready at the end of the line would have no effect or if it would
cause a completion to be accepted (note that forward-char-pas-
sive does this automatically).
Example
commandline -j $history[3] replaces the job under the cursor with the
third item from the command line history.
If the commandline contains
>_ echo $flounder >&2 | less; and echo $catfish
(with the cursor on the "o" of "flounder")
The echo $flounder >& is the first process, less the second and and
echo $catfish the third.
echo $flounder >&2 | less is the first job, and echo $catfish the sec-
ond.
$flounder is the current token.
The most common use for something like completions is
set -l tokens (commandline -xpc)
which gives the current process (what is being completed), tokenized
into separate entries, up to but excluding the currently being com-
pleted token
If you are then also interested in the in-progress token, add
set -l current (commandline -ct)
Note that this makes it easy to render fish's infix matching moot - if
possible it's best if the completions just print all possibilities and
leave the matching to the current token up to fish's logic.
More examples:
>_ commandline -t
$flounder
>_ commandline -ct
$fl
>_ commandline -b # or just commandline
echo $flounder >&2 | less; and echo $catfish
>_ commandline -p
echo $flounder >&2
>_ commandline -j
echo $flounder >&2 | less
complete - edit command-specific tab-completions
Synopsis
complete ((-c | --command) | (-p | --path)) COMMAND [OPTIONS] [--color WHEN]
complete (-C | --do-complete) [--escape] STRING
Description
complete defines, removes or lists completions for a command.
For an introduction to writing your own completions, see Writing your
own completions in the fish manual.
The following options are available:
-c or --command COMMAND
Specifies that COMMAND is the name of the command. If there is
no -c or -p, one non-option argument will be used as the com-
mand.
-p or --path COMMAND
Specifies that COMMAND is the absolute path of the command (op-
tionally containing wildcards).
-e or --erase
Deletes the specified completion.
-s or --short-option SHORT_OPTION
Adds a short option to the completions list.
-l or --long-option LONG_OPTION
Adds a GNU-style long option to the completions list.
-o or --old-option OPTION
Adds an old-style short or long option (see below for details).
-a or --arguments ARGUMENTS
Adds the specified option arguments to the completions list.
-k or --keep-order
Keeps the order of ARGUMENTS instead of sorting alphabetically.
Multiple complete calls with -k result in arguments of the later
ones displayed first.
-f or --no-files
This completion may not be followed by a filename.
-F or --force-files
This completion may be followed by a filename, even if another
applicable complete specified --no-files.
-r or --require-parameter
This completion must have an option argument, i.e. may not be
followed by another option. This means that the next argument
is the argument to the option. If this is not given, the option
argument must be attached like -xFoo or --color=auto.
-x or --exclusive
Short for -r and -f.
-d or --description DESCRIPTION
Add a description for this completion, to be shown in the com-
pletion pager.
-w or --wraps WRAPPED_COMMAND
Causes the specified command to inherit completions from
WRAPPED_COMMAND. This is used for "this command completes like
that other command" kinds of relationships. See below for de-
tails.
-n or --condition CONDITION
This completion should only be used if the CONDITION (a shell
command) returns 0. This makes it possible to specify comple-
tions that should only be used in some cases. If multiple condi-
tions are specified, fish will try them in the order they are
specified until one fails or all succeeded.
-C or --do-complete STRING
Makes complete try to find all possible completions for the
specified string. If there is no STRING, the current commandline
is used instead.
--escape
When used with -C, escape special characters in completions.
--color WHEN
Controls when to use syntax highlighting colors when printing
completions. WHEN can be auto (the default, colorize if the
output is a terminal), always, or never.
-h or --help
Displays help about using this command.
Command-specific tab-completions in fish are based on the notion of op-
tions and arguments. An option is a parameter which begins with a hy-
phen, such as -h, -help or --help. Arguments are parameters that do not
begin with a hyphen. Fish recognizes three styles of options, the same
styles as the GNU getopt library. These styles are:
• Short options, like -a. Short options are a single character long,
are preceded by a single hyphen and can be grouped together (like
-la, which is equivalent to -l -a). Option arguments may be specified
by appending the option with the value (-w32), or, if --require-para-
meter is given, in the following parameter (-w 32).
• Old-style options, long like -Wall or -name or even short like -a.
Old-style options can be more than one character long, are preceded
by a single hyphen and may not be grouped together. Option arguments
are specified by default following a space (-foo null) or after =
(-foo=null).
• GNU-style long options, like --colors. GNU-style long options can be
more than one character long, are preceded by two hyphens, and can't
be grouped together. Option arguments may be specified after a =
(--quoting-style=shell), or, if --require-parameter is given, in the
following parameter (--quoting-style shell).
Multiple commands and paths can be given in one call to define the same
completions for multiple commands.
Multiple command switches and wrapped commands can also be given to de-
fine multiple completions in one call.
Invoking complete multiple times for the same command adds the new def-
initions on top of any existing completions defined for the command.
When -a or --arguments is specified in conjunction with long, short, or
old-style options, the specified arguments are only completed as argu-
ments for any of the specified options. If -a or --arguments is speci-
fied without any long, short, or old-style options, the specified argu-
ments are used when completing non-option arguments to the command (ex-
cept when completing an option argument that was specified with -r or
--require-parameter).
Command substitutions found in ARGUMENTS should return a newline-sepa-
rated list of arguments, and each argument may optionally have a tab
character followed by the argument description. Description given this
way override a description given with -d or --description.
Descriptions given with --description are also used to group options
given with -s, -o or -l. Options with the same (non-empty) description
will be listed as one candidate, and one of them will be picked. If the
description is empty or no description was given this is skipped.
The -w or --wraps options causes the specified command to inherit com-
pletions from another command, "wrapping" the other command. The wrap-
ping command can also have additional completions. A command can wrap
multiple commands, and wrapping is transitive: if A wraps B, and B
wraps C, then A automatically inherits all of C's completions. Wrapping
can be removed using the -e or --erase options. Wrapping only works for
completions specified with -c or --command and are ignored when speci-
fying completions with -p or --path.
When erasing completions, it is possible to either erase all comple-
tions for a specific command by specifying complete -c COMMAND -e, or
by specifying a specific completion option to delete.
When complete is called without anything that would define or erase
completions (options, arguments, wrapping, ...), it shows matching com-
pletions instead. So complete without any arguments shows all loaded
completions, complete -c foo shows all loaded completions for foo.
Since completions are autoloaded, you will have to trigger them first.
Cygwin / MSYS2 / Windows
On Windows, binary executables have a .exe extension, but this exten-
sion is not required when calling an application (and if the name is
not ambiguous, i.e. there isn't also a script called myprog in the same
directory as myprog.exe).
To unify completions between Windows and other OSes, on Cyg-
win/MSYS2/Windows, COMMAND does not require the .exe extension. Com-
pletions for myprog will also be used for myprog.exe if there are no
ambiguities, i.e. if there are no completions for myprog.exe specifi-
cally. However, completions for myprog.exe will only be used when also
using the .exe extension on the command line.
In other words:
complete -c myprog.exe ... #1
will only work for myprog.exe
complete -c myprog ... #2
can work for both myprog and myprog.exe. But if both completions exist,
#2 will only be used for myprog while myprog.exe will use #1.
Examples
The short-style option -o for the gcc command needs a file argument:
complete -c gcc -s o -r
The short-style option -d for the grep command requires one of read,
skip or recurse:
complete -c grep -s d -x -a "read skip recurse"
The su command takes any username as an argument. Usernames are given
as the first colon-separated field in the file /etc/passwd. This can be
specified as:
complete -x -c su -d "Username" -a "(cat /etc/passwd | cut -d : -f 1)"
The rpm command has several different modes. If the -e or --erase flag
has been specified, rpm should delete one or more packages, in which
case several switches related to deleting packages are valid, like the
nodeps switch.
This can be written as:
complete -c rpm -n "__fish_contains_opt -s e erase" -l nodeps -d "Don't check dependencies"
where __fish_contains_opt is a function that checks the command line
buffer for the presence of a specified set of options.
To implement an alias, use the -w or --wraps option:
complete -c hub -w git
Now hub inherits all of the completions from git. Note this can also be
specified in a function declaration (function thing -w otherthing).
complete -c git
Shows all completions for git.
Any command foo that doesn't support grouping multiple short options in
one string (not supporting -xf as short for -x -f) or a short option
and its value in one string (not supporting -d9 instead of -d 9) should
be specified as a single-character old-style option instead of as a
short-style option; for example, complete -c foo -o s; complete -c foo
-o v would never suggest foo -ov but rather foo -o -v.
contains - test if a word is present in a list
Synopsis
contains [OPTIONS] KEY [VALUES ...]
Description
contains tests whether the set VALUES contains the string KEY. If so,
contains exits with code 0; if not, it exits with code 1.
The following options are available:
-i or --index
Print the index (number of the element in the set) of the first
matching element.
-h or --help
Displays help about using this command.
Note that contains interprets all arguments starting with a - as an op-
tion to contains, until an -- argument is reached.
See the examples below.
Example
If animals is a list of animals, the following will test if animals
contains "cat":
if contains cat $animals
echo Your animal list is evil!
end
This code will add some directories to PATH if they aren't yet in-
cluded:
for i in ~/bin /usr/local/bin
if not contains $i $PATH
set PATH $PATH $i
end
end
While this will check if function hasargs is being ran with the -q op-
tion:
function hasargs
if contains -- -q $argv
echo '$argv contains a -q option'
end
end
The -- here stops contains from treating -q to an option to itself.
Instead it treats it as a normal string to check.
continue - skip the remainder of the current iteration of the current inner
loop
Synopsis
LOOP_CONSTRUCT; [COMMANDS ...;] continue; [COMMANDS ...;] end
Description
continue skips the remainder of the current iteration of the current
inner loop, such as a for loop or a while loop. It is usually added in-
side of a conditional block such as an if statement or a switch state-
ment.
The -h or --help option displays help about using this command.
Example
The following code removes all tmp files that do not contain the word
smurf.
for i in *.tmp
if grep smurf $i
continue
end
# This "rm" is skipped over if "continue" is executed.
rm $i
# As is this "echo"
echo $i
end
See Also
• the break command, to stop the current inner loop
count - count the number of elements of a list
Synopsis
count STRING1 STRING2 ...
COMMAND | count
count [...] < FILE
Description
count prints the number of arguments that were passed to it, plus the
number of newlines passed to it via stdin. This is usually used to find
out how many elements an environment variable list contains, or how
many lines there are in a text file.
count does not accept any options, not even -h or --help.
count exits with a non-zero exit status if no arguments were passed to
it, and with zero if at least one argument was passed.
Note that, like wc -l, reading from stdin counts newlines, so echo -n
foo | count will print 0.
Example
count $PATH
# Returns the number of directories in the users PATH variable.
count *.txt
# Returns the number of files in the current working directory
# ending with the suffix '.txt'.
git ls-files --others --exclude-standard | count
# Returns the number of untracked files in a git repository
printf '%s\n' foo bar | count baz
# Returns 3 (2 lines from stdin plus 1 argument)
count < /etc/hosts
# Counts the number of entries in the hosts file
dirh - print directory history
Synopsis
dirh
Description
dirh prints the current directory history. The current position in the
history is highlighted using the color defined in the fish_color_his-
tory_current environment variable.
dirh does not accept any parameters.
Note that the cd command limits directory history to the 25 most re-
cently visited directories. The history is stored in the $dirprev and
$dirnext variables.
See Also
• the cdh command to display a prompt to quickly navigate the history
• the prevd command to move backward
• the nextd command to move forward
dirs - print directory stack
Synopsis
dirs [-c]
Description
dirs prints the current directory stack, as created by pushd and modi-
fied by popd.
The following options are available:
-c: Clear the directory stack instead of printing it.
-h or --help
Displays help about using this command.
dirs does not accept any arguments.
See Also
• the cdh command, which provides a more intuitive way to navigate to
recently visited directories.
disown - remove a process from the list of jobs
Synopsis
disown [PID ...]
Description
disown removes the specified job from the list of jobs. The job itself
continues to exist, but fish does not keep track of it any longer.
This will make fish lose all knowledge of the job, so functions defined
with --on-process-exit or --on-job-exit will no longer fire.
Jobs in the list of jobs are sent a hang-up signal when fish termi-
nates, which usually causes the job to terminate; disown allows these
processes to continue regardless.
If no process is specified, the most recently-used job is removed (like
bg and fg). If one or more PIDs are specified, jobs with the specified
process IDs are removed from the job list. Invalid jobs are ignored and
a warning is printed.
If a job is stopped, it is sent a signal to continue running, and a
warning is printed. It is not possible to use the bg builtin to con-
tinue a job once it has been disowned.
disown returns 0 if all specified jobs were disowned successfully, and
1 if any problems were encountered.
The --help or -h option displays help about using this command.
Example
firefox &; disown will start the Firefox web browser in the background
and remove it from the job list, meaning it will not be closed when the
fish process is closed.
disown (jobs -p) removes all jobs from the job list without terminating
them.
echo - display a line of text
Synopsis
echo [OPTIONS] [STRING]
Description
NOTE: This page documents the fish builtin echo. To see the documenta-
tion on any non-fish versions, use command man echo.
echo displays STRING of text.
The following options are available:
-n Do not output a newline.
-s Do not separate arguments with spaces.
-E Disable interpretation of backslash escapes (default).
-e Enable interpretation of backslash escapes.
Unlike other shells, this echo accepts -- to signal the end of the op-
tions.
Escape Sequences
If -e is used, the following sequences are recognized:
• \ backslash
• \a alert (BEL)
• \b backspace
• \c produce no further output
• \e escape
• \f form feed
• \n new line
• \r carriage return
• \t horizontal tab
• \v vertical tab
• \0NNN byte with octal value NNN (1 to 3 digits)
• \xHH byte with hexadecimal value HH (1 to 2 digits)
Example
> echo 'Hello World'
Hello World
> echo -e 'Top\nBottom'
Top
Bottom
> echo -- -n
-n
See Also
• the printf command, for more control over output formatting
else - execute command if a condition is not met
Synopsis
if CONDITION; COMMANDS_TRUE ...; [else; COMMANDS_FALSE ...;] end
Description
if will execute the command CONDITION*. If the condition's exit status
is 0, the commands COMMANDS_TRUE will execute. If it is not 0 and else
is given, COMMANDS_FALSE will be executed.
Example
The following code tests whether a file foo.txt exists as a regular
file.
if test -f foo.txt
echo foo.txt exists
else
echo foo.txt does not exist
end
emit - emit a generic event
Synopsis
emit EVENT_NAME [ARGUMENTS ...]
Description
emit emits, or fires, an event. Events are delivered to, or caught by,
special functions called event handlers. The arguments are passed to
the event handlers as function arguments.
The --help or -h option displays help about using this command.
Example
The following code first defines an event handler for the generic event
named 'test_event', and then emits an event of that type.
function event_test --on-event test_event
echo event test: $argv
end
emit test_event something
Notes
Note that events are only sent to the current fish process as there is
no way to send events from one fish process to another.
end - end a block of commands
Synopsis
begin
[COMMANDS ...]
end
function NAME [OPTIONS]; COMMANDS ...; end
if CONDITION; COMMANDS_TRUE ...; [else; COMMANDS_FALSE ...;] end
switch VALUE; [case [WILDCARD ...]; [COMMANDS ...]; ...] end
while CONDITION; COMMANDS ...; end
for VARNAME in [VALUES ...]; COMMANDS ...; end
Description
The end keyword ends a block of commands started by one of the follow-
ing commands:
• begin to start a block of commands
• function to define a function
• if, switch to conditionally execute commands
• while, for to perform commands multiple times
The end keyword does not change the current exit status. Instead, the
status after it will be the status returned by the most recent command.
eval - evaluate the specified commands
Synopsis
eval [COMMANDS ...]
Description
eval evaluates the specified parameters as a command. If more than one
parameter is specified, all parameters will be joined using a space
character as a separator.
If the command does not need access to stdin, consider using source in-
stead.
If no piping or other compound shell constructs are required, vari-
able-expansion-as-command, as in set cmd ls -la; $cmd, is also an op-
tion.
Example
The following code will call the ls command and truncate each filename
to the first 12 characters.
set cmd ls \| cut -c 1-12
eval $cmd
exec - execute command in current process
Synopsis
exec COMMAND
Description
NOTE: This page documents the fish builtin exec. To see the documenta-
tion on any non-fish versions, use command man exec.
exec replaces the currently running shell with a new command. On suc-
cessful completion, exec never returns. exec cannot be used inside a
pipeline.
The --help or -h option displays help about using this command.
Example
exec emacs starts up the emacs text editor, and exits fish. When emacs
exits, the session will terminate.
exit - exit the shell
Synopsis
exit [CODE]
Description
exit is a special builtin that causes the shell to exit. Either 255 or
the CODE supplied is used, whichever is lesser. Otherwise, the exit
status will be that of the last command executed.
If exit is called while sourcing a file (using the source builtin) the
rest of the file will be skipped, but the shell itself will not exit.
The --help or -h option displays help about using this command.
export - compatibility function for exporting variables
Synopsis
export
export NAME=VALUE
Description
export is a function included for compatibility with POSIX shells. In
general, the set builtin should be used instead.
When called without arguments, export prints a list of currently-ex-
ported variables, like set -x.
When called with a NAME=VALUE pair, the variable NAME is set to VALUE
in the global scope, and exported as an environment variable to other
commands.
There are no options available.
Example
The following commands have an identical effect.
set -gx PAGER bat
export PAGER=bat
Note: If you want to add to e.g. $PATH, you need to be careful to
combine the list. Quote it, like so:
export PATH="$PATH:/opt/bin"
Or just use set, which avoids this:
set -gx PATH $PATH /opt/bin
See more
1. The set command.
false - return an unsuccessful result
Synopsis
false
Description
false sets the exit status to 1.
See Also
• true command
• $status variable
fg - bring job to foreground
Synopsis
fg [PID]
Description
The fg builtin brings the specified job to the foreground, resuming it
if it is stopped. While a foreground job is executed, fish is sus-
pended. If no job is specified, the last job to be used is put in the
foreground. If PID is specified, the job containing a process with the
specified process ID is put in the foreground.
For compatibility with other shells, job expansion syntax is supported
for fg. A PID of the format %1 will foreground job 1. Job numbers can
be seen in the output of jobs.
The --help or -h option displays help about using this command.
Example
fg will put the last job in the foreground.
fg %3 will put job 3 into the foreground.
fish - the friendly interactive shell
Synopsis
fish [OPTIONS] [FILE [ARG ...]]
fish [OPTIONS] [-c COMMAND [ARG ...]]
Description
fish is a command-line shell written mainly with interactive use in
mind. This page briefly describes the options for invoking fish. The
full manual is available in HTML by using the help command from inside
fish, and in the fish-doc(1) man page. The tutorial is available as
HTML via help tutorial or in man fish-tutorial.
The following options are available:
-c or --command=COMMAND
Evaluate the specified commands instead of reading from the com-
mandline. Any additional positional arguments are used as
$argv.
-C or --init-command=COMMANDS
Evaluate specified commands after reading the configuration but
before executing command specified by -c or reading interactive
input.
-d or --debug=DEBUG_CATEGORIES
Enables debug output and specify a pattern for matching debug
categories. See Debugging below for details.
-o or --debug-output=DEBUG_FILE
Specifies a file path to receive the debug output, including
categories and fish_trace. The default is standard error.
-i or --interactive
The shell is interactive.
-l or --login
Act as if invoked as a login shell.
-N or --no-config
Do not read configuration files.
-n or --no-execute
Do not execute any commands, only perform syntax checking.
-p or --profile=PROFILE_FILE
when fish exits, output timing information on all executed com-
mands to the specified file. This excludes time spent starting
up and reading the configuration.
--profile-startup=PROFILE_FILE
Will write timing for fish startup to specified file.
-P or --private
Enables private mode: fish will not access old or store new his-
tory.
--print-rusage-self
When fish exits, output stats from getrusage.
--print-debug-categories
Print all debug categories, and then exit.
-v or --version
Print version and exit.
-f or --features=FEATURES
Enables one or more comma-separated feature flags.
The fish exit status is generally the exit status of the last fore-
ground command.
Debugging
While fish provides extensive support for debugging fish scripts, it is
also possible to debug and instrument its internals. Debugging can be
enabled by passing the --debug option. For example, the following com-
mand turns on debugging for background IO thread events, in addition to
the default categories, i.e. debug, error, warning, and warning-path:
> fish --debug=iothread
Available categories are listed by fish --print-debug-categories. The
--debug option accepts a comma-separated list of categories, and sup-
ports glob syntax. The following command turns on debugging for com-
plete, history, history-file, and profile-history, as well as the de-
fault categories:
> fish --debug='complete,*history*'
Debug messages output to stderr by default. Note that if fish_trace is
set, execution tracing also outputs to stderr by default. You can out-
put to a file using the --debug-output option:
> fish --debug='complete,*history*' --debug-output=/tmp/fish.log --init-command='set fish_trace on'
These options can also be changed via the FISH_DEBUG and
FISH_DEBUG_OUTPUT variables. The categories enabled via --debug are
added to the ones enabled by $FISH_DEBUG, so they can be disabled by
prefixing them with - (reader-*,-ast* enables reader debugging and dis-
ables ast debugging).
The file given in --debug-output takes precedence over the file in
FISH_DEBUG_OUTPUT.
Examples
To just start fish:
fish
To run a file with fish:
fish /path/to/script.fish
To run some commands with fish:
fish -c 'echo Hi there!'
You can also pass arguments to those commands:
> fish -c 'printf %s\n $argv' "first line" "second line"
first line
second line
To run a script, except read this other file first:
fish --init-cmd "source otherfile" script.fish
To profile fish's startup and find what takes the most time in your
configuration:
fish --profile-startup /tmp/start.prof -ic exit
sort -nk2 /tmp/start.prof
fish_add_path - add to the path
Synopsis
fish_add_path path ...
fish_add_path [(-g | --global) | (-U | --universal) | (-P | --path)] [(-m | --move)] [(-a | --append) | (-p | --prepend)] [(-v | --verbose) | (-n | --dry-run)] PATHS ...
Description
fish_add_path is a simple way to add more directories to fish's PATH.
It does this by adding the directories either to fish_user_paths or di-
rectly to PATH (if the --path switch is given).
It is (by default) safe to use fish_add_path in config.fish, or it can
be used once, interactively, and the paths will stay in future because
of universal variables. This is a "do what I mean" style command - it
tries to do the right thing by default, and follow your lead on what
you have already set up (e.g. by using a global fish_user_paths if you
have that already). If you need more control, consider modifying the
variable yourself.
Directories are normalized with realpath. Trailing slashes are ignored
and relative paths are made absolute (but symlinks are not resolved).
If a directory is already included, it is not added again and stays in
the same place unless the --move switch is given.
Directories are added in the order they are given, and they are
prepended to the path unless --append is given. If $fish_user_paths is
used, that means they are last in $fish_user_paths, which is itself
prepended to PATH, so they still stay ahead of the system paths. If the
--path option is used, the paths are appended/prepended to PATH di-
rectly, so this doesn't happen.
With --path, because PATH must be a global variable instead of a uni-
versal one, the changes won't persist, so those calls need to be stored
in config.fish. This also applies to fish_user_paths if you make it
global (for instance by passing --global).
If no directory is new, the variable (fish_user_paths or PATH) is not
set again or otherwise modified, so variable handlers are not trig-
gered.
If an argument is not an existing directory, fish_add_path ignores it.
Options
-a or --append
Add directories to the end of the variable.
-p or --prepend
Add directories to the front of the variable (this is the de-
fault).
-g or --global
Use a global fish_user_paths.
-U or --universal
Use a universal fish_user_paths - this is the default if it
doesn't already exist.
-P or --path
Manipulate PATH directly.
-m or --move
Move already-included directories to the place they would be
added - by default they would be left in place and not added
again.
-v or --verbose
Print the set command used, and some more warnings, like when a
path is skipped because it doesn't exist or is not a directory.
Verbose mode is automatically enabled when fish_add_path is used
interactively and the output goes to the terminal.
-n or --dry-run
Print the set command that would be used without executing it.
-h or --help
Displays help about using this command.
If --move is used, it may of course lead to the path swapping order, so
you should be careful doing that in config.fish.
Example
# I just installed mycoolthing and need to add it to the path to use it.
# It is at /opt/mycoolthing/bin/mycoolthing,
# so let's add the directory: /opt/mycoolthing/bin.
> fish_add_path /opt/mycoolthing/bin
# I want my ~/.local/bin to be checked first,
# even if it was already added.
> fish_add_path -m ~/.local/bin
# I prefer using a global fish_user_paths
# This isn't saved automatically, I need to add this to config.fish
# if I want it to stay.
> fish_add_path -g ~/.local/bin ~/.otherbin /usr/local/sbin
# I want to append to the entire $PATH because this directory contains fallbacks
# This needs --path/-P because otherwise it appends to $fish_user_paths,
# which is added to the front of $PATH.
> fish_add_path --append --path /opt/fallback/bin
# I want to add the bin/ directory of my current $PWD (say /home/nemo/)
# -v/--verbose shows what fish_add_path did.
> fish_add_path -v bin/
set fish_user_paths /home/nemo/bin /usr/bin /home/nemo/.local/bin
# I have installed ruby via homebrew
> fish_add_path /usr/local/opt/ruby/bin
fish_breakpoint_prompt - define the prompt when stopped at a breakpoint
Synopsis
fish_breakpoint_prompt
function fish_breakpoint_prompt
...
end
Description
fish_breakpoint_prompt is the prompt function when asking for input in
response to a breakpoint command.
The exit status of commands within fish_breakpoint_prompt will not mod-
ify the value of $status outside of the fish_breakpoint_prompt func-
tion.
fish ships with a default version of this function that displays the
function name and line number of the current execution context.
Example
A simple prompt that is a simplified version of the default debugging
prompt:
function fish_breakpoint_prompt -d "Write out the debug prompt"
set -l function (status current-function)
set -l line (status current-line-number)
set -l prompt "$function:$line >"
echo -ns (set_color $fish_color_status) "BP $prompt" (set_color normal) ' '
end
fish_clipboard_copy - copy text to the system's clipboard
Synopsis
fish_clipboard_copy
foo | fish_clipboard_copy
Description
The fish_clipboard_copy function copies text to the system clipboard.
If stdin is not a terminal (see isatty), it will read all input from
there and copy it. If it is, it will use the current commandline, or
the current selection if there is one.
It is bound to ctrl-x by default.
fish_clipboard_copy works by calling a system-specific backend. If it
doesn't appear to work you may need to install yours.
Currently supported are:
• pbcopy
• wl-copy using wayland
• xsel and xclip for X11
• clip.exe on Windows.
• The OSC 52 clipboard sequence, which your terminal might support
See also
• fish_clipboard_paste - get text from the system's clipboard which
does the inverse.
fish_clipboard_paste - get text from the system's clipboard
Synopsis
fish_clipboard_paste
fish_clipboard_paste | foo
Description
The fish_clipboard_paste function copies text from the system clip-
board.
If its stdout is not a terminal (see isatty), it will output everything
there, as-is, without any additional newlines. If it is, it will put
the text in the commandline instead.
If it outputs to the commandline, it will automatically escape the out-
put if the cursor is currently inside single-quotes so it is suitable
for single-quotes (meaning it escapes ' and \\).
It is bound to ctrl-v by default.
fish_clipboard_paste works by calling a system-specific backend. If it
doesn't appear to work you may need to install yours.
Currently supported are:
• pbpaste
• wl-paste using wayland
• xsel and xclip for X11
• powershell.exe on Windows (this backend has encoding limitations and
uses windows line endings that fish_clipboard_paste undoes)
See also
• fish_clipboard_copy - copy text to the system's clipboard which does
the inverse.
fish_command_not_found - what to do when a command wasn't found
Synopsis
function fish_command_not_found
...
end
Description
When fish tries to execute a command and can't find it, it invokes this
function.
It can print a message to tell you about it, and it often also checks
for a missing package that would include the command.
Fish ships multiple handlers for various operating systems and chooses
from them when this function is loaded, or you can define your own.
It receives the full commandline as one argument per token, so $argv[1]
contains the missing command.
When you leave fish_command_not_found undefined (e.g. by adding an
empty function file) or explicitly call __fish_default_com-
mand_not_found_handler, fish will just print a simple error.
Example
A simple handler:
function fish_command_not_found
echo Did not find command $argv[1]
end
> flounder
Did not find command flounder
Or the handler for OpenSUSE's command-not-found:
function fish_command_not_found
/usr/bin/command-not-found $argv[1]
end
Or the simple default handler:
function fish_command_not_found
__fish_default_command_not_found_handler $argv
end
Backwards compatibility
This command was introduced in fish 3.2.0. Previous versions of fish
used the "fish_command_not_found" event instead.
To define a handler that works in older versions of fish as well, de-
fine it the old way:
function __fish_command_not_found_handler --on-event fish_command_not_found
echo COMMAND WAS NOT FOUND MY FRIEND $argv[1]
end
in which case fish will define a fish_command_not_found that calls it,
or define a wrapper:
function fish_command_not_found
echo "G'day mate, could not find your command: $argv"
end
function __fish_command_not_found_handler --on-event fish_command_not_found
fish_command_not_found $argv
end
fish_config - start the web-based configuration interface
Synopsis
fish_config [browse]
fish_config prompt (choose | list | save | show)
fish_config theme
fish_config theme choose THEME [ --color-theme=(dark | light) ]
fish_config theme demo
fish_config theme dump
fish_config theme list
fish_config theme show [THEME...]
Description
fish_config is used to configure fish.
Without arguments or with the browse command it starts the web-based
configuration interface. The web interface allows you to view your
functions, variables and history, and to make changes to your prompt
and color configuration. It starts a local web server and opens a
browser window. When you are finished, close the browser window and
press the Enter key to terminate the configuration session.
If the BROWSER environment variable is set, it will be used as the name
of the web browser to open instead of the system default.
With the prompt command fish_config can be used to view and choose a
prompt from fish's sample prompts inside the terminal directly.
Available subcommands for the prompt command:
• choose loads a sample prompt in the current session.
• list lists the names of the available sample prompts.
• save saves the current prompt to a file (via funcsave).
• show shows what the given sample prompts (or all) would look like.
With the theme command fish_config can be used to view and choose a
theme (meaning a color scheme) inside the terminal.
Available subcommands for the theme command:
• choose loads a theme in the current session. If the theme has light
and dark variants (see below), the one matching
fish_terminal_color_theme will be applied (also whenever that vari-
able changes). To override fish_terminal_color_theme, pass the
--color-theme argument.
• demo displays some sample text in the current theme.
• dump prints the current theme in a loadable format.
• list lists the names of the available themes.
• show shows what the given themes (or all) would look like.
• (not recommended) save saves the given theme to universal variables.
A theme set this way will not update as fish_terminal_color_theme
changes.
The -h or --help option displays help about using this command.
Theme Files
fish_config theme and the theme selector in the web config tool load
their themes from theme files. These are stored in the fish configura-
tion directory, typically ~/.config/fish/themes, with a .theme ending.
You can add your own theme by adding a file in that directory.
To get started quickly:
fish_config theme dump > ~/.config/fish/themes/my.theme
which will save your current theme in .theme format.
The format looks like this:
# name: 'My Theme'
[light]
# preferred_background: ffffff
fish_color_normal 000000
fish_color_autosuggestion 7f7f7f
fish_color_command 0000ee
[dark]
# preferred_background: 000000
fish_color_normal ffffff
fish_color_autosuggestion 7f7f7f
fish_color_command 5c5cff
[unknown]
fish_color_normal normal
fish_color_autosuggestion brblack
fish_color_cancel -r
fish_color_command normal
The comments provide name and background color to the web config tool.
Themes can have three variants, one for light mode, one for dark mode,
and one for terminals that don't report colors (where
fish_terminal_color_theme is set to unknown).
The other lines are just like set variable value, except that no expan-
sions are allowed. Quotes are, but aren't necessary.
Other than that, .theme files can contain any variable with a name that
matches the regular expression '^fish_(?:pager_)?color_.*$' - starts
with fish_, an optional pager_, then color_ and then anything.
Example
fish_config or fish_config browse opens a new web browser window and
allows you to configure certain fish settings.
fish_config prompt show demos the available sample prompts.
fish_config prompt choose disco makes the disco prompt the prompt for
the current session. This can also be used in config.fish to set the
prompt.
fish_config prompt save saves the current prompt to an autoloaded file.
fish_config prompt save default chooses the default prompt and saves
it.
fish_default_key_bindings - set emacs key bindings for fish
Synopsis
fish_default_key_bindings
Description
fish_default_key_bindings sets the emacs key bindings for fish shell.
Some of the Emacs key bindings are defined here.
There are no parameters for fish_default_key_bindings.
Examples
To start using emacs key bindings:
fish_default_key_bindings
fish_delta - compare functions and completions to the default
Synopsis
fish_delta name ...
fish_delta [-f | --no-functions] [-c | --no-completions] [-C | --no-config] [-d | --no-diff] [-n | --new] [-V | --vendor=]
fish_delta [-h | --help]
Description
The fish_delta function tells you, at a glance, which of your functions
and completions differ from the set that fish ships.
It does this by going through the relevant variables (-
fish_function_path for functions and fish_complete_path for comple-
tions) and comparing the files against fish's default directories.
If any names are given, it will only compare files by those names (plus
a ".fish" extension).
By default, it will also use diff to display the difference between the
files. If diff is unavailable, it will skip it, but in that case it
also cannot figure out if the files really differ.
The exit status is 1 if there was a difference and 2 for other errors,
otherwise 0.
Options
The following options are available:
-f or --no-functions
Stops checking functions
-c or --no-completions
Stops checking completions
-C or --no-config
Stops checking configuration files like config.fish or snippets
in the conf.d directories.
-d or --no-diff
Removes the diff display (this happens automatically if diff
can't be found)
-n or --new
Also prints new files (i.e. those that can't be found in fish's
default directories).
-Vvalue or --vendor=value
Determines how the vendor directories are counted. Valid values
are:
• "default" - counts vendor files as belonging to the defaults.
Any changes in other directories will be counted as changes
over them. This is the default.
• "user" - counts vendor files as belonging to the user files.
Any changes in them will be counted as new or changed files.
• "ignore" - ignores vendor directories. Files of the same name
will be counted as "new" if no file of the same name in fish's
default directories exists.
-h or --help
Prints fish_delta's help (this).
Example
Running just:
fish_delta
will give you a list of all your changed functions and completions, in-
cluding diffs (if you have the diff command).
It might look like this:
> fish_delta
New: /home/alfa/.config/fish/functions/battery.fish
Changed: /home/alfa/.config/fish/test/completions/cargo.fish
--- /home/alfa/.config/fish/test/completions/cargo.fish 2022-09-02 12:57:55.579229959 +0200
+++ /usr/share/fish/completions/cargo.fish 2022-09-25 17:51:53.000000000 +0200
# the output of `diff` follows
The options are there to select which parts of the output you want.
With --no-completions you can compare just functions, and with
--no-diff you can turn off the diff display.
To only compare your fish_git_prompt, you might use:
fish_delta --no-completions fish_git_prompt
which will only compare files called "fish_git_prompt.fish".
fish_git_prompt - output git information for use in a prompt
Synopsis
fish_git_prompt [FORMAT]
function fish_prompt
printf '%s' $PWD (fish_git_prompt) ' $ '
end
Description
The fish_git_prompt function displays information about the current git
repository, if any.
Git <https://git-scm.com> must be installed.
It is possible to modify the output format by passing an argument. The
default value is " (%s)".
There are numerous customization options, which can be controlled with
git options or fish variables. git options, where available, take
precedence over the fish variable with the same function. git options
can be set on a per-repository or global basis. git options can be set
with the git config command, while fish variables can be set as usual
with the set command.
Boolean options (those which enable or disable something) understand
"1", "yes" or "true" to mean true and every other value to mean false.
• $__fish_git_prompt_show_informative_status or the git option
bash.showInformativeStatus can be set to 1, true or yes to enable the
"informative" display, which will show a large amount of information
- the number of dirty files, unpushed/unpulled commits, and more. In
large repositories, this can take a lot of time, so you may wish to
disable it in these repositories with git config --local bash.show-
InformativeStatus false. It also changes the characters the prompt
uses to less plain ones ( instead of * for the dirty state for exam-
ple) , and if you are only interested in that, set
$__fish_git_prompt_use_informative_chars instead.
Because counting untracked files requires a lot of time, the number
of untracked files is only shown if enabled via
$__fish_git_prompt_showuntrackedfiles or the git option bash.showUn-
trackedFiles.
• $__fish_git_prompt_showdirtystate or the git option bash.showDirtyS-
tate can be set to 1, true or yes to show if the repository is
"dirty", i.e. has uncommitted changes.
• $__fish_git_prompt_showuntrackedfiles or the git option bash.showUn-
trackedFiles can be set to 1, true or yes to show if the repository
has untracked files (that aren't ignored).
• $__fish_git_prompt_showupstream can be set to a list of values to de-
termine how changes between HEAD and upstream are shown:
auto summarize the difference between HEAD and its upstream
verbose
show number of commits ahead/behind (+/-) upstream
name if verbose, then also show the upstream abbrev name
informative
similar to verbose, but shows nothing when equal - this is
the default if informative status is enabled.
git always compare HEAD to @{upstream}
svn always compare HEAD to your SVN upstream
none disables (useful with informative status)
• $__fish_git_prompt_showstashstate can be set to 1, true or yes to
display the state of the stash.
• $__fish_git_prompt_shorten_branch_len can be set to the number of
characters that the branch name will be shortened to.
• $__fish_git_prompt_describe_style can be set to one of the following
styles to describe the current HEAD:
contains
relative to newer annotated tag, such as (v1.6.3.2~35)
branch relative to newer tag or branch, such as (master~4)
describe
relative to older annotated tag, such as
(v1.6.3.1-13-gdd42c2f)
default
an exactly matching tag ((develop))
If none of these apply, the commit SHA shortened to 8 characters
is used.
• $__fish_git_prompt_showcolorhints can be set to 1, true or yes to en-
able coloring for the branch name and status symbols.
A number of variables set characters and color used as indicators. Many
of these have a different default if used with informative status en-
abled, or $__fish_git_prompt_use_informative_chars set. The usual de-
fault is given first, then the informative default (if it is differ-
ent). If no default for the colors is given, they default to
$__fish_git_prompt_color.
• $__fish_git_prompt_char_stateseparator (' ', |) - the character to be
used between the state characters
• $__fish_git_prompt_color (no default)
• $__fish_git_prompt_color_prefix - the color of the ( prefix
• $__fish_git_prompt_color_suffix - the color of the ) suffix
• $__fish_git_prompt_color_bare - the color to use for a bare reposi-
tory - one without a working tree
• $__fish_git_prompt_color_merging - the color when a merge/rebase/re-
vert/bisect or cherry-pick is in progress
• $__fish_git_prompt_char_cleanstate ( in informative mode) - the char-
acter to be used when nothing else applies
• $__fish_git_prompt_color_cleanstate (no default)
Variables used with showdirtystate:
• $__fish_git_prompt_char_dirtystate (*, ) - the number of "dirty"
changes, i.e. unstaged files with changes
• $__fish_git_prompt_char_invalidstate (#, ) - the number of "unmerged"
changes, e.g. additional changes to already added files
• $__fish_git_prompt_char_stagedstate (+, ) - the number of staged
files without additional changes
• $__fish_git_prompt_color_dirtystate (red with showcolorhints, same as
color_flags otherwise)
• $__fish_git_prompt_color_invalidstate
• $__fish_git_prompt_color_stagedstate (green with showcolorhints,
color_flags otherwise)
Variables used with showstashstate:
• $__fish_git_prompt_char_stashstate ($, )
• $__fish_git_prompt_color_stashstate (same as color_flags)
Variables used with showuntrackedfiles:
• $__fish_git_prompt_char_untrackedfiles (%, ) - the symbol for un-
tracked files
• $__fish_git_prompt_color_untrackedfiles (same as color_flags)
Variables used with showupstream (also implied by informative status):
• $__fish_git_prompt_char_upstream_ahead (>, ) - the character for the
commits this repository is ahead of upstream
• $__fish_git_prompt_char_upstream_behind (<, ) - the character for the
commits this repository is behind upstream
• $__fish_git_prompt_char_upstream_diverged (<>, ) - the symbol if this
repository is both ahead and behind upstream
• $__fish_git_prompt_char_upstream_equal (=) - the symbol if this repo
is equal to upstream
• $__fish_git_prompt_char_upstream_prefix ('')
• $__fish_git_prompt_color_upstream
Colors used with showcolorhints:
• $__fish_git_prompt_color_branch (green) - the color of the branch if
nothing else applies
• $__fish_git_prompt_color_branch_detached (red) the color of the
branch if it's detached (e.g. a commit is checked out)
• $__fish_git_prompt_color_branch_dirty (no default) the color of the
branch if it's dirty and not detached
• $__fish_git_prompt_color_branch_staged (no default) the color of the
branch if it just has something staged and is otherwise clean
• $__fish_git_prompt_color_flags (--bold blue) - the default color for
dirty/staged/stashed/untracked state
Note that all colors can also have a corresponding _done color. For ex-
ample, the contents of $__fish_git_prompt_color_upstream_done is
printed right _after_ the upstream.
See also fish_vcs_prompt, which will call all supported version control
prompt functions, including git, Mercurial and Subversion.
Example
A simple prompt that displays git info:
function fish_prompt
# ...
set -g __fish_git_prompt_showupstream auto
printf '%s %s$' $PWD (fish_git_prompt)
end
fish_greeting - display a welcome message in interactive shells
Synopsis
fish_greeting
function fish_greeting
...
end
Description
When an interactive fish starts, it executes fish_greeting and displays
its output.
The default fish_greeting is a function that prints a variable of the
same name ($fish_greeting), so you can also just change that if you
just want to change the text.
While you could also just put echo calls into config.fish, fish_greet-
ing takes care of only being used in interactive shells, so it won't be
used e.g. with scp (which executes a shell), which prevents some er-
rors.
Example
To just empty the text, with the default greeting function:
set -U fish_greeting
or set -g fish_greeting in config.fish.
A simple greeting:
function fish_greeting
echo Hello friend!
echo The time is (set_color yellow)(date +%T)(set_color normal) and this machine is called $hostname
end
fish_hg_prompt - output Mercurial information for use in a prompt
Synopsis
fish_hg_prompt
function fish_prompt
printf '%s' $PWD (fish_hg_prompt) ' $ '
end
Description
The fish_hg_prompt function displays information about the current Mer-
curial repository, if any.
Mercurial <https://www.mercurial-scm.org/> (hg) must be installed.
By default, only the current branch is shown because hg status can be
slow on a large repository. You can enable a more informative prompt by
setting the variable $fish_prompt_hg_show_informative_status, for exam-
ple:
set fish_prompt_hg_show_informative_status
If you enabled the informative status, there are numerous customization
options, which can be controlled with fish variables.
• $fish_color_hg_clean, $fish_color_hg_modified and
$fish_color_hg_dirty are colors used when the repository has the re-
spective status.
Some colors for status symbols:
• $fish_color_hg_added
• $fish_color_hg_renamed
• $fish_color_hg_copied
• $fish_color_hg_deleted
• $fish_color_hg_untracked
• $fish_color_hg_unmerged
The status symbols themselves:
• $fish_prompt_hg_status_added, default ''
• $fish_prompt_hg_status_modified, default '*'
• $fish_prompt_hg_status_copied, default ''
• $fish_prompt_hg_status_deleted, default ''
• $fish_prompt_hg_status_untracked, default '?'
• $fish_prompt_hg_status_unmerged, default '!'
Finally, $fish_prompt_hg_status_order, which can be used to change the
order the status symbols appear in. It defaults to added modified
copied deleted untracked unmerged.
See also fish_vcs_prompt, which will call all supported version control
prompt functions, including git, Mercurial and Subversion.
Example
A simple prompt that displays hg info:
function fish_prompt
...
set -g fish_prompt_hg_show_informative_status
printf '%s %s$' $PWD (fish_hg_prompt)
end
fish_indent - indenter and prettifier
Synopsis
fish_indent [OPTIONS] [FILE ...]
Description
fish_indent is used to indent a piece of fish code. fish_indent reads
commands from standard input or the given filenames and outputs them to
standard output or a specified file (if -w is given).
The following options are available:
-w or --write
Indents a specified file and immediately writes to that file.
-i or --no-indent
Do not indent commands; only reformat to one job per line.
--only-indent
Do not reformat, only indent each line.
--only-unindent
Do not reformat, only unindent each line.
-c or --check
Do not indent, only return 0 if the code is already indented as
fish_indent would, the number of failed files otherwise. Also
print the failed filenames if not reading from standard input.
-v or --version
Displays the current fish version and then exits.
--ansi Colorizes the output using ANSI escape sequences using the col-
ors defined in the environment (such as fish_color_command).
--html Outputs HTML, which supports syntax highlighting if the appro-
priate CSS is defined. The CSS class names are the same as the
variable names, such as fish_color_command.
--dump-parse-tree
Dumps information about the parsed statements to standard error.
This is likely to be of interest only to people working on the
fish source code.
-h or --help
Displays help about using this command.
fish_is_root_user - check if the current user is root
Synopsis
fish_is_root_user
Description
fish_is_root_user will check if the current user is root. It can be
useful for the prompt to display something different if the user is
root, for example.
Example
A simple example:
function example --description 'Just an example'
if fish_is_root_user
do_something_different
end
end
fish_key_reader - explore what characters keyboard keys send
Synopsis
fish_key_reader [OPTIONS]
Description
fish_key_reader is used to explain how you would bind a certain key se-
quence. By default, it prints the bind command for one key sequence
read interactively over standard input.
The following options are available:
-c or --continuous
Begins a session where multiple key sequences can be inspected.
By default the program exits after capturing a single key se-
quence.
-h or --help
Displays help about using this command.
-V or --verbose
Explain what sequence was received in addition to the decoded
key.
-v or --version
Displays the current fish version and then exits.
Usage Notes
fish_key_reader intentionally disables handling of many signals. To
terminate fish_key_reader in --continuous mode do:
• press ctrl-c twice, or
• press ctrl-d twice, or
• type exit, or
• type quit
Example
> fish_key_reader
Press a key:
# press up-arrow
bind up 'do something'
fish_mode_prompt - define the appearance of the mode indicator
Synopsis
fish_mode_prompt
function fish_mode_prompt
echo -n "$fish_bind_mode "
end
Description
The fish_mode_prompt function outputs the mode indicator for use in vi
mode.
The default fish_mode_prompt function will output indicators about the
current vi editor mode displayed to the left of the regular prompt. De-
fine your own function to customize the appearance of the mode indica-
tor. The $fish_bind_mode variable can be used to determine the current
mode. It will be one of default, insert, replace_one, replace, or vi-
sual.
You can also define an empty fish_mode_prompt function to remove the vi
mode indicators:
function fish_mode_prompt; end
funcsave fish_mode_prompt
fish_mode_prompt will be executed when the vi mode changes. If it pro-
duces any output, it is displayed and used. If it does not, the other
prompt functions (fish_prompt and fish_right_prompt) will be executed
as well in case they contain a mode display.
If fish_transient_prompt is set to 1, fish_mode_prompt --final-render-
ing is run before executing the commandline.
Example
function fish_mode_prompt
switch $fish_bind_mode
case default
set_color --bold red
echo 'N'
case insert
set_color --bold green
echo 'I'
case replace_one
set_color --bold green
echo 'R'
case replace
set_color --bold bryellow
echo 'R'
case visual
set_color --bold brmagenta
echo 'V'
case '*'
set_color --bold red
echo '?'
end
set_color normal
end
Outputting multiple lines is not supported in fish_mode_prompt.
fish_opt - create an option specification for the argparse command
Synopsis
fish_opt [-s ALPHANUM] [-l LONG-NAME] [-ormd] [--long-only] [-v COMMAND OPTIONS ... ]
fish_opt --help
Description
This command provides a way to produce option specifications suitable
for use with the argparse command. You can, of course, write the option
specifications by hand without using this command. But you might prefer
to use this for the clarity it provides.
The following argparse options are available:
-s or --short ALPHANUM
Takes a single letter or number that is used as the short flag
in the option being defined. Either this option or the --long
option must be provided.
-l or --long LONG-NAME
Takes a string that is used as the long flag in the option being
defined. This option is optional and has no default. If no long
flag is defined then only the short flag will be allowed when
parsing arguments using the option specification.
--long-only
Deprecated. The option being defined will only allow the long
flag name to be used, even if the short flag is defined (i.e.,
--short is specified).
-o or --optional-val
The option being defined can take a value, but it is optional
rather than required. If the option is seen more than once when
parsing arguments, only the last value seen is saved. This means
the resulting flag variable created by argparse will zero ele-
ments if no value was given with the option else it will have
exactly one element.
-r or --required-val
The option being defined requires a value. If the option is seen
more than once when parsing arguments, only the last value seen
is saved. This means the resulting flag variable created by arg-
parse will have exactly one element.
-m or --multiple-vals
The value of each instance of the option is accumulated. If
--optional-val is provided, the value is optional, and an empty
string is stored if no value is provided. Otherwise, the --re-
quiured-val option is implied and each instance of the option
requires a value. This means the resulting flag variable created
by argparse will have one element for each instance of this op-
tion in the arguments, even for instances that did not provide a
value.
-d or --delete
The option and any values will be deleted from the $argv_opts
variables set by argparse (as with other options, it will also
be deleted from $argv).
-v or --validate COMMAND OPTION...
This option must be the last one, and requires one of -o, -r, or
-m. All the remaining arguments are interpreted a fish script to
run to validate the value of the argument, see argparse documen-
tation for more details. Note that the interpretation of COMMAND
OPTION... is similar to eval, so you may need to quote or escape
special characters twice if you want them to be interpreted lit-
erally when the validate script is run.
-h or --help
Displays help about using this command.
Examples
Define a single option specification for the boolean help flag:
set -l options (fish_opt -s h -l help)
argparse $options -- $argv
Same as above but with a second flag that requires a value:
set -l options (fish_opt -s h -l help)
set options $options (fish_opt -s m -l max -r)
argparse $options -- $argv
Same as above but the value of the second flag cannot be the empty
string:
set -l options (fish_opt -s h -l help)
set options $options (fish_opt -s m -l max -rv test \$_flag_value != "''")
argparse $options -- $argv
Same as above but with a third flag that can be given multiple times
saving the value of each instance seen and only a long flag name (--to-
ken) is defined:
set -l options (fish_opt --short=h --long=help)
set options $options (fish_opt --short=m --long=max --required-val --validate test \$_flag_value != "''")
set options $options (fish_opt --long=token --multiple-vals)
argparse $options -- $argv
fish_prompt - define the appearance of the command line prompt
Synopsis
fish_prompt
function fish_prompt
...
end
Description
The fish_prompt function is executed when the prompt is to be shown,
and the output is used as a prompt.
The exit status of commands within fish_prompt will not modify the
value of $status outside of the fish_prompt function.
If fish_transient_prompt is set to 1, fish_prompt --final-rendering is
run before executing the commandline.
fish ships with a number of example prompts that can be chosen with the
fish_config command.
Example
A simple prompt:
function fish_prompt -d "Write out the prompt"
# This shows up as USER@HOST /home/user/ >, with the directory colored
# $USER and $hostname are set by fish, so you can just use them
# instead of using `whoami` and `hostname`
printf '%s@%s %s%s%s > ' $USER $hostname \
(set_color $fish_color_cwd) (prompt_pwd) (set_color normal)
end
fish_right_prompt - define the appearance of the right-side command line
prompt
Synopsis
function fish_right_prompt
...
end
Description
fish_right_prompt is similar to fish_prompt, except that it appears on
the right side of the terminal window.
Multiple lines are not supported in fish_right_prompt.
If fish_transient_prompt is set to 1, fish_right_prompt --final-render-
ing is run before executing the commandline.
Example
A simple right prompt:
function fish_right_prompt -d "Write out the right prompt"
date '+%m/%d/%y'
end
fish_should_add_to_history - decide whether a command should be added to
the history
Synopsis
fish_should_add_to_history
function fish_should_add_to_history
...
end
Description
The fish_should_add_to_history function is executed before fish adds a
command to history, and its return status decides whether that is done.
If it returns 0, the command is stored in history, when it returns any-
thing else, it is not. In the latter case the command can still be re-
called for one command.
The first argument to fish_should_add_to_history is the commandline.
History is added before a command is run, so e.g. status can't be
checked. This is so commands that don't finish like exec - execute com-
mand in current process and long-running commands are available in new
sessions immediately.
If fish_should_add_to_history doesn't exist, fish will save a command
to history unless it starts with a space. If it does exist, this func-
tion takes over all of the duties, so commands starting with space are
saved unless fish_should_add_to_history says otherwise.
Example
A simple example:
function fish_should_add_to_history
for cmd in vault mysql ls
string match -qr "^$cmd" -- $argv; and return 1
end
return 0
end
This refuses to store any immediate "vault", "mysql" or "ls" calls.
Commands starting with space would be stored.
function fish_should_add_to_history
# I don't want `git pull`s in my history when I'm in a specific repository
if string match -qr '^git pull' -- "$argv"
and string match -qr "^/home/me/my-secret-project/" -- (pwd -P)
return 1
end
return 0
end
fish_status_to_signal - convert exit codes to human-friendly signals
Synopsis
fish_status_to_signal NUM
function fish_prompt
echo -n (fish_status_to_signal $pipestatus | string join '|') (prompt_pwd) '$ '
end
Description
fish_status_to_signal converts exit codes to their corresponding hu-
man-friendly signals if one exists. This is likely to be useful for
prompts in conjunction with the $status and $pipestatus variables.
Example
>_ sleep 5
^C
>_ fish_status_to_signal $status
SIGINT
fish_svn_prompt - output Subversion information for use in a prompt
Synopsis
fish_svn_prompt
function fish_prompt
printf '%s' $PWD (fish_svn_prompt) ' $ '
end
Description
The fish_svn_prompt function displays information about the current
Subversion repository, if any.
Subversion <https://subversion.apache.org/> (svn) must be installed.
There are numerous customization options, which can be controlled with
fish variables.
•
__fish_svn_prompt_color_revision
the colour of the revision number to display in the prompt
•
__fish_svn_prompt_char_separator
the separator between status characters
A number of variables control the symbol ("display") and color
("color") for the different status indicators:
• __fish_svn_prompt_char_added_display
• __fish_svn_prompt_char_added_color
• __fish_svn_prompt_char_conflicted_display
• __fish_svn_prompt_char_conflicted_color
• __fish_svn_prompt_char_deleted_display
• __fish_svn_prompt_char_deleted_color
• __fish_svn_prompt_char_ignored_display
• __fish_svn_prompt_char_ignored_color
• __fish_svn_prompt_char_modified_display
• __fish_svn_prompt_char_modified_color
• __fish_svn_prompt_char_replaced_display
• __fish_svn_prompt_char_replaced_color
• __fish_svn_prompt_char_unversioned_external_display
• __fish_svn_prompt_char_unversioned_external_color
• __fish_svn_prompt_char_unversioned_display
• __fish_svn_prompt_char_unversioned_color
• __fish_svn_prompt_char_missing_display
• __fish_svn_prompt_char_missing_color
• __fish_svn_prompt_char_versioned_obstructed_display
• __fish_svn_prompt_char_versioned_obstructed_color
• __fish_svn_prompt_char_locked_display
• __fish_svn_prompt_char_locked_color
• __fish_svn_prompt_char_scheduled_display
• __fish_svn_prompt_char_scheduled_color
• __fish_svn_prompt_char_switched_display
• __fish_svn_prompt_char_switched_color
• __fish_svn_prompt_char_token_present_display
• __fish_svn_prompt_char_token_present_color
• __fish_svn_prompt_char_token_other_display
• __fish_svn_prompt_char_token_other_color
• __fish_svn_prompt_char_token_stolen_display
• __fish_svn_prompt_char_token_stolen_color
• __fish_svn_prompt_char_token_broken_display
• __fish_svn_prompt_char_token_broken_color
See also fish_vcs_prompt, which will call all supported version control
prompt functions, including git, Mercurial and Subversion.
Example
A simple prompt that displays svn info:
function fish_prompt
...
printf '%s %s$' $PWD (fish_svn_prompt)
end
fish_tab_title - define the terminal tab's title
Synopsis
fish_title
fish_tab_title
function fish_title
...
end
function fish_tab_title
...
end
Description
The fish_title function is executed before and after a new command is
executed or put into the foreground and the output is used as a title-
bar message.
The first argument to fish_title contains the most recently executed
foreground command as a string, if any.
This requires that your terminal supports programmable titles and the
feature is turned on.
To disable setting the title, use an empty function (see below).
To set the terminal tab title to something other than the terminal win-
dow title, define the fish_tab_title function, which works like
fish_title but overrides that one.
Example
A simple title:
function fish_title
set -q argv[1]; or set argv fish
# Looks like ~/d/fish: git log
# or /e/apt: fish
echo (fish_prompt_pwd_dir_length=1 prompt_pwd): $argv;
end
Do not change the title:
function fish_title
end
Change the tab title only:
function fish_tab_title
echo fish $fish_pid
end
fish_title - define the terminal's title
Synopsis
fish_title
fish_tab_title
function fish_title
...
end
function fish_tab_title
...
end
Description
The fish_title function is executed before and after a new command is
executed or put into the foreground and the output is used as a title-
bar message.
The first argument to fish_title contains the most recently executed
foreground command as a string, if any.
This requires that your terminal supports programmable titles and the
feature is turned on.
To disable setting the title, use an empty function (see below).
To set the terminal tab title to something other than the terminal win-
dow title, define the fish_tab_title function, which works like
fish_title but overrides that one.
Example
A simple title:
function fish_title
set -q argv[1]; or set argv fish
# Looks like ~/d/fish: git log
# or /e/apt: fish
echo (fish_prompt_pwd_dir_length=1 prompt_pwd): $argv;
end
Do not change the title:
function fish_title
end
Change the tab title only:
function fish_tab_title
echo fish $fish_pid
end
fish_update_completions - update completions using manual pages
Synopsis
fish_update_completions
Description
fish_update_completions parses manual pages installed on the system,
and attempts to create completion files in the fish configuration di-
rectory.
This does not overwrite custom completions.
There are no parameters for fish_update_completions.
fish_vcs_prompt - output version control system information for use in a
prompt
Synopsis
fish_vcs_prompt
function fish_prompt
printf '%s' $PWD (fish_vcs_prompt) ' $ '
end
Description
The fish_vcs_prompt function displays information about the current
version control system (VCS) repository, if any.
It calls out to VCS-specific functions. The currently supported systems
are:
• fish_git_prompt
• fish_hg_prompt
• fish_svn_prompt
If a VCS isn't installed, the respective function does nothing.
The Subversion prompt is disabled by default, because it's slow on
large repositories. To enable it, modify fish_vcs_prompt to uncomment
it. See funced.
For more information, see the documentation for each of the functions
above.
Example
A simple prompt that displays all known VCS info:
function fish_prompt
...
set -g __fish_git_prompt_showupstream auto
printf '%s %s$' $PWD (fish_vcs_prompt)
end
fish_vi_key_bindings - set vi key bindings for fish
Synopsis
fish_vi_key_bindings
fish_vi_key_bindings [--no-erase] [INIT_MODE]
Description
fish_vi_key_bindings sets the vi key bindings for fish shell.
If a valid INIT_MODE is provided (insert, default, visual), then that
mode will become the default . If no INIT_MODE is given, the mode de-
faults to insert mode.
The following parameters are available:
--no-erase
Does not clear previous set bindings
Further information on how to use vi mode.
Examples
To start using vi key bindings:
fish_vi_key_bindings
or set -g fish_key_bindings fish_vi_key_bindings in config.fish.
for - perform a set of commands multiple times
Synopsis
for VARNAME in [VALUES ...]; COMMANDS ...; end
Description
for is a loop construct. It will perform the commands specified by COM-
MANDS multiple times. On each iteration, the local variable specified
by VARNAME is assigned a new value from VALUES. If VALUES is empty,
COMMANDS will not be executed at all. The VARNAME is visible when the
loop terminates and will contain the last value assigned to it. If VAR-
NAME does not already exist it will be set in the local scope. For our
purposes if the for block is inside a function there must be a local
variable with the same name. If the for block is not nested inside a
function then global and universal variables of the same name will be
used if they exist.
Much like set, for does not modify $status, but the evaluation of its
subordinate commands can.
The -h or --help option displays help about using this command.
Example
for i in foo bar baz; echo $i; end
# would output:
foo
bar
baz
Notes
The VARNAME was local to the for block in releases prior to 3.0.0. This
means that if you did something like this:
for var in a b c
if break_from_loop
break
end
end
echo $var
The last value assigned to var when the loop terminated would not be
available outside the loop. What echo $var would write depended on what
it was set to before the loop was run. Likely nothing.
funced - edit a function interactively
Synopsis
funced [OPTIONS] NAME
Description
funced provides an interface to edit the definition of the function
NAME.
If the $VISUAL environment variable is set, it will be used as the pro-
gram to edit the function. If $VISUAL is unset but $EDITOR is set, that
will be used. Otherwise, a built-in editor will be used. Note that to
enter a literal newline using the built-in editor you should press
alt-enter. Pressing enter signals that you are done editing the func-
tion. This does not apply to an external editor like emacs or vim.
funced will try to edit the original file that a function is defined
in, which might include variable definitions or helper functions as
well. If changes cannot be saved to the original file, a copy will be
created in the user's function directory.
If there is no function called NAME, a new function will be created
with the specified name.
-e command or --editor command
Open the function body inside the text editor given by the com-
mand (for example, -e vi). The special command fish will use the
built-in editor (same as specifying -i).
-i or --interactive
Force opening the function body in the built-in editor even if
$VISUAL or $EDITOR is defined.
-s or --save
Automatically save the function after successfully editing it.
-h or --help
Displays help about using this command.
Example
Say you want to modify your prompt.
Run:
>_ funced fish_prompt
This will open up your editor, allowing you to modify the function.
When you're done, save and quit. Fish will reload the function, so you
should see the changes right away.
When you're done, use:
>_ funcsave fish_prompt
For more, see funcsave. To view a function's current definition, use
functions or type.
funcsave - save the definition of a function to the user's autoload direc-
tory
Synopsis
funcsave FUNCTION_NAME
funcsave [-q | --quiet] [(-d | --directory) DIR] FUNCTION_NAME
Description
funcsave saves a function to a file in the fish configuration direc-
tory. This function will be automatically loaded by current and future
fish sessions. This can be useful to commit functions created interac-
tively for permanent use.
If you have erased a function using functions's --erase option, func-
save will remove the saved function definition.
Because fish loads functions on-demand, saved functions cannot serve as
event handlers until they are run or otherwise sourced. To activate an
event handler for every new shell, add the function to the
configuration file instead of using funcsave.
This is often used after funced, which opens the function in $EDITOR or
$VISUAL and loads it into the current session afterwards.
To view a function's current definition, use functions or type.
function - create a function
Synopsis
function NAME [OPTIONS]; BODY; end
Description
function creates a new function NAME with the body BODY.
A function is a list of commands that will be executed when the name of
the function is given as a command.
The following options are available:
-a NAMES or --argument-names NAMES
Assigns the value of successive command-line arguments to the
names given in NAMES (separated by spaces). These are the same
arguments given in argv, and are still available there (unless
--inherit-variable argv was used or one of the given NAMES is
argv). See also Argument Handling.
-d DESCRIPTION or --description DESCRIPTION
A description of what the function does, suitable as a comple-
tion description.
-w WRAPPED_COMMAND or --wraps WRAPPED_COMMAND
Inherit completions from the given WRAPPED_COMMAND. This is
used to say that this function completes like that command, for
example if you're creating an alias. See the documentation for
complete for more information. If the wrapped command is the
same as the function name, this will be ignored.
-e EVENT_NAME or --on-event EVENT_NAME
Run this function when the specified named event is emitted.
Fish internally generates named events, for example, when show-
ing the prompt. Custom events can be emitted using the emit com-
mand.
-v VARIABLE_NAME or --on-variable VARIABLE_NAME
Run this function when the variable VARIABLE_NAME changes value.
Note that fish makes no guarantees on any particular timing or
even that the function will be run for every single set. Rather
it will be run when the variable has been set at least once,
possibly skipping some values or being run when the variable has
been set to the same value (except for universal variables set
in other shells - only changes in the value will be picked up
for those).
-j PID or --on-job-exit PID
Run this function when the job containing a child process with
the given process ID PID exits. Instead of a PID, the string
'caller' can be specified. This is only allowed when in a com-
mand substitution, and will result in the handler being trig-
gered by the exit of the job which created this command substi-
tution. This will not trigger for disowned jobs.
-p PID or --on-process-exit PID
Run this function when the fish child process with process ID
PID exits. Instead of a PID, for backward compatibility, "%self"
can be specified as an alias for $fish_pid, and the function
will be run when the current fish instance exits. This will not
trigger for disowned jobs.
-s SIGSPEC or --on-signal SIGSPEC
Run this function when the signal SIGSPEC is delivered. SIGSPEC
can be a signal number, or the signal name, such as SIGHUP (or
just HUP). Note that the signal must have been delivered to
fish; for example, ctrl-c sends SIGINT to the foreground process
group, which will not be fish if you are running another command
at the time. Observing a signal will prevent fish from exiting
in response to that signal.
-S or --no-scope-shadowing
Allows the function to access the variables of calling func-
tions. Normally, any variables inside the function that have the
same name as variables from the calling function are "shadowed",
and their contents are independent of the calling function.
It's important to note that this does not capture referenced
variables or the scope at the time of function declaration! At
this time, fish does not have any concept of closures, and vari-
able lifetimes are never extended. In other words, by using
--no-scope-shadowing the scope of the function each time it is
run is shared with the scope it was called from rather than the
scope it was defined in.
-V or --inherit-variable NAME
Snapshots the value of the variable NAME and defines a local
variable with that same name and value when the function is de-
fined. This is similar to a closure in other languages like
Python but a bit different. Note the word "snapshot" in the
first sentence. If you change the value of the variable after
defining the function, even if you do so in the same scope (typ-
ically another function) the new value will not be used by the
function you just created using this option. See the function
notify example below for how this might be used.
The event handler switches (on-event, on-variable, on-job-exit,
on-process-exit and on-signal) cause a function to run automatically at
specific events. New named events for --on-event can be fired using the
emit builtin. Fish already generates a few events, see Event handlers
for more.
Functions names cannot be reserved words. These are elements of fish
syntax or builtin commands which are essential for the operations of
the shell. Current reserved words are [, _, and, argparse, begin,
break, builtin, case, command, continue, else, end, eval, exec, for,
function, if, not, or, read, return, set, status, string, switch, test,
time, and while.
Example
function ll
ls -l $argv
end
will run the ls command, using the -l option, while passing on any ad-
ditional files and switches to ls.
function debug -a name val
echo [DEBUG] $name: $val >&2
end
set foo bar
debug foo bar
# prints: [DEBUG] foo: bar
# OR
function debug2 -a var
echo [DEBUG] $var: $$var >&2
end
set foo bar
debug2 foo
# prints: [DEBUG] foo: bar
will create a debug command to print chosen variables to stderr.
function mkdir -d "Create a directory and set CWD"
command mkdir $argv
if test $status = 0
switch $argv[(count $argv)]
case '-*'
case '*'
cd $argv[(count $argv)]
return
end
end
end
This will run the mkdir command, and if it is successful, change the
current working directory to the one just created.
function notify
set -l job (jobs -l -g)
or begin; echo "There are no jobs" >&2; return 1; end
function _notify_job_$job --on-job-exit $job --inherit-variable job
echo -n \a # beep
functions -e _notify_job_$job
end
end
This will beep when the most recent job completes.
Notes
Events are only received from the current fish process as there is no
way to send events from one fish process to another.
See more
For more explanation of how functions fit into fish, see Functions.
functions - print or erase functions
Synopsis
functions [-a | --all] [-n | --names] [--color WHEN]
functions [-D | --details] [-v] [--color WHEN] FUNCTION
functions -c OLDNAME NEWNAME
functions -d DESCRIPTION FUNCTION
functions [-e | -q] FUNCTION ...
Description
functions prints or erases functions.
The following options are available:
-a or --all
Lists all functions, even those whose name starts with an under-
score.
-c or --copy OLDNAME NEWNAME
Creates a new function named NEWNAME, using the definition of
the OLDNAME function.
-d or --description DESCRIPTION
Changes the description of this function.
-e or --erase
Causes the specified functions to be erased. This also means
that it is prevented from autoloading in the current session.
Use funcsave to remove the saved copy.
-D or --details
Reports the path name where the specified function is defined or
could be autoloaded, stdin if the function was defined interac-
tively or on the command line or by reading standard input, - if
the function was created via source, and n/a if the function
isn't available. (Functions created via alias will return -, be-
cause alias uses source internally. Copied functions will return
where the function was copied.) If the --verbose option is also
specified then five lines are written:
• the path name as already described,
• if the function was copied, the path name to where the func-
tion was originally defined, otherwise autoloaded, not-au-
toloaded or n/a,
• the line number within the file or zero if not applicable,
• scope-shadowing if the function shadows the vars in the call-
ing function (the normal case if it wasn't defined with
--no-scope-shadowing), else no-scope-shadowing, or n/a if the
function isn't defined,
• the function description minimally escaped so it is a single
line, or n/a if the function isn't defined or has no descrip-
tion.
You should not assume that only five lines will be written since
we may add additional information to the output in the future.
--no-details
Turns off function path reporting, so just the definition will
be printed.
-n or --names
Lists the names of all defined functions.
-q or --query
Tests if the specified functions exist.
-v or --verbose
Make some output more verbose.
-H or --handlers
Show all event handlers.
-t or --handlers-type TYPE
Show all event handlers matching the given TYPE.
--color WHEN
Controls when to use syntax highlighting colors when printing
function definitions. WHEN can be auto (the default, colorize
if the output is a terminal), always, or never.
-h or --help
Displays help about using this command.
The default behavior of functions, when called with no arguments, is to
print the names of all defined functions. Unless the -a option is
given, no functions starting with underscores are included in the out-
put.
If any non-option parameters are given, the definition of the specified
functions are printed.
Copying a function using -c copies only the body of the function, and
does not attach any event notifications from the original function.
Only one function's description can be changed in a single invocation
of functions -d.
The exit status of functions is the number of functions specified in
the argument list that do not exist, which can be used in concert with
the -q option.
Examples
functions -n
# Displays a list of currently-defined functions
functions -c foo bar
# Copies the 'foo' function to a new function called 'bar'
functions -e bar
# Erases the function ``bar``
See more
For more explanation of how functions fit into fish, see Functions.
help - display fish documentation
Synopsis
help [SECTION]
Description
help displays the fish help documentation.
If a SECTION is specified, the help for that command is shown.
The -h or --help option displays help about using this command.
If the BROWSER environment variable is set, it will be used to display
the documentation. Otherwise, fish will search for a suitable browser.
To use a different browser than as described above, you can set
$fish_help_browser This variable may be set as a list, where the first
element is the browser command and the rest are browser options.
Example
help fg shows the documentation for the fg builtin.
Notes
Most builtin commands, including this one, display their help in the
terminal when given the --help option.
history - show and manipulate command history
Synopsis
history [search] [--show-time] [--case-sensitive]
[--exact | --prefix | --contains] [--max N] [--null] [--reverse]
[SEARCH_STRING ...]
history delete [--case-sensitive]
[--exact | --prefix | --contains] SEARCH_STRING ...
history merge
history save
history clear
history clear-session
history append COMMAND ...
Description
history is used to search, delete, and otherwise manipulate the history
of interactive commands.
The following operations (sub-commands) are available:
search Returns history items matching the search string. If no search
string is provided it returns all history items. This is the de-
fault operation if no other operation is specified. You only
have to explicitly say history search if you wish to search for
one of the subcommands. The --contains search option will be
used if you don't specify a different search option. Entries are
ordered newest to oldest unless you use the --reverse flag. If
stdout is attached to a tty the output will be piped through
your pager by the history function. The history builtin writes
the results to stdout.
delete Deletes history items. The --contains search option will be used
if you don't specify a different search option. If you don't
specify --exact a prompt will be displayed before any items are
deleted asking you which entries are to be deleted. You can en-
ter the word "all" to delete all matching entries. You can enter
a single ID (the number in square brackets) to delete just that
single entry. You can enter more than one ID, or an ID range
separated by a space to delete multiple entries. Press [enter]
to not delete anything. Note that the interactive delete behav-
ior is a feature of the history function. The history builtin
only supports --exact --case-sensitive deletion.
merge Immediately incorporates history changes from other sessions.
Ordinarily fish ignores history changes from sessions started
after the current one. This command applies those changes imme-
diately.
save Immediately writes all changes to the history file. The shell
automatically saves the history file; this option is provided
for internal use and should not normally need to be used by the
user.
clear Clears the history file. A prompt is displayed before the his-
tory is erased asking you to confirm you really want to clear
all history unless builtin history is used.
clear-session
Clears the history file from all activity of the current ses-
sion. Note: If history merge or builtin history merge is run in
a session, only the history after this will be erased.
append Appends commands to the history without needing to execute them.
The following options are available:
These flags can appear before or immediately after one of the sub-com-
mands listed above.
-C or --case-sensitive
Does a case-sensitive search. The default is case-insensitive.
-c or --contains
Searches items in the history that contain the specified text
string. This is the default for the --search flag. This is not
currently supported by the delete subcommand.
-e or --exact
Searches or deletes items in the history that exactly match the
specified text string. This is the default for the delete sub-
command. Note that the match is case-insensitive by default. If
you really want an exact match, including letter case, you must
use the -C or --case-sensitive flag.
-p or --prefix
Searches items in the history that begin with the specified text
string. This is not currently supported by the delete subcom-
mand.
-t or --show-time
Prepends each history entry with the date and time the entry was
recorded. By default it uses the strftime format # %c%n. You can
specify another format; e.g., --show-time="%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S "
or --show-time="%a%I%p". The short option, -t, doesn't accept a
strftime format string; it only uses the default format. Any
strftime format is allowed, including %s to get the raw UNIX
seconds since the epoch.
-z or --null
Causes history entries written by the search operations to be
terminated by a NUL character rather than a newline. This allows
the output to be processed by read -z to correctly handle multi-
line history entries.
-*NUMBER* -n NUMBER or --max NUMBER
Limits the matched history items to the first NUMBER matching
entries. This is only valid for history search.
-R or --reverse
Causes the history search results to be ordered oldest to
newest. Which is the order used by most shells. The default is
newest to oldest.
--color WHEN
Controls when to use syntax highlighting colors for the history
entries. WHEN can be auto (the default, colorize if the output
is a terminal), always, or never.
-h or --help
Displays help for this command.
Example
history clear
# Deletes all history items
history search --contains "foo"
# Outputs a list of all previous commands containing the string "foo".
history delete --prefix "foo"
# Interactively deletes commands which start with "foo" from the history.
# You can select more than one entry by entering their IDs separated by a space.
Customizing the name of the history file
By default interactive commands are logged to
$XDG_DATA_HOME/fish/fish_history (typically ~/.lo-
cal/share/fish/fish_history).
You can set the fish_history variable to another name for the current
shell session. The default value (when the variable is unset) is fish
which corresponds to $XDG_DATA_HOME/fish/fish_history. If you set it to
e.g. fun, the history would be written to $XDG_DATA_HOME/fish/fun_his-
tory. An empty string means history will not be stored at all. This is
similar to the private session features in web browsers.
You can change fish_history at any time (by using set -x fish_history
"session_name") and it will take effect right away. If you set it to
"default", it will use the default session name (which is "fish").
Other shells such as bash and zsh use a variable named HISTFILE for a
similar purpose. Fish uses a different name to avoid conflicts and sig-
nal that the behavior is different (session name instead of a file
path). Also, if you set the var to anything other than fish or default
it will inhibit importing the bash history. That's because the most
common use case for this feature is to avoid leaking private or sensi-
tive history when giving a presentation.
Notes
If you specify both --prefix and --contains the last flag seen is used.
Note that for backwards compatibility each subcommand can also be spec-
ified as a long option. For example, rather than history search you can
type history --search. Those long options are deprecated and will be
removed in a future release.
if - conditionally execute a command
Synopsis
if CONDITION; COMMANDS_TRUE ...;
[else if CONDITION2; COMMANDS_TRUE2 ...;]
[else; COMMANDS_FALSE ...;]
end
Description
if will execute the command CONDITION. If the condition's exit status
is 0, the commands COMMANDS_TRUE will execute. If the exit status is
not 0 and else is given, COMMANDS_FALSE will be executed.
You can use and or or in the condition. See the second example below.
The exit status of the last foreground command to exit can always be
accessed using the $status variable.
The -h or --help option displays help about using this command.
Example
The following code will print foo.txt exists if the file foo.txt exists
and is a regular file, otherwise it will print bar.txt exists if the
file bar.txt exists and is a regular file, otherwise it will print
foo.txt and bar.txt do not exist.
if test -f foo.txt
echo foo.txt exists
else if test -f bar.txt
echo bar.txt exists
else
echo foo.txt and bar.txt do not exist
end
The following code will print "foo.txt exists and is readable" if
foo.txt is a regular file and readable
if test -f foo.txt
and test -r foo.txt
echo "foo.txt exists and is readable"
end
See also
if is only as useful as the command used as the condition.
Fish ships a few:
• test - perform tests on files and text can compare numbers, strings
and check paths
• string - manipulate strings can perform string operations including
wildcard and regular expression matches
• path - manipulate and check paths can check paths for permissions,
existence or type
• contains - test if a word is present in a list can check if an ele-
ment is in a list
isatty - test if a file descriptor is a terminal
Synopsis
isatty [FILE_DESCRIPTOR]
Description
isatty tests if a file descriptor is a terminal (as opposed to a file).
The name is derived from the system call of the same name, which for
historical reasons refers to a teletypewriter (TTY).
FILE DESCRIPTOR may be either the number of a file descriptor, or one
of the strings stdin, stdout, or stderr. If not specified, zero is as-
sumed.
If the specified file descriptor is a terminal device, the exit status
of the command is zero. Otherwise, the exit status is non-zero. No mes-
sages are printed to standard error.
The -h or --help option displays help about using this command.
Examples
From an interactive shell, the commands below exit with a return value
of zero:
isatty
isatty stdout
isatty 2
echo | isatty 1
And these will exit non-zero:
echo | isatty
isatty 9
isatty stdout > file
isatty 2 2> file
jobs - print currently running jobs
Synopsis
jobs [OPTIONS] [PID | %JOBID]
Description
NOTE: This page documents the fish builtin jobs. To see the documenta-
tion on any non-fish versions, use command man jobs.
jobs prints a list of the currently running jobs and their status.
jobs accepts the following options:
-c or --command
Prints the command name for each process in jobs.
-g or --group
Only prints the group ID of each job.
-l or --last
Prints only the last job to be started.
-p or --pid
Prints the process ID for each process in all jobs.
-q or --query
Prints no output for evaluation of jobs by exit status only. For
compatibility with old fish versions this is also --quiet (but
this is deprecated).
-h or --help
Displays help about using this command.
On systems that support this feature, jobs will print the CPU usage of
each job since the last command was executed. The CPU usage is ex-
pressed as a percentage of full CPU activity. Note that on multiproces-
sor systems, the total activity may be more than 100%.
Arguments of the form PID or %JOBID restrict the output to jobs with
the selected process identifiers or job numbers respectively.
If the output of jobs is redirected or if it is part of a command sub-
stitution, the column header that is usually printed is omitted, making
it easier to parse.
The exit status of jobs is 0 if there are running background jobs and 1
otherwise.
Example
jobs outputs a summary of the current jobs, such as two long-running
tasks in this example:
Job Group State Command
2 26012 running nc -l 55232 < /dev/random &
1 26011 running python tests/test_11.py &
math - perform mathematics calculations
Synopsis
math [(-s | --scale) N] [(-b | --base) BASE] [(-m | --scale-mode) MODE] EXPRESSION ...
Description
math performs mathematical calculations. It supports simple operations
such as addition, subtraction, and so on, as well as functions like
abs(), sqrt() and ln().
By default, the output shows up to 6 decimal places. To change the
number of decimal places, use the --scale option, including --scale=0
for integer output.
Keep in mind that parameter expansion happens before expressions are
evaluated. This can be very useful in order to perform calculations
involving shell variables or the output of command substitutions, but
it also means that parenthesis (()) and the asterisk (*) glob character
have to be escaped or quoted. x can also be used to denote multiplica-
tion, but it needs to be followed by whitespace to distinguish it from
hexadecimal numbers.
Parentheses for functions are optional - math sin pi prints 0. How-
ever, a comma will bind to the inner function, so math pow sin 3, 5 is
an error because it tries to give sin the arguments 3 and 5. When in
doubt, use parentheses.
math ignores whitespace between arguments and takes its input as multi-
ple arguments (internally joined with a space), so math 2 +2 and math
"2 + 2" work the same. math 2 2 is an error.
NOTE:
math is a simple tool for simple uses, provided for convenience. It
internally works with floats for simplicity of implementation and
can't do a number of things real calculators can. If you find your-
self limited by that, use a more full-featured tool.
The following options are available:
-s N or --scale N
Sets the scale of the result. N must be an integer or the word
"max" for the maximum scale. A scale of zero causes results to
be truncated by default. Any non-integer component is thrown
away. So 3/2 returns 1 by default, rather than 2 which 1.5
would normally round to. This is for compatibility with bc
which was the basis for this command prior to fish 3.0.0. Scale
values greater than zero causes the result to be rounded using
the usual rules to the specified number of decimal places.
-b BASE or --base BASE
Sets the numeric base used for output (math always understands
hexadecimal numbers as input). It currently understands "hex"
or "16" for hexadecimal and "octal" or "8" for octal and implies
a scale of 0 (other scales cause an error), so it will truncate
the result down to an integer. This might change in the future.
Hex numbers will be printed with a 0x prefix. Octal numbers
will have a prefix of 0 but aren't understood by math as input.
-m MODE or --scale-mode MODE
Sets scale behavior. The MODE can be truncate, round, floor,
ceiling. The default value of scale mode is round with non zero
scale and truncate with zero scale.
-h or --help
Displays help about using this command.
Return Values
If the expression is successfully evaluated and doesn't over/underflow
or return NaN the return status is zero (success) else one.
Syntax
math knows some operators, constants, functions and can (obviously)
read numbers.
For numbers, . is always the radix character regardless of locale -
2.5, not 2,5. Scientific notation (10e5) and hexadecimal (0xFF) are
also available.
math allows you to use underscores as visual separators for digit
grouping. For example, you can write 1_000_000, 0x_89_AB_CD_EF, and
1.234_567_e89.
Operators
math knows the following operators:
+ for addition
- for subtraction
* or x for multiplication. * is the glob character and needs to be
quoted or escaped, x needs to be followed by whitespace or it
looks like 0x hexadecimal notation.
/ for division
^ for exponentiation
% for modulo
( or ) for grouping. These need to be quoted or escaped because () de-
notes a command substitution.
They are all used in an infix manner - 5 + 2, not + 5 2.
Constants
math knows the following constants:
e Euler's number
pi , you know this one. Half of Tau
tau Equivalent to 2, or the number of radians in a circle
Use them without a leading $ - pi - 3 should be about 0.
Functions
math supports the following functions:
abs the absolute value, with positive sign
acos arc cosine
asin arc sine
atan arc tangent
atan2 arc tangent of two variables
bitand, bitor and bitxor
perform bitwise operations. These will throw away any non-inte-
ger parts and interpret the rest as an int.
Note: bitnot and bitnand don't exist. This is because numbers in
math don't really have a width in terms of bits, and these oper-
ations necessarily care about leading zeroes.
If you need to negate a specific number you can do it with an
xor with a mask, e.g.:
> math --base=hex bitxor 0x0F, 0xFF
0xF0
> math --base=hex bitxor 0x2, 0x3
# Here we mask with 0x3 == 0b111, so our number is 3 bits wide
# Only the 1 bit isn't set.
0x1
ceil round number up to the nearest integer
cos the cosine
cosh hyperbolic cosine
exp the base-e exponential function
fac factorial - also known as x! (x * (x - 1) * (x - 2) * ... * 1)
floor round number down to the nearest integer
ln the base-e logarithm
log or log10
the base-10 logarithm. To compute the logarithm for an arbitrary
base b, use log(x) / log(b).
log2 the base-2 logarithm
max returns the largest of the given numbers - this takes an arbi-
trary number of arguments (but at least one)
min returns the smallest of the given numbers - this takes an arbi-
trary number of arguments (but at least one)
ncr "from n choose r" combination function - how many subsets of
size r can be taken from n (order doesn't matter)
npr the number of subsets of size r that can be taken from a set of
n elements (including different order)
pow(x,y)
returns x to the y (and can be written as x ^ y)
round rounds to the nearest integer, away from 0
sin the sine function
sinh the hyperbolic sine
sqrt the square root - (can also be written as x ^ 0.5)
tan the tangent
tanh the hyperbolic tangent
All of the trigonometric functions use radians (the pi-based scale, not
360).
Examples
math 1+1 outputs 2.
math $status - 128 outputs the numerical exit status of the last com-
mand minus 128.
math 10 / 6 outputs 1.666667.
math -s0 10.0 / 6.0 outputs 1.
math -s3 10 / 6 outputs 1.667.
math "sin(pi)" outputs 0.
math 5 \* 2 or math "5 * 2" or math 5 "*" 2 all output 10.
math 0xFF outputs 255, math 0 x 3 outputs 0 (because it computes 0 mul-
tiplied by 3).
math bitand 0xFE, 0x2e outputs 46.
math "bitor(9,2)" outputs 11.
math --base=hex 192 prints 0xc0.
math 'ncr(49,6)' prints 13983816 - that's the number of possible picks
in 6-from-49 lotto.
math max 5,2,3,1 prints 5.
Compatibility notes
Fish 1.x and 2.x releases relied on the bc command for handling math
expressions. Starting with fish 3.0.0 fish uses the tinyexpr library
and evaluates the expression without the involvement of any external
commands.
You don't need to use -- before the expression, even if it begins with
a minus sign which might otherwise be interpreted as an invalid option.
If you do insert -- before the expression, it will cause option scan-
ning to stop just like for every other command and it won't be part of
the expression.
nextd - move forward through directory history
Synopsis
nextd [-l | --list] [POS]
Description
nextd moves forwards POS positions in the history of visited directo-
ries; if the end of the history has been hit, a warning is printed.
If the -l or --list option is specified, the current directory history
is also displayed.
The -h or --help option displays help about using this command.
Note that the cd command limits directory history to the 25 most re-
cently visited directories. The history is stored in the dirprev and
dirnext variables which this command manipulates.
Example
cd /usr/src
# Working directory is now /usr/src
cd /usr/src/fish-shell
# Working directory is now /usr/src/fish-shell
prevd
# Working directory is now /usr/src
nextd
# Working directory is now /usr/src/fish-shell
See Also
• the cdh command to display a prompt to quickly navigate the history
• the dirh command to print the directory history
• the prevd command to move backward
not - negate the exit status of a job
Synopsis
not COMMAND [OPTIONS ...]
! COMMAND [OPTIONS ...]
Description
not negates the exit status of another command. If the exit status is
zero, not returns 1. Otherwise, not returns 0.
Some other shells only support the ! alias.
The -h or --help option displays help about using this command.
Example
The following code reports an error and exits if no file named spoon
can be found.
if not test -f spoon
echo There is no spoon
exit 1
end
open - open file in its default application
Synopsis
open FILES ...
Description
open opens a file in its default application, using the appropriate
tool for the operating system. On GNU/Linux, this requires the common
but optional xdg-open utility, from the xdg-utils package.
Note that this function will not be used if a command by this name ex-
ists (which is the case on macOS or Haiku).
Example
open *.txt opens all the text files in the current directory using your
system's default text editor.
or - conditionally execute a command
Synopsis
COMMAND1; or COMMAND2
Description
or is used to execute a command if the previous command was not suc-
cessful (returned a status of something other than 0).
or statements may be used as part of the condition in an if or while
block.
or does not change the current exit status itself, but the command it
runs most likely will. The exit status of the last foreground command
to exit can always be accessed using the $status variable.
The -h or --help option displays help about using this command.
Example
The following code runs the make command to build a program. If the
build succeeds, the program is installed. If either step fails, make
clean is run, which removes the files created by the build process.
make; and make install; or make clean
See Also
• and command
path - manipulate and check paths
Synopsis
path basename GENERAL_OPTIONS [(-E | --no-extension)] [PATH ...]
path dirname GENERAL_OPTIONS [PATH ...]
path extension GENERAL_OPTIONS [PATH ...]
path filter GENERAL_OPTIONS [-v | --invert]
[-d] [-f] [-l] [-r] [-w] [-x]
[(-t | --type) TYPE] [(-p | --perm) PERMISSION] [--all] [PATH ...]
path is GENERAL_OPTIONS [(-v | --invert)] [(-t | --type) TYPE]
[-d] [-f] [-l] [-r] [-w] [-x]
[(-p | --perm) PERMISSION] [PATH ...]
path mtime GENERAL_OPTIONS [(-R | --relative)] [PATH ...]
path normalize GENERAL_OPTIONS [PATH ...]
path resolve GENERAL_OPTIONS [PATH ...]
path change-extension GENERAL_OPTIONS EXTENSION [PATH ...]
path sort GENERAL_OPTIONS [-r | --reverse]
[-u | --unique] [--key=(basename | dirname | path)] [PATH ...]
GENERAL_OPTIONS
[-z | --null-in] [-Z | --null-out] [-q | --quiet]
Description
path performs operations on paths.
PATH arguments are taken from the command line unless standard input is
connected to a pipe or a file, in which case they are read from stan-
dard input, one PATH per line. It is an error to supply PATH arguments
on both the command line and on standard input.
Arguments starting with - are normally interpreted as switches; --
causes the following arguments not to be treated as switches even if
they begin with -. Switches and required arguments are recognized only
on the command line.
When a path starts with -, path filter and path normalize will prepend
./ on output to avoid it being interpreted as an option otherwise, so
it's safe to pass path's output to other commands that can handle rela-
tive paths.
All subcommands accept a -q or --quiet switch, which suppresses the
usual output but exits with the documented status. In this case these
commands will quit early, without reading all of the available input.
All subcommands also accept a -Z or --null-out switch, which makes them
print output separated with NUL instead of newlines. This is for fur-
ther processing, e.g. passing to another path, or xargs -0. This is not
recommended when the output goes to the terminal or a command substitu-
tion.
All subcommands also accept a -z or --null-in switch, which makes them
accept arguments from stdin separated with NULL-bytes. Since Unix paths
can't contain NULL, that makes it possible to handle all possible paths
and read input from e.g. find -print0. If arguments are given on the
commandline this has no effect. This should mostly be unnecessary since
path automatically starts splitting on NULL if one appears in the first
PATH_MAX bytes, PATH_MAX being the operating system's maximum length
for a path plus a NULL byte.
Some subcommands operate on the paths as strings and so work on nonex-
istent paths, while others need to access the paths themselves and so
filter out nonexistent paths.
The following subcommands are available.
"basename" subcommand
path basename [-E | --no-extension] [-z | --null-in] [-Z | --null-out] [-q | --quiet] [PATH ...]
path basename returns the last path component of the given path, by re-
moving the directory prefix and removing trailing slashes. In other
words, it is the part that is not the dirname. For files you might call
it the "filename".
If the -E or ---no-extension option is used and the base name contained
a period, the path is returned with the extension (or the last exten-
sion) removed, i.e. the "filename" without an extension (akin to call-
ing path change-extension "" (path basename $path)).
It returns 0 if there was a basename, i.e. if the path wasn't empty or
just slashes.
Examples
>_ path basename ./foo.mp4
foo.mp4
>_ path basename ../banana
banana
>_ path basename /usr/bin/
bin
>_ path basename /usr/bin/*
# This prints all files in /usr/bin/
# A selection:
cp
fish
grep
rm
"dirname" subcommand
path dirname [-z | --null-in] [-Z | --null-out] [-q | --quiet] [PATH ...]
path dirname returns the dirname for the given path. This is the part
before the last "/", discounting trailing slashes. In other words, it
is the part that is not the basename (discounting superfluous slashes).
It returns 0 if there was a dirname, i.e. if the path wasn't empty or
just slashes.
Examples
>_ path dirname ./foo.mp4
.
>_ path dirname ../banana
..
>_ path dirname /usr/bin/
/usr
"extension" subcommand
path extension [-z | --null-in] [-Z | --null-out] [-q | --quiet] [PATH ...]
path extension returns the extension of the given path. This is the
part after (and including) the last ".", unless that "." followed a "/"
or the basename is "." or "..", in which case there is no extension and
an empty line is printed.
If the filename ends in a ".", only a "." is printed.
It returns 0 if there was an extension.
Examples
>_ path extension ./foo.mp4
.mp4
>_ path extension ../banana
# an empty line, status 1
>_ path extension ~/.config
# an empty line, status 1
>_ path extension ~/.config.d
.d
>_ path extension ~/.config.
.
>_ set -l path (path change-extension '' ./foo.mp4)
>_ set -l extension (path extension ./foo.mp4)
> echo $path$extension
# reconstructs the original path again.
./foo.mp4
"filter" subcommand
path filter [-z | --null-in] [-Z | --null-out] [-q | --quiet] \
[-d] [-f] [-l] [-r] [-w] [-x] \
[-v | --invert] [(-t | --type) TYPE] [(-p | --perm) PERMISSION] [--all] [PATH ...]
path filter returns all of the given paths that match the given checks.
In all cases, the paths need to exist, nonexistent paths are always
filtered.
The available filters are:
• -t or --type with the options: "dir", "file", "link", "block",
"char", "fifo" and "socket", in which case the path needs to be a di-
rectory, file, link, block device, character device, named pipe or
socket, respectively.
• -d, -f and -l are short for --type=dir, --type=file and --type=link,
respectively. There are no shortcuts for the other types.
• -p or --perm with the options: "read", "write", and "exec", as well
as "suid", "sgid", "user" (referring to the path owner) and "group"
(referring to the path's group), in which case the path needs to have
all of the given permissions for the current user.
• -r, -w and -x are short for --perm=read, --perm=write and
--perm=exec, respectively. There are no shortcuts for the other per-
missions.
Note that the path needs to be any of the given types, but have all of
the given permissions. This is because having a path that is both
writable and executable makes sense, but having a path that is both a
directory and a file doesn't. Links will count as the type of the
linked-to file, so links to files count as files, links to directories
count as directories.
The filter options can either be given as multiple options, or
comma-separated - path filter -t dir,file or path filter --type dir
--type file are equivalent.
With --invert, the meaning of the filtering is inverted - any path that
wouldn't pass (including by not existing) passes, and any path that
would pass fails.
When a path starts with -, path filter will prepend ./ to avoid it be-
ing interpreted as an option otherwise.
It returns 0 if at least one path passed the filter.
With --all, return status 0 (true) if all paths pass the filter, and
status 1 (false) if any path fails. This is equivalent to not path fil-
ter -v. It produces no output, only a status.
When --all combined with --invert, it returns status 0 (true) if all
paths fail the filter and status 1 (false) if any path passes.
path is is shorthand for path filter -q, i.e. just checking without
producing output, see The is subcommand.
Examples
>_ path filter /usr/bin /usr/argagagji
# The (hopefully) nonexistent argagagji is filtered implicitly:
/usr/bin
>_ path filter --type file /usr/bin /usr/bin/fish
# Only fish is a file
/usr/bin/fish
>_ path filter --type file,dir --perm exec,write /usr/bin/fish /home/me
# fish is a file, which passes, and executable, which passes,
# but probably not writable, which fails.
#
# $HOME is a directory and both writable and executable, typically.
# So it passes.
/home/me
>_ path filter -fdxw /usr/bin/fish /home/me
# This is the same as above: "-f" is "--type=file", "-d" is "--type=dir",
# "-x" is short for "--perm=exec" and "-w" short for "--perm=write"!
/home/me
>_ path filter -fx $PATH/*
# Prints all possible commands - the first entry of each name is what fish would execute!
>_ path filter --all /usr/bin /usr/argagagji
# This returns 1 (false) because not all paths pass the filter.
"is" subcommand
path is [-z | --null-in] [-Z | --null-out] [-q | --quiet] \
[-d] [-f] [-l] [-r] [-w] [-x] \
[-v | --invert] [(-t | --type) TYPE] [(-p | --perm) PERMISSION] [PATH ...]
path is is short for path filter -q. It returns true if any of the
given files passes the filter, but does not produce any output.
--quiet can still be passed for compatibility but is redundant. The op-
tions are the same as for path filter.
Examples
>_ path is /usr/bin /usr/argagagji
# /usr/bin exists, so this returns a status of 0 (true). It prints nothing.
>_ path is /usr/argagagji
# /usr/argagagji does not, so this returns a status of 1 (false). It also prints nothing.
>_ path is -fx /bin/sh
# /bin/sh is usually an executable file, so this returns true.
"mtime" subcommand
path mtime [-z | --null-in] [-Z | --null-out] [-q | --quiet] [-R | --relative] [PATH ...]
path mtime returns the last modification time ("mtime" in unix jargon)
of the given paths, in seconds since the unix epoch (the beginning of
the 1st of January 1970).
With --relative (or -R), it prints the number of seconds since the mod-
ification time. It only reads the current time once at start, so in
case multiple paths are given the times are all relative to the start
of path mtime -R running.
If you want to know if a file is newer or older than another file, con-
sider using test -nt instead. See the test documentation.
It returns 0 if reading mtime for any path succeeded.
Examples
>_ date +%s
# This prints the current time as seconds since the epoch
1657217847
>_ path mtime /etc/
1657213796
>_ path mtime -R /etc/
4078
# So /etc/ on this system was last modified a little over an hour ago
# This is the same as
>_ math (date +%s) - (path mtime /etc/)
"normalize" subcommand
path normalize [-z | --null-in] [-Z | --null-out] [-q | --quiet] [PATH ...]
path normalize returns the normalized versions of all paths. That means
it squashes duplicate "/", collapses "../" with earlier components and
removes "." components.
Unlike realpath or path resolve, it does not make the paths absolute.
It also does not resolve any symlinks. As such it can operate on
non-existent paths.
Because it operates on paths as strings and doesn't resolve symlinks,
it works sort of like pwd -L and cd. E.g. path normalize link/.. will
return ., just like cd link; cd .. would return to the current direc-
tory. For a physical view of the filesystem, see path resolve.
Leading "./" components are usually removed. But when a path starts
with -, path normalize will add it instead to avoid confusion with op-
tions.
It returns 0 if any normalization was done, i.e. any given path wasn't
in canonical form.
Examples
>_ path normalize /usr/bin//../../etc/fish
# The "//" is squashed and the ".." components neutralize the components before
/etc/fish
>_ path normalize /bin//bash
# The "//" is squashed, but /bin isn't resolved even if your system links it to /usr/bin.
/bin/bash
>_ path normalize ./my/subdirs/../sub2
my/sub2
>_ path normalize -- -/foo
./-/foo
"resolve" subcommand
path resolve [-z | --null-in] [-Z | --null-out] [-q | --quiet] [PATH ...]
path resolve returns the normalized, physical and absolute versions of
all paths. That means it resolves symlinks and does what path normalize
does: it squashes duplicate "/", collapses "../" with earlier compo-
nents and removes "." components. Then it turns that path into the ab-
solute path starting from the filesystem root "/".
It is similar to realpath, as it creates the "real", canonical version
of the path. However, for paths that can't be resolved, e.g. if they
don't exist or form a symlink loop, it will resolve as far as it can
and normalize the rest.
Because it resolves symlinks, it works sort of like pwd -P. E.g. path
resolve link/.. will return the parent directory of what the link
points to, just like cd link; cd (pwd -P)/.. would go to it. For a log-
ical view of the filesystem, see path normalize.
It returns 0 if any normalization or resolution was done, i.e. any
given path wasn't in canonical form.
Examples
>_ path resolve /bin//sh
# The "//" is squashed, and /bin is resolved if your system links it to /usr/bin.
# sh here is bash (this is common on linux systems)
/usr/bin/bash
>_ path resolve /bin/foo///bar/../baz
# Assuming /bin exists and is a symlink to /usr/bin, but /bin/foo doesn't.
# This resolves the /bin/ and normalizes the nonexistent rest:
/usr/bin/foo/baz
"change-extension" subcommand
path change-extension [-z | --null-in] [-Z | --null-out] \
[-q | --quiet] EXTENSION [PATH ...]
path change-extension returns the given paths, with their extension
changed to the given new extension. The extension is the part after
(and including) the last ".", unless that "." followed a "/" or the
basename is "." or "..", in which case there is no previous extension
and the new one is added.
If the extension is empty, any previous extension is stripped, along
with the ".". This is, of course, the inverse of path extension.
One leading dot on the extension is ignored, so ".mp3" and "mp3" are
treated the same.
It returns 0 if it was given any paths.
Examples
>_ path change-extension mp4 ./foo.wmv
./foo.mp4
>_ path change-extension .mp4 ./foo.wmv
./foo.mp4
>_ path change-extension '' ../banana
../banana
>_ path change-extension '' ~/.config
/home/alfa/.config
>_ path change-extension '' ~/.config.d
/home/alfa/.config
>_ path change-extension '' ~/.config.
/home/alfa/.config
"sort" subcommand
path sort [-z | --null-in] [-Z | --null-out] \
[-q | --quiet] [-r | --reverse] \
[--key=basename|dirname|path] [PATH ...]
path sort returns the given paths in sorted order. They are sorted in
the same order as globs - alphabetically, but with runs of numerical
digits compared numerically.
With --reverse or -r the sort is reversed.
With --key= only the given part of the path is compared, e.g.
--key=dirname causes only the dirname to be compared, --key=basename
only the basename and --key=path causes the entire path to be compared
(this is the default).
With --unique or -u the sort is deduplicated, meaning only the first of
a run that have the same key is kept. So if you are sorting by base-
name, then only the first of each basename is used.
The sort used is stable, so sorting first by basename and then by
dirname works and causes the files to be grouped according to direc-
tory.
It currently returns 0 if it was given any paths.
Examples
>_ path sort 10-foo 2-bar
2-bar
10-foo
>_ path sort --reverse 10-foo 2-bar
10-foo
2-bar
>_ path sort --unique --key=basename $fish_function_path/*.fish
# prints a list of all function files fish would use, sorted by name.
Combining path
path is meant to be easy to combine with itself, other tools and fish.
This is why
• path's output is automatically split by fish if it goes into a com-
mand substitution, so just doing (path ...) handles all paths, even
those containing newlines, correctly
• path has --null-in to handle null-delimited input (typically automat-
ically detected!), and --null-out to pass on null-delimited output
Some examples of combining path:
# Expand all paths in the current directory, leave only executable files, and print their resolved path
path filter -zZ -xf -- * | path resolve -z
# The same thing, but using find (note -maxdepth needs to come first or find will scream)
# (this also depends on your particular version of find)
# Note the `-z` is unnecessary for any sensible version of find - if `path` sees a NULL,
# it will split on NULL automatically.
find . -maxdepth 1 -type f -executable -print0 | path resolve -z
set -l paths (path filter -p exec $PATH/fish -Z | path resolve)
popd - move through directory stack
Synopsis
popd
Description
popd removes the top directory from the directory stack and changes the
working directory to the new top directory. Use pushd to add directo-
ries to the stack.
The -h or --help option displays help about using this command.
Example
pushd /usr/src
# Working directory is now /usr/src
# Directory stack contains /usr/src
pushd /usr/src/fish-shell
# Working directory is now /usr/src/fish-shell
# Directory stack contains /usr/src /usr/src/fish-shell
popd
# Working directory is now /usr/src
# Directory stack contains /usr/src
See Also
• the dirs command to print the directory stack
• the cdh command which provides a more intuitive way to navigate to
recently visited directories.
prevd - move backward through directory history
Synopsis
prevd [-l | --list] [POS]
Description
prevd moves backwards POS positions in the history of visited directo-
ries; if the beginning of the history has been hit, a warning is
printed.
If the -l or --list flag is specified, the current history is also dis-
played.
Note that the cd command limits directory history to the 25 most re-
cently visited directories. The history is stored in the dirprev and
dirnext variables which this command manipulates.
The -h or --help option displays help about using this command.
Example
cd /usr/src
# Working directory is now /usr/src
cd /usr/src/fish-shell
# Working directory is now /usr/src/fish-shell
prevd
# Working directory is now /usr/src
nextd
# Working directory is now /usr/src/fish-shell
See Also
• the cdh command to display a prompt to quickly navigate the history
• the dirh command to print the directory history
• the nextd command to move forward
printf - display text according to a format string
Synopsis
printf FORMAT [ARGUMENT ...]
Description
NOTE: This page documents the fish builtin printf. To see the documen-
tation on any non-fish versions, use command man printf.
printf uses the format string FORMAT to print the ARGUMENT arguments.
This means that it takes format specifiers in the format string and re-
places each with an argument.
The FORMAT argument is re-used as many times as necessary to convert
all of the given arguments. So printf %s\n flounder catfish clownfish
shark will print four lines.
Unlike echo, printf does not append a new line unless it is specified
as part of the string.
It doesn't support any options, so there is no need for a -- separator,
which makes it easier to use for arbitrary input than echo. [1]
Format Specifiers
Valid format specifiers are taken from the C library function
printf(3):
• %d or %i: Argument will be used as decimal integer (signed or un-
signed)
• %o: An octal unsigned integer
• %u: An unsigned decimal integer - this means negative numbers will
wrap around
• %x or %X: An unsigned hexadecimal integer
• %f, %g or %G: A floating-point number. %f defaults to 6 places after
the decimal point (which is locale-dependent - e.g. in de_DE it will
be a ,). %g and %G will trim trailing zeroes and switch to scientific
notation (like %e) if the numbers get small or large enough.
• %e or %E: A floating-point number in scientific (XXXeYY) notation
• %s: A string
• %b: As a string, interpreting backslash escapes, except that octal
escapes are of the form 0 or 0ooo.
%% signifies a literal "%".
Conversion can fail, e.g. "102.234" can't losslessly convert to an in-
teger, causing printf to print an error. If you are okay with losing
information, silence errors with 2>/dev/null.
A number between the % and the format letter specifies the width. The
result will be left-padded with spaces.
Backslash Escapes
printf also knows a number of backslash escapes:
• \" double quote
• \\ backslash
• \a alert (bell)
• \b backspace
• \c produce no further output
• \e escape
• \f form feed
• \n new line
• \r carriage return
• \t horizontal tab
• \v vertical tab
• \ooo octal number (ooo is 1 to 3 digits)
• \xhh hexadecimal number (hhh is 1 to 2 digits)
• \uhhhh 16-bit Unicode character (hhhh is 4 digits)
• \Uhhhhhhhh 32-bit Unicode character (hhhhhhhh is 8 digits)
Errors and Return Status
If the given argument doesn't work for the given format (like when you
try to convert a number like 3.141592 to an integer), printf prints an
error, to stderr. printf will then also return non-zero, but will still
try to print as much as it can.
It will also return non-zero if no argument at all was given, in which
case it will print nothing.
This printf has been imported from the printf in GNU Coreutils version
6.9. If you would like to use a newer version of printf, for example
the one shipped with your OS, try command printf.
Example
printf '%s\t%s\n' flounder fish
Will print "flounder fish" (separated with a tab character), fol-
lowed by a newline character. This is useful for writing completions,
as fish expects completion scripts to output the option followed by the
description, separated with a tab character.
printf '%s: %d' "Number of bananas in my pocket" 42
Will print "Number of bananas in my pocket: 42", without a newline.
See Also
• the echo command, for simpler output
Footnotes
[1] In fact, while fish's echo supports --, POSIX forbids it, so other
implementations can't be used if the input contains anything
starting with -.
prompt_hostname - print the hostname, shortened for use in the prompt
Synopsis
prompt_hostname
Description
prompt_hostname prints a shortened version the current hostname for use
in the prompt. It will print just the first component of the hostname,
everything up to the first dot.
Examples
function fish_prompt
echo -n (whoami)@(prompt_hostname) (prompt_pwd) '$ '
end
# The machine's full hostname is foo.bar.com
>_ prompt_hostname
foo
prompt_login - describe the login suitable for prompt
Synopsis
prompt_login
Description
prompt_login is a function to describe the current login. It will show
the user, the host and also whether the shell is running in a chroot
(currently Debian's debian_chroot file is supported).
Examples
function fish_prompt
echo -n (prompt_login) (prompt_pwd) '$ '
end
>_ prompt_login
root@bananablaster
prompt_pwd - print pwd suitable for prompt
Synopsis
prompt_pwd
Description
prompt_pwd is a function to print the current working directory in a
way suitable for prompts. It will replace the home directory with "~"
and shorten every path component but the last to a default of one char-
acter.
To change the number of characters per path component, pass
--dir-length= or set fish_prompt_pwd_dir_length to the number of char-
acters. Setting it to 0 or an invalid value will disable shortening en-
tirely. This defaults to 1.
To keep some components unshortened, pass --full-length-dirs= or set
fish_prompt_pwd_full_dirs to the number of components. This defaults to
1, keeping the last component.
If any positional arguments are given, prompt_pwd shortens them instead
of PWD.
Options
-d or --dir-length MAX
Causes the components to be shortened to MAX characters each.
This overrides fish_prompt_pwd_dir_length.
-D or --full-length-dirs NUM
Keeps NUM components (counted from the right) as full length
without shortening. This overrides fish_prompt_pwd_full_dirs.
-h or --help
Displays help about using this command.
Examples
>_ cd ~/
>_ echo $PWD
/home/alfa
>_ prompt_pwd
~
>_ cd /tmp/banana/sausage/with/mustard
>_ prompt_pwd
/t/b/s/w/mustard
>_ set -g fish_prompt_pwd_dir_length 3
>_ prompt_pwd
/tmp/ban/sau/wit/mustard
>_ prompt_pwd --full-length-dirs=2 --dir-length=1
/t/b/s/with/mustard
>_ echo (prompt_pwd | string split /)[-1]
mustard
>_ echo (string join / (prompt_pwd | string split /)[-3..-1])
s/with/mustard
psub - perform process substitution
Synopsis
COMMAND1 ( COMMAND2 | psub [-F | --fifo] [-f | --file] [(-s | --suffix) SUFFIX] )
Description
Some shells (e.g., ksh, bash) feature a syntax that is a mix between
command substitution and piping, called process substitution. It is
used to send the output of a command into the calling command, much
like command substitution, but with the difference that the output is
not sent through commandline arguments but through a named pipe, with
the filename of the named pipe sent as an argument to the calling pro-
gram. psub combined with a regular command substitution provides the
same functionality.
The following options are available:
-f or --file
Use a regular file instead of a named pipe to communicate with
the calling process. This will cause psub to be significantly
slower when large amounts of data are involved, but has the ad-
vantage that the reading process can seek in the stream. This is
the default.
-F or --fifo
Use a named pipe rather than a file. You should only use this if
the command produces no more than 8 KiB of output. The limit on
the amount of data a FIFO can buffer varies with the OS but is
typically 8 KiB, 16 KiB or 64 KiB. If you use this option and
the command on the left of the psub pipeline produces more out-
put a deadlock is likely to occur.
-s or --suffix SUFFIX
Append SUFFIX to the filename.
-h or --help
Displays help about using this command.
Example
diff (sort a.txt | psub) (sort b.txt | psub)
# shows the difference between the sorted versions of files ``a.txt`` and ``b.txt``.
source-highlight -f esc (cpp main.c | psub -f -s .c)
# highlights ``main.c`` after preprocessing as a C source.
pushd - push directory to directory stack
Synopsis
pushd DIRECTORY
Description
The pushd function adds DIRECTORY to the top of the directory stack and
makes it the current working directory. popd will pop it off and return
to the original directory.
Without arguments, it exchanges the top two directories in the stack.
pushd +NUMBER rotates the stack counter-clockwise i.e. from bottom to
top
pushd -NUMBER rotates clockwise i.e. top to bottom.
The -h or --help option displays help about using this command.
Example
cd ~/dir1
pushd ~/dir2
pushd ~/dir3
# Working directory is now ~/dir3
# Directory stack contains ~/dir2 ~/dir1
pushd /tmp
# Working directory is now /tmp
# Directory stack contains ~/dir3 ~/dir2 ~/dir1
pushd +1
# Working directory is now ~/dir3
# Directory stack contains ~/dir2 ~/dir1 /tmp
popd
# Working directory is now ~/dir2
# Directory stack contains ~/dir1 /tmp
See Also
• the dirs command to print the directory stack
• the cdh command which provides a more intuitive way to navigate to
recently visited directories.
pwd - output the current working directory
Synopsis
pwd [-P | --physical]
pwd [-L | --logical]
Description
NOTE: This page documents the fish builtin pwd. To see the documenta-
tion on any non-fish versions, use command man pwd.
pwd outputs (prints) the current working directory.
The following options are available:
-L or --logical
Output the logical working directory, without resolving symlinks
(default behavior).
-P or --physical
Output the physical working directory, with symlinks resolved.
-h or --help
Displays help about using this command.
See Also
Navigate directories using the directory history or the directory stack
random - generate random number
Synopsis
random
random SEED
random START END
random START STEP END
random choice [ITEMS ...]
Description
random generates a pseudo-random integer from a uniform distribution.
The range (inclusive) depends on the arguments.
No arguments indicate a range of 0 to 32767 (inclusive).
If one argument is specified, the internal engine will be seeded with
the argument for future invocations of random and no output will be
produced.
Two arguments indicate a range from START to END (both START and END
included).
Three arguments indicate a range from START to END with a spacing of
STEP between possible outputs.
random choice will select one random item from the succeeding argu-
ments.
The -h or --help option displays help about using this command.
Note that seeding the engine will NOT give the same result across dif-
ferent systems.
You should not consider random cryptographically secure, or even sta-
tistically accurate.
Example
The following code will count down from a random even number between 10
and 20 to 1:
for i in (seq (random 10 2 20) -1 1)
echo $i
end
And this will open a random picture from any of the subdirectories:
open (random choice **.jpg)
Or, to only get even numbers from 2 to 20:
random 2 2 20
Or odd numbers from 1 to 3:
random 1 2 3 # or 1 2 4
read - read line of input into variables
Synopsis
read [OPTIONS] [VARIABLE ...]
Description
NOTE: This page documents the fish builtin read. To see the documenta-
tion on any non-fish versions, use command man read.
read reads from standard input and stores the result in shell vari-
ables. In an alternative mode, it can also print to its own standard
output, for example for use in command substitutions.
By default, read reads a single line and splits it into variables on
spaces or tabs. Alternatively, a null character or a maximum number of
characters can be used to terminate the input, and other delimiters can
be given.
Unlike other shells, there is no default variable (such as REPLY) for
storing the result - instead, it is printed on standard output.
When read reaches the end-of-file (EOF) instead of the terminator, the
exit status is set to 1. Otherwise, it is set to 0.
If read sets a variable and you don't specify a scope, it will use the
same rules that set - display and change shell variables does - if the
variable exists, it will use it (in the lowest scope). If it doesn't,
it will use an unexported function-scoped variable.
The following options, like the corresponding ones in set - display and
change shell variables, control variable scope or attributes:
-U or --universal
Sets a universal variable. The variable will be immediately
available to all the user's fish instances on the machine, and
will be persisted across restarts of the shell.
-f or --function
Sets a variable scoped to the executing function. It is erased
when the function ends.
-l or --local
Sets a locally-scoped variable in this block. It is erased when
the block ends. Outside of a block, this is the same as --func-
tion.
-g or --global
Sets a globally-scoped variable. Global variables are available
to all functions running in the same shell. They can be modi-
fied or erased.
-u or --unexport
Prevents the variables from being exported to child processes
(default behaviour).
-x or --export
Exports the variables to child processes.
The following options control the interactive mode:
-c CMD or --command CMD
Sets the initial string in the interactive mode command buffer
to CMD.
-s or --silent
Masks characters written to the terminal, replacing them with
asterisks. This is useful for reading things like passwords or
other sensitive information.
-p or --prompt PROMPT_CMD
Uses the output of the shell command PROMPT_CMD as the prompt
for the interactive mode. The default prompt command is
set_color green; echo -n read; set_color normal; echo -n "> "
-P or --prompt-str PROMPT_STR
Uses the literal PROMPT_STR as the prompt for the interactive
mode.
-R or --right-prompt RIGHT_PROMPT_CMD
Uses the output of the shell command RIGHT_PROMPT_CMD as the
right prompt for the interactive mode. There is no default right
prompt command.
-S or --shell
Enables syntax highlighting, tab completions and command termi-
nation suitable for entering shellscript code in the interactive
mode. NOTE: Prior to fish 3.0, the short opt for --shell was -s,
but it has been changed for compatibility with bash's -s short
opt for --silent.
The following options control how much is read and how it is stored:
-d or --delimiter DELIMITER
Splits on DELIMITER. DELIMITER will be used as an entire string
to split on, not a set of characters.
-n or --nchars NCHARS
Makes read return after reading NCHARS characters or the end of
the line, whichever comes first.
-t, --tokenize or --tokenize-raw
Causes read to split the input into variables by the shell's to-
kenization rules. This means it will honor quotes and escaping.
This option is of course incompatible with other options to con-
trol splitting like --delimiter and does not honor IFS (like
fish's tokenizer). The -t -or --tokenize variants perform quote
removal, so e.g. a\ b is stored as a b. However variables and
command substitutions are not expanded.
-a or --list
Stores the result as a list in a single variable. This option is
also available as --array for backwards compatibility.
-z or --null
Marks the end of the line with the NUL character, instead of
newline. This also disables interactive mode.
-L or --line
Reads each line into successive variables, and stops after each
variable has been filled. This cannot be combined with the --de-
limiter option.
Without the --line option, read reads a single line of input from stan-
dard input, breaks it into tokens, and then assigns one token to each
variable specified in VARIABLES. If there are more tokens than vari-
ables, the complete remainder is assigned to the last variable.
If no option to determine how to split like --delimiter, --line or
--tokenize is given, the variable IFS is used as a list of characters
to split on. Relying on the use of IFS is deprecated and this behaviour
will be removed in future versions. The default value of IFS contains
space, tab and newline characters. As a special case, if IFS is set to
the empty string, each character of the input is considered a separate
token.
With the --line option, read reads a line of input from standard input
into each provided variable, stopping when each variable has been
filled. The line is not tokenized.
If no variable names are provided, read enters a special case that pro-
vides redirection from standard input to standard output, useful for
command substitution. For instance, the fish shell command below can be
used to read a password from the console instead of hardcoding it in
the command itself, which prevents it from showing up in fish's his-
tory:
mysql -uuser -p(read)
When running in this mode, read does not split the input in any way and
text is redirected to standard output without any further processing or
manipulation.
If -l or --list is provided, only one variable name is allowed and the
tokens are stored as a list in this variable.
In order to protect the shell from consuming too many system resources,
read will only consume a maximum of 100 MiB (104857600 bytes); if the
terminator is not reached before this limit then VARIABLE is set to
empty and the exit status is set to 122. This limit can be altered with
the fish_read_limit variable. If set to 0 (zero), the limit is removed.
Example
read has a few separate uses.
The following code stores the value 'hello' in the shell variable foo.
echo hello | read foo
The while command is a neat way to handle command output line-by-line:
printf '%s\n' line1 line2 line3 line4 | while read -l foo
echo "This is another line: $foo"
end
Delimiters given via "-d" are taken as one string:
echo a==b==c | read -d == -l a b c
echo $a # a
echo $b # b
echo $c # c
--tokenize honors quotes and escaping like the shell's argument pass-
ing:
echo 'a\ b' | read -t first second
echo $first # outputs "a b", $second is empty
echo 'a"foo bar"b (command echo wurst)*" "{a,b}' | read -lt -l a b c
echo $a # outputs 'afoo barb' (without the quotes)
echo $b # outputs '(command echo wurst)* {a,b}' (without the quotes)
echo $c # nothing
For an example on interactive use, see Querying for user input.
realpath - convert a path to an absolute path without symlinks
Synopsis
realpath [OPTIONS] PATH
Description
NOTE: This page documents the fish builtin realpath. To see the docu-
mentation on any non-fish versions, use command man realpath.
realpath follows all symbolic links encountered for the provided PATH,
printing the absolute path resolved. fish provides a realpath-alike
builtin intended to enrich systems where no such command is installed
by default.
If a realpath command exists, that will be preferred. builtin realpath
will explicitly use the fish implementation of realpath.
The following options are available:
-s or --no-symlinks
Don't resolve symlinks, only make paths absolute, squash multi-
ple slashes and remove trailing slashes.
-h or --help
Displays help about using this command.
return - stop the current inner function
Synopsis
return [N]
Description
return halts a currently running function. The exit status is set to N
if it is given. If return is invoked outside of a function or dot
script it is equivalent to exit.
It is often added inside of a conditional block such as an if statement
or a switch statement to conditionally stop the executing function and
return to the caller; it can also be used to specify the exit status of
a function.
If at the top level of a script, it exits with the given status, like
exit. If at the top level in an interactive session, it will set
status, but not exit the shell.
The -h or --help option displays help about using this command.
Example
An implementation of the false command as a fish function:
function false
return 1
end
set - display and change shell variables
Synopsis
set
set (-f | --function) (-l | --local) (-g | --global) (-U | --universal) [--no-event]
set [-Uflg] NAME [VALUE ...]
set [-Uflg] NAME[[INDEX ...]] [VALUE ...]
set (-x | --export) (-u | --unexport) [-Uflg] NAME [VALUE ...]
set (-a | --append) (-p | --prepend) [-Uflg] NAME VALUE ...
set (-e | --erase) [-Uflg] [-xu] [NAME][[INDEX]] ...]
set (-q | --query) [-Uflg] [-xu] [NAME][[INDEX]] ...]
set (-S | --show) (-L | --long) [NAME ...]
Description
set manipulates shell variables.
If both NAME and VALUE are provided, set assigns any values to variable
NAME. Variables in fish are lists, multiple values are allowed. One
or more variable INDEX can be specified including ranges (not for all
options.)
If no VALUE is given, the variable will be set to the empty list.
If set is ran without arguments, it prints the names and values of all
shell variables in sorted order. Passing scope or export flags allows
filtering this to only matching variables, so set --local would only
show local variables.
With --erase and optionally a scope flag set will erase the matching
variable (or the variable of that name in the smallest possible scope).
With --show, set will describe the given variable names, explaining how
they have been defined - in which scope with which values and options.
The following options control variable scope:
-U or --universal
Sets a universal variable. The variable will be immediately
available to all the user's fish instances on the machine, and
will be persisted across restarts of the shell.
-f or --function
Sets a variable scoped to the executing function. It is erased
when the function ends.
-l or --local
Sets a locally-scoped variable in this block. It is erased when
the block ends. Outside of a block, this is the same as --func-
tion.
-g or --global
Sets a globally-scoped variable. Global variables are available
to all functions running in the same shell. They can be modi-
fied or erased.
These options modify how variables operate:
--export or -x
Causes the specified shell variable to be exported to child
processes (making it an "environment variable").
--unexport or -u
Causes the specified shell variable to NOT be exported to child
processes.
--path Treat specified variable as a path variable; variable will be
split on colons (:) and will be displayed joined by colons when
quoted (echo "$PATH") or exported.
--unpath
Causes variable to no longer be treated as a path variable.
Note: variables ending in "PATH" are automatically path vari-
ables.
Further options:
-a or --append NAME VALUE ...
Appends VALUES to the current set of values for variable NAME.
Can be used with --prepend to both append and prepend at the
same time. This cannot be used when assigning to a variable
slice.
-p or --prepend NAME VALUE ...
Prepends VALUES to the current set of values for variable NAME.
This can be used with --append to both append and prepend at the
same time. This cannot be used when assigning to a variable
slice.
-e or --erase NAME[INDEX]
Causes the specified shell variables to be erased. Supports
erasing from multiple scopes at once. Individual items in a
variable at INDEX in brackets can be specified.
-q or --query NAME[INDEX]
Test if the specified variable names are defined. If an INDEX
is provided, check for items at that slot. With a given scope
(like --global) or attribute (like --exported or --path) check
only variables that match. Does not output anything, but the
shell status is set to the number of variables specified that
were not defined, up to a maximum of 255. If no variable was
given, it also returns 255.
-n or --names
List only the names of all defined variables, not their value.
The names are guaranteed to be sorted.
-S or --show
Shows information about the given variables. If no variable
names are given then all variables are shown in sorted order.
It shows the scopes the given variables are set in, along with
the values in each and whether or not it is exported. No other
flags can be used with this option.
--no-event
Don't generate a variable change event when setting or erasing a
variable. We recommend using this carefully because the event
handlers are usually set up for a reason. Possible uses include
modifying the variable inside a variable handler.
-L or --long
Do not abbreviate long values when printing set variables.
-h or --help
Displays help about using this command.
If a variable is set to more than one value, the variable will be a
list with the specified elements. If a variable is set to zero ele-
ments, it will become a list with zero elements.
If the variable name is one or more list elements, such as PATH[1 3 7],
only those list elements specified will be changed. If you specify a
negative index when expanding or assigning to a list variable, the in-
dex will be calculated from the end of the list. For example, the in-
dex -1 means the last index of a list.
The scoping rules when creating or updating a variable are:
• Variables may be explicitly set as universal, global, function, or
local. Variables with the same name but in a different scope will
not be changed.
• If the scope of a variable is not explicitly set but a variable by
that name has been previously defined, the scope of the existing
variable is used. If the variable is already defined in multiple
scopes, the variable with the narrowest scope will be updated.
• If a variable's scope is not explicitly set and there is no existing
variable by that name, the variable will be local to the currently
executing function. Note that this is different from using the -l or
--local flag, in which case the variable will be local to the
most-inner currently executing block, while without them the variable
will be local to the function as a whole. If no function is execut-
ing, the variable will be set in the global scope.
The exporting rules when creating or updating a variable are identical
to the scoping rules for variables:
• Variables may be explicitly set to either exported or not exported.
When an exported variable goes out of scope, it is unexported.
• If a variable is not explicitly set to be exported or not exported,
but has been previously defined, the previous exporting rule for the
variable is kept.
• If a variable is not explicitly set to be either exported or unex-
ported and has never before been defined, the variable will not be
exported.
In query mode, the scope to be examined can be specified. Whether the
variable has to be a path variable or exported can also be specified.
In erase mode, if variable indices are specified, only the specified
slices of the list variable will be erased.
set requires all options to come before any other arguments. For exam-
ple, set flags -l will have the effect of setting the value of the
variable flags to '-l', not making the variable local.
Exit status
In assignment mode, set does not modify the exit status, but passes
along whatever status was set, including by command substitutions.
This allows capturing the output and exit status of a subcommand, like
in if set output (command).
In query mode, the exit status is the number of variables that were not
found.
In erase mode, set exits with a zero exit status in case of success,
with a non-zero exit status if the commandline was invalid, if any of
the variables did not exist or was a special read-only variable.
Examples
Print all global, exported variables:
> set -gx
Set the value of the variable _$foo_ to be 'hi'.:
> set foo hi
Append the value "there" to the variable $foo:
> set -a foo there
Remove _$smurf_ from the scope:
> set -e smurf
Remove _$smurf_ from the global and universal scopes:
> set -e -Ug smurf
Change the fourth element of the $PATH list to ~/bin:
> set PATH[4] ~/bin
Outputs the path to Python if type -p returns true:
if set python_path (type -p python)
echo "Python is at $python_path"
end
Setting a variable doesn't modify $status; a command substitution still
will, though:
> echo $status
0
> false
> set foo bar
> echo $status
1
> true
> set foo banana (false)
> echo $status
1
VAR=VALUE command sets a variable for just one command, like other
shells. This runs fish with a temporary home directory:
> HOME=(mktemp -d) fish
(which is essentially the same as):
> begin; set -lx HOME (mktemp -d); fish; end
Notes
• Fish versions prior to 3.0 supported the syntax set PATH[1] PATH[4]
/bin /sbin, which worked like set PATH[1 4] /bin /sbin.
set_color - set the terminal color
Synopsis
set_color [OPTIONS] VALUE
Description
set_color is used to control the color and styling of text in the ter-
minal. VALUE describes that styling. VALUE can be a reserved color name
like red or an RGB color value given as 3 or 6 hexadecimal digits
("F27" or "FF2277"). A special keyword normal resets text formatting to
terminal defaults.
Valid colors include:
• black, red, green, yellow, blue, magenta, cyan, white
• brblack, brred, brgreen, bryellow, brblue, brmagenta, brcyan, br-
white
The br- (as in 'bright') forms are full-brightness variants of the 8
standard-brightness colors on many terminals. brblack has higher
brightness than black - towards gray.
An RGB value with three or six hex digits, such as A0FF33 or f2f can be
used. A three digit value is equivalent to specifying each digit
twice; e.g., set_color 2BC is the same as set_color 22BBCC. Hexadeci-
mal RGB values can be in lower or uppercase.
If fish_term24bit is set to 0, fish will translate RGB values to the
nearest color on the 256-color palette. If fish_term256 is also set to
0, fish will translate them to the 16-color palette instead. Fish
launched as fish -d term_support will include diagnostic messages that
indicate the color support mode in use.
If multiple colors are specified, fish prefers the first RGB one. How-
ever if fish_term256 is set to 0, fish prefers the first named color
specified.
The following options are available:
-b or --background COLOR
Sets the background color.
--underline-color COLOR
Set the underline color.
-c or --print-colors
Prints the given colors or a colored list of the 16 named col-
ors.
-o or --bold
Sets bold mode.
-d or --dim
Sets dim mode.
-i or --italics
Sets italics mode.
-r or --reverse
Sets reverse mode.
-u or --underline, or -uSTYLE or --underline=STYLE
Set the underline mode; supported styles are single (default),
double, curly, dotted and dashed.
--theme=THEME
Ignored. Color variables that contain only this option are
treated like missing / empty color variables, i.e. fish will use
the fallback color instead. fish_config theme choose erases all
color variable whose value includes this option, and adds this
option to all color variables it sets. This allows identifying
variables set by a theme, and it allows fish to update color
variables whenever fish_terminal_color_theme changes.
-h or --help
Displays help about using this command.
Notes
1. Using set_color normal will reset all colors and modes to the termi-
nal's default.
2. Setting the background color only affects subsequently written char-
acters. Fish provides no way to set the background color for the en-
tire terminal window. Configuring the window background color (and
other attributes such as its opacity) has to be done using whatever
mechanisms the terminal provides. Look for a config option.
3. Some terminals use the --bold escape sequence to switch to a
brighter color set rather than increasing the weight of text.
4. set_color works by printing sequences of characters to standard out-
put. If used in command substitution or a pipe, these characters
will also be captured. This may or may not be desirable. Checking
the exit status of isatty stdout before using set_color can be use-
ful to decide not to colorize output in a script.
Examples
set_color red; echo "Roses are red"
set_color blue; echo "Violets are blue"
set_color 62A; echo "Eggplants are dark purple"
set_color normal; echo "Normal is nice" # Resets the background too
source - evaluate contents of file
Synopsis
source FILE [ARGUMENTS ...]
SOMECOMMAND | source
. FILE [ARGUMENTS ...]
Description
source evaluates the commands of the specified FILE in the current
shell as a new block of code. This is different from starting a new
process to perform the commands (i.e. fish < FILE) since the commands
will be evaluated by the current shell, which means that changes in
shell variables will affect the current shell. If additional arguments
are specified after the file name, they will be inserted into the argv
variable. The argv variable will not include the name of the sourced
file.
fish will search the working directory to resolve relative paths but
will not search PATH .
If no file is specified and a file or pipeline is connected to standard
input, or if the file name - is used, source will read from standard
input. If no file is specified and there is no redirected file or
pipeline on standard input, an error will be printed.
The exit status of source is the exit status of the last job to exe-
cute. If something goes wrong while opening or reading the file, source
exits with a non-zero status.
Some other shells only support the . alias (a single period). The use
of . is deprecated in favour of source, and . will be removed in a fu-
ture version of fish.
source creates a new local scope; set --local within a sourced block
will not affect variables in the enclosing scope.
The -h or --help option displays help about using this command.
Example
source ~/.config/fish/config.fish
# Causes fish to re-read its initialization file.
status - query fish runtime information
Synopsis
status
status is-login
status is-interactive
status is-interactive-read
status is-block
status is-breakpoint
status is-command-substitution
status is-no-job-control
status is-full-job-control
status is-interactive-job-control
status current-command
status current-commandline
status filename
status basename
status dirname
status fish-path
status function
status line-number
status stack-trace
status job-control CONTROL_TYPE
status features
status test-feature FEATURE
status build-info
status get-file FILE
status list-files [PATH ...]
status terminal
status test-terminal-feature FEATURE
status language [list-available|set [LANGUAGE ...]|unset]
Description
With no arguments, status displays a summary of the current login and
job control status of the shell.
The following operations (subcommands) are available:
is-command-substitution, -c or --is-command-substitution
Returns 0 if fish is currently executing a command substitution.
is-block, -b or --is-block
Returns 0 if fish is currently executing a block of code.
is-breakpoint
Returns 0 if fish is currently showing a prompt in the context
of a breakpoint command. See also the fish_breakpoint_prompt
function.
is-interactive, -i or --is-interactive
Returns 0 if fish is interactive - that is, connected to a key-
board.
is-interactive-read or --is-interactive-read
Returns 0 if fish is running an interactive read builtin which
is connected to a keyboard.
is-login, -l or --is-login
Returns 0 if fish is a login shell - that is, if fish should
perform login tasks such as setting up PATH.
is-full-job-control or --is-full-job-control
Returns 0 if full job control is enabled.
is-interactive-job-control or --is-interactive-job-control
Returns 0 if interactive job control is enabled.
is-no-job-control or --is-no-job-control
Returns 0 if no job control is enabled.
current-command
Prints the name of the currently-running function or command,
like the deprecated _ variable.
current-commandline
Prints the entirety of the currently-running commandline, inclu-
sive of all jobs and operators.
filename, current-filename, -f or --current-filename
Prints the filename of the currently-running script. If the cur-
rent script was called via a symlink, this will return the sym-
link. If the current script was received by piping into source,
then this will return -.
basename
Prints just the filename of the running script, without any path
components before.
dirname
Prints just the path to the running script, without the actual
filename itself. This can be relative to PWD (including just
"."), depending on how the script was called. This is the same
as passing the filename to dirname(3). It's useful if you want
to use other files in the current script's directory or similar.
fish-path
Prints the absolute path to the currently executing instance of
fish. This is a best-effort attempt and the exact output is down
to what the platform gives fish. In some cases you might only
get "fish".
function or current-function
Prints the name of the currently called function if able, when
missing displays "Not a function" (or equivalent translated
string).
line-number, current-line-number, -n or --current-line-number
Prints the line number of the currently running script.
stack-trace, print-stack-trace, -t or --print-stack-trace
Prints a stack trace of all function calls on the call stack.
job-control, -j or --job-control CONTROL_TYPE
Sets the job control type to CONTROL_TYPE, which can be none,
full, or interactive.
features
Lists all available feature flags.
test-feature FEATURE
Returns 0 when FEATURE is enabled, 1 if it is disabled, and 2 if
it is not recognized.
build-info
This prints information on how fish was build - which architec-
ture, which build system or profile was used, etc. This is
mainly useful for debugging.
get-file FILE
NOTE: this subcommand is mainly intended for fish's internal
use; let us know if you want to use it elsewhere.
This prints a file embedded in the fish binary at compile time.
This includes the default set of functions and completions, as
well as the man pages and themes. Which files are included de-
pends on build settings. Returns 0 if the file was included, 1
otherwise.
list-files FILE...
NOTE: this subcommand is mainly intended for fish's internal
use; let us know if you want to use it elsewhere.
This lists the files embedded in the fish binary at compile
time. Only files where the path starts with the optional FILE
argument are shown. Returns 0 if something was printed, 1 oth-
erwise.
terminal
Prints the name and version of the terminal fish is running in-
side (for example as reported via XTVERSION). This is not
available during early startup but only starting from when the
first interactive prompt is shown, possibly via builtin read, so
before the first fish_prompt or fish_read event.
terminal-os
Prints the name of the operating system (OS) the terminal is
running on, as reported via XTGETTCAP query-os-name. Like
status terminal, this only works once the first interactive
prompt is shown. Returns 1 if the OS name is not available.
test-terminal-feature FEATURE
Returns 0 when the terminal was detected to support the given
feature. Like status terminal, this only works once the first
interactive prompt is shown.
Currently the only available FEATURE is scroll-content-up. An
error will be printed when passed an unrecognized feature.
language
Show or modify message localization settings. When invoked
without arguments, the current language settings are shown.
Available subcommands:
list-available prints the language names for which fish has
translations. These names can be used with the set subcommand.
set sets the language precedence for fish's messages. Overrides
language settings configured via environment variables, but only
applies to fish itself, not to any child processes. Takes a
list of language names from the set shown by the list-available
subcommand. For some languages, fish's translation catalogs are
incomplete, meaning not all messages can be shown in these lan-
guages. Therefore, we allow specifying a list here, with trans-
lations taken from the first specified language which has a
translation available for a message. For example, after running
status language set pt_BR fr, all messages which have a transla-
tion into Brazilian Portuguese will be shown in that language.
The remaining messages will be shown in French, if a French
translation is available. If none of the specified languages
have a translation available for a message, the message will be
shown in English.
unset undoes the effects of the set subcommand. Language set-
tings will be taken from environment variables again.
Notes
For backwards compatibility most subcommands can also be specified as a
long or short option. For example, rather than status is-login you can
type status --is-login. The flag forms are deprecated and may be re-
moved in a future release.
You can only specify one subcommand per invocation even if you use the
flag form of the subcommand.
string - manipulate strings
Synopsis
string collect [-a | --allow-empty] [-N | --no-trim-newlines] [STRING ...]
string escape [-n | --no-quoted] [--style=] [STRING ...]
string join [-q | --quiet] [-n | --no-empty] SEP [STRING ...]
string join0 [-q | --quiet] [-n | --no-empty] [STRING ...]
string length [-q | --quiet] [STRING ...]
string lower [-q | --quiet] [STRING ...]
string match [-a | --all] [-e | --entire] [-i | --ignore-case]
[-g | --groups-only] [-r | --regex] [-n | --index]
[-q | --quiet] [-v | --invert]
PATTERN [STRING ...]
string pad [-r | --right] [-C | --center] [(-c | --char) CHAR] [(-w | --width) INTEGER]
[STRING ...]
string repeat [(-n | --count) COUNT] [(-m | --max) MAX] [-N | --no-newline]
[-q | --quiet] [STRING ...]
string repeat [-N | --no-newline] [-q | --quiet] COUNT [STRING ...]
string replace [-a | --all] [-f | --filter] [-i | --ignore-case]
[-r | --regex] [-q | --quiet] PATTERN REPLACE [STRING ...]
string shorten [(-c | --char) CHARS] [(-m | --max) INTEGER]
[-N | --no-newline] [-l | --left] [-q | --quiet] [STRING ...]
string split [(-f | --fields) FIELDS] [(-m | --max) MAX] [-n | --no-empty]
[-q | --quiet] [-r | --right] SEP [STRING ...]
string split0 [(-f | --fields) FIELDS] [(-m | --max) MAX] [-n | --no-empty]
[-q | --quiet] [-r | --right] [STRING ...]
string sub [(-s | --start) START] [(-e | --end) END] [(-l | --length) LENGTH]
[-q | --quiet] [STRING ...]
string trim [-l | --left] [-r | --right] [(-c | --chars) CHARS]
[-q | --quiet] [STRING ...]
string unescape [--style=] [STRING ...]
string upper [-q | --quiet] [STRING ...]
Description
string performs operations on strings.
STRING arguments are taken from the command line unless standard input
is connected to a pipe or a file, in which case they are read from
standard input, one STRING per line. It is an error to supply STRING
arguments on the command line and on standard input.
Arguments beginning with - are normally interpreted as switches; --
causes the following arguments not to be treated as switches even if
they begin with -. Switches and required arguments are recognized only
on the command line.
Most subcommands accept a -q or --quiet switch, which suppresses the
usual output but exits with the documented status. In this case these
commands will quit early, without reading all of the available input.
The following subcommands are available.
"collect" subcommand
string collect [-a | --allow-empty] [-N | --no-trim-newlines] [STRING ...]
string collect collects its input into a single output argument, with-
out splitting the output when used in a command substitution. This is
useful when trying to collect multiline output from another command
into a variable. Exit status: 0 if any output argument is non-empty, or
1 otherwise.
A command like echo (cmd | string collect) is mostly equivalent to a
quoted command substitution (echo "$(cmd)"). The main difference is
that the former evaluates to zero or one elements whereas the quoted
command substitution always evaluates to one element due to string in-
terpolation.
If invoked with multiple arguments instead of input, string collect
preserves each argument separately, where the number of output argu-
ments is equal to the number of arguments given to string collect.
Any trailing newlines on the input are trimmed, just as with "$(cmd)"
substitution. Use --no-trim-newlines to disable this behavior, which
may be useful when running a command such as set contents (cat filename
| string collect -N).
With --allow-empty, string collect always prints one (empty) argument.
This can be used to prevent an argument from disappearing.
Examples
>_ echo "zero $(echo one\ntwo\nthree) four"
zero one
two
three four
>_ echo \"(echo one\ntwo\nthree | string collect)\"
"one
two
three"
>_ echo \"(echo one\ntwo\nthree | string collect -N)\"
"one
two
three
"
>_ echo foo(true | string collect --allow-empty)bar
foobar
"escape" and "unescape" subcommands
string escape [-n | --no-quoted] [--style=] [STRING ...]
string unescape [--style=] [STRING ...]
string escape escapes each STRING in one of several ways.
--style=script (default) alters the string such that it can be passed
back to eval to produce the original argument again. By default, all
special characters are escaped, and quotes are used to simplify the
output when possible. If -n or --no-quoted is given, the simplifying
quoted format is not used. Exit status: 0 if at least one string was
escaped, or 1 otherwise.
--style=var ensures the string can be used as a variable name by hex
encoding any non-alphanumeric characters. The string is first converted
to UTF-8 before being encoded.
--style=url ensures the string can be used as a URL by hex encoding any
character which is not legal in a URL. The string is first converted to
UTF-8 before being encoded.
--style=regex escapes an input string for literal matching within a
regex expression. The string is first converted to UTF-8 before being
encoded.
string unescape performs the inverse of the string escape command. If
the string to be unescaped is not properly formatted it is ignored. For
example, doing string unescape --style=var (string escape --style=var
$str) will return the original string. There is no support for unescap-
ing --style=regex.
Examples
>_ echo \x07 | string escape
\cg
>_ string escape --style=var 'a1 b2'\u6161
a1_20_b2_E6_85_A1_
"join" and "join0" subcommands
string join [-q | --quiet] [-n | --no-empty] [--] SEP [STRING ...]
string join0 [-q | --quiet] [-n | --no-empty] [--] [STRING ...]
Joins its STRING arguments into a single string separated by SEP (for
string join) or by the zero byte (NUL) (for string join0). Exit sta-
tus: 0 if at least one join was performed, or 1 otherwise.
-n, --no-empty
Exclude empty strings from consideration (e.g. string join -n +
a b "" c would expand to a+b+c not a+b++c).
-q, --quiet
Do not print the strings, only set the exit status as described
above.
WARNING: Insert a -- before positional arguments to prevent them from
being interpreted as flags. Otherwise, any strings starting with -
will be treated as flag arguments, meaning they will most likely result
in the command failing. This is also true if you specify a variable
which expands to such a string instead of a literal string. If you
don't need to append flag arguments at the end of the command, just al-
ways use -- to avoid unwelcome surprises.
string join0 adds a trailing NUL. This is most useful in conjunction
with tools that accept NUL-delimited input, such as sort -z.
Because Unix uses NUL as the string terminator, passing the output of
string join0 as an argument to a command (via a command substitution)
won't actually work. Fish will pass the correct bytes along, but the
command won't be able to tell where the argument ends. This is a limi-
tation of Unix' argument passing.
Examples
>_ seq 3 | string join ...
1...2...3
# Give a list of NUL-separated filenames to du (this is a GNU extension)
>_ string join0 file1 file2 file\nwith\nmultiple\nlines | du --files0-from=-
# Just put the strings together without a separator
>_ string join '' a b c
abc
>_ set -l markdown_list '- first' '- second' '- third'
# Strings with leading hyphens (also in variable expansions) are interpreted as flag arguments by default.
>_ string join \n $markdown_list
string join: - first: unknown option
# Use '--' to prevent this.
>_ string join -- \n $markdown_list
- first
- second
- third
"length" subcommand
string length [-q | --quiet] [-V | --visible] [STRING ...]
string length reports the length of each string argument in characters.
Exit status: 0 if at least one non-empty STRING was given, or 1 other-
wise.
With -V or --visible, it uses the visible width of the arguments. That
means it will discount escape sequences fish knows about, account for
$fish_emoji_width and $fish_ambiguous_width. It will also count each
line (separated by \n) on its own, and with a carriage return (\r)
count only the widest stretch on a line. The intent is to measure the
number of columns the STRING would occupy in the current terminal.
Examples
>_ string length 'hello, world'
12
>_ set str foo
>_ string length -q $str; echo $status
0
# Equivalent to test -n "$str"
>_ string length --visible (set_color red)foobar
# the set_color is discounted, so this is the width of "foobar"
6
>_ string length --visible
# depending on $fish_emoji_width, this is either 4 or 8
# in new terminals it should be
8
>_ string length --visible abcdef\r123
# this displays as "123def", so the width is 6
6
>_ string length --visible a\nbc
# counts "a" and "bc" as separate lines, so it prints width for each
1
2
"lower" subcommand
string lower [-q | --quiet] [STRING ...]
string lower converts each string argument to lowercase. Exit status: 0
if at least one string was converted to lowercase, else 1. This means
that in conjunction with the -q flag you can readily test whether a
string is already lowercase.
"match" subcommand
string match [-a | --all] [-e | --entire] [-i | --ignore-case]
[-g | --groups-only] [-r | --regex] [-n | --index]
[-q | --quiet] [-v | --invert] [(-m | --max-matches) MAX]
PATTERN [STRING ...]
string match tests each STRING against PATTERN and prints matching sub-
strings. Only the first match for each STRING is reported unless -a or
--all is given, in which case all matches are reported.
If you specify the -e or --entire then each matching string is printed
including any prefix or suffix not matched by the pattern (equivalent
to grep without the -o flag). You can, obviously, achieve the same re-
sult by prepending and appending * or .* depending on whether or not
you have specified the --regex flag. The --entire flag is a way to
avoid having to complicate the pattern in that fashion and make the in-
tent of the string match clearer. Without --entire and --regex, a PAT-
TERN will need to match the entire STRING before it will be reported.
Matching can be made case-insensitive with --ignore-case or -i.
If --groups-only or -g is given, only the capturing groups will be re-
ported - meaning the full match will be skipped. This is incompatible
with --entire and --invert, and requires --regex. It is useful as a
simple cutting tool instead of string replace, so you can choose "this
part" of a string.
If --index or -n is given, each match is reported as a 1-based start
position and a length. By default, PATTERN is interpreted as a glob
pattern matched against each entire STRING argument. A glob pattern is
only considered a valid match if it matches the entire STRING.
If --regex or -r is given, PATTERN is interpreted as a Perl-compatible
regular expression, which does not have to match the entire STRING. For
a regular expression containing capturing groups, multiple items will
be reported for each match, one for the entire match and one for each
capturing group. With this, only the matching part of the STRING will
be reported, unless --entire is given.
When matching via regular expressions, string match automatically sets
variables for all named capturing groups ((?<name>expression)). It will
create a variable with the name of the group, in the default scope, for
each named capturing group, and set it to the value of the capturing
group in the first matched argument. If a named capture group matched
an empty string, the variable will be set to the empty string (like set
var ""). If it did not match, the variable will be set to nothing (like
set var). When --regex is used with --all, this behavior changes. Each
named variable will contain a list of matches, with the first match
contained in the first element, the second match in the second, and so
on. If the group was empty or did not match, the corresponding element
will be an empty string.
If --invert or -v is used the selected lines will be only those which
do not match the given glob pattern or regular expression.
If --max-matches MAX or -m MAX is used, string will stop checking for
matches after MAX lines of input have matched. This can be used as an
"early exit" optimization when processing long inputs but expecting a
limited and fixed number of outputs that might be found considerably
before the input stream has been exhausted. If combined with --invert
or -v, considers only inverted matches.
Exit status: 0 if at least one match was found, or 1 otherwise.
Match Glob Examples
>_ string match 'a' a
a
>_ string match 'a*b' axxb
axxb
>_ string match -i 'a*B' Axxb
Axxb
>_ string match -- '-*' -h foo --version bar
# To match things that look like options, we need a `--`
# to tell string its options end there.
-h
--version
>_ echo 'ok?' | string match '*?'
ok?
# Note that only the second STRING will match here.
>_ string match 'foo' 'foo1' 'foo' 'foo2'
foo
>_ string match -e 'foo' 'foo1' 'foo' 'foo2'
foo1
foo
foo2
>_ string match 'foo*' 'foo1' 'foo' 'foo2'
foo1
foo2
Match Regex Examples
>_ string match -r 'cat|dog|fish' 'nice dog'
dog
>_ string match -r -v "c.*[12]" {cat,dog}(seq 1 4)
dog1
dog2
cat3
dog3
cat4
dog4
>_ string match -r -- '-.*' -h foo --version bar
# To match things that look like options, we need a `--`
# to tell string its options end there.
-h
--version
>_ string match -r '(\d\d?):(\d\d):(\d\d)' 2:34:56
2:34:56
2
34
56
>_ string match -r '^(\w{2,4})\1$' papa mud murmur
papa
pa
murmur
mur
>_ string match -r -a -n at ratatat
2 2
4 2
6 2
>_ string match -r -i '0x[0-9a-f]{1,8}' 'int magic = 0xBadC0de;'
0xBadC0de
>_ echo $version
3.1.2-1575-ga2ff32d90
>_ string match -rq '(?<major>\d+).(?<minor>\d+).(?<revision>\d+)' -- $version
>_ echo "You are using fish $major!"
You are using fish 3!
>_ string match -raq ' *(?<sentence>[^.!?]+)(?<punctuation>[.!?])?' "hello, friend. goodbye"
>_ printf "%s\n" -- $sentence
hello, friend
goodbye
>_ printf "%s\n" -- $punctuation
.
>_ string match -rq '(?<word>hello)' 'hi'
>_ count $word
0
"pad" subcommand
string pad [-r | --right] [-C | --center] [(-c | --char) CHAR] [(-w | --width) INTEGER]
[STRING ...]
string pad extends each STRING to the given visible width by adding
CHAR to the left. That means the width of all visible characters added
together, excluding escape sequences and accounting for
fish_emoji_width and fish_ambiguous_width. It is the amount of columns
in a terminal the STRING occupies.
The escape sequences reflect what fish knows about, and how it computes
its output. Your terminal might support more escapes, or not support
escape sequences that fish knows about.
If -C or --center is given, add the padding to before and after the
string. If it is impossible to perfectly center the result (because the
required amount of padding is an odd number), extra padding will be
added to the left, unless --right is also given.
If -r or --right is given, add the padding after a string.
If -c or --char is given, pad with CHAR instead of whitespace.
The output is padded to the maximum width of all input strings. If -w
or --width is given, use at least that.
Examples
>_ string pad -w 10 abc abcdef
abc
abcdef
>_ string pad --right --char= "fish are pretty" "rich. "
fish are pretty
rich.
>_ string pad -w$COLUMNS (date)
# Prints the current time on the right edge of the screen.
See also
• The printf command can do simple padding, for example printf %10s\n
works like string pad -w10.
• string length with the --visible option can be used to show what fish
thinks the width is.
"shorten" subcommand
string shorten [(-c | --char) CHARS] [(-m | --max) INTEGER]
[-N | --no-newline] [-l | --left] [-q | --quiet] [STRING ...]
string shorten truncates each STRING to the given visible width and
adds an ellipsis to indicate it. "Visible width" means the width of all
visible characters added together, excluding escape sequences and ac-
counting for fish_emoji_width and fish_ambiguous_width. It is the
amount of columns in a terminal the STRING occupies.
The escape sequences reflect what fish knows about, and how it computes
its output. Your terminal might support more escapes, or not support
escape sequences that fish knows about.
If -m or --max is given, truncate at the given width. Otherwise, the
lowest non-zero width of all input strings is used. A max of 0 means no
shortening takes place, all STRINGs are printed as-is.
If -N or --no-newline is given, only the first line (or last line with
--left) of each STRING is used, and an ellipsis is added if it was mul-
tiline. This only works for STRINGs being given as arguments, multiple
lines given on stdin will be interpreted as separate STRINGs instead.
If -c or --char is given, add CHAR instead of an ellipsis. This can
also be empty or more than one character.
If -l or --left is given, remove text from the left on instead, so this
prints the longest suffix of the string that fits. With --no-newline,
this will take from the last line instead of the first.
If -q or --quiet is given, string shorten only runs for the return
value - if anything would be shortened, it returns 0, else 1.
The default ellipsis is . If fish thinks your system is incapable be-
cause of your locale, it will use ... instead.
The return value is 0 if any shortening occurred, 1 otherwise.
Examples
>_ string shorten foo foobar
# No width was given, we infer, and "foo" is the shortest.
foo
fo
>_ string shorten --char="..." foo foobar
# The target width is 3 because of "foo",
# and our ellipsis is 3 too, so we can't really show anything.
# This is the default ellipsis if your locale doesn't allow "".
foo
...
>_ string shorten --char="" --max 4 abcdef 123456
# Leaving the char empty makes us not add an ellipsis
# So this truncates at 4 columns:
abcd
1234
>_ touch "a multiline"\n"file"
>_ for file in *; string shorten -N -- $file; end
# Shorten the multiline file so we only show one line per file:
a multiline
>_ ss -p | string shorten -m$COLUMNS -c ""
# `ss` from Linux' iproute2 shows socket information, but prints extremely long lines.
# This shortens input so it fits on the screen without overflowing lines.
>_ git branch | string match -rg '^\* (.*)' | string shorten -m20
# Take the current git branch and shorten it at 20 columns.
# Here the branch is "builtin-path-with-expand"
builtin-path-with-e
>_ git branch | string match -rg '^\* (.*)' | string shorten -m20 --left
# Taking 20 columns from the right instead:
in-path-with-expand
See also
• string pad does the inverse of this command, adding padding to a spe-
cific width instead.
• The printf command can do simple padding, for example printf %10s\n
works like string pad -w10.
• string length with the --visible option can be used to show what fish
thinks the width is.
"repeat" subcommand
string repeat [(-n | --count) COUNT] [(-m | --max) MAX] [-N | --no-newline]
[-q | --quiet] [STRING ...]
string repeat [-N | --no-newline] [-q | --quiet] COUNT [STRING ...]
string repeat repeats the STRING -n or --count times. The -m or --max
option will limit the number of outputted characters (excluding the
newline). This option can be used by itself or in conjunction with
--count. If both --count and --max are present, max char will be out-
putted unless the final repeated string size is less than max, in that
case, the string will repeat until count has been reached. Both --count
and --max will accept a number greater than or equal to zero, in the
case of zero, nothing will be outputted. The first argument is inter-
preted as COUNT if --count or --max are not explicitly specified. If -N
or --no-newline is given, the output won't contain a newline character
at the end. Exit status: 0 if yielded string is not empty, 1 otherwise.
Examples
Repeat Examples
>_ string repeat -n 2 'foo '
foo foo
>_ echo foo | string repeat -n 2
foofoo
>_ string repeat -n 2 -m 5 'foo'
foofo
>_ string repeat -m 5 'foo'
foofo
>_ string repeat 2 'foo'
foofoo
>_ string repeat 2 -n 3
222
"replace" subcommand
string replace [-a | --all] [-f | --filter] [-i | --ignore-case]
[-r | --regex] [(-m | --max-matches) MAX] [-q | --quiet]
PATTERN REPLACEMENT [STRING ...]
string replace is similar to string match but replaces non-overlapping
matching substrings with a replacement string and prints the result. By
default, PATTERN is treated as a literal substring to be matched.
If -r or --regex is given, PATTERN is interpreted as a Perl-compatible
regular expression, and REPLACEMENT can contain C-style escape se-
quences like t as well as references to capturing groups by number or
name as $n or ${n}.
If you specify the -f or --filter flag then each input string is
printed only if a replacement was done. This is useful where you would
otherwise use this idiom: a_cmd | string match pattern | string replace
pattern new_pattern. You can instead just write a_cmd | string replace
--filter pattern new_pattern.
If --max-matches MAX or -m MAX is used, string replace will stop all
processing after MAX lines of input have matched the specified pattern.
In the event of --filter or -f, this means the output will be MAX lines
in length. This can be used as an "early exit" optimization when pro-
cessing long inputs but expecting a limited and fixed number of outputs
that might be found considerably before the input stream has been ex-
hausted.
Exit status: 0 if at least one replacement was performed, or 1 other-
wise.
Replace Literal Examples
>_ string replace is was 'blue is my favorite'
blue was my favorite
>_ string replace 3rd last 1st 2nd 3rd
1st
2nd
last
>_ string replace -a ' ' _ 'spaces to underscores'
spaces_to_underscores
Replace Regex Examples
>_ string replace -r -a '[^\d.]+' ' ' '0 one two 3.14 four 5x'
0 3.14 5
>_ string replace -r '(\w+)\s+(\w+)' '$2 $1 $$' 'left right'
right left $
>_ string replace -r '\s*newline\s*' '\n' 'put a newline here'
put a
here
"split" and "split0" subcommands
string split [(-f | --fields) FIELDS [-a | --allow-empty]] [(-m | --max) MAX] [-n | --no-empty]
[-q | --quiet] [-r | --right] SEP [STRING ...]
string split0 [(-f | --fields) FIELDS [-a | --allow-empty]] [(-m | --max) MAX] [-n | --no-empty]
[-q | --quiet] [-r | --right] [STRING ...]
string split splits each STRING on the separator SEP, which can be an
empty string. If -m or --max is specified, at most MAX splits are done
on each STRING. If -r or --right is given, splitting is performed
right-to-left. This is only useful in combination with -m or --max.
With -n or --no-empty, empty results are excluded from consideration
(e.g. hello\n\nworld would expand to two strings and not three). Exit
status: 0 if at least one split was performed, or 1 otherwise.
Use -f or --fields to print out specific fields. FIELDS is a comma-sep-
arated string of field numbers and/or spans. Each field is one-indexed,
and will be printed on separate lines. If a given field does not exist,
then the command exits with status 1 and does not print anything, un-
less --allow-empty is used.
See also the --delimiter option of the read command.
string split0 splits each STRING on the zero byte (NUL). Options are
the same as string split except that no separator is given.
split0 has the important property that its output is not further split
when used in a command substitution, allowing for the command substitu-
tion to produce elements containing newlines. This is most useful when
used with Unix tools that produce zero bytes, such as find -print0 or
sort -z. See split0 examples below.
Be aware that commandline arguments cannot include NULs, so you likely
want to pass to string split0 via a pipe, not a command substitution.
Examples
>_ string split . example.com
example
com
>_ string split -r -m1 / /usr/local/bin/fish
/usr/local/bin
fish
>_ string split '' abc
a
b
c
>_ string split --allow-empty -f1,3-4,5 '' abcd
a
c
d
NUL Delimited Examples
>_ # Count files in a directory, without being confused by newlines.
>_ # Note: Don't use `string split0 (find . -print0)`, because arguments cannot include NUL.
>_ count (find . -print0 | string split0)
42
>_ # Sort a list of elements which may contain newlines
>_ set foo beta alpha\ngamma
>_ set foo (string join0 $foo | sort -z | string split0)
>_ string escape $foo[1]
alpha\ngamma
"sub" subcommand
string sub [(-s | --start) START] [(-e | --end) END] [(-l | --length) LENGTH]
[-q | --quiet] [STRING ...]
string sub prints a substring of each string argument. The start/end of
the substring can be specified with -s/-e or --start/--end followed by
a 1-based index value. Positive index values are relative to the start
of the string and negative index values are relative to the end of the
string. The default start value is 1. The length of the substring can
be specified with -l or --length. If the length or end is not speci-
fied, the substring continues to the end of each STRING. Exit status: 0
if at least one substring operation was performed, 1 otherwise.
--length is mutually exclusive with --end.
Examples
>_ string sub --length 2 abcde
ab
>_ string sub -s 2 -l 2 abcde
bc
>_ string sub --start=-2 abcde
de
>_ string sub --end=3 abcde
abc
>_ string sub -e -1 abcde
abcd
>_ string sub -s 2 -e -1 abcde
bcd
>_ string sub -s -3 -e -2 abcde
c
"trim" subcommand
string trim [-l | --left] [-r | --right] [(-c | --chars) CHARS]
[-q | --quiet] [STRING ...]
string trim removes leading and trailing whitespace from each STRING.
If -l or --left is given, only leading whitespace is removed. If -r or
--right is given, only trailing whitespace is trimmed.
The -c or --chars switch causes the set of characters in CHARS to be
removed instead of whitespace. This is a set of characters, not a
string - if you pass -c foo, it will remove any "f" or "o", not just
"foo" as a whole.
Exit status: 0 if at least one character was trimmed, or 1 otherwise.
Examples
>_ string trim ' abc '
abc
>_ string trim --right --chars=yz xyzzy zany
x
zan
"upper" subcommand
string upper [-q | --quiet] [STRING ...]
string upper converts each string argument to uppercase. Exit status: 0
if at least one string was converted to uppercase, else 1. This means
that in conjunction with the -q flag you can readily test whether a
string is already uppercase.
Regular Expressions
Both the match and replace subcommand support regular expressions when
used with the -r or --regex option. The dialect is that of PCRE2.
In general, special characters are special by default, so a+ matches
one or more "a"s, while a\+ matches an "a" and then a "+". (a+) matches
one or more "a"s in a capturing group ((?:XXXX) denotes a non-capturing
group). For the replacement parameter of replace, $n refers to the n-th
group of the match. In the match parameter, \n (e.g. \1) refers back to
groups.
Some features include repetitions:
• * refers to 0 or more repetitions of the previous expression
• + 1 or more
• ? 0 or 1.
• {n} to exactly n (where n is a number)
• {n,m} at least n, no more than m.
• {n,} n or more
Character classes, some of the more important:
• . any character except newline
• \d a decimal digit and \D, not a decimal digit
• \s whitespace and \S, not whitespace
• \w a "word" character and \W, a "non-word" character
• [...] (where "..." is some characters) is a character set
• [^...] is the inverse of the given character set
• [x-y] is the range of characters from x-y
• [[:xxx:]] is a named character set
• [[:^xxx:]] is the inverse of a named character set
• [[:alnum:]] : "alphanumeric"
• [[:alpha:]] : "alphabetic"
• [[:ascii:]] : "0-127"
• [[:blank:]] : "space or tab"
• [[:cntrl:]] : "control character"
• [[:digit:]] : "decimal digit"
• [[:graph:]] : "printing, excluding space"
• [[:lower:]] : "lower case letter"
• [[:print:]] : "printing, including space"
• [[:punct:]] : "printing, excluding alphanumeric"
• [[:space:]] : "white space"
• [[:upper:]] : "upper case letter"
• [[:word:]] : "same as w"
• [[:xdigit:]] : "hexadecimal digit"
Groups:
• (...) is a capturing group
• (?:...) is a non-capturing group
• \n is a backreference (where n is the number of the group, starting
with 1)
• $n is a reference from the replacement expression to a group in the
match expression.
And some other things:
• \b denotes a word boundary, \B is not a word boundary.
• ^ is the start of the string or line, $ the end.
• | is "alternation", i.e. the "or".
Comparison to other tools
Most operations string supports can also be done by external tools.
Some of these include grep, sed and cut.
If you are familiar with these, it is useful to know how string differs
from them.
In contrast to these classics, string reads input either from stdin or
as arguments. string also does not deal with files, so it requires
redirections to be used with them.
In contrast to grep, string's match defaults to glob-mode, while re-
place defaults to literal matching. If set to regex-mode, they use PCRE
regular expressions, which is comparable to grep's -P option. match de-
faults to printing just the match, which is like grep with -o (use
--entire to enable grep-like behavior).
Like sed's s/old/new/ command, string replace still prints strings that
don't match. sed's -n in combination with a /p modifier or command is
like string replace -f.
string split somedelimiter is a replacement for tr somedelimiter \n.
string-collect - join strings into one
Synopsis
string collect [-a | --allow-empty] [-N | --no-trim-newlines] [STRING ...]
Description
string collect collects its input into a single output argument, with-
out splitting the output when used in a command substitution. This is
useful when trying to collect multiline output from another command
into a variable. Exit status: 0 if any output argument is non-empty, or
1 otherwise.
A command like echo (cmd | string collect) is mostly equivalent to a
quoted command substitution (echo "$(cmd)"). The main difference is
that the former evaluates to zero or one elements whereas the quoted
command substitution always evaluates to one element due to string in-
terpolation.
If invoked with multiple arguments instead of input, string collect
preserves each argument separately, where the number of output argu-
ments is equal to the number of arguments given to string collect.
Any trailing newlines on the input are trimmed, just as with "$(cmd)"
substitution. Use --no-trim-newlines to disable this behavior, which
may be useful when running a command such as set contents (cat filename
| string collect -N).
With --allow-empty, string collect always prints one (empty) argument.
This can be used to prevent an argument from disappearing.
Examples
>_ echo "zero $(echo one\ntwo\nthree) four"
zero one
two
three four
>_ echo \"(echo one\ntwo\nthree | string collect)\"
"one
two
three"
>_ echo \"(echo one\ntwo\nthree | string collect -N)\"
"one
two
three
"
>_ echo foo(true | string collect --allow-empty)bar
foobar
string-escape - escape special characters
Synopsis
string escape [-n | --no-quoted] [--style=] [STRING ...]
string unescape [--style=] [STRING ...]
Description
string escape escapes each STRING in one of several ways.
--style=script (default) alters the string such that it can be passed
back to eval to produce the original argument again. By default, all
special characters are escaped, and quotes are used to simplify the
output when possible. If -n or --no-quoted is given, the simplifying
quoted format is not used. Exit status: 0 if at least one string was
escaped, or 1 otherwise.
--style=var ensures the string can be used as a variable name by hex
encoding any non-alphanumeric characters. The string is first converted
to UTF-8 before being encoded.
--style=url ensures the string can be used as a URL by hex encoding any
character which is not legal in a URL. The string is first converted to
UTF-8 before being encoded.
--style=regex escapes an input string for literal matching within a
regex expression. The string is first converted to UTF-8 before being
encoded.
string unescape performs the inverse of the string escape command. If
the string to be unescaped is not properly formatted it is ignored. For
example, doing string unescape --style=var (string escape --style=var
$str) will return the original string. There is no support for unescap-
ing --style=regex.
Examples
>_ echo \x07 | string escape
\cg
>_ string escape --style=var 'a1 b2'\u6161
a1_20_b2_E6_85_A1_
string-join - join strings with delimiter
Synopsis
string join [-q | --quiet] [-n | --no-empty] [--] SEP [STRING ...]
string join0 [-q | --quiet] [-n | --no-empty] [--] [STRING ...]
Description
Joins its STRING arguments into a single string separated by SEP (for
string join) or by the zero byte (NUL) (for string join0). Exit sta-
tus: 0 if at least one join was performed, or 1 otherwise.
-n, --no-empty
Exclude empty strings from consideration (e.g. string join -n +
a b "" c would expand to a+b+c not a+b++c).
-q, --quiet
Do not print the strings, only set the exit status as described
above.
WARNING: Insert a -- before positional arguments to prevent them from
being interpreted as flags. Otherwise, any strings starting with -
will be treated as flag arguments, meaning they will most likely result
in the command failing. This is also true if you specify a variable
which expands to such a string instead of a literal string. If you
don't need to append flag arguments at the end of the command, just al-
ways use -- to avoid unwelcome surprises.
string join0 adds a trailing NUL. This is most useful in conjunction
with tools that accept NUL-delimited input, such as sort -z.
Because Unix uses NUL as the string terminator, passing the output of
string join0 as an argument to a command (via a command substitution)
won't actually work. Fish will pass the correct bytes along, but the
command won't be able to tell where the argument ends. This is a limi-
tation of Unix' argument passing.
Examples
>_ seq 3 | string join ...
1...2...3
# Give a list of NUL-separated filenames to du (this is a GNU extension)
>_ string join0 file1 file2 file\nwith\nmultiple\nlines | du --files0-from=-
# Just put the strings together without a separator
>_ string join '' a b c
abc
>_ set -l markdown_list '- first' '- second' '- third'
# Strings with leading hyphens (also in variable expansions) are interpreted as flag arguments by default.
>_ string join \n $markdown_list
string join: - first: unknown option
# Use '--' to prevent this.
>_ string join -- \n $markdown_list
- first
- second
- third
string-join0 - join strings with zero bytes
Synopsis
string join [-q | --quiet] [-n | --no-empty] [--] SEP [STRING ...]
string join0 [-q | --quiet] [-n | --no-empty] [--] [STRING ...]
Description
Joins its STRING arguments into a single string separated by SEP (for
string join) or by the zero byte (NUL) (for string join0). Exit sta-
tus: 0 if at least one join was performed, or 1 otherwise.
-n, --no-empty
Exclude empty strings from consideration (e.g. string join -n +
a b "" c would expand to a+b+c not a+b++c).
-q, --quiet
Do not print the strings, only set the exit status as described
above.
WARNING: Insert a -- before positional arguments to prevent them from
being interpreted as flags. Otherwise, any strings starting with -
will be treated as flag arguments, meaning they will most likely result
in the command failing. This is also true if you specify a variable
which expands to such a string instead of a literal string. If you
don't need to append flag arguments at the end of the command, just al-
ways use -- to avoid unwelcome surprises.
string join0 adds a trailing NUL. This is most useful in conjunction
with tools that accept NUL-delimited input, such as sort -z.
Because Unix uses NUL as the string terminator, passing the output of
string join0 as an argument to a command (via a command substitution)
won't actually work. Fish will pass the correct bytes along, but the
command won't be able to tell where the argument ends. This is a limi-
tation of Unix' argument passing.
Examples
>_ seq 3 | string join ...
1...2...3
# Give a list of NUL-separated filenames to du (this is a GNU extension)
>_ string join0 file1 file2 file\nwith\nmultiple\nlines | du --files0-from=-
# Just put the strings together without a separator
>_ string join '' a b c
abc
>_ set -l markdown_list '- first' '- second' '- third'
# Strings with leading hyphens (also in variable expansions) are interpreted as flag arguments by default.
>_ string join \n $markdown_list
string join: - first: unknown option
# Use '--' to prevent this.
>_ string join -- \n $markdown_list
- first
- second
- third
string-length - print string lengths
Synopsis
string length [-q | --quiet] [-V | --visible] [STRING ...]
Description
string length reports the length of each string argument in characters.
Exit status: 0 if at least one non-empty STRING was given, or 1 other-
wise.
With -V or --visible, it uses the visible width of the arguments. That
means it will discount escape sequences fish knows about, account for
$fish_emoji_width and $fish_ambiguous_width. It will also count each
line (separated by \n) on its own, and with a carriage return (\r)
count only the widest stretch on a line. The intent is to measure the
number of columns the STRING would occupy in the current terminal.
Examples
>_ string length 'hello, world'
12
>_ set str foo
>_ string length -q $str; echo $status
0
# Equivalent to test -n "$str"
>_ string length --visible (set_color red)foobar
# the set_color is discounted, so this is the width of "foobar"
6
>_ string length --visible
# depending on $fish_emoji_width, this is either 4 or 8
# in new terminals it should be
8
>_ string length --visible abcdef\r123
# this displays as "123def", so the width is 6
6
>_ string length --visible a\nbc
# counts "a" and "bc" as separate lines, so it prints width for each
1
2
string-lower - convert strings to lowercase
Synopsis
string lower [-q | --quiet] [STRING ...]
Description
string lower converts each string argument to lowercase. Exit status: 0
if at least one string was converted to lowercase, else 1. This means
that in conjunction with the -q flag you can readily test whether a
string is already lowercase.
string-match - match substrings
Synopsis
string match [-a | --all] [-e | --entire] [-i | --ignore-case]
[-g | --groups-only] [-r | --regex] [-n | --index]
[-q | --quiet] [-v | --invert] [(-m | --max-matches) MAX]
PATTERN [STRING ...]
Description
string match tests each STRING against PATTERN and prints matching sub-
strings. Only the first match for each STRING is reported unless -a or
--all is given, in which case all matches are reported.
If you specify the -e or --entire then each matching string is printed
including any prefix or suffix not matched by the pattern (equivalent
to grep without the -o flag). You can, obviously, achieve the same re-
sult by prepending and appending * or .* depending on whether or not
you have specified the --regex flag. The --entire flag is a way to
avoid having to complicate the pattern in that fashion and make the in-
tent of the string match clearer. Without --entire and --regex, a PAT-
TERN will need to match the entire STRING before it will be reported.
Matching can be made case-insensitive with --ignore-case or -i.
If --groups-only or -g is given, only the capturing groups will be re-
ported - meaning the full match will be skipped. This is incompatible
with --entire and --invert, and requires --regex. It is useful as a
simple cutting tool instead of string replace, so you can choose "this
part" of a string.
If --index or -n is given, each match is reported as a 1-based start
position and a length. By default, PATTERN is interpreted as a glob
pattern matched against each entire STRING argument. A glob pattern is
only considered a valid match if it matches the entire STRING.
If --regex or -r is given, PATTERN is interpreted as a Perl-compatible
regular expression, which does not have to match the entire STRING. For
a regular expression containing capturing groups, multiple items will
be reported for each match, one for the entire match and one for each
capturing group. With this, only the matching part of the STRING will
be reported, unless --entire is given.
When matching via regular expressions, string match automatically sets
variables for all named capturing groups ((?<name>expression)). It will
create a variable with the name of the group, in the default scope, for
each named capturing group, and set it to the value of the capturing
group in the first matched argument. If a named capture group matched
an empty string, the variable will be set to the empty string (like set
var ""). If it did not match, the variable will be set to nothing (like
set var). When --regex is used with --all, this behavior changes. Each
named variable will contain a list of matches, with the first match
contained in the first element, the second match in the second, and so
on. If the group was empty or did not match, the corresponding element
will be an empty string.
If --invert or -v is used the selected lines will be only those which
do not match the given glob pattern or regular expression.
If --max-matches MAX or -m MAX is used, string will stop checking for
matches after MAX lines of input have matched. This can be used as an
"early exit" optimization when processing long inputs but expecting a
limited and fixed number of outputs that might be found considerably
before the input stream has been exhausted. If combined with --invert
or -v, considers only inverted matches.
Exit status: 0 if at least one match was found, or 1 otherwise.
Examples
Match Glob Examples
>_ string match 'a' a
a
>_ string match 'a*b' axxb
axxb
>_ string match -i 'a*B' Axxb
Axxb
>_ string match -- '-*' -h foo --version bar
# To match things that look like options, we need a `--`
# to tell string its options end there.
-h
--version
>_ echo 'ok?' | string match '*?'
ok?
# Note that only the second STRING will match here.
>_ string match 'foo' 'foo1' 'foo' 'foo2'
foo
>_ string match -e 'foo' 'foo1' 'foo' 'foo2'
foo1
foo
foo2
>_ string match 'foo*' 'foo1' 'foo' 'foo2'
foo1
foo2
Match Regex Examples
>_ string match -r 'cat|dog|fish' 'nice dog'
dog
>_ string match -r -v "c.*[12]" {cat,dog}(seq 1 4)
dog1
dog2
cat3
dog3
cat4
dog4
>_ string match -r -- '-.*' -h foo --version bar
# To match things that look like options, we need a `--`
# to tell string its options end there.
-h
--version
>_ string match -r '(\d\d?):(\d\d):(\d\d)' 2:34:56
2:34:56
2
34
56
>_ string match -r '^(\w{2,4})\1$' papa mud murmur
papa
pa
murmur
mur
>_ string match -r -a -n at ratatat
2 2
4 2
6 2
>_ string match -r -i '0x[0-9a-f]{1,8}' 'int magic = 0xBadC0de;'
0xBadC0de
>_ echo $version
3.1.2-1575-ga2ff32d90
>_ string match -rq '(?<major>\d+).(?<minor>\d+).(?<revision>\d+)' -- $version
>_ echo "You are using fish $major!"
You are using fish 3!
>_ string match -raq ' *(?<sentence>[^.!?]+)(?<punctuation>[.!?])?' "hello, friend. goodbye"
>_ printf "%s\n" -- $sentence
hello, friend
goodbye
>_ printf "%s\n" -- $punctuation
.
>_ string match -rq '(?<word>hello)' 'hi'
>_ count $word
0
string-pad - pad strings to a fixed width
Synopsis
string pad [-r | --right] [-C | --center] [(-c | --char) CHAR] [(-w | --width) INTEGER]
[STRING ...]
Description
string pad extends each STRING to the given visible width by adding
CHAR to the left. That means the width of all visible characters added
together, excluding escape sequences and accounting for
fish_emoji_width and fish_ambiguous_width. It is the amount of columns
in a terminal the STRING occupies.
The escape sequences reflect what fish knows about, and how it computes
its output. Your terminal might support more escapes, or not support
escape sequences that fish knows about.
If -C or --center is given, add the padding to before and after the
string. If it is impossible to perfectly center the result (because the
required amount of padding is an odd number), extra padding will be
added to the left, unless --right is also given.
If -r or --right is given, add the padding after a string.
If -c or --char is given, pad with CHAR instead of whitespace.
The output is padded to the maximum width of all input strings. If -w
or --width is given, use at least that.
Examples
>_ string pad -w 10 abc abcdef
abc
abcdef
>_ string pad --right --char= "fish are pretty" "rich. "
fish are pretty
rich.
>_ string pad -w$COLUMNS (date)
# Prints the current time on the right edge of the screen.
See Also
• The printf command can do simple padding, for example printf %10s\n
works like string pad -w10.
• string length with the --visible option can be used to show what fish
thinks the width is.
string-repeat - multiply a string
Synopsis
string repeat [(-n | --count) COUNT] [(-m | --max) MAX] [-N | --no-newline]
[-q | --quiet] [STRING ...]
string repeat [-N | --no-newline] [-q | --quiet] COUNT [STRING ...]
Description
string repeat repeats the STRING -n or --count times. The -m or --max
option will limit the number of outputted characters (excluding the
newline). This option can be used by itself or in conjunction with
--count. If both --count and --max are present, max char will be out-
putted unless the final repeated string size is less than max, in that
case, the string will repeat until count has been reached. Both --count
and --max will accept a number greater than or equal to zero, in the
case of zero, nothing will be outputted. The first argument is inter-
preted as COUNT if --count or --max are not explicitly specified. If -N
or --no-newline is given, the output won't contain a newline character
at the end. Exit status: 0 if yielded string is not empty, 1 otherwise.
Examples
Repeat Examples
>_ string repeat -n 2 'foo '
foo foo
>_ echo foo | string repeat -n 2
foofoo
>_ string repeat -n 2 -m 5 'foo'
foofo
>_ string repeat -m 5 'foo'
foofo
>_ string repeat 2 'foo'
foofoo
>_ string repeat 2 -n 3
222
string-replace - replace substrings
Synopsis
string replace [-a | --all] [-f | --filter] [-i | --ignore-case]
[-r | --regex] [(-m | --max-matches) MAX] [-q | --quiet]
PATTERN REPLACEMENT [STRING ...]
Description
string replace is similar to string match but replaces non-overlapping
matching substrings with a replacement string and prints the result. By
default, PATTERN is treated as a literal substring to be matched.
If -r or --regex is given, PATTERN is interpreted as a Perl-compatible
regular expression, and REPLACEMENT can contain C-style escape se-
quences like t as well as references to capturing groups by number or
name as $n or ${n}.
If you specify the -f or --filter flag then each input string is
printed only if a replacement was done. This is useful where you would
otherwise use this idiom: a_cmd | string match pattern | string replace
pattern new_pattern. You can instead just write a_cmd | string replace
--filter pattern new_pattern.
If --max-matches MAX or -m MAX is used, string replace will stop all
processing after MAX lines of input have matched the specified pattern.
In the event of --filter or -f, this means the output will be MAX lines
in length. This can be used as an "early exit" optimization when pro-
cessing long inputs but expecting a limited and fixed number of outputs
that might be found considerably before the input stream has been ex-
hausted.
Exit status: 0 if at least one replacement was performed, or 1 other-
wise.
Examples
Replace Literal Examples
>_ string replace is was 'blue is my favorite'
blue was my favorite
>_ string replace 3rd last 1st 2nd 3rd
1st
2nd
last
>_ string replace -a ' ' _ 'spaces to underscores'
spaces_to_underscores
Replace Regex Examples
>_ string replace -r -a '[^\d.]+' ' ' '0 one two 3.14 four 5x'
0 3.14 5
>_ string replace -r '(\w+)\s+(\w+)' '$2 $1 $$' 'left right'
right left $
>_ string replace -r '\s*newline\s*' '\n' 'put a newline here'
put a
here
string-shorten - shorten strings to a width, with an ellipsis
Synopsis
string shorten [(-c | --char) CHARS] [(-m | --max) INTEGER]
[-N | --no-newline] [-l | --left] [-q | --quiet] [STRING ...]
Description
string shorten truncates each STRING to the given visible width and
adds an ellipsis to indicate it. "Visible width" means the width of all
visible characters added together, excluding escape sequences and ac-
counting for fish_emoji_width and fish_ambiguous_width. It is the
amount of columns in a terminal the STRING occupies.
The escape sequences reflect what fish knows about, and how it computes
its output. Your terminal might support more escapes, or not support
escape sequences that fish knows about.
If -m or --max is given, truncate at the given width. Otherwise, the
lowest non-zero width of all input strings is used. A max of 0 means no
shortening takes place, all STRINGs are printed as-is.
If -N or --no-newline is given, only the first line (or last line with
--left) of each STRING is used, and an ellipsis is added if it was mul-
tiline. This only works for STRINGs being given as arguments, multiple
lines given on stdin will be interpreted as separate STRINGs instead.
If -c or --char is given, add CHAR instead of an ellipsis. This can
also be empty or more than one character.
If -l or --left is given, remove text from the left on instead, so this
prints the longest suffix of the string that fits. With --no-newline,
this will take from the last line instead of the first.
If -q or --quiet is given, string shorten only runs for the return
value - if anything would be shortened, it returns 0, else 1.
The default ellipsis is . If fish thinks your system is incapable be-
cause of your locale, it will use ... instead.
The return value is 0 if any shortening occurred, 1 otherwise.
Examples
>_ string shorten foo foobar
# No width was given, we infer, and "foo" is the shortest.
foo
fo
>_ string shorten --char="..." foo foobar
# The target width is 3 because of "foo",
# and our ellipsis is 3 too, so we can't really show anything.
# This is the default ellipsis if your locale doesn't allow "".
foo
...
>_ string shorten --char="" --max 4 abcdef 123456
# Leaving the char empty makes us not add an ellipsis
# So this truncates at 4 columns:
abcd
1234
>_ touch "a multiline"\n"file"
>_ for file in *; string shorten -N -- $file; end
# Shorten the multiline file so we only show one line per file:
a multiline
>_ ss -p | string shorten -m$COLUMNS -c ""
# `ss` from Linux' iproute2 shows socket information, but prints extremely long lines.
# This shortens input so it fits on the screen without overflowing lines.
>_ git branch | string match -rg '^\* (.*)' | string shorten -m20
# Take the current git branch and shorten it at 20 columns.
# Here the branch is "builtin-path-with-expand"
builtin-path-with-e
>_ git branch | string match -rg '^\* (.*)' | string shorten -m20 --left
# Taking 20 columns from the right instead:
in-path-with-expand
See Also
• string pad does the inverse of this command, adding padding to a spe-
cific width instead.
• The printf command can do simple padding, for example printf %10s\n
works like string pad -w10.
• string length with the --visible option can be used to show what fish
thinks the width is.
string-split - split strings by delimiter
Synopsis
string split [(-f | --fields) FIELDS [-a | --allow-empty]] [(-m | --max) MAX] [-n | --no-empty]
[-q | --quiet] [-r | --right] SEP [STRING ...]
string split0 [(-f | --fields) FIELDS [-a | --allow-empty]] [(-m | --max) MAX] [-n | --no-empty]
[-q | --quiet] [-r | --right] [STRING ...]
Description
string split splits each STRING on the separator SEP, which can be an
empty string. If -m or --max is specified, at most MAX splits are done
on each STRING. If -r or --right is given, splitting is performed
right-to-left. This is only useful in combination with -m or --max.
With -n or --no-empty, empty results are excluded from consideration
(e.g. hello\n\nworld would expand to two strings and not three). Exit
status: 0 if at least one split was performed, or 1 otherwise.
Use -f or --fields to print out specific fields. FIELDS is a comma-sep-
arated string of field numbers and/or spans. Each field is one-indexed,
and will be printed on separate lines. If a given field does not exist,
then the command exits with status 1 and does not print anything, un-
less --allow-empty is used.
See also the --delimiter option of the read command.
string split0 splits each STRING on the zero byte (NUL). Options are
the same as string split except that no separator is given.
split0 has the important property that its output is not further split
when used in a command substitution, allowing for the command substitu-
tion to produce elements containing newlines. This is most useful when
used with Unix tools that produce zero bytes, such as find -print0 or
sort -z. See split0 examples below.
Be aware that commandline arguments cannot include NULs, so you likely
want to pass to string split0 via a pipe, not a command substitution.
Examples
>_ string split . example.com
example
com
>_ string split -r -m1 / /usr/local/bin/fish
/usr/local/bin
fish
>_ string split '' abc
a
b
c
>_ string split --allow-empty -f1,3-4,5 '' abcd
a
c
d
NUL Delimited Examples
>_ # Count files in a directory, without being confused by newlines.
>_ # Note: Don't use `string split0 (find . -print0)`, because arguments cannot include NUL.
>_ count (find . -print0 | string split0)
42
>_ # Sort a list of elements which may contain newlines
>_ set foo beta alpha\ngamma
>_ set foo (string join0 $foo | sort -z | string split0)
>_ string escape $foo[1]
alpha\ngamma
string-split0 - split on zero bytes
Synopsis
string split [(-f | --fields) FIELDS [-a | --allow-empty]] [(-m | --max) MAX] [-n | --no-empty]
[-q | --quiet] [-r | --right] SEP [STRING ...]
string split0 [(-f | --fields) FIELDS [-a | --allow-empty]] [(-m | --max) MAX] [-n | --no-empty]
[-q | --quiet] [-r | --right] [STRING ...]
Description
string split splits each STRING on the separator SEP, which can be an
empty string. If -m or --max is specified, at most MAX splits are done
on each STRING. If -r or --right is given, splitting is performed
right-to-left. This is only useful in combination with -m or --max.
With -n or --no-empty, empty results are excluded from consideration
(e.g. hello\n\nworld would expand to two strings and not three). Exit
status: 0 if at least one split was performed, or 1 otherwise.
Use -f or --fields to print out specific fields. FIELDS is a comma-sep-
arated string of field numbers and/or spans. Each field is one-indexed,
and will be printed on separate lines. If a given field does not exist,
then the command exits with status 1 and does not print anything, un-
less --allow-empty is used.
See also the --delimiter option of the read command.
string split0 splits each STRING on the zero byte (NUL). Options are
the same as string split except that no separator is given.
split0 has the important property that its output is not further split
when used in a command substitution, allowing for the command substitu-
tion to produce elements containing newlines. This is most useful when
used with Unix tools that produce zero bytes, such as find -print0 or
sort -z. See split0 examples below.
Be aware that commandline arguments cannot include NULs, so you likely
want to pass to string split0 via a pipe, not a command substitution.
Examples
>_ string split . example.com
example
com
>_ string split -r -m1 / /usr/local/bin/fish
/usr/local/bin
fish
>_ string split '' abc
a
b
c
>_ string split --allow-empty -f1,3-4,5 '' abcd
a
c
d
NUL Delimited Examples
>_ # Count files in a directory, without being confused by newlines.
>_ # Note: Don't use `string split0 (find . -print0)`, because arguments cannot include NUL.
>_ count (find . -print0 | string split0)
42
>_ # Sort a list of elements which may contain newlines
>_ set foo beta alpha\ngamma
>_ set foo (string join0 $foo | sort -z | string split0)
>_ string escape $foo[1]
alpha\ngamma
string-sub - extract substrings
Synopsis
string sub [(-s | --start) START] [(-e | --end) END] [(-l | --length) LENGTH]
[-q | --quiet] [STRING ...]
Description
string sub prints a substring of each string argument. The start/end of
the substring can be specified with -s/-e or --start/--end followed by
a 1-based index value. Positive index values are relative to the start
of the string and negative index values are relative to the end of the
string. The default start value is 1. The length of the substring can
be specified with -l or --length. If the length or end is not speci-
fied, the substring continues to the end of each STRING. Exit status: 0
if at least one substring operation was performed, 1 otherwise.
--length is mutually exclusive with --end.
Examples
>_ string sub --length 2 abcde
ab
>_ string sub -s 2 -l 2 abcde
bc
>_ string sub --start=-2 abcde
de
>_ string sub --end=3 abcde
abc
>_ string sub -e -1 abcde
abcd
>_ string sub -s 2 -e -1 abcde
bcd
>_ string sub -s -3 -e -2 abcde
c
string-trim - remove trailing whitespace
Synopsis
string trim [-l | --left] [-r | --right] [(-c | --chars) CHARS]
[-q | --quiet] [STRING ...]
Description
string trim removes leading and trailing whitespace from each STRING.
If -l or --left is given, only leading whitespace is removed. If -r or
--right is given, only trailing whitespace is trimmed.
The -c or --chars switch causes the set of characters in CHARS to be
removed instead of whitespace. This is a set of characters, not a
string - if you pass -c foo, it will remove any "f" or "o", not just
"foo" as a whole.
Exit status: 0 if at least one character was trimmed, or 1 otherwise.
Examples
>_ string trim ' abc '
abc
>_ string trim --right --chars=yz xyzzy zany
x
zan
string-unescape - expand escape sequences
Synopsis
string escape [-n | --no-quoted] [--style=] [STRING ...]
string unescape [--style=] [STRING ...]
Description
string escape escapes each STRING in one of several ways.
--style=script (default) alters the string such that it can be passed
back to eval to produce the original argument again. By default, all
special characters are escaped, and quotes are used to simplify the
output when possible. If -n or --no-quoted is given, the simplifying
quoted format is not used. Exit status: 0 if at least one string was
escaped, or 1 otherwise.
--style=var ensures the string can be used as a variable name by hex
encoding any non-alphanumeric characters. The string is first converted
to UTF-8 before being encoded.
--style=url ensures the string can be used as a URL by hex encoding any
character which is not legal in a URL. The string is first converted to
UTF-8 before being encoded.
--style=regex escapes an input string for literal matching within a
regex expression. The string is first converted to UTF-8 before being
encoded.
string unescape performs the inverse of the string escape command. If
the string to be unescaped is not properly formatted it is ignored. For
example, doing string unescape --style=var (string escape --style=var
$str) will return the original string. There is no support for unescap-
ing --style=regex.
Examples
>_ echo \x07 | string escape
\cg
>_ string escape --style=var 'a1 b2'\u6161
a1_20_b2_E6_85_A1_
string-upper - convert strings to uppercase
Synopsis
string upper [-q | --quiet] [STRING ...]
Description
string upper converts each string argument to uppercase. Exit status: 0
if at least one string was converted to uppercase, else 1. This means
that in conjunction with the -q flag you can readily test whether a
string is already uppercase.
suspend - suspend the current shell
Synopsis
suspend [--force]
Description
suspend suspends execution of the current shell by sending it a SIGTSTP
signal, returning to the controlling process. It can be resumed later
by sending it a SIGCONT. In order to prevent suspending a shell that
doesn't have a controlling process, it will not suspend the shell if it
is a login shell. This requirement is bypassed if the --force option is
given or the shell is not interactive.
switch - conditionally execute a block of commands
Synopsis
switch VALUE; [case [GLOB ...]; [COMMANDS ...]; ...] end
Description
switch performs one of several blocks of commands, depending on whether
a specified value equals one of several globbed values. case is used
together with the switch statement in order to determine which block
should be executed.
Each case command is given one or more parameters. The first case com-
mand with a parameter that matches the string specified in the switch
command will be evaluated. case parameters may contain globs. These
need to be escaped or quoted in order to avoid regular glob expansion
using filenames.
Note that fish does not fall through on case statements. Only the first
matching case is executed.
Note that break cannot be used to exit a case/switch block early like
in other languages. It can only be used in loops.
Note that command substitutions in a case statement will be evaluated
even if its body is not taken. All substitutions, including command
substitutions, must be performed before the value can be compared
against the parameter.
Example
If the variable $animal contains the name of an animal, the following
code would attempt to classify it:
switch $animal
case cat
echo evil
case wolf dog human moose dolphin whale
echo mammal
case duck goose albatross
echo bird
case shark trout stingray
echo fish
case '*'
echo I have no idea what a $animal is
end
If the above code was run with $animal set to whale, the output would
be mammal.
test - perform tests on files and text
Synopsis
test [EXPRESSION]
[ [EXPRESSION] ]
Description
NOTE: This page documents the fish builtin test. To see the documenta-
tion on any non-fish versions, use command man test.
test checks the given conditions and sets the exit status to 0 if they
are true, 1 if they are false.
The first form (test) is preferred. For compatibility with other
shells, the second form is available: a matching pair of square brack-
ets ([ [EXPRESSION] ]).
When using a variable or command substitution as an argument with test
you should almost always enclose it in double-quotes, as variables ex-
panding to zero or more than one argument will most likely interact
badly with test.
WARNING:
For historical reasons, test supports the one-argument form (test
foo), and this will also be triggered by e.g. test -n $foo if $foo
is unset. We recommend you don't use the one-argument form and quote
all variables or command substitutions used with test.
This confusing misfeature will be removed in future. test -n without
any additional argument will be false, test -z will be true and any
other invocation with exactly one or zero arguments, including test
-d and test "foo" will be an error.
The same goes for [, e.g. [ "foo" ] and [ -d ] will be errors.
This can be turned on already via the test-require-arg feature flag,
and will eventually become the default and then only option.
Operators for files and directories
-b FILE
Returns true if FILE is a block device.
-c FILE
Returns true if FILE is a character device.
-d FILE
Returns true if FILE is a directory.
-e FILE
Returns true if FILE exists.
-f FILE
Returns true if FILE is a regular file.
-g FILE
Returns true if FILE has the set-group-ID bit set.
-G FILE
Returns true if FILE exists and has the same group ID as the
current user.
-k FILE
Returns true if FILE has the sticky bit set. If the OS does not
support the concept it returns false. See
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sticky_bit.
-L FILE
Returns true if FILE is a symbolic link.
-O FILE
Returns true if FILE exists and is owned by the current user.
-p FILE
Returns true if FILE is a named pipe.
-r FILE
Returns true if FILE is marked as readable.
-s FILE
Returns true if the size of FILE is greater than zero.
-S FILE
Returns true if FILE is a socket.
-t FD Returns true if the file descriptor FD is a terminal (TTY).
-u FILE
Returns true if FILE has the set-user-ID bit set.
-w FILE
Returns true if FILE is marked as writable; note that this does
not check if the filesystem is read-only.
-x FILE
Returns true if FILE is marked as executable.
Operators to compare files and directories
FILE1 -nt FILE2
Returns true if FILE1 is newer than FILE2, or FILE1 exists and
FILE2 does not.
FILE1 -ot FILE2
Returns true if FILE1 is older than FILE2, or FILE2 exists and
FILE1 does not.
FILE1 -ef FILE1
Returns true if FILE1 and FILE2 refer to the same file.
Operators for text strings
STRING1 = STRING2
Returns true if the strings STRING1 and STRING2 are identical.
STRING1 != STRING2
Returns true if the strings STRING1 and STRING2 are not identi-
cal.
-n STRING
Returns true if the length of STRING is non-zero.
-z STRING
Returns true if the length of STRING is zero.
Operators to compare and examine numbers
NUM1 -eq NUM2
Returns true if NUM1 and NUM2 are numerically equal.
NUM1 -ne NUM2
Returns true if NUM1 and NUM2 are not numerically equal.
NUM1 -gt NUM2
Returns true if NUM1 is greater than NUM2.
NUM1 -ge NUM2
Returns true if NUM1 is greater than or equal to NUM2.
NUM1 -lt NUM2
Returns true if NUM1 is less than NUM2.
NUM1 -le NUM2
Returns true if NUM1 is less than or equal to NUM2.
Both integers and floating point numbers are supported.
Operators to combine expressions
COND1 -a COND2
Returns true if both COND1 and COND2 are true.
COND1 -o COND2
Returns true if either COND1 or COND2 are true.
Expressions can be inverted using the ! operator:
! EXPRESSION
Returns true if EXPRESSION is false, and false if EXPRESSION is
true.
Expressions can be grouped using parentheses.
( EXPRESSION )
Returns the value of EXPRESSION.
Note that parentheses will usually require escaping with \ (so they ap-
pear as \( and \)) to avoid being interpreted as a command substitu-
tion.
Examples
If the /tmp directory exists, copy the /etc/motd file to it:
if test -d /tmp
cp /etc/motd /tmp/motd
end
If the variable MANPATH is defined and not empty, print the contents.
(If MANPATH is not defined, then it will expand to zero arguments, un-
less quoted.)
if test -n "$MANPATH"
echo $MANPATH
end
Be careful with unquoted variables:
if test -n $MANPATH
# This will also be reached if $MANPATH is unset,
# because in that case we have `test -n`, so it checks if "-n" is non-empty, and it is.
echo $MANPATH
end
This will change in a future release of fish, or already with the
test-require-arg feature flag - if $MANPATH is unset, if test -n $MAN-
PATH will be false.
Parentheses and the -o and -a operators can be combined to produce more
complicated expressions. In this example, success is printed if there
is a /foo or /bar file as well as a /baz or /bat file.
if test \( -f /foo -o -f /bar \) -a \( -f /baz -o -f /bat \)
echo Success.
end
Numerical comparisons will fail if one of the operands is not a number:
if test 42 -eq "The answer to life, the universe and everything"
echo So long and thanks for all the fish # will not be executed
end
A common comparison is with status:
if test $status -eq 0
echo "Previous command succeeded"
end
The previous test can likewise be inverted:
if test ! $status -eq 0
echo "Previous command failed"
end
which is logically equivalent to the following:
if test $status -ne 0
echo "Previous command failed"
end
Standards
Unlike many things in fish, test implements a subset of the IEEE Std
1003.1-2008 (POSIX.1) standard <https://pubs.opengroup.org/on-
linepubs/9699919799/utilities/test.html>. The following exceptions ap-
ply:
• The < and > operators for comparing strings are not implemented.
• With test-require-arg, the zero- and one-argument modes will behave
differently.
In cases such as this, one can use command test to explicitly use
the system's standalone test rather than this builtin test.
See also
Other commands that may be useful as a condition, and are often easier
to use:
• string - manipulate strings, which can do string operations including
wildcard and regular expression matching
• path - manipulate and check paths, which can do file checks and oper-
ations, including filters on multiple paths at once
time - measure how long a command or block takes
Synopsis
time COMMAND
Description
NOTE: This page documents the fish keyword time. To see the documenta-
tion on any non-fish versions, use command man time.
time causes fish to measure how long a command takes and print the re-
sults afterwards. The command can be a simple fish command or a block.
The results can not currently be redirected.
For checking timing after a command has completed, check $CMD_DURATION.
Your system most likely also has a time command. To use that use some-
thing like command time, as in command time sleep 10. Because it's not
inside fish, it won't have access to fish functions and won't be able
to time blocks and such.
How to interpret the output
Time outputs a few different values. Let's look at an example:
> time string repeat -n 10000000 y\n | command grep y >/dev/null
________________________________________________________
Executed in 805.98 millis fish external
usr time 798.88 millis 763.88 millis 34.99 millis
sys time 141.22 millis 40.20 millis 101.02 millis
The time after "Executed in" is what is known as the "wall-clock time".
It is simply a measure of how long it took from the start of the com-
mand until it finished. Typically it is reasonably close to
CMD_DURATION, except for a slight skew because the two are taken at
slightly different times.
The other times are all measures of CPU time. That means they measure
how long the CPU was used in this part, and they count multiple cores
separately. So a program with four threads using all CPU for a second
will have a time of 4 seconds.
The "usr" time is how much CPU time was spent inside the program it-
self, the "sys" time is how long was spent in the kernel on behalf of
that program.
The "fish" time is how much CPU was spent in fish, the "external" time
how much was spent in external commands.
So in this example, since string is a builtin, everything that string
repeat did is accounted to fish. Any time it spends doing syscalls like
write() is accounted for in the fish/sys time.
And grep here is explicitly invoked as an external command, so its
times will be counted in the "external" column.
Note that, as in this example, the CPU times can add up to more than
the execution time. This is because things can be done in parallel -
grep can match while string repeat writes.
Example
(for obvious reasons exact results will vary on your system)
>_ time sleep 1s
________________________________________________________
Executed in 1,01 secs fish external
usr time 2,32 millis 0,00 micros 2,32 millis
sys time 0,88 millis 877,00 micros 0,00 millis
>_ time for i in 1 2 3; sleep 1s; end
________________________________________________________
Executed in 3,01 secs fish external
usr time 9,16 millis 2,94 millis 6,23 millis
sys time 0,23 millis 0,00 millis 0,23 millis
Inline variable assignments need to follow the time keyword:
>_ time a_moment=1.5m sleep $a_moment
________________________________________________________
Executed in 90.00 secs fish external
usr time 4.62 millis 4.62 millis 0.00 millis
sys time 2.35 millis 0.41 millis 1.95 millis
trap - perform an action when the shell receives a signal
Synopsis
trap [OPTIONS] [[ARG] REASON ... ]
Description
NOTE: This page documents the fish builtin trap. To see the documenta-
tion on any non-fish versions, use command man trap.
trap is a wrapper around the fish event delivery framework. It exists
for backwards compatibility with POSIX shells. For other uses, it is
recommended to define an event handler.
The following parameters are available:
ARG Command to be executed on signal delivery.
REASON Name of the event to trap. For example, a signal like INT or
SIGINT, or the special symbol EXIT.
-l or --list-signals
Prints a list of signal names.
-p or --print
Prints all defined signal handlers.
-h or --help
Displays help about using this command.
If ARG and REASON are both specified, ARG is the command to be executed
when the event specified by REASON occurs (e.g., the signal is deliv-
ered).
If ARG is absent (and there is a single REASON) or -, each specified
signal is reset to its original disposition (the value it had upon en-
trance to the shell). If ARG is the null string the signal specified
by each REASON is ignored by the shell and by the commands it invokes.
If ARG is not present and -p has been supplied, then the trap commands
associated with each REASON are displayed. If no arguments are supplied
or if only -p is given, trap prints the list of commands associated
with each signal.
Signal names are case insensitive and the SIG prefix is optional. Trap-
ping a signal will prevent fish from exiting in response to that sig-
nal.
The exit status is 1 if any REASON is invalid; otherwise trap returns
0.
Example
trap "status --print-stack-trace" SIGUSR1
# Prints a stack trace each time the SIGUSR1 signal is sent to the shell.
true - return a successful result
Synopsis
true
Description
true sets the exit status to 0.
: (a single colon) is an alias for the true command.
See Also
• false command
• $status variable
type - locate a command and describe its type
Synopsis
type [OPTIONS] NAME [...]
Description
NOTE: This page documents the fish builtin type. To see the documenta-
tion on any non-fish versions, use command man type.
With no options, type indicates how each NAME would be interpreted if
used as a command name.
The following options are available:
-a or --all
Prints all of possible definitions of the specified names.
-s or --short
Don't print function definitions when used with no options or
with -a/--all.
-f or --no-functions
Suppresses function lookup.
-t or --type
Prints function, builtin, or file if NAME is a shell function,
builtin, or disk file, respectively.
-p or --path
Prints the path to NAME if NAME resolves to an executable file
in PATH, the path to the script containing the definition of the
function NAME if NAME resolves to a function loaded from a file
on disk (i.e. not interactively defined at the prompt), or noth-
ing otherwise.
-P or --force-path
Returns the path to the executable file NAME, presuming NAME is
found in the PATH environment variable, or nothing otherwise.
--force-path explicitly resolves only the path to executable
files in PATH, regardless of whether NAME is shadowed by a
function or builtin with the same name.
-q or --query
Suppresses all output; this is useful when testing the exit sta-
tus. For compatibility with old fish versions this is also
--quiet.
--color WHEN
Controls when to use syntax highlighting colors when printing
function definitions. WHEN can be auto (the default, colorize
if the output is a terminal), always, or never.
-h or --help
Displays help about using this command.
The -q, -p, -t and -P flags (and their long flag aliases) are mutually
exclusive. Only one can be specified at a time.
type returns 0 if at least one entry was found, 1 otherwise, and 2 for
invalid options or option combinations.
Example
>_ type fg
fg is a builtin
ulimit - set or get resource usage limits
Synopsis
ulimit [OPTIONS] [LIMIT]
Description
ulimit sets or outputs the resource usage limits of the shell and any
processes spawned by it. If a new limit value is omitted, the current
value of the limit of the resource is printed; otherwise, the specified
limit is set to the new value.
Use one of the following switches to specify which resource limit to
set or report:
-b or --socket-buffers
The maximum size of socket buffers.
-c or --core-size
The maximum size of core files created. By setting this limit to
zero, core dumps can be disabled.
-d or --data-size
The maximum size of a process' data segment.
-e or --nice
Controls the maximum nice value; on Linux, this value is sub-
tracted from 20 to give the effective value.
-f or --file-size
The maximum size of files created by a process.
-i or --pending-signals
The maximum number of signals that may be queued.
-l or --lock-size
The maximum size that may be locked into memory.
-m or --resident-set-size
The maximum resident set size.
-n or --file-descriptor-count
The maximum number of open file descriptors.
-q or --queue-size
The maximum size of data in POSIX message queues.
-r or --realtime-priority
The maximum realtime scheduling priority.
-s or --stack-size
The maximum stack size.
-t or --cpu-time
The maximum amount of CPU time in seconds.
-u or --process-count
The maximum number of processes available to the current user.
-w or --swap-size
The maximum swap space available to the current user.
-v or --virtual-memory-size
The maximum amount of virtual memory available to the shell.
-y or --realtime-maxtime
The maximum contiguous realtime CPU time in microseconds.
-K or --kernel-queues
The maximum number of kqueues (kernel queues) for the current
user.
-P or --ptys
The maximum number of pseudo-terminals for the current user.
-T or --threads
The maximum number of simultaneous threads for the current user.
Note that not all these limits are available in all operating systems;
consult the documentation for setrlimit in your operating system.
The value of limit can be a number in the unit specified for the re-
source or one of the special values hard, soft, or unlimited, which
stand for the current hard limit, the current soft limit, and no limit,
respectively.
If limit is given, it is the new value of the specified resource. If no
option is given, then -f is assumed. Values are in kilobytes, except
for -t, which is in seconds and -n and -u, which are unscaled values.
The exit status is 0 unless an invalid option or argument is supplied,
or an error occurs while setting a new limit.
ulimit also accepts the following options that determine what type of
limit to set:
-H or --hard
Sets hard resource limit.
-S or --soft
Sets soft resource limit.
A hard limit can only be decreased. Once it is set it cannot be in-
creased; a soft limit may be increased up to the value of the hard
limit. If neither -H nor -S is specified, both the soft and hard limits
are updated when assigning a new limit value, and the soft limit is
used when reporting the current value.
The following additional options are also understood by ulimit:
-a or --all
Prints all current limits.
-h or --help
Displays help about using this command.
The fish implementation of ulimit should behave identically to the im-
plementation in bash, except for these differences:
• Fish ulimit supports GNU-style long options for all switches.
• Fish ulimit does not support the -p option for getting the pipe size.
The bash implementation consists of a compile-time check that empiri-
cally guesses this number by writing to a pipe and waiting for SIG-
PIPE. Fish does not do this because this method of determining pipe
size is unreliable. Depending on bash version, there may also be fur-
ther additional limits to set in bash that do not exist in fish.
• Fish ulimit does not support getting or setting multiple limits in
one command, except reporting all values using the -a switch.
Example
ulimit -Hs 64 sets the hard stack size limit to 64 kB.
umask - set or get the file creation mode mask
Synopsis
umask [OPTIONS] [MASK]
Description
NOTE: This page documents the fish builtin umask. To see the documen-
tation on any non-fish versions, use command man umask.
umask displays and manipulates the "umask", or file creation mode mask,
which is used to restrict the default access to files.
The umask may be expressed either as an octal number, which represents
the rights that will be removed by default, or symbolically, which rep-
resents the only rights that will be granted by default.
Access rights are explained in the manual page for the chmod(1) pro-
gram.
With no parameters, the current file creation mode mask is printed as
an octal number.
-S or --symbolic
Prints the umask in symbolic form instead of octal form.
-p or --as-command
Outputs the umask in a form that may be reused as input.
-h or --help
Displays help about using this command.
If a numeric mask is specified as a parameter, the current shell's
umask will be set to that value, and the rights specified by that mask
will be removed from new files and directories by default.
If a symbolic mask is specified, the desired permission bits, and not
the inverse, should be specified. A symbolic mask is a comma separated
list of rights. Each right consists of three parts:
• The first part specifies to whom this set of right applies, and can
be one of u, g, o or a, where u specifies the user who owns the file,
g specifies the group owner of the file, o specific other users
rights and a specifies all three should be changed.
• The second part of a right specifies the mode, and can be one of =, +
or -, where = specifies that the rights should be set to the new
value, + specifies that the specified right should be added to those
previously specified and - specifies that the specified rights should
be removed from those previously specified.
• The third part of a right specifies what rights should be changed and
can be any combination of r, w and x, representing read, write and
execute rights.
If the first and second parts are skipped, they are assumed to be a and
=, respectively. As an example, r,u+w means all users should have read
access and the file owner should also have write access.
Note that symbolic masks currently do not work as intended.
Example
umask 177 or umask u=rw sets the file creation mask to read and write
for the owner and no permissions at all for any other users.
vared - interactively edit the value of an environment variable
Synopsis
vared VARIABLE_NAME
Description
vared is used to interactively edit the value of an environment vari-
able. Array variables as a whole can not be edited using vared, but in-
dividual list elements can.
The -h or --help option displays help about using this command.
Example
vared PATH[3] edits the third element of the PATH list
wait - wait for jobs to complete
Synopsis
wait [-n | --any] [PID | PROCESS_NAME] ...
Description
NOTE: This page documents the fish builtin wait. To see the documenta-
tion on any non-fish versions, use command man wait.
wait waits for child jobs to complete.
If a PID is specified, the command waits for the job that the process
with that process ID belongs to.
If a PROCESS_NAME is specified, the command waits for the jobs that the
matched processes belong to.
If neither a pid nor a process name is specified, the command waits for
all background jobs.
If the -n or --any flag is provided, the command returns as soon as the
first job completes. If it is not provided, it returns after all jobs
complete.
The -h or --help option displays help about using this command.
Example
sleep 10 &
wait $last_pid
spawns sleep in the background, and then waits until it finishes.
for i in (seq 1 5); sleep 10 &; end
wait
spawns five jobs in the background, and then waits until all of them
finish.
for i in (seq 1 5); sleep 10 &; end
hoge &
wait sleep
spawns five sleep jobs and hoge in the background, and then waits until
all sleeps finish, and doesn't wait for hoge.
while - perform a set of commands multiple times
Synopsis
while CONDITION; COMMANDS; end
Description
while repeatedly executes CONDITION, and if the exit status is 0, then
executes COMMANDS.
The exit status of the while loop is the exit status of the last itera-
tion of the COMMANDS executed, or 0 if none were executed. (This
matches other shells and is POSIX-compatible.)
You can use and or or for complex conditions. Even more complex control
can be achieved with while true containing a break.
The -h or --help option displays help about using this command.
Example
while test -f foo.txt; or test -f bar.txt ; echo file exists; sleep 10; end
# outputs 'file exists' at 10 second intervals,
# as long as the file foo.txt or bar.txt exists.
Fish for bash users
This is to give you a quick overview if you come from bash (or to a
lesser extent other shells like zsh or ksh) and want to know how fish
differs. Fish is intentionally not POSIX-compatible and as such some of
the things you are used to work differently.
Many things are similar - they both fundamentally expand commandlines
to execute commands, have pipes, redirections, variables, globs, use
command output in various ways. This document is there to quickly show
you the differences.
Command substitutions
Fish spells command substitutions as $(command) or (command), but not
`command`.
In addition, it only splits them on newlines instead of $IFS. If you
want to split on something else, use string split, string split0 or
string collect. If those are used as the last command in a command sub-
stitution the splits they create are carried over. So:
for i in (find . -print0 | string split0)
will correctly handle all possible filenames.
Variables
Fish sets and erases variables with set instead of VAR=VAL and a vari-
ety of separate builtins like declare and unset and export. set takes
options to determine the scope and exportedness of a variable:
# Define $PAGER *g*lobal and e*x*ported,
# so this is like ``export PAGER=less``
set -gx PAGER less
# Define $alocalvariable only locally,
# like ``local alocalvariable=foo``
set -l alocalvariable foo
or to erase variables:
set -e PAGER
VAR=VAL statements are available as environment overrides:
PAGER=cat git log
Fish does not perform word splitting. Once a variable has been set to a
value, that value stays as it is, so double-quoting variable expansions
isn't the necessity it is in bash. [1]
For instance, here's bash
> foo="bar baz"
> printf '"%s"\n' $foo
# will print two lines, because we didn't double-quote
# this is word splitting
"bar"
"baz"
And here is fish:
> set foo "bar baz"
> printf '"%s"\n' $foo
# foo was set as one element,
# so it will be passed as one element, so this is one line
"bar baz"
All variables are "arrays" (we use the term "lists"), and expanding a
variable expands to all its elements, with each element as its own ar-
gument (like bash's "${var[@]}":
> set var "foo bar" banana
> printf %s\n $var
foo bar
banana
Specific elements of a list can be selected:
echo $list[5..7]
The arguments to set are ordinary, so you can also set a variable to
the output of a command:
# Set lines to all the lines in file, one element per line
set lines (cat file)
or a mixture of literal values and output:
> set numbers 1 2 3 (seq 5 8) 9
> printf '%s\n' $numbers
1
2
3
5
6
7
8
9
A = is unnecessary and unhelpful with set - set foo = bar will set the
variable "foo" to two values: "=" and "bar". set foo=bar will print an
error.
See Shell variables for more.
[1] zsh also does not perform word splitting by default (the
SH_WORD_SPLIT option controls this)
Wildcards (globs)
Fish only supports the * and ** glob (and the deprecated ? glob) as
syntax. If a glob doesn't match it fails the command (like with bash's
failglob) unless the command is for, set or count or the glob is used
with an environment override (VAR=* command), in which case it expands
to nothing (like with bash's nullglob option).
Globbing doesn't happen on expanded variables, so:
set foo "*"
echo $foo
will not match any files.
There are no options to control globbing so it always behaves like
that.
The ** glob will match in subdirectories as well. In other shells this
often needs to be turned on with an option, like setopt globstar in
bash.
Unlike bash, fish will also follow symlinks, and will sort the results
in a natural sort, with included numbers compared as numbers. That
means it will sort e.g. music tracks correctly even if they have num-
bers like 1 instead of 01.
See Wildcards for more.
Quoting
Fish has two quoting styles: "" and ''. Variables are expanded in dou-
ble-quotes, nothing is expanded in single-quotes.
There is no $'', instead the sequences that would transform are trans-
formed when unquoted:
> echo a\nb
a
b
See Quotes for more.
String manipulation
Fish does not have ${foo%bar}, ${foo#bar} and ${foo/bar/baz}. Instead
string manipulation is done by the string builtin.
For example, to replace "bar" with "baz":
> string replace bar baz "bar luhrmann"
baz luhrmann
It can also split strings:
> string split "," "foo,bar"
foo
bar
Match regular expressions as a replacement for grep:
> echo bababa | string match -r 'aba$'
aba
Pad strings to a given width, with arbitrary characters:
> string pad -c x -w 20 "foo"
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxfoo
Make strings lower/uppercase:
> string lower Foo
foo
> string upper Foo
FOO
repeat strings, trim strings, escape strings or print a string's length
or width (in terminal cells).
Special variables
Some bash variables and their closest fish equivalent:
• $*, $@, $1 and so on: $argv
• $?: $status
• $$: $fish_pid
• $#: No variable, instead use count $argv
• $!: $last_pid
• $0: status filename
• $-: Mostly status is-interactive and status is-login
Process substitution
Instead of <(command) fish uses (command | psub). There is no equiva-
lent to >(command).
Note that both of these are bashisms, and most things can easily be ex-
pressed without. E.g. instead of:
source (command | psub)
Use:
command | source
as fish's source can read from stdin.
Heredocs
Fish does not have <<EOF "heredocs". Instead of
cat <<EOF
some string
some more string
EOF
use:
printf %s\n "some string" "some more string"
or:
echo "some string
some more string"
# or if you want the quotes on separate lines:
echo "\
some string
some more string\
"
Quotes are followed across newlines.
What "heredocs" do is:
1. Read/interpret the string, with special rules, up to the terminator.
[2]
2. Write the resulting string to a temporary file.
3. Start the command the heredoc is attached to with that file as
stdin.
This means it is essentially the same as just reading from a pipe, so:
echo "foo" | cat
is mostly the same as
cat <<EOF
foo
EOF
Like with heredocs, the command has to be prepared to read from stdin.
Sometimes this requires special options to be used, often giving a
filename of - turns it on.
For example:
echo "xterm
rxvt-unicode" | pacman --remove -
# is the same as (the `-` makes pacman read arguments from stdin)
pacman --remove xterm rxvt-unicode
and could be written in other shells as
# This "-" is still necessary - the heredoc is *also* passed over stdin!
pacman --remove - << EOF
xterm
rxvt-unicode
EOF
So heredocs really are minor syntactical sugar that introduces a lot of
special rules, which is why fish doesn't have them. Pipes are a core
concept, and are simpler and compose nicer.
[2] For example, the "EOF" is just a convention, the terminator can be
an arbitrary string, something like "THISISTHEEND" also works. And
using <<- trims leading tab characters (but not other whitespace),
so you can indent the lines, but only with tabs. Substitutions
(variables, commands) are done on the heredoc by default, but not
if the terminator is quoted: cat << "EOF".
Test (test, [, [[)
Fish has a POSIX-compatible test or [ builtin. There is no [[ and test
does not accept == as a synonym for =. It can compare floating point
numbers, however.
set -q can be used to determine if a variable exists or has a certain
number of elements (set -q foo[2]).
Arithmetic Expansion
Fish does not have $((i+1)) arithmetic expansion, computation is han-
dled by math:
math $i + 1
Unlike bash's arithmetic, it can handle floating point numbers:
> math 5 / 2
2.5
And also has some functions, like for trigonometry:
> math cos 2 x pi
1
You can pass arguments to math separately like above or in quotes. Be-
cause fish uses () parentheses for command substitutions, quoting is
needed if you want to use them in your expression:
> math '(5 + 2) * 4'
Both * and x are valid ways to spell multiplication, but * needs to be
quoted because it looks like a glob.
Prompts
Fish does not use the $PS1, $PS2 and so on variables. Instead the
prompt is the output of the fish_prompt function, plus the
fish_mode_prompt function if vi mode is enabled. The output of the
fish_right_prompt function is used for the right-sided prompt.
As an example, here's a relatively simple bash prompt:
# <$HOSTNAME> <$PWD in blue> <Prompt Sign in Yellow> <Rest in default light white>
PS1='\h\[\e[1;34m\]\w\[\e[m\] \[\e[1;32m\]\$\[\e[m\] '
and a rough fish equivalent:
function fish_prompt
set -l prompt_symbol '$'
fish_is_root_user; and set prompt_symbol '#'
echo -s (prompt_hostname) \
(set_color blue) (prompt_pwd) \
(set_color yellow) $prompt_symbol (set_color normal)
end
This shows a few differences:
• Fish provides set_color to color text. It can use the 16 named colors
and also RGB sequences (so you could also use set_color 5555FF)
• Instead of introducing specific escapes like \h for the hostname, the
prompt is a function. To achieve the effect of \h, fish provides
helper functions like prompt_hostname, which prints a shortened ver-
sion of the hostname.
• Fish offers other helper functions for adding things to the prompt,
like fish_vcs_prompt for adding a display for common version control
systems (git, mercurial, svn), and prompt_pwd for showing a shortened
$PWD (the user's home directory becomes ~ and any path component is
shortened).
The default prompt is reasonably full-featured and its code can be read
via type fish_prompt.
Fish does not have $PS2 for continuation lines, instead it leaves the
lines indented to show that the commandline isn't complete yet.
Blocks and loops
Fish's blocking constructs look a little different. They all start with
a word, end in end and don't have a second starting word:
for i in 1 2 3; do
echo $i
done
# becomes
for i in 1 2 3
echo $i
end
while true; do
echo Weeee
done
# becomes
while true
echo Weeeeeee
end
{
echo Hello
}
# becomes
begin
echo Hello
end
if true; then
echo Yes I am true
else
echo "How is true not true?"
fi
# becomes
if true
echo Yes I am true
else
echo "How is true not true?"
end
foo() {
echo foo
}
# becomes
function foo
echo foo
end
# (bash allows the word "function",
# but this is an extension)
Fish does not have an until. Use while not or while !.
Subshells
Bash has a feature called "subshells", where it will start another
shell process for certain things. That shell will then be independent
and e.g. any changes it makes to variables won't be visible in the main
shell.
This includes things like:
# A list of commands in `()` parentheses
(foo; bar) | baz
# Both sides of a pipe
foo | while read -r bar; do
# This will not be visible outside of the loop.
VAR=VAL
# This background process will not be, either
baz &
done
Fish does not currently have subshells. You will have to find a differ-
ent solution. The isolation can usually be achieved by scoping vari-
ables (with set -l), but if you really do need to run your code in a
new shell environment you can use fish -c 'your code here' to do so ex-
plicitly.
() subshells are often confused with {} grouping, which does not use a
subshell. When you just need to group, you can use begin; end in fish:
(foo; bar) | baz
# when it should really have been:
{ foo; bar; } | baz
# becomes
begin; foo; bar; end | baz
The pipe will be run in the same process, so while read loops can set
variables outside:
foo | while read bar
set -g VAR VAL
baz &
end
echo $VAR # will print VAL
jobs # will show "baz"
Subshells are also frequently confused with command substitutions,
which bash writes as `command` or $(command) and fish writes as $(com-
mand) or (command). Bash also uses subshells to implement them.
Builtins and other commands
By now it has become apparent that fish puts much more of a focus on
its builtins and external commands rather than its syntax. So here are
some helpful builtins and their rough equivalent in bash:
• string - this replaces most of the string transformation (${i%foo} et
al) and can also be used instead of grep and sed and such.
• math - this replaces $((i + 1)) arithmetic and can also do floats and
some simple functions (sine and friends).
• argparse - this can handle a script's option parsing, for which bash
would probably use getopt (zsh provides zparseopts).
• count can be used to count things and therefore replaces $# and can
be used instead of wc.
• status provides information about the shell status, e.g. if it's in-
teractive or what the current linenumber is. This replaces $- and
$BASH_LINENO and other variables.
• seq(1) can be used as a replacement for {1..10} range expansion. If
your OS doesn't ship a seq fish includes a replacement function.
Other facilities
Bash has set -x or set -o xtrace to print all commands that are being
executed. In fish, this would be enabled by setting fish_trace.
Or, if your intention is to profile how long each line of a script
takes, you can use fish --profile - see the page for the fish command.
Tutorial
Why fish?
Fish is a fully-equipped command line shell (like bash or zsh) that is
smart and user-friendly. Fish supports powerful features like syntax
highlighting, autosuggestions, and tab completions that just work, with
nothing to learn or configure.
If you want to make your command line more productive, more useful, and
more fun, without learning a bunch of arcane syntax and configuration
options, then fish might be just what you're looking for!
Getting started
Once installed, just type in fish into your current shell to try it
out!
You will be greeted by the standard fish prompt, which means you are
all set up and can start using fish:
> fish
Welcome to fish, the friendly interactive shell
Type help for instructions on how to use fish
you@hostname ~>
This prompt that you see above is the fish default prompt: it shows
your username, hostname, and working directory. You can customize it,
see how to change your prompt.
From now on, we'll pretend your prompt is just a > to save space.
Learning fish
This tutorial assumes a basic understanding of command line shells and
Unix commands, and that you have a working copy of fish.
If you have a strong understanding of other shells, and want to know
what fish does differently, search for the magic phrase unlike other
shells, which is used to call out important differences.
Or, if you want a quick overview over the differences to other shells
like Bash, see Fish For Bash Users.
For the full, detailed description of how to use fish interactively,
see Interactive Use.
For a comprehensive description of fish's scripting language, see The
Fish Language.
Running Commands
Fish runs commands like other shells: you type a command, followed by
its arguments. Spaces are separators:
> echo hello world
hello world
This runs the command echo with the arguments hello and world. In this
case that's the same as one argument hello world, but in many cases
it's not. If you need to pass an argument that includes a space, you
can escape with a backslash, or quote it using single or double quotes:
> mkdir My\ Files
# Makes a directory called "My Files", with a space in the name
> cp ~/Some\ File 'My Files'
# Copies a file called "Some File" in the home directory to "My Files"
> ls "My Files"
Some File
Getting Help
Run help to open fish's help in a web browser, and man with the page
(like fish-language) to open it in a man page. You can also ask for
help with a specific command, for example, help set to open in a web
browser, or man set to see it in the terminal.
> man set
set - handle shell variables
Synopsis...
To open this section, use help getting-help.
This only works for fish's own documentation for itself and its
built-in commands (the "builtins"). For any other commands on your sys-
tem, they should provide their own documentation, often in the man sys-
tem. For example man ls should tell you about your computer's ls com-
mand.
Syntax Highlighting
You'll quickly notice that fish performs syntax highlighting as you
type. Invalid commands are colored red by default:
> /bin/mkd
A command may be invalid because it does not exist, or refers to a file
that you cannot execute. When the command becomes valid, it is shown in
a different color:
> /bin/mkdir
Valid file paths are underlined as you type them:
> cat ~/somefi
This tells you that there exists a file that starts with somefi, which
is useful feedback as you type.
These colors, and many more, can be changed by running fish_config, or
by modifying color variables directly.
For example, if you want to disable (almost) all coloring:
fish_config theme choose none
This picks the "none" theme. To see all themes:
fish_config theme show
Just running fish_config will open up a browser interface that allows
you to pick from the available themes.
Autosuggestions
As you type fish will suggest commands to the right of the cursor, in
gray. For example:
> /bin/hostname
It knows about paths and options:
> grep --ignore-case
And history too. Type a command once, and you can re-summon it by just
typing a few letters:
> rsync -avze ssh . myname@somelonghost.com:/some/long/path/doo/dee/doo/dee/doo
To accept the autosuggestion, hit right () or ctrl-f. To accept a sin-
gle word of the autosuggestion, alt-right (). If the autosuggestion is
not what you want, just ignore it.
If you don't like autosuggestions, you can disable them by setting
$fish_autosuggestion_enabled to 0:
set -g fish_autosuggestion_enabled 0
Tab Completions
A rich set of tab completions work "out of the box".
Press tab and fish will attempt to complete the command, argument, or
path:
> /pritab => /private/
If there's more than one possibility, it will list them:
> ~/stuff/stab
~/stuff/script.sh (command) ~/stuff/sources/ (directory)
Hit tab again to cycle through the possibilities. The part in parenthe-
ses there (that "command" and "directory") is the completion descrip-
tion. It's just a short hint to explain what kind of argument it is.
fish can also complete many commands, like git branches:
> git merge prtab => git merge prompt_designer
> git checkout btab
builtin_list_io_merge (Branch) builtin_set_color (Branch) busted_events (Tag)
Try hitting tab and see what fish can do!
Variables
Like other shells, a dollar sign followed by a variable name is re-
placed with the value of that variable:
> echo My home directory is $HOME
My home directory is /home/tutorial
This is known as variable substitution, and it also happens in double
quotes, but not single quotes:
> echo "My current directory is $PWD"
My current directory is /home/tutorial
> echo 'My current directory is $PWD'
My current directory is $PWD
Unlike other shells, fish has an ordinary command to set variables:
set, which takes a variable name, and then its value.
> set name 'Mister Noodle'
> echo $name
Mister Noodle
(Notice the quotes: without them, Mister and Noodle would have been
separate arguments, and $name would have been made into a list of two
elements.)
Unlike other shells, variables are not further split after substitu-
tion:
> mkdir $name
> ls
Mister Noodle
In bash, this would have created two directories "Mister" and "Noodle".
In fish, it created only one: the variable had the value "Mister Noo-
dle", so that is the argument that was passed to mkdir, spaces and all.
You can erase (or "delete") a variable with -e or --erase
> set -e MyVariable
> env | grep MyVariable
(no output)
For more, see Variable expansion.
Exports (Shell Variables)
Sometimes you need to have a variable available to an external command,
often as a setting. For example many programs like git or man read the
$PAGER variable to figure out your preferred pager (the program that
lets you scroll text). Other variables used like this include $BROWSER,
$LANG (to configure your language) and $PATH. You'll note these are
written in ALLCAPS, but that's just a convention.
To give a variable to an external command, it needs to be "exported".
This is done with a flag to set, either --export or just -x.
> set -x MyVariable SomeValue
> env | grep MyVariable
MyVariable=SomeValue
It can also be unexported with --unexport or -u.
This works the other way around as well! If fish is started by some-
thing else, it inherits that parents exported variables. So if your
terminal emulator starts fish, and it exports $LANG set to en_US.UTF-8,
fish will receive that setting. And whatever started your terminal emu-
lator also gave it some variables that it will then pass on unless it
specifically decides not to. This is how fish usually receives the val-
ues for things like $LANG, $PATH and $TERM, without you having to spec-
ify them again.
Exported variables can be local or global or universal - "exported" is
not a scope! Usually you'd make them global via set -gx MyVariable
SomeValue.
For more, see Exporting variables.
Lists
The set command above used quotes to ensure that Mister Noodle was one
argument. If it had been two arguments, then name would have been a
list of length 2. In fact, all variables in fish are really lists,
that can contain any number of values, or none at all.
Some variables, like $PWD, only have one value. By convention, we talk
about that variable's value, but we really mean its first (and only)
value.
Other variables, like $PATH, really do have multiple values. During
variable expansion, the variable expands to become multiple arguments:
> echo $PATH
/usr/bin /bin /usr/sbin /sbin /usr/local/bin
Variables whose name ends in "PATH" are automatically split on colons
to become lists. They are joined using colons when exported to subcom-
mands. This is for compatibility with other tools, which expect $PATH
to use colons. You can also explicitly add this quirk to a variable
with set --path, or remove it with set --unpath.
Lists cannot contain other lists: there is no recursion. A variable is
a list of strings, full stop.
Get the length of a list with count:
> count $PATH
5
You can append (or prepend) to a list by setting the list to itself,
with some additional arguments. Here we append /usr/local/bin to $PATH:
> set PATH $PATH /usr/local/bin
You can access individual elements with square brackets. Indexing
starts at 1 from the beginning, and -1 from the end:
> echo $PATH
/usr/bin /bin /usr/sbin /sbin /usr/local/bin
> echo $PATH[1]
/usr/bin
> echo $PATH[-1]
/usr/local/bin
You can also access ranges of elements, known as "slices":
> echo $PATH[1..2]
/usr/bin /bin
> echo $PATH[-1..2]
/usr/local/bin /sbin /usr/sbin /bin
You can iterate over a list (or a slice) with a for loop:
for val in $PATH
echo "entry: $val"
end
# Will print:
# entry: /usr/bin/
# entry: /bin
# entry: /usr/sbin
# entry: /sbin
# entry: /usr/local/bin
One particular bit is that you can use lists like Brace expansion. If
you attach another string to a list, it'll combine every element of the
list with the string:
> set mydirs /usr/bin /bin
> echo $mydirs/fish # this is just like {/usr/bin,/bin}/fish
/usr/bin/fish /bin/fish
This also means that, if the list is empty, there will be no argument:
> set empty # no argument
> echo $empty/this_is_gone # prints an empty line
If you quote the list, it will be used as one string and so you'll get
one argument even if it is empty.
For more, see Lists. For more on combining lists with strings (or even
other lists), see cartesian products and Variable expansion.
Wildcards
Fish supports the familiar wildcard *. To list all JPEG files:
> ls *.jpg
lena.jpg
meena.jpg
santa maria.jpg
You can include multiple wildcards:
> ls l*.p*
lena.png
lesson.pdf
The recursive wildcard ** searches directories recursively:
> ls /var/**.log
/var/log/system.log
/var/run/sntp.log
If that directory traversal is taking a long time, you can ctrl-c out
of it.
For more, see Wildcards.
Pipes and Redirections
You can pipe between commands with the usual vertical bar:
> echo hello world | wc
1 2 12
stdin and stdout can be redirected via the familiar < and >. stderr is
redirected with a 2>.
> grep fish < /etc/shells > ~/output.txt 2> ~/errors.txt
To redirect stdout and stderr into one file, you can use &>:
> make &> make_output.txt
For more, see Input and output redirections and Pipes.
Command Substitutions
Command substitutions use the output of one command as an argument to
another. Unlike other shells, fish does not use backticks `` for com-
mand substitutions. Instead, it uses parentheses with or without a dol-
lar:
> echo In (pwd), running $(uname)
In /home/tutorial, running FreeBSD
A common idiom is to capture the output of a command in a variable:
> set os (uname)
> echo $os
Linux
Command substitutions without a dollar are not expanded within quotes,
so the version with a dollar is simpler:
> touch "testing_$(date +%s).txt"
> ls *.txt
testing_1360099791.txt
Unlike other shells, fish does not split command substitutions on any
whitespace (like spaces or tabs), only newlines. Usually this is a big
help because unix commands operate on a line-by-line basis. Sometimes
it can be an issue with commands like pkg-config that print what is
meant to be multiple arguments on a single line. To split it on spaces
too, use string split.
> printf '%s\n' (pkg-config --libs gio-2.0)
-lgio-2.0 -lgobject-2.0 -lglib-2.0
> printf '%s\n' (pkg-config --libs gio-2.0 | string split -n " ")
-lgio-2.0
-lgobject-2.0
-lglib-2.0
If you need a command substitutions output as one argument, without any
splits, use quoted command substitution:
> echo "first line
second line" > myfile
> set myfile "$(cat myfile)"
> printf '|%s|' $myfile
|first line
second line|
For more, see Command substitution.
Separating Commands (Semicolon)
Like other shells, fish allows multiple commands either on separate
lines or the same line.
To write them on the same line, use the semicolon (";"). That means the
following two examples are equivalent:
echo fish; echo chips
# or
echo fish
echo chips
This is useful interactively to enter multiple commands. In a script
it's easier to read if the commands are on separate lines.
Exit Status
When a command exits, it returns a status code as a non-negative inte-
ger (that's a whole number >= 0).
Unlike other shells, fish stores the exit status of the last command in
$status instead of $?.
> false
> echo $status
1
This indicates how the command fared - 0 usually means success, while
the others signify kinds of failure. For instance fish's set --query
returns the number of variables it queried that weren't set - set
--query PATH usually returns 0, set --query arglbargl boogagoogoo usu-
ally returns 2.
There is also a $pipestatus list variable for the exit statuses [1] of
processes in a pipe.
For more, see The status variable.
[1] or "stati" if you prefer, or "stats" if you've time-travelled from
ancient Rome or work as a latin teacher
Combiners (And, Or, Not)
fish supports the familiar && and || to combine commands, and ! to
negate them:
> ./configure && make && sudo make install
Here, make is only executed if ./configure succeeds (returns 0), and
sudo make install is only executed if both ./configure and make suc-
ceed.
fish also supports and, or, and not. The first two are job modifiers
and have lower precedence. Example usage:
> cp file1 file1_bak && cp file2 file2_bak; and echo "Backup successful"; or echo "Backup failed"
Backup failed
As mentioned in the section on the semicolon, this can also be written
in multiple lines, like so:
cp file1 file1_bak && cp file2 file2_bak
and echo "Backup successful"
or echo "Backup failed"
Conditionals (If, Else, Switch)
Use if and else to conditionally execute code, based on the exit status
of a command.
if grep fish /etc/shells
echo Found fish
else if grep bash /etc/shells
echo Found bash
else
echo Got nothing
end
To compare strings or numbers or check file properties (whether a file
exists or is writeable and such), use test, like
if test "$fish" = "flounder"
echo FLOUNDER
end
# or
if test "$number" -gt 5
echo $number is greater than five
else
echo $number is five or less
end
# or
# This test is true if the path /etc/hosts exists
# - it could be a file or directory or symlink (or possibly something else).
if test -e /etc/hosts
echo We most likely have a hosts file
else
echo We do not have a hosts file
end
Combiners can also be used to make more complex conditions, like
if command -sq fish; and grep fish /etc/shells
echo fish is installed and configured
end
For even more complex conditions, use begin and end to group parts of
them.
There is also a switch command:
switch (uname)
case Linux
echo Hi Tux!
case Darwin
echo Hi Hexley!
case FreeBSD NetBSD DragonFly
echo Hi Beastie!
case '*'
echo Hi, stranger!
end
As you see, case does not fall through, and can accept multiple argu-
ments or (quoted) wildcards.
For more, see Conditions.
Functions
A fish function is a list of commands, which may optionally take argu-
ments. Unlike other shells, arguments are not passed in "numbered vari-
ables" like $1, but instead in a single list $argv. To create a func-
tion, use the function builtin:
function say_hello
echo Hello $argv
end
say_hello
# prints: Hello
say_hello everybody!
# prints: Hello everybody!
Unlike other shells, fish does not have aliases or special prompt syn-
tax. Functions take their place. [2]
You can list the names of all functions with the functions builtin
(note the plural!). fish starts out with a number of functions:
> functions
N_, abbr, alias, bg, cd, cdh, contains_seq, dirh, dirs, disown, down-or-search, edit_command_buffer, export, fg, fish_add_path, fish_breakpoint_prompt, fish_clipboard_copy, fish_clipboard_paste, fish_config, fish_default_key_bindings, fish_default_mode_prompt, fish_git_prompt, fish_hg_prompt, fish_hybrid_key_bindings, fish_indent, fish_is_root_user, fish_job_summary, fish_key_reader, fish_md5, fish_mode_prompt, fish_npm_helper, fish_opt, fish_print_git_action, fish_print_hg_root, fish_prompt, fish_sigtrap_handler, fish_svn_prompt, fish_title, fish_update_completions, fish_vcs_prompt, fish_vi_cursor, fish_vi_key_bindings, funced, funcsave, grep, help, history, hostname, isatty, kill, la, ll, ls, man, nextd, open, popd, prevd, prompt_hostname, prompt_pwd, psub, pushd, realpath, seq, setenv, suspend, trap, type, umask, up-or-search, vared, wait
You can see the source for any function by passing its name to func-
tions:
> functions ls
function ls --description 'List contents of directory'
command ls -G $argv
end
For more, see Functions.
[2] There is a function called alias, but it's just a shortcut to make
functions. fish also provides abbreviations, through the abbr com-
mand.
Loops
While loops:
while true
echo "Loop forever"
end
# Prints:
# Loop forever
# Loop forever
# Loop forever
# yes, this really will loop forever. Unless you abort it with ctrl-c.
For loops can be used to iterate over a list. For example, a list of
files:
for file in *.txt
cp $file $file.bak
end
Iterating over a list of numbers can be done with seq:
for x in (seq 5)
touch file_$x.txt
end
For more, see Loops and blocks.
Prompt
Unlike other shells, there is no prompt variable like PS1. To display
your prompt, fish executes the fish_prompt function and uses its output
as the prompt. And if it exists, fish also executes the
fish_right_prompt function and uses its output as the right prompt.
You can define your own prompt from the command line:
> function fish_prompt; echo "New Prompt % "; end
New Prompt % _
Then, if you are happy with it, you can save it to disk by typing func-
save fish_prompt. This saves the prompt in ~/.config/fish/func-
tions/fish_prompt.fish. (Or, if you want, you can create that file man-
ually from the start.)
Multiple lines are OK. Colors can be set via set_color by passing it
named ANSI colors, or hex RGB values:
function fish_prompt
set_color purple
date "+%m/%d/%y"
set_color FF0000
echo (pwd) '>' (set_color normal)
end
This prompt would look like:
02/06/13
/home/tutorial > _
See also Writing your own prompt.
You can choose among sample prompts by running fish_config for a web UI
or fish_config prompt for a simpler version inside your terminal.
$PATH
$PATH is an environment variable containing the directories that fish
searches for commands. Unlike other shells, $PATH is a list, not a
colon-delimited string.
Fish takes care to set $PATH to a default, but typically it is just in-
herited from fish's parent process and is set to a value that makes
sense for the system - see Exports.
To prepend /usr/local/bin and /usr/sbin to $PATH, you can write:
> set PATH /usr/local/bin /usr/sbin $PATH
To remove /usr/local/bin from $PATH, you can write:
> set PATH (string match -v /usr/local/bin $PATH)
For compatibility with other shells and external commands, $PATH is a
path variable, and so will be joined with colons (not spaces) when you
quote it:
> echo "$PATH"
/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin
and it will be exported like that, and when fish starts it splits the
$PATH it receives into a list on colon.
You can do so directly in config.fish, like you might do in other
shells with .profile. See this example.
A faster way is to use the fish_add_path function, which adds given di-
rectories to the path if they aren't already included. It does this by
modifying the $fish_user_paths universal variable, which is automati-
cally prepended to $PATH. For example, to permanently add /usr/lo-
cal/bin to your $PATH, you could write:
> fish_add_path /usr/local/bin
The advantage is that you don't have to go mucking around in files:
just run this once at the command line, and it will affect the current
session and all future instances too. You can also add this line to
config.fish, as it only adds the component if necessary.
Or you can modify $fish_user_paths yourself, but you should be careful
not to append to it unconditionally in config.fish, or it will grow
longer and longer.
Startup (Where's .bashrc?)
Fish starts by executing commands in ~/.config/fish/config.fish. You
can create it if it does not exist.
It is possible to directly create functions and variables in con-
fig.fish file, using the commands shown above. For example:
> cat ~/.config/fish/config.fish
set -x PATH $PATH /sbin/
function ll
ls -lh $argv
end
However, it is more common and efficient to use autoloading functions
and universal variables.
If you want to organize your configuration, fish also reads commands in
.fish files in ~/.config/fish/conf.d/. See Configuration Files for the
details.
Autoloading Functions
When fish encounters a command, it attempts to autoload a function for
that command, by looking for a file with the name of that command in
~/.config/fish/functions/.
For example, if you wanted to have a function ll, you would add a text
file ll.fish to ~/.config/fish/functions:
> cat ~/.config/fish/functions/ll.fish
function ll
ls -lh $argv
end
This is the preferred way to define your prompt as well:
> cat ~/.config/fish/functions/fish_prompt.fish
function fish_prompt
echo (pwd) "> "
end
See the documentation for funced and funcsave for ways to create these
files automatically, and $fish_function_path to control their location.
Universal Variables
A universal variable is a variable whose value is shared across all in-
stances of fish, now and in the future even after a reboot. You can
make a variable universal with set -U:
> set -U EDITOR vim
Now in another shell:
> echo $EDITOR
vim
You only need to set universal variables once interactively. There is
no need to add them to your config files. For more details, see
Universal Variables.
Ready for more?
If you want to learn more about fish, there is lots of detailed docu-
mentation, the official gitter channel <https://gitter.im/fish-
shell/fish-shell>, an official mailing list <https://lists.source-
forge.net/lists/listinfo/fish-users>, and the github page
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/>.
Writing your own completions
To specify a completion, use the complete command. complete takes as a
parameter the name of the command to specify a completion for. For ex-
ample, to add a completion for the program myprog (or myprog.exe on
Cygwin/MSYS2), start the completion command with complete -c myprog ...
For a complete description of the various switches accepted by the com-
plete command, see the documentation for the complete builtin, or write
complete --help inside the fish shell.
To provide a list of possible completions for myprog, use the -a
switch. If myprog accepts the arguments start and stop, this can be
specified as complete -c myprog -a 'start stop'. The argument to the -a
switch is always a single string. At completion time, it will be tok-
enized on spaces and tabs, and variable expansion, command substitution
and other forms of parameter expansion will take place:
# If myprog can list the valid outputs with the list-outputs subcommand:
complete -c myprog -l output -a '(myprog list-outputs)'
fish has a special syntax to support specifying switches accepted by a
command. The switches -s, -l and -o are used to specify a short switch
(single character, such as -l), a gnu style long switch (such as
--color) and an old-style long switch (with one -, like -shuffle), re-
spectively. If the command 'myprog' has an option that can be written
as -o or --output, that is:
complete -c myprog -s o -l output
If this option takes an optional argument, you would also add --argu-
ment or -a, and give that the possible arguments:
complete -c myprog -s o -l output -a "yes no"
This offers the arguments "yes" and "no" for:
> myprog -o<TAB>
> myprog --output=<TAB>
By default, option arguments are optional, so the candidates are only
offered directly attached like that, so they aren't given in this case:
> myprog -o <TAB>
Usually options require a parameter, so you would give --require-para-
meter / -r:
complete -c myprog -s o -l output -ra "yes no"
which offers yes/no in these cases:
> myprog -o<TAB>
> myprog --output=<TAB>
> myprog -o <TAB>
> myprog --output <TAB>
Fish will also offer files by default, in addition to the arguments you
specified. You would either inhibit file completion for a single op-
tion:
complete -c myprog -s o -l output --no-files -ra "yes no"
or with a specific condition:
complete -c myprog -f --condition '__fish_seen_subcommand_from somesubcommand'
or you can disable file completions globally for the command:
complete -c myprog -f
If you have disabled them globally, you can enable them just for a spe-
cific condition or option with the --force-files / -F option:
# Disable files by default
complete -c myprog -f
# but reenable them for --config-file
complete -c myprog -l config-file --force-files -r
As a more comprehensive example, here's a commented excerpt of the com-
pletions for systemd's timedatectl:
# All subcommands that timedatectl knows - this is useful for later.
set -l commands status set-time set-timezone list-timezones set-local-rtc set-ntp
# Disable file completions for the entire command
# because it does not take files anywhere
# Note that this can be undone by using "-F".
#
# File completions also need to be disabled
# if you want to have more control over what files are offered
# (e.g. just directories, or just files ending in ".mp3").
complete -c timedatectl -f
# This line offers the subcommands
# -"status",
# -"set-timezone",
# -"set-time"
# -"list-timezones"
# if no subcommand has been given so far.
#
# The `-n`/`--condition` option takes script as a string, which it executes.
# If it returns true, the completion is offered.
# Here the condition is the `__fish_seen_subcommand_from` helper function.
# It returns true if any of the given commands is used on the commandline,
# as determined by a simple heuristic.
# For more complex uses, you can write your own function.
# See e.g. the git completions for an example.
#
complete -c timedatectl -n "not __fish_seen_subcommand_from $commands" \
-a "status set-time set-timezone list-timezones"
# If the "set-timezone" subcommand is used,
# offer the output of `timedatectl list-timezones` as completions.
# Each line of output is used as a separate candidate,
# and anything after a tab is taken as the description.
# It's often useful to transform command output with `string` into that form.
complete -c timedatectl -n "__fish_seen_subcommand_from set-timezone" \
-a "(timedatectl list-timezones)"
# Completion candidates can also be described via `-d`,
# which is useful if the description is constant.
# Try to keep these short, because that means the user gets to see more at once.
complete -c timedatectl -n "not __fish_seen_subcommand_from $commands" \
-a "set-local-rtc" -d "Maintain RTC in local time"
# We can also limit options to certain subcommands by using conditions.
complete -c timedatectl -n "__fish_seen_subcommand_from set-local-rtc" \
-l adjust-system-clock -d 'Synchronize system clock from the RTC'
# These are simple options that can be used everywhere.
complete -c timedatectl -s h -l help -d 'Print a short help text and exit'
complete -c timedatectl -l version -d 'Print a short version string and exit'
complete -c timedatectl -l no-pager -d 'Do not pipe output into a pager'
For examples of how to write your own complex completions, study the
completions in /usr/share/fish/completions. (The exact path depends on
your chosen installation prefix and may be slightly different)
Useful functions for writing completions
fish ships with several functions that may be useful when writing com-
mand-specific completions. Most of these function names begin with the
string __fish_. Such functions are internal to fish and their name and
interface may change in future fish versions. A few of these functions
are described here.
Functions beginning with the string __fish_print_ print a newline sepa-
rated list of strings. For example, __fish_print_filesystems prints a
list of all known file systems. Functions beginning with __fish_com-
plete_ print out a newline separated list of completions with descrip-
tions. The description is separated from the completion by a tab char-
acter.
• __fish_complete_directories STRING DESCRIPTION performs path comple-
tion on STRING, allowing only directories, and giving them the de-
scription DESCRIPTION.
• __fish_complete_path STRING DESCRIPTION performs path completion on
STRING, giving them the description DESCRIPTION.
• __fish_complete_groups prints a list of all user groups with the
groups members as description.
• __fish_complete_pids prints a list of all processes IDs with the com-
mand name as description.
• __fish_complete_suffix SUFFIX performs file completion but sorts
files ending in SUFFIX first. This is useful in conjunction with com-
plete --keep-order.
• __fish_complete_users prints a list of all users with their full name
as description.
• __fish_print_filesystems prints a list of all known file systems.
Currently, this is a static list, and not dependent on what file sys-
tems the host operating system actually understands.
• __fish_print_hostnames prints a list of all known hostnames. This
function searches the fstab for nfs servers, ssh for known hosts and
checks the /etc/hosts file.
• __fish_print_interfaces prints a list of all known network inter-
faces.
Where to put completions
Completions can be defined on the commandline or in a configuration
file, but they can also be automatically loaded. Fish automatically
searches through any directories in the list variable $fish_com-
plete_path, and any completions defined are automatically loaded when
needed. A completion file must have a filename consisting of the name
of the command to complete and the suffix .fish.
By default, Fish searches the following for completions, using the
first available file that it finds:
• A directory for end-users to keep their own completions, usually
~/.config/fish/completions (controlled by the XDG_CONFIG_HOME envi-
ronment variable);
• A directory for systems administrators to install completions for all
users on the system, usually /etc/fish/completions;
• A user-specified directory for third-party vendor completions, usu-
ally ~/.local/share/fish/vendor_completions.d (controlled by the
XDG_DATA_HOME environment variable);
• A directory for third-party software vendors to ship their own com-
pletions for their software, usually /usr/share/fish/vendor_comple-
tions.d;
• The completions shipped with fish, usually installed in
/usr/share/fish/completions; and
• Completions automatically generated from the operating system's man-
ual, usually stored in ~/.cache/fish/generated_completions (con-
trolled by XDG_CACHE_HOME environment variable).
These paths are controlled by parameters set at build, install, or run
time, and may vary from the defaults listed above.
This wide search may be confusing. If you are unsure, your completions
probably belong in ~/.config/fish/completions.
If you have written new completions for a common Unix command, please
consider sharing your work by submitting it via the instructions in
Further help and development.
If you are developing another program and would like to ship comple-
tions with your program, install them to the "vendor" completions di-
rectory. As this path may vary from system to system, the pkgconfig
framework should be used to discover this path with the output of
pkg-config --variable completionsdir fish.
Writing your own prompt
WARNING:
This document uses formatting to show what a prompt would look like.
If you are viewing this in the man page, you probably want to switch
to looking at the html version instead. Run help custom-prompt to
view it in a web browser.
Fish ships a number of prompts that you can view with the fish_config
command, and many users have shared their prompts online.
However, you can also write your own, or adjust an existing prompt.
This is a good way to get used to fish's scripting language.
Unlike other shells, fish's prompt is built by running a function -
fish_prompt. Or, more specifically, three functions:
• fish_prompt, which is the main prompt function
• fish_right_prompt, which is shown on the right side of the terminal.
• fish_mode_prompt, which is shown if vi mode is used.
These functions are run, and whatever they print is displayed as the
prompt (minus one trailing newline).
Here, we will just be writing a simple fish_prompt.
Our first prompt
Let's look at a very simple example:
function fish_prompt
echo $PWD '>'
end
This prints the current working directory (PWD) and a > symbol to show
where the prompt ends. The > is quoted because otherwise it would sig-
nify a redirection.
Because we've used echo, it adds spaces between the two so it ends up
looking like (assuming _ is your cursor):
/home/tutorial >_
Formatting
echo adds spaces between its arguments. If you don't want those, you
can use string join like this:
function fish_prompt
string join '' -- $PWD '>'
end
The -- indicates to string that no options can come after it, in case
we extend this with something that can start with a -.
There are other ways to remove the space, including echo -s and printf.
Adding color
This prompt is functional, but a bit boring. We could add some color.
Fortunately, fish offers the set_color command, so you can do:
echo (set_color red)foo
set_color can also handle RGB colors like set_color 23b455, and other
formatting options including bold and italics.
So, taking our previous prompt and adding some color:
function fish_prompt
string join '' -- (set_color green) $PWD (set_color normal) '>'
end
A "normal" color tells the terminal to go back to its normal formatting
options.
set_color works by producing an escape sequence, which is a special
piece of text that terminals interpret as instructions - for example,
to change color. So set_color red produces the same effect as:
echo \e\[31m
Although you can write your own escape sequences by hand, it's much
easier to use set_color.
Shortening the working directory
This is fine, but our PWD can be a bit long, and we are typically only
interested in the last few directories. We can shorten this with the
prompt_pwd helper that will give us a shortened working directory:
function fish_prompt
string join '' -- (set_color green) (prompt_pwd) (set_color normal) '>'
end
prompt_pwd takes options to control how much to shorten. For instance,
if we want to display the last two directories, we'd use prompt_pwd
--full-length-dirs 2:
function fish_prompt
string join '' -- (set_color green) (prompt_pwd --full-length-dirs 2) (set_color normal) '>'
end
With a current directory of "/home/tutorial/Music/Lena Raine/Oneknow-
ing", this would print
~/M/Lena Raine/Oneknowing>_
Status
One important bit of information that every command returns is the
status. This is a whole number from 0 to 255, and usually it is used as
an error code - 0 if the command returned successfully, or a number
from 1 to 255 if not.
It's useful to display this in your prompt, but showing it when it's 0
seems kind of wasteful.
First of all, since every command (except for set) changes the status,
you need to store it for later use as the first thing in your prompt.
Use a local variable so it will be confined to your prompt function:
set -l last_status $status
And after that, you can set a string if it is not zero:
# Prompt status only if it's not 0
set -l stat
if test $last_status -ne 0
set stat (set_color red)"[$last_status]"(set_color normal)
end
And to print it, we add it to our string join:
string join '' -- (set_color green) (prompt_pwd) (set_color normal) $stat '>'
If $last_status was 0, $stat is empty, and so it will simply disappear.
So our entire prompt is now:
function fish_prompt
set -l last_status $status
# Prompt status only if it's not 0
set -l stat
if test $last_status -ne 0
set stat (set_color red)"[$last_status]"(set_color normal)
end
string join '' -- (set_color green) (prompt_pwd) (set_color normal) $stat '>'
end
And it looks like:
~/M/L/Oneknowing>false
~/M/L/Oneknowing[1]>_
after we run false (which returns 1).
Transient prompt
To enable transient prompt functionality, set the fish_transient_prompt
variable to 1:
set -g fish_transient_prompt 1
With this set, fish re-runs prompt functions with a --final-rendering
argument before running a commandline. So you can use it to declutter
your old prompts. For example if you want to see only the current di-
rectory name when you scroll up:
function fish_prompt
set -l last_status $status
set -l stat
set -l pwd
# Check if it's a transient or final prompt
if contains -- --final-rendering $argv
set pwd (path basename $PWD)
else
set pwd (prompt_pwd)
# Prompt status only if it's not 0
if test $last_status -ne 0
set stat (set_color red)"[$last_status]"(set_color normal)
end
end
string join '' -- (set_color green) $pwd (set_color normal) $stat '>'
end
Now running two commands in the same directory could result in this
screen:
Oneknowing>false
~/M/L/Oneknowing[1]>_
Save the prompt
Once you are happy with your prompt, you can save it with funcsave
fish_prompt (see funcsave - save the definition of a function to the
user's autoload directory) or write it to ~/.config/fish/func-
tions/fish_prompt.fish yourself.
If you want to edit it again, open that file or use funced fish_prompt
(see funced - edit a function interactively).
Where to go from here?
We have now built a simple but working and usable prompt, but of course
more can be done.
•
Fish offers more helper functions:
• prompt_login to describe the user/hostname/container or
prompt_hostname to describe just the host
• fish_is_root_user to help with changing the symbol for root.
• fish_vcs_prompt to show version control information (or
fish_git_prompt / fish_hg_prompt / fish_svn_prompt to limit
it to specific systems)
• You can add a right prompt by changing fish_right_prompt or a vi mode
prompt by changing fish_mode_prompt.
•
Some prompts have interesting or advanced features
• Add the time when the prompt was printed
• Show various integrations like python's venv
• Color the parts differently.
You can look at fish's sample prompts for inspiration. Open up
fish_config, find one you like and pick it. For example:
fish_config prompt show # <- shows all the sample prompts
fish_config prompt choose disco # <- this picks the "disco" prompt for this session
funced fish_prompt # <- opens fish_prompt in your editor, and reloads it once the editor exits
Design
This is a description of the design principles that have been used to
design fish. The fish design has three high level goals. These are:
1. Everything that can be done in other shell languages should be pos-
sible to do in fish, though fish may rely on external commands in
doing so.
2. Fish should be user-friendly, but not at the expense of expressive-
ness. Most tradeoffs between power and ease of use can be avoided
with careful design.
3. Whenever possible without breaking the above goals, fish should fol-
low POSIX.
To achieve these high-level goals, the fish design relies on a number
of more specific design principles. These are presented below, together
with a rationale and a few examples for each.
The law of orthogonality
The shell language should have a small set of orthogonal features. Any
situation where two features are related but not identical, one of them
should be removed, and the other should be made powerful and general
enough to handle all common use cases of either feature.
Rationale: Related features make the language larger, which makes it
harder to learn. It also increases the size of the source code, making
the program harder to maintain and update.
Examples:
• Here documents are too similar to using echo inside of a pipeline.
• Subshells, command substitution and process substitution are strongly
related. fish only supports command substitution, the others can be
achieved either using a block or the psub shellscript function.
• Having both aliases and functions is confusing, especially since both
of them have limitations and problems. fish functions have none of
the drawbacks of either syntax.
• The many Posix quoting styles are silly, especially $.
The law of responsiveness
The shell should attempt to remain responsive to the user at all times,
even in the face of contended or unresponsive filesystems. It is only
acceptable to block in response to a user initiated action, such as
running a command.
Rationale: Bad performance increases user-facing complexity, because it
trains users to recognize and route around slow use cases. It is also
incredibly frustrating.
Examples:
• Features like syntax highlighting and autosuggestions must perform
all of their disk I/O asynchronously.
• Startup should minimize forks and disk I/O, so that fish can be
started even if the system is under load.
Configurability is the root of all evil
Every configuration option in a program is a place where the program is
too stupid to figure out for itself what the user really wants, and
should be considered a failure of both the program and the programmer
who implemented it.
Rationale: Different configuration options are a nightmare to maintain,
since the number of potential bugs caused by specific configuration
combinations quickly becomes an issue. Configuration options often im-
ply assumptions about the code which change when reimplementing the
code, causing issues with backwards compatibility. But mostly, configu-
ration options should be avoided since they simply should not exist, as
the program should be smart enough to do what is best, or at least a
good enough approximation of it.
Examples:
• Fish allows the user to set various syntax highlighting colors. This
is needed because fish does not know what colors the terminal uses by
default, which might make some things unreadable. The proper solution
would be for text color preferences to be defined centrally by the
user for all programs, and for the terminal emulator to send these
color properties to fish.
• Fish does not allow you to set the number of history entries, differ-
ent language substyles or any number of other common shell configura-
tion options.
A special note on the evils of configurability is the long list of very
useful features found in some shells, that are not turned on by de-
fault. Both zsh and bash support command-specific completions, but no
such completions are shipped with bash by default, and they are turned
off by default in zsh. Other features that zsh supports that are dis-
abled by default include tab-completion of strings containing wild-
cards, a sane completion pager and a history file.
The law of user focus
When designing a program, one should first think about how to make an
intuitive and powerful program. Implementation issues should only be
considered once a user interface has been designed.
Rationale: This design rule is different than the others, since it de-
scribes how one should go about designing new features, not what the
features should be. The problem with focusing on what can be done, and
what is easy to do, is that too much of the implementation is exposed.
This means that the user must know a great deal about the underlying
system to be able to guess how the shell works, it also means that the
language will often be rather low-level.
Examples:
• There should only be one type of input to the shell, lists of com-
mands. Loops, conditionals and variable assignments are all performed
through regular commands.
• The differences between built-in commands and shellscript functions
should be made as small as possible. Built-ins and shellscript func-
tions should have exactly the same types of argument expansion as
other commands, should be possible to use in any position in a
pipeline, and should support any I/O redirection.
• Instead of forking when performing command substitution to provide a
fake variable scope, all fish commands are performed from the same
process, and fish instead supports true scoping.
• All blocks end with the end built-in.
The law of discoverability
A program should be designed to make its features as easy as possible
to discover for the user.
Rationale: A program whose features are discoverable turns a new user
into an expert in a shorter span of time, since the user will become an
expert on the program simply by using it.
The main benefit of a graphical program over a command-line-based pro-
gram is discoverability. In a graphical program, one can discover all
the common features by simply looking at the user interface and guess-
ing what the different buttons, menus and other widgets do. The tradi-
tional way to discover features in command-line programs is through
manual pages. This requires both that the user starts to use a differ-
ent program, and then they remember the new information until the next
time they use the same program.
Examples:
• Everything should be tab-completable, and every tab completion should
have a description.
• Every syntax error and error in a built-in command should contain an
error message describing what went wrong and a relevant help page.
Whenever possible, errors should be flagged red by the syntax high-
lighter.
• The help manual should be easy to read, easily available from the
shell, complete and contain many examples
• The language should be uniform, so that once the user understands the
command/argument syntax, they will know the whole language, and be
able to use tab-completion to discover new features.
Release notes
fish 4.3.3 (released January 07, 2026)
This release fixes the following problems identified in fish 4.3.0:
• Selecting a completion could insert only part of the token (#12249
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/12249>).
• Glitch with soft-wrapped autosuggestions and fish_right_prompt (-
#12255 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/12255>).
• Spurious echo in tmux when typing a command really fast (#12261
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/12261>).
• tomorrow theme always using the light variant (#12266
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/12266>).
• fish_config theme choose sometimes not shadowing themes set by e.g.
webconfig (#12278 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/12278>).
• The sample prompts and themes are correctly installed (#12241
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/12241>).
• Last line of command output could be hidden when missing newline (-
#12246 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/12246>).
Other improvements include:
• The abbr, bind, complete, functions, history and type commands now
support a --color option to control syntax highlighting in their out-
put. Valid values are auto (default), always, or never.
• Existing file paths in redirection targets such as > file.txt are now
highlighted using fish_color_valid_path, indicating that file.txt
will be clobbered (#12260 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/12260>).
fish 4.3.2 (released December 30, 2025)
This release fixes the following problems identified in 4.3.0:
• Pre-built macOS packages failed to start due to a Malformed Mach-O
file error (#12224 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/12224>).
• extra_functionsdir (usually vendor_functions.d) and friends were not
used (#12226 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/12226>).
• Sample config file ~/.config/fish/config.fish/ and config directories
~/.config/fish/conf.d/, ~/.config/fish/completions/ and ~/.con-
fig/fish/functions/ were recreated on every startup instead of only
the first time fish runs on a system (#12230
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/12230>).
• Spurious echo of ^[[I in some scenarios (#12232
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/12232>).
• Infinite prompt redraw loop on some prompts (#12233
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/12233>).
• The removal of pre-built HTML docs from tarballs revealed that cross
compilation is broken because we use ${CMAKE_BINARY_DIR}/fish_indent
for building HTML docs. As a workaround, the new CMake build option
FISH_INDENT_FOR_BUILDING_DOCS can be set to the path of a runnable
fish_indent binary.
fish 4.3.1 (released December 28, 2025)
This release fixes the following problem identified in 4.3.0:
• Possible crash after expanding an abbreviation (#12223
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/12223>).
fish 4.3.0 (released December 28, 2025)
Deprecations and removed features
• fish no longer sets user-facing universal variables by default, mak-
ing the configuration easier to understand. Specifically, the
fish_color_*, fish_pager_color_* and fish_key_bindings variables are
now set in the global scope by default. After upgrading to 4.3.0,
fish will (once and never again) migrate these universals to globals
set at startup in the ~/.config/fish/conf.d/fish_frozen_theme.fish
and ~/.config/fish/conf.d/fish_frozen_key_bindings.fish files. We
suggest that you delete those files and set your theme in ~/.con-
fig/fish/config.fish.
• You can still configure fish to propagate theme changes instantly;
see here for an example.
• You can still opt into storing color variables in the universal
scope via fish_config theme save though unlike fish_config theme
choose, it does not support dynamic theme switching based on the
terminal's color theme (see below).
• In addition to setting the variables which are explicitly defined in
the given theme, fish_config theme choose now clears only color vari-
ables that were set by earlier invocations of a fish_config theme
choose command (which is how fish's default theme is set).
Scripting improvements
• New status language command allows showing and modifying language
settings for fish messages without having to modify environment vari-
ables.
• When using a noninteractive fish instance to compute completions,
commandline --cursor works as expected instead of throwing an error
(#11993 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/11993>).
• fish_trace can now be set to all to also trace execution of key bind-
ings, event handlers as well as prompt and title functions.
Interactive improvements
• When typing immediately after starting fish, the first prompt is now
rendered correctly.
• Completion accuracy was improved for file paths containing = or : (-
#5363 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/5363>).
• Prefix-matching completions are now shown even if they don't match
the case typed by the user (#7944 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/7944>).
• On Cygwin/MSYS, command name completion will favor the non-exe name
(foo) unless the user started typing the extension.
• When using the exe name (foo.exe), fish will use the description and
completions for foo if there are none for foo.exe.
• Autosuggestions now also show soft-wrapped portions (#12045
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/12045>).
New or improved bindings
• ctrl-w (backward-kill-path-component) also deletes escaped spaces (-
#2016 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/2016>).
• New special input functions backward-path-component, for-
ward-path-component and kill-path-component (#12127
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/12127>).
Improved terminal support
• Themes can now be made color-theme-aware by including both [light]
and [dark] sections in the theme file. Some default themes have been
made color-theme-aware, meaning they dynamically adjust as your ter-
minal's background color switches between light and dark colors (-
#11580 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/11580>).
• The working directory is now reported on every fresh prompt (via OSC
7), fixing scenarios where a child process (like ssh) left behind a
stale working directory (#12191 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/12191>).
• OSC 133 prompt markers now also mark the prompt end, which improves
shell integration with terminals like iTerm2 (#11837
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/11837>).
• Operating-system-specific key bindings are now decided based on the
terminal's host OS.
• New feature flag omit-term-workarounds can be turned on to prevent
fish from trying to work around some incompatible terminals.
For distributors and developers
• Tarballs no longer contain prebuilt documentation, so building and
installing documentation requires Sphinx. To avoid users acciden-
tally losing docs, the BUILD_DOCS and INSTALL_DOCS configuration op-
tions have been replaced with a new WITH_DOCS option.
• fish_key_reader and fish_indent are now installed as hardlinks to
fish, to save some space.
Regression fixes:
• (from 4.1.0) Crash on incorrectly-set color variables (#12078
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/12078>).
• (from 4.1.0) Crash when autosuggesting Unicode characters with non-
trivial lowercase mapping.
• (from 4.2.0) Incorrect emoji width computation on macOS.
• (from 4.2.0) Mouse clicks and ctrl-l edge cases in multiline command
lines (#12121 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/12121>).
• (from 4.2.0) Completions for Git remote names on some non-glibc sys-
tems.
• (from 4.2.0) Expansion of ~$USER.
fish 4.2.1 (released November 13, 2025)
This release fixes the following problems identified in 4.2.0:
• When building from a tarball without Sphinx (that is, with
-DBUILD_DOCS=OFF or when sphinx-build is not found), builtin man
pages and help files were missing, which has been fixed (#12052
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/12052>).
• fish_config's theme selector (the "colors" tab) was broken, which has
been fixed (#12053 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/12053>).
fish 4.2.0 (released November 10, 2025)
Notable improvements and fixes
• History-based autosuggestions now include multi-line commands.
• A transient prompt containing more lines than the final prompt will
now be cleared properly (#11875 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/11875>).
• Taiwanese Chinese translations have been added.
• French translations have been supplemented (#11842
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/11842>).
Deprecations and removed features
• fish now assumes UTF-8 for character encoding even if the system does
not have a UTF-8 locale. Input bytes which are not valid UTF-8 are
still round-tripped correctly. For example, file paths using legacy
encodings can still be used, but may be rendered differently on the
command line.
• On systems where no multi-byte locale is available, fish will no
longer fall back to using ASCII replacements for Unicode characters
such as "".
Interactive improvements
• The title of the terminal tab can now be set separately from the win-
dow title by defining the fish_tab_title function (#2692
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/2692>).
• fish now hides the portion of a multiline prompt that is scrolled out
of view due to a huge command line. This prevents duplicate lines af-
ter repainting with partially visible prompt (#11911
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/11911>).
• fish_config prompt's choose and save subcommands have been taught to
reset fish_mode_prompt in addition to the other prompt functions (-
#11937 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/11937>).
• fish no longer force-disables mouse capture (DECSET/DECRST 1000), so
you can use those commands to let mouse clicks move the cursor or se-
lect completions items (#4918 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/4918>).
• The alt-p binding no longer adds a redundant space to the command
line.
• When run as a login shell on macOS, fish now sets MANPATH correctly
when that variable was already present in the environment (#10684
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/10684>).
• A Windows-specific case of the web-based config failing to launch has
been fixed (#11805 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/11805>).
• A MSYS2-specific workaround for Konsole and WezTerm has been added,
to prevent them from using the wrong working directory when opening
new tabs (#11981 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/11981>).
For distributors and developers
• Release tags and source code tarballs are GPG-signed again (#11996
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/11996>).
• Documentation in release tarballs is now built with the latest ver-
sion of Sphinx, which means that pre-built man pages include OSC 8
hyperlinks.
• The Sphinx dependency is now specified in pyproject.toml, which al-
lows you to use uv <https://github.com/astral-sh/uv> to provide
Sphinx for building documentation (e.g. uv run cargo install --path
.).
• The minimum supported Rust version (MSRV) has been updated to 1.85.
• The standalone build mode has been made the default. This means that
the files in $CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX/share/fish will not be used any-
more, except for HTML docs. As a result, future upgrades will no
longer break running shells if one of fish's internal helper func-
tions has been changed in the updated version. For now, the data
files are still installed redundantly, to prevent upgrades from
breaking already-running shells (#11921 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/11921>). To reverse this change (which
should not be necessary), patch out the embed-data feature from
cmake/Rust.cmake. This option will be removed in future.
• OpenBSD 7.8 revealed an issue with fish's approach for displaying
builtin man pages, which has been fixed.
Regression fixes:
• (from 4.1.0) Fix the web-based config for Python 3.9 and older (-
#12039 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/12039>).
• (from 4.1.0) Correct wrong terminal modes set by fish -c 'read; cat
(#12024 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/12024>).
• (from 4.1.0) On VTE-based terminals, stop redrawing the prompt on re-
size again, to avoid glitches.
• (from 4.1.0) On MSYS2, fix saving/loading of universal variables (-
#11948 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/11948>).
• (from 4.1.0) Fix error using man for the commands ! . : [ { (#11955
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/11955>).
• (from 4.1.0) Fix build issues on illumos systems (#11982
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/11982>).
• (from 4.1.0) Fix crash on invalid function command (#11912
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/11912>).
• (from 4.0.0) Fix build on SPARC and MIPS Linux by disabling SIGSTK-
FLT.
• (from 4.0.0) Fix crash when passing negative PIDs to builtin wait (-
#11929 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/11929>).
• (from 4.0.0) On Linux, fix status fish-path output when fish has been
reinstalled since it was started.
fish 4.1.2 (released October 7, 2025)
This release fixes the following regressions identified in 4.1.0:
• Fixed spurious error output when completing remote file paths for scp
(#11860 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/11860>).
• Fixed the alt-l binding not formatting ls output correctly (one entry
per line, no colors) (#11888 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/11888>).
• Fixed an issue where focus events (currently only enabled in tmux)
would cause multiline prompts to be redrawn in the wrong line (#11870
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/11870>).
• Stopped printing output that would cause a glitch on old versions of
Midnight Commander (#11869 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/11869>).
• Added a fix for some configurations of Zellij where escape key pro-
cessing was delayed (#11868 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/11868>).
• Fixed a case where the web-based configuration tool would generate
invalid configuration (#11861 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/11861>).
• Fixed a case where pasting into fish -c read would fail with a noisy
error (#11836 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/11836>).
• Fixed a case where upgrading fish would break old versions of fish
that were still running.
In general, fish still needs to be restarted after it is upgraded,
except for standalone builds <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/?tab=readme-ov-file#building-fish-with-embedded-data-experimen-
tal>.
fish 4.1.1 (released September 30, 2025)
This release fixes the following regressions identified in 4.1.0:
• Many of our new Chinese translations were more confusing than help-
ful; they have been fixed or removed (#11833
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/11833>).
Note that you can work around this type of issue by configuring
fish's message localization: if your environment contains something
like LANG=zh_CN.UTF-8, you can use set -g LC_MESSAGES en to use Eng-
lish messages inside fish. This will not affect fish's child
processes unless LC_MESSAGES was already exported.
• Some fish_config subcommands for showing prompts and themes had been
broken in standalone Linux builds (those using the embed-data cargo
feature), which has been fixed (#11832 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/11832>).
• On Windows Terminal, we observed an issue where fish would fail to
read the terminal's response to our new startup queries, causing no-
ticeable lags and a misleading error message. A workaround has been
added (#11841 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/11841>).
• A WezTerm issue breaking shifted key input
<https://github.com/wezterm/wezterm/issues/6087> has resurfaced on
some versions of WezTerm; our workaround has been extended to cover
all versions for now (#11204 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/11204>).
• Fixed a crash in the web-based configuration tool when using the new
underline styles (#11840 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/11840>).
fish 4.1.0 (released September 27, 2025)
Notable improvements and fixes
• Compound commands (begin; echo 1; echo 2; end) can now be written us-
ing braces ({ echo1; echo 2 }), like in other shells.
• fish now supports transient prompts: if fish_transient_prompt is set
to 1, fish will reexecute prompt functions with the --final-rendering
argument before running a commandline (#11153
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/11153>).
• Tab completion results are truncated up to the common directory path,
instead of somewhere inside that path. E.g. if you complete
"share/functions", and it includes the files "foo.fish" and
"bar.fish", the completion pager will now show "/foo.fish" and
"/bar.fish" (#11250 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/11250>).
• Self-installing builds as created by e.g. cargo install no longer in-
stall other files, see below.
• Our gettext-based message-localization has been reworked, adding
translations to self-installing builds; see below.
Deprecations and removed features
• set_color --background=COLOR no longer implicitly activates bold
mode. If your theme is stored in universal variables (the historical
default), some bold formatting might be lost. To fix this, we sug-
gest updating to the latest version of our theme, to explicitly acti-
vate bold mode, for example use fish_config theme save "fish de-
fault".
• {echo,echo} or { echo, echo } are no longer interpreted as brace ex-
pansion tokens but as compound commands.
• Terminfo-style key names (bind -k nul) are no longer supported. They
had been superseded by fish's own key names since 4.0 (#11342
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/11342>).
• fish no longer reads the terminfo database, so its behavior is gener-
ally no longer affected by the TERM environment variable (#11344
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/11344>). For the
time being, this change can be reversed via the ignore-terminfo
feature flag. To do so, run the following once and restart fish:
set -Ua fish_features no-ignore-terminfo
• The --install option when fish is built as self-installing is re-
moved, see below.
• set_color ff0000 now outputs 24-bit RGB true-color even if COLORTERM
is unset. One can override this by setting fish_term24bit to 0 (-
#11372 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/11372>).
• fish now requires the terminal to respond to queries for the Primary
Device Attribute. For now, this can be reversed via a feature flag,
by running (once) set -Ua fish_features no-query-term and restarting
fish.
• Users of GNU screen may experience minor glitches when starting fish.
Scripting improvements
• The argparse builtin has seen many improvements, see below.
• The string pad command now has a -C/--center option.
• The psub command now allows combining --suffix with --fifo (#11729
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/11729>).
• The read builtin has learned the --tokenize-raw option to tokenize
without quote removal (#11084 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/11084>).
Interactive improvements
• Autosuggestions are now also provided in multi-line command lines.
Like ctrl-r, these operate only on the current line.
• Autosuggestions used to not suggest multi-line command-lines from
history; now autosuggestions include individual lines from multi-line
command-lines.
• The history pager search now preserves ordering between ctrl-s for-
ward and ctrl-r backward searches.
• Instead of highlighting events by flashing all text to the left of
the cursor, failing history token search (alt-.) flashes the associ-
ated token, failing tab-completion flashes the to-be-completed token
(#11050 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/11050>),
deleting an autosuggestion (shift-delete) flashes the suggestion, and
all other scenarios flash the full command line.
• Pasted commands are now stripped of any $ command prefixes, to help
pasting code snippets.
• Builtin help options (e.g. abbr --help) now use man directly, meaning
that variables like MANWIDTH are respected (#11786
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/11786>).
• funced will now edit copied functions directly, instead of the file
where function --copy was invoked. (#11614 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/11614>)
• Added a simple fish_jj_prompt which reduces visual noise in the
prompt inside Jujutsu <https://jj-vcs.github.io/jj/latest/> reposito-
ries that are colocated with Git.
New or improved bindings
• On non-macOS systems, alt-left, alt-right, alt-backspace and
alt-delete no longer operate on punctuation-delimited words but on
whole arguments, possibly including special characters like / and
quoted spaces. On macOS, the corresponding ctrl- prefixed keys oper-
ate on whole arguments. Word operations are still available via the
other respective modifier, just like in most web browsers.
• ctrl-z (undo) after executing a command will restore the previous
cursor position instead of placing the cursor at the end of the com-
mand line.
• The alt-s binding will now also use run0 if available.
• Some mouse support has been added: the OSC 133 prompt marking feature
has learned about kitty's click_events=1 flag, which allows moving
fish's cursor by clicking in the command line, and selecting pager
items (#10932 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/10932>).
• Before clearing the screen and redrawing, ctrl-l now pushes all text
located above the prompt to the terminal's scrollback, via a new spe-
cial input function scrollback-push. For compatibility with termi-
nals that do not implement ECMA-48's SCROLL UP command, this function
is only used if the terminal advertises support for that via
XTGETTCAP.
• Vi mode has learned ctrl-a (increment) and ctrl-x (decrement) (#11570
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/11570>).
Completions
• git completions now show the remote URL as description when complet-
ing remotes.
• systemctl completions no longer print escape codes if SYSTEMD_COLORS
happens to be set (#11465 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/11465>).
• Added and improved many completion scripts, notably tmux.
Improved terminal support
• Support for double, curly, dotted and dashed underlines, for use in
fish_color_* variables and the set_color builtin (#10957
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/10957>).
• Underlines can now be colored independent of text (#7619
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/7619>).
• New documentation page Terminal Compatibility (also accessible via
man fish-terminal-compatibility) lists the terminal control sequences
used by fish.
Other improvements
• Updated Chinese and German translations.
• fish_indent --dump-parse-tree now emits simple metrics about the tree
including its memory consumption.
• We added some tools to improve development workflows, for example
build_tools/{check,update_translations,release}.sh and
tests/test_driver.py. In conjunction with cargo, these enable almost
all day-to-day development tasks without using CMake.
For distributors
• Builtin commands that support the --help option now require the man
program. The direct dependency on mandoc and nroff has been removed.
• fish no longer uses gettext MO files, see below. If you have use
cases which are incompatible with our new approach, please let us
know.
• The fish_indent and fish_key_reader programs are now also available
as builtins. If fish is invoked via e.g. a symlink with one of these
names, it will act like the given tool (i.e. it's a multi-call bi-
nary). This allows truly distributing fish as a single file (#10876
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/10876>).
• The CMake build configuration has been simplified and no longer sec-
ond-guesses rustup. It will run rustc and cargo via PATH or in
~/.cargo/bin/. If that doesn't match your setup, set the Rust_COM-
PILER and Rust_CARGO CMake variables (#11328
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/11328>).
• Cygwin support has been reintroduced, since Rust gained a Cygwin tar-
get <https://github.com/rust-lang/rust/pull/134999> (#11238
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/11238>).
• CMake 3.15 is now required.
Changes to self-installing builds
The self-installing build type introduced in fish 4.0 has been changed
(#11143 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/11143>). Now
fish built with embedded data will just read the data straight from its
own binary or write it out to temporary files when necessary, instead
of requiring an installation step on start. That means it is now pos-
sible to build fish as a single file and copy it to any system with a
compatible CPU architecture, including as a different user, without ex-
tracting any files. As before, this is the default when building via
cargo, and disabled when building via CMake. For packagers we continue
to recommend CMake.
Note: When fish is built like this, the __fish_data_dir variable will
be empty because that directory no longer has meaning. You should gen-
erally not need these files. For example, if you want to make sure
that completions for "foo" are loaded, use complete -C"foo " >/dev/null
instead). The raw files are still exposed via status subcommands,
mainly for fish's internal use, but you can also use them as a last re-
sort.
Remaining benefits of a full installation (as currently done by CMake)
are:
• man pages like fish(1) in standard locations, easily accessible from
outside fish.
• a local copy of the HTML documentation, typically accessed via the
help function. In builds with embedded data, help will redirect to
e.g. https://fishshell.com/docs/current/
• fish_indent and fish_key_reader as separate files, making them easily
accessible outside fish
• an (empty) /etc/fish/config.fish as well as empty directories
/etc/fish/{functions,completions,conf.d}
• $PREFIX/share/pkgconfig/fish.pc, which defines directories for con-
figuration-snippets, like vendor_completions.d
Changes to gettext localization
We replaced several parts of the gettext functionality with custom im-
plementations (#11726 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/11726>). Most notably, message extraction, which should now work
reliably, and the runtime implementation, where we no longer dynami-
cally link to gettext, but instead use our own implementation, whose
behavior is similar to GNU gettext, with some minor deviations. Our
implementation now fully respects fish variables, so locale variables
do not have to be exported for fish localizations to work. They still
have to be exported to inform other programs about language prefer-
ences. The LANGUAGE environment variable is now treated as a path
variable, meaning it is an implicitly colon-separated list. While we
no longer have any runtime dependency on gettext, we still need gettext
tools for building, most notably msgfmt. When building without msgfmt
available, localization will not work with the resulting executable.
Localization data is no longer sourced at runtime from MO files on the
file system, but instead built into the executable. This is always
done, independently of the other data embedding, so all fish executa-
bles will have access to all message catalogs, regardless of the state
of the file system. Disabling our new localize-messages cargo feature
will cause fish to be built without localization support. CMake builds
can continue to use the WITH_GETTEXT option, with the same semantics as
the localize-messages feature. The current implementation does not
provide any configuration options for controlling which language cata-
logs are built into the executable (other than disabling them all). As
a workaround, you can delete files in the po directory before building
to exclude unwanted languages.
Changes to the argparse builtin
• argparse now saves recognised options, including option-arguments in
argv_opts, allowing them to be forwarded to other commands (#6466
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/6466>).
• argparse options can now be marked to be deleted from argv_opts (by
adding a & at the end of the option spec, before a ! if present).
There is now also a corresponding -d / --delete option to fish_opt.
• argparse --ignore-unknown now removes preceding known short options
from groups containing unknown options (e.g. when parsing -abc, if a
is known but b is not, then argv will contain -bc).
• argparse now has an -u / --move-unknown option that works like --ig-
nore-unknown but preserves unknown options in argv.
• argparse now has an -S / --strict-longopts option that forbids abbre-
viating long options or passing them with a single dash (e.g. if
there is a long option called foo, --fo and --foo won't match it).
• argparse now has a -U / --unknown-arguments option to specify how to
parse unknown option's arguments.
• argparse now allows specifying options that take multiple optional
values by using =* in the option spec (#8432
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/8432>). In addi-
tion, fish_opt has been modified to support such options by using the
--multiple-vals together with -o / --optional-val; -m is also now ac-
ceptable as an abbreviation for --multiple-vals.
• fish_opt no longer requires you give a short flag name when defining
options, provided you give it a long flag name with more than one
character.
• argparse option specifiers for long-only options can now start with
/, allowing the definition of long options with a single letter. Due
to this change, the --long-only option to fish_opt is now no longer
necessary and is deprecated.
• fish_opt now has a -v / --validate option you can use to give a fish
script to validate values of the option.
----
fish 4.0.9 (released September 27, 2025)
This release fixes:
• a regression in 4.0.6 causing shifted keys to not be inserted on some
terminals (#11813 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/11813>).
• a regression in 4.0.6 causing the build to fail on systems where char
is unsigned (#11804 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/11804>).
• a regression in 4.0.0 causing a crash on an invalid bg invocation.
----
fish 4.0.8 (released September 18, 2025)
This release fixes a regression in 4.0.6 that caused user bindings to
be shadowed by either fish's or a plugin's bindings (#11803
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/11803>).
----
fish 4.0.6 (released September 12, 2025)
This release of fish fixes a number of issues identified in fish 4.0.2:
• fish now properly inherits $PATH under Windows WSL2 (#11354
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/11354>).
• Remote filesystems are detected properly again on non-Linux systems.
• the printf builtin no longer miscalculates width of multi-byte char-
acters (#11412 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/11412>).
• For many years, fish has been "relocatable" -- it was possible to
move the entire CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX and fish would use paths rela-
tive to its binary. Only gettext locale paths were still determined
purely at compile time, which has been fixed.
• the commandline builtin failed to print the commandline set by a com-
mandline -C invocation, which broke some completion scripts. This
has been corrected (#11423 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/11423>).
• To work around terminals that fail to parse Operating System Command
(OSC) sequences, a temporary feature flag has been added. It allows
you to disable prompt marking (OSC 133) by running (once) set -Ua
fish_features no-mark-prompt and restarting fish (#11749
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/11749>).
• The routines to save history and universal variables have seen some
robustness improvements.
• builtin status current-command no longer prints a trailing blank
line.
• A crash displaying multi-line quoted command substitutions has been
fixed (#11444 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/11444>).
• Commands like set fish_complete_path ... accidentally disabled com-
pletion autoloading, which has been corrected.
• nmcli completions have been fixed to query network information dynam-
ically instead of only when completing the first time.
• Git completions no longer print an error when no git-foo executable
is in PATH.
• Custom completions like complete foo -l long -xa ... that use the
output of commandline -t. on a command-line like foo --long= have
been invalidated by a change in 4.0; the completion scripts have been
adjusted accordingly (#11508 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/11508>).
• Some completions were misinterpreted, which caused garbage to be dis-
played in the completion list. This has been fixed.
• fish no longer interprets invalid control sequences from the terminal
as if they were alt-[ or alt-o key strokes.
• bind has been taught about the printscreen and menu keys.
• alt-delete now deletes the word right of the cursor.
• ctrl-alt-h erases the last word again (#11548
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/11548>).
• alt-left alt-right were misinterpreted because they send unexpected
sequences on some terminals; a workaround has been added. (#11479
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/11479>).
• Key bindings like bind shift-A are no longer accepted; use bind
shift-a or bind A.
• Key bindings like bind shift-a take precedence over bind A when the
key event included the shift modifier.
• Bindings using shift with non-ASCII letters (such as ctrl-shift-) are
now supported.
• Bindings with modifiers such as bind ctrl-w work again on non-Latin
keyboard layouts such as a Russian one. This is implemented by al-
lowing key events such as ctrl- to match bindings of the correspond-
ing Latin key, using the kitty keyboard protocol's base layout key (-
#11520 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/11520>).
• Vi mode: The cursor position after pasting via p has been corrected.
• Vi mode: Trying to replace the last character via r no longer re-
places the last-but-one character (#11484 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/11484>).
----
fish 4.0.2 (released April 20, 2025)
This release of fish fixes a number of issues identified in fish 4.0.1:
• Completions are quoted, rather than backslash-escaped, only if the
completion is unambiguous. Continuing to edit the token is therefore
easier (#11271 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/11271>). This changes the behavior introduced in 4.0.0 where all
completions were quoted.
• The warning when the terminfo database can't be found has been down-
graded to a log message. fish will act as if the terminal behaves
like xterm-256color, which is correct for the vast majority of cases
(#11277 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/11277>,
#11290 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/11290>).
• Key combinations using the super (Windows/command) key can now (actu-
ally) be bound using the super- prefix (#11217
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/11217>). This was
listed in the release notes for 4.0.1 but did not work correctly.
• function is stricter about argument parsing, rather than allowing ad-
ditional parameters to be silently ignored (#11295
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/11295>).
• Using parentheses in the test builtin works correctly, following a
regression in 4.0.0 where they were not recognized (#11387
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/11387>).
• delete in Vi mode when Num Lock is active will work correctly (#11303
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/11303>).
• Abbreviations cannot alter the command-line contents, preventing a
crash (#11324 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/11324>).
• Improvements to various completions, including new completions for
wl-randr (#11301 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/11301>), performance improvements for cargo completions by
avoiding network requests (#11347 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/11347>), and other improvements for btrfs (-
#11320 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/11320>),
cryptsetup (#11315 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/11315>), git (#11319 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/11319>, #11322 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/11322>, #11323 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/11323>), jj (#11046 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/11046>), and systemd-analyze (#11314
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/11314>).
• The Mercurial (hg) prompt can handle working directories that contain
an embedded newline, rather than producing errors (#11348
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/11348>).
• A number of crashes have been fixed. Triggers include prompts con-
taining backspace characters (#11280 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/11280>), history pager search (#11355
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/11355>), invalid
UTF-8 in read (#11383 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/11383>), and the kill-selection binding (#11367
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/11367>).
• A race condition in the test suite has been fixed (#11254
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/11254>), and a test
for fish versioning relaxed to support downstream distributors' modi-
fications (#11173 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/11173>).
• Small improvements to the documentation (#11264
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/11264>, #11329
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/11329>, #11361
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/11361>).
----
fish 4.0.1 (released March 12, 2025)
This release of fish includes the following improvements compared to
fish 4.0.0:
• Key combinations using the super (Windows/command) key can be bound
using the super- prefix (#11217 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/11217>).
• Konsole's menu shows the "Open folder with" option again (#11198
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/11198>).
•
$fish_color_search_match will now only be applied to the foreground
color if it has an explicit foreground. For example, this allows set-
ting::
set -g fish_color_search_match --reverse
• Cursor shape commands (\e[2 q) are no longer sent in non-interactive
shells or in redirections (#11255 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/11255>).
• status gained a is-interactive-read subcommand, to check whether the
script is being called from an interactive read invocation.
• fish's background tasks are now started in a way that avoids an error
on macOS Terminal.app (#11181 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/11181>).
• Using key combinations within qemu should work correctly.
• Prompts containing control characters no longer cause incorrect dis-
play of command lines (#11252 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/11252>).
• Cancelling the command-line in Vi mode displays correctly again (-
#11261 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/11261>).
• The acidhub prompt properly displays the git branch again (#11179
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/11179>).
• Completions for wine correctly include files again (#11202
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/11202>).
• On macOS, paths from /etc/paths and /etc/manpaths containing colons
are handled correctly (#10684 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/10684>). This functionality was included in the 4.0.0
release notes but was missing from the source code.
• The XTerm modifyOtherKeys keyboard encoding is no longer used under
WezTerm, as it does not work correctly in all layouts (#11204
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/11204>).
• option-left and other similar keys should now work in iTerm versions
before 3.5.12; the kitty keyboard protocol is now disabled on these
versions (#11192 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/11192>).
• The kitty keyboard protocol is no longer used under Midnight Comman-
der, as it does not work correctly (#10640 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/10640>).
• fish now sends the commandline along with the OSC 133 semantic prompt
command start sequence. This fixes a test in the kitty terminal (-
#11203 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/11203>).
• Git completions for third-party commands like "git-absorb" are com-
pleted correctly again (#11205 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/11205>).
• Completions for diskutil no longer produce an error (#11201
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/11201>).
• The output of certain error messages no longer prints newlines to
standard output (#11248 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/11248>).
• A number of crashes have been fixed, including file names longer than
255 bytes (#11221 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/11221>), using fish on a btrfs filesystem (#11219
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/11219>), history
files that do not have the expected format (#11236
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/11236>), and pasting
into an empty command line (#11256 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/11256>).
----
fish 4.0.0 (released February 27, 2025)
fish's core code has been ported from C++ to Rust (#9512
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/9512>). This means a
large change in dependencies and how to build fish. However, there
should be no direct impact on users. Packagers should see the For Dis-
tributors section at the end.
Notable backwards-incompatible changes
• As part of a larger binding rework, bind gained a new key notation.
In most cases the old notation should keep working, but in rare cases
you may have to change a bind invocation to use the new notation.
See below for details.
• ctrl-c now calls a new bind function called clear-commandline. The
old behavior, which leaves a "^C" marker, is available as cancel-com-
mandline (#10935 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/10935>)
• random will produce different values from previous versions of fish
when used with the same seed, and will work more sensibly with small
seed numbers. The seed was never guaranteed to give the same result
across systems, so we do not expect this to have a large impact (-
#9593 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/9593>).
• Variables in command position that expand to a subcommand keyword are
now forbidden to fix a likely user error. For example, set editor
command emacs; $editor is no longer allowed (#10249
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/10249>).
• functions --handlers will now list handlers in a different order.
Now it is definition order, first to last, where before it was last
to first. This was never specifically defined, and we recommend not
relying on a specific order (#9944 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/9944>).
• The qmark-noglob feature, introduced in fish 3.0, is enabled by de-
fault. That means ? will no longer act as a single-character glob.
You can, for the time being, turn it back on by adding
no-qmark-noglob to fish_features and restarting fish:
set -Ua fish_features no-qmark-noglob
The flag will eventually be made read-only, making it impossible to
turn off.
• Terminals that fail to ignore unrecognized OSC or CSI sequences may
display garbage. We know cool-retro-term and emacs' ansi-term are af-
fected, but most mainstream terminals are not.
• fish no longer searches directories from the Windows system/user
$PATH environment variable for Linux executables. To execute Linux
binaries by name (i.e. not with a relative or absolute path) from a
Windows folder, make sure the /mnt/c/... path is explicitly added to
$fish_user_paths and not just automatically appended to $PATH by
wsl.exe (#10506 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/10506>).
• Under Microsoft Windows Subsystem for Linux 1 (not WSL 2), back-
grounded jobs that have not been disowned and do not terminate on
their own after a SIGHUP + SIGCONT sequence will be explicitly killed
by fish on exit (after the usual prompt to close or disown them) to
work around a WSL 1 deficiency that sees backgrounded processes that
run into SIGTTOU remain in a suspended state indefinitely (#5263
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/5263>). The
workaround is to explicitly disown processes you wish to outlive the
shell session.
Notable improvements and fixes
• fish now requests XTerm's modifyOtherKeys keyboard encoding and kitty
keyboard protocol's <https://sw.kovidgoyal.net/kitty/keyboard-proto-
col/> progressive enhancements (#10359 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/10359>). Depending on terminal support, this
allows to binding more key combinations, including arbitrary combina-
tions of modifiers ctrl, alt and shift, and distinguishing (for exam-
ple) ctrl-i from tab.
Additionally, bind now supports a human-readable syntax in addition
to byte sequences. This includes modifier names, and names for keys
like enter and backspace. For example
• bind up 'do something' binds the up-arrow key instead of a two-key
sequence ("u" and then "p")
• bind ctrl-x,alt-c 'do something' binds a sequence of two keys.
Any key argument that starts with an ASCII control character (like \e
or \cX) or is up to 3 characters long, not a named key, and does not
contain , or - will be interpreted in the old syntax to keep compati-
bility for the majority of bindings.
Keyboard protocols can be turned off by disabling the "keyboard-pro-
tocols" feature flag:
set -Ua fish_features no-keyboard-protocols
This is a temporary measure to work around buggy terminals (#11056
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/11056>), which ap-
pear to be relatively rare. Use this if something like "=0" or "=5u"
appears in your commandline mysteriously.
• fish can now be built as a self-installing binary (#10367
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/10367>). That means
it can be easily built on one system and copied to another, where it
can extract supporting files. To do this, run:
cargo install --path . # in a clone of the fish repository
# or `cargo build --release` and copy target/release/fish{,_indent,_key_reader} wherever you want
The first time it runs interactively, it will extract all the data
files to ~/.local/share/fish/install/. A specific path can be used
for the data files with fish --install=PATH To uninstall, remove the
fish binaries and that directory.
This build system is experimental; the main build system, using
cmake, remains the recommended approach for packaging and installa-
tion to a prefix.
• A new function fish_should_add_to_history can be overridden to decide
whether a command should be added to the history (#10302
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/10302>).
• Bindings can now mix special input functions and shell commands, so
bind ctrl-g expand-abbr "commandline -i \n" works as expected (#8186
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/8186>).
• Special input functions run from bindings via commandline -f are now
applied immediately, instead of after the currently executing binding
(#3031 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/3031>, #10126
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/10126>). For exam-
ple, commandline -i foo; commandline | grep foo succeeds now.
• Undo history is no longer truncated after every command, but kept for
the lifetime of the shell process.
• The ctrl-r history search now uses glob syntax (#10131
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/10131>).
• The ctrl-r history search now operates only on the line or command
substitution at cursor, making it easier to combine commands from
history (#9751 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/9751>).
• Abbreviations can now be restricted to specific commands. For in-
stance:
abbr --add --command git back 'reset --hard HEAD^'
will expand "back" to reset --hard HEAD^, but only when the command
is git (#9411 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/9411>).
Deprecations and removed features
• commandline --tokenize (short option -o) has been deprecated in favor
of commandline --tokens-expanded (short option -x) which expands
variables and other shell syntax, removing the need to use eval in
completion scripts (#10212 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/10212>).
• Two new feature flags:
• remove-percent-self (see status features) disables PID expansion of
%self, which has been supplanted by $fish_pid (#10262
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/10262>).
• test-require-arg disables test's one-argument mode. That means test
-n without an additional argument will return false, test -z will
keep returning true. Any other option without an argument, anything
that is not an option and no argument will be an error. This also
goes for [, test's alternate name. This is a frequent source of
confusion and so we are breaking with POSIX explicitly in this re-
gard. In addition to the feature flag, there is a debug category
"deprecated-test". Running fish with fish -d deprecated-test will
show warnings whenever a test invocation that would change is used.
(#10365 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/10365>).
These can be enabled with:
set -Ua fish_features remove-percent-self test-require-arg
We intend to enable them by default in future, and after that eventu-
ally make them read-only.
• Specifying key names as terminfo names (using the bind -k syntax) is
deprecated and may be removed in a future version.
• When a terminal pastes text into fish using bracketed paste, fish
used to switch to a special paste bind mode. This bind mode has been
removed. The behavior on paste is no longer configurable.
• When an interactive fish is stopped or terminated by a signal that
cannot be caught (SIGSTOP or SIGKILL), it may leave the terminal in a
state where keypresses with modifiers are sent as CSI u sequences,
instead of traditional control characters or escape sequences that
are recognized by Readline and compatible programs, such as bash and
python. If this happens, you can use the reset command from ncurses
to restore the terminal state.
• fish_key_reader --verbose no longer shows timing information.
• Terminal information is no longer read from hashed terminfo data-
bases, or termcap databases (#10269 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/10269>). The vast majority of systems use a
non-hashed terminfo database, which is still supported.
• source returns an error if used without a filename or pipe/redirec-
tion (#10774 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/10774>).
Scripting improvements
• for loops will no longer remember local variables from the previous
iteration (#10525 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/10525>).
• A new history append subcommand appends a command to the history,
without executing it (#4506 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/4506>).
• A new redirection: <? /path/to/file will try opening the file as in-
put, and if it doesn't succeed silently uses /dev/null instead. This
can help with checks like test -f /path/to/file; and string replace
foo bar < /path/to/file. (#10387 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/10387>)
• A new option commandline --tokens-raw prints a list of tokens without
any unescaping (#10212 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/10212>).
• A new option commandline --showing-suggestion tests whether an auto-
suggestion is currently displayed (#10586 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/10586>).
• functions and type now show that a function was copied and its
source, rather than solely Defined interactively (#6575
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/6575>).
• Stack trace now shows line numbers for copied functions (#6575
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/6575>).
• foo & && bar is now a syntax error, like in other shells (#9911
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/9911>).
• if -e foo; end now prints a more accurate error (#10000
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/10000>).
• cd into a directory that is not readable but accessible (permissions
--x) is now possible (#10432 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/10432>).
• An integer overflow in string repeat leading to a near-infinite loop
has been fixed (#9899 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/9899>).
• string shorten behaves better in the presence of non-printable char-
acters, including fixing an integer overflow that shortened strings
more than intended (#9854 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/9854>).
• string pad no longer allows non-printable characters as padding (-
#9854 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/9854>).
• string repeat now allows omission of -n when the first argument is an
integer (#10282 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/10282>).
• string match and replace have a new --max-matches option to return as
soon as the specified number of matches have been identified, which
can improve performance in scripts (#10587 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/10587>).
• functions --handlers-type caller-exit once again lists functions de-
fined as function --on-job-exit caller, rather than them being listed
by functions --handlers-type process-exit.
• A new set --no-event option sets or erases variables without trigger-
ing a variable event. This can be useful to change a variable in an
event handler (#10480 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/10480>).
• Commas in command substitution output are no longer used as separa-
tors in brace expansion, preventing a surprising expansion in some
cases (#5048 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/5048>).
• Universal variables can now store strings containing invalid UTF-8 (-
#10313 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/10313>).
• A new path basename -E option that causes it to return the basename
("filename" with the directory prefix removed) with the final exten-
sion (if any) also removed. This is a shorter version of path
change-extension "" (path basename $foo) (#10521
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/10521>).
• A new math --scale-mode option to select truncate, round, floor,
ceiling as you wish; the default value is truncate. (#9117
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/9117>).
• random is now less strict about its arguments, allowing a start
larger or equal to the end. (#10879 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/10879>)
• function --argument-names now produces an error if a read-only vari-
able name is used, rather than simply ignoring it (#10842
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/10842>).
• Tilde expansion in braces (that is, {~,}) works correctly (#10610
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/10610>).
Interactive improvements
• Autosuggestions were sometimes not shown after recalling a line from
history, which has been fixed (#10287 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/10287>).
• Up-arrow search matches -- which are highlighted in reverse colors --
are no longer syntax-highlighted, to fix bad contrast with the search
match highlighting.
• Command abbreviations (those with --position command or without a
--position) now also expand after decorators like command (#10396
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/10396>).
• Abbreviations now expand after process separators like ; and |. This
fixes a regression in version 3.6 (#9730 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/9730>).
• When exporting interactively defined functions (using type, functions
or funcsave) the function body is now indented, to match the interac-
tive command line editor (#8603 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/8603>).
• ctrl-x (fish_clipboard_copy) on multiline commands now includes in-
dentation (#10437 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/10437>).
• ctrl-v (fish_clipboard_paste) now strips ASCII control characters
from the pasted text. This is consistent with normal keyboard input
(#5274 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/5274>).
• When a command like fg %2 fails to find the given job, it no longer
behaves as if no job spec was given (#9835 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/9835>).
• Redirection in command position like >echo is now highlighted as er-
ror (#8877 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/8877>).
• fish_vi_cursor now works properly inside the prompt created by
builtin read (#10088 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/10088>).
• fish no longer fails to open a FIFO if interrupted by a terminal re-
size signal (#10250 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/10250>).
• read --help and friends no longer ignore redirections. This fixes a
regression in version 3.1 (#10274 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/10274>).
• Measuring a command with time now considers the time taken for com-
mand substitution (#9100 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/9100>).
• fish_add_path now automatically enables verbose mode when used inter-
actively (in the command line), in an effort to be clearer about what
it does (#10532 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/10532>).
• fish no longer adopts TTY modes of failed commands (#10603
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/10603>).
• complete -e cmd now prevents autoloading completions for cmd (#6716
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/6716>).
• fish's default color scheme no longer uses the color "blue", as it
has bad contrast against the background in a few terminal's default
palettes (#10758 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/10758>, #10786 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/10786>) The color scheme will not be upgraded for existing in-
stalls. If you want, you should select it again via fish_config.
• Command lines which are larger than the terminal are now displayed
correctly, instead of multiple blank lines being displayed (#7296
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/7296>).
• Prompts that use external commands will no longer produce an infinite
loop if the command crashes (#9796 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/9796>).
• The output of jobs shows "-" for jobs that have the same process
group ID as the fish process, rather than "-2" (#10833
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/10833>).
• Job expansion (%1 syntax) works properly for jobs that are a mixture
of external commands and functions (#10832 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/10832>).
• Command lines which have more lines than the terminal can be dis-
played and edited correctly (#10827 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/10827>).
• Functions that have been erased are no longer highlighted as valid
commands (#10866 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/10866>).
• not, time, and variable assignments (that is not time a=b env) is
correctly recognized as valid syntax (#10890
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/10890>).
• The Web-based configuration removes old right-hand-side prompts
again, fixing a regression in fish 3.4.0 (#10675
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/10675>).
• Further protection against programs which crash and leave the termi-
nal in an inconsistent state (#10834 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/10834>, #11038 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/11038>).
• A workaround for git being very slow on macOS has been applied, im-
proving performance after a fresh boot (#10535
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/10535>).
New or improved bindings
• When the cursor is on a command that resolves to an executable
script, alt-o will now open that script in your editor (#10266
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/10266>).
• During up-arrow history search, shift-delete will delete the current
search item and move to the next older item. Previously this was only
supported in the history pager.
• shift-delete will also remove the currently-displayed autosuggestion
from history, and remove it as a suggestion.
• ctrl-Z (also known as ctrl-shift-z) is now bound to redo.
• Some improvements to the alt-e binding which edits the command line
in an external editor:
• The editor's cursor position is copied back to fish. This is cur-
rently supported for Vim and Kakoune.
• Cursor position synchronization is only supported for a set of
known editors, which are now also detected in aliases which use
complete --wraps. For example, use complete --wraps my-vim vim to
synchronize cursors when EDITOR=my-vim.
• Multiline commands are indented before being sent to the editor,
which matches how they are displayed in fish.
• The ...-path-component bindings, like backward-kill-path-component,
now treat # as part of a path component (#10271
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/10271>).
• Bindings like alt-l that print output in between prompts now work
correctly with multiline commandlines.
• alt-d on an empty command line lists the directory history again.
This restores the behavior of version 2.1.
• history-prefix-search-backward and -forward now maintain the cursor
position, instead of moving the cursor to the end of the command line
(#10430 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/10430>).
• The following keys have refined behavior if the terminal supports the
new keyboard encodings:
• shift-enter now inserts a newline instead of executing the command
line.
• ctrl-backspace now deletes the last word instead of only one char-
acter (#10741 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/10741>).
• ctrl-delete deletes the next word (same as alt-d).
• New special input functions:
• forward-char-passive and backward-char-passive are like their
non-passive variants but do not accept autosuggestions or move fo-
cus in the completion pager (#10398 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/10398>).
• forward-token, backward-token, kill-token, and backward-kill-token
are similar to the *-bigword variants but for the whole argument
token (which includes escaped spaces) (#2014
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/2014>).
• clear-commandline, which merely clears the command line, as an al-
ternative to cancel-commandline which prints ^C and a new prompt (-
#10213 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/10213>).
• The accept-autosuggestion special input function now returns false
when there was nothing to accept (#10608 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/10608>).
• Vi mode has seen some improvements but continues to suffer from the
lack of people working on it.
• New default cursor shapes for insert and replace mode.
• ctrl-n in insert mode accepts autosuggestions (#10339
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/10339>).
• Outside insert mode, the cursor will no longer be placed beyond the
last character on the commandline.
• When the cursor is at the end of the commandline, a single l will
accept an autosuggestion (#10286 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/10286>).
• The cursor position after pasting (p) has been corrected.
• Added an additional binding, _, for moving to the beginning of the
line (#10720 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/10720>).
• When the cursor is at the start of a line, escaping from insert
mode no longer moves the cursor to the previous line.
• Added bindings for clipboard interaction, like ",+,p and ",+,y,y.
• Deleting in visual mode now moves the cursor back, matching vi (-
#10394 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/10394>).
• The ;, ,, v, V, I, and gU bindings work in visual mode (#10601
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/10601>, #10648
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/10648>).
• Support % motion (#10593 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/10593>).
• ctrl-k to remove the contents of the line beyond the cursor in all
modes (#10648 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/10648>).
• Support ab and ib vi text objects. New input functions are intro-
duced jump-{to,till}-matching-bracket (#1842
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/1842>).
• The E binding now correctly handles the last character of the word,
by jumping to the next word (#9700 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/9700>).
Completions
• Command-specific tab completions may now offer results whose first
character is a period. For example, it is now possible to tab-com-
plete git add for files with leading periods. The default file com-
pletions hide these files, unless the token itself has a leading pe-
riod (#3707 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/3707>).
• Option completion now uses fuzzy subsequence filtering, just like
non-option completion (#830 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/830>). This means that --fb may be completed to --foo-
bar if there is no better match.
• Completions that insert an entire token now use quotes instead of
backslashes to escape special characters (#5433
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/5433>).
• Normally, file name completions start after the last : or = in a to-
ken. This helps commands like rsync --files-from=. This special
meaning can now disabled by escaping these separators as \: and \=.
This matches Bash's behavior. Note that this escaping is usually not
necessary since the completion engine already tries to guess whether
the separator is actually part of a file name.
• Various new completion scripts and numerous updates to existing ones.
• Completions could hang if the PAGER environment variable was sent to
certain editors on macOS, FreeBSD and some other platforms. This has
been fixed (#10820 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/10820>).
• Generated completions are now stored in $XDG_CACHE_HOME/fish or
~/.cache/fish by default (#10369 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/10369>)
• A regression in fish 3.1, where completing a command line could
change it completely, has been fixed (#10904
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/10904>).
Improved terminal support
• fish now marks the prompt and command-output regions (via OSC 133) to
enable terminal shell integration (#10352 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/10352>). Shell integration shortcuts can
scroll to the next/previous prompt or show the last command output in
a pager.
• fish now reports the working directory (via OSC 7) unconditionally
instead of only for some terminals (#9955 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/9955>).
• fish now sets the terminal window title (via OSC 0) unconditionally
instead of only for some terminals (#10037 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/10037>).
• Focus reporting in tmux is no longer disabled on the first prompt.
• Focus reporting is now disabled during commands run inside key bind-
ings (#6942 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/6942>).
• Cursor changes are applied to all terminals that support them, and
the list of specifically-supported terminals has been removed (#10693
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/10693>).
• If it cannot find the terminfo entry given by TERM environment vari-
able, fish will now use an included xterm-256color definition to
match the vast majority of current terminal emulators (#10905
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/10905>). If you need
to have a specific terminfo profile for your terminal's TERM vari-
able, install it into the terminfo database.
• Further improvements to the correct display of prompts which fill the
width of the terminal (#8164 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/8164>).
Other improvements
• status gained a build-info subcommand, to print information on how
fish was built, to help with debugging (#10896
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/10896>).
• fish_indent will now collapse multiple empty lines into one (#10325
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/10325>).
• fish_indent now preserves the modification time of files if there
were no changes (#10624 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/10624>).
• Performance in launching external processes has been improved for
many cases (#10869 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/10869>).
• Performance and interactivity under Windows Subsystem for Linux has
been improved, with a workaround for Windows-specific locations being
appended to $PATH by default (#10506 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/10506>).
• On macOS, paths from /etc/paths and /etc/manpaths containing colons
are handled correctly (#10684 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/10684>).
• Additional filesystems such as AFS are properly detected as remote,
which avoids certain hangs due to expensive filesystem locks (#10818
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/10818>).
• A spurious error when launching multiple instances of fish for the
first time has been removed (#10813 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/10813>).
For distributors
fish has been ported to Rust. This means a significant change in depen-
dencies, which are listed in the README. In short, Rust 1.70 or greater
is required, and a C++ compiler is no longer needed (although a C com-
piler is still required, for some C glue code and the tests).
CMake remains the recommended build system, because of cargo's limited
support for installing support files. Version 3.5 remains the minimum
supported version. The Xcode generator for CMake is not supported any
longer (#9924 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/9924>).
CMake builds default to optimized release builds (#10799
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/10799>).
fish no longer depends on the ncurses library, but still uses a ter-
minfo database. When packaging fish, please add a dependency on the
package containing your terminfo database instead of curses.
The test target was removed as it can no longer be defined in new CMake
versions. Use make fish_run_tests. Any existing test target will not
print output if it fails (#11116 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/11116>).
The Web-based configuration has been rewritten to use Alpine.js (#9554
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/9554>).
----
fish 4.0b1 (released December 17, 2024)
A number of improvements were included in fish 4.0.0 following the beta
release of 4.0b1. These include fixes for regressions, improvements to
completions and documentation, and the removal of a small number of
problematic changes.
The full list of fixed issues can be found on the GitHub milestone page
for 4.0-final <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/milestone/43>.
----
fish 3.7.1 (released March 19, 2024)
This release of fish fixes the following problems identified in fish
3.7.0:
• Deleting the last history entry via history delete works again (-
#10190 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/10190>).
• Wildcards (*) will no longer sometimes generate paths that did not
exist (#10205 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/10205>).
This release also contains some improvements:
• A crash when trying to run an ELF program with a missing interpreter
has been fixed. This crashed in the process after fork, so did not
affect the fish process that tried to start the program (#10199
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/10199>).
• funced will now always source the file after it has written it, even
if the contents did not change. This prevents issues if the file was
otherwise modified (#10318 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/10318>).
• The warning for when a builtin returns a negative exit code was im-
proved, now mentioning the original status (#10187
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/10187>).
• Added completions for
• cobra-cli (#10293 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/10293>)
• dmidecode (#10368 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/10368>)
• mycli (#10309 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/10309>)
• ollama (#10327 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/10327>)
• pstree (#10317 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/10317>)
• Some improvements to documentation and completions.
----
fish 3.7.0 (released January 1, 2024)
This release of fish includes a number of improvements over fish 3.6.4,
detailed below. Although work continues on the porting of fish inter-
nals to the Rust programming language, that work is not included in
this release. fish 3.7.0 and any future releases in the 3.7 series re-
main C++ programs.
Notable improvements and fixes
• Improvements to the history pager, including:
• The history pager will now also attempt subsequence matches (#9476
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/9476>), so you can
find a command line like git log 3.6.1..Integration_3.7.0 by
searching for gitInt.
• Opening the history pager will now fill the search field with a
search string if you're already in a search (#10005
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/10005>). This
makes it nicer to search something with up and then later decide to
switch to the full pager.
• Closing the history pager with enter will now copy the search text
to the commandline if there was no match, so you can continue edit-
ing the command you tried to find right away (#9934
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/9934>).
• Performance improvements for command completions and globbing, where
supported by the operating system, especially on slow filesystems
such as NFS (#9891 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/9891>, #9931 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/9931>, #10032 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/10032>, #10052 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/10052>).
• fish can now be configured to wait a specified amount of time for a
multi-key sequence to be completed, instead of waiting indefinitely.
For example, this makes binding kj to switching modes in vi mode pos-
sible. The timeout can be set via the new fish_sequence_key_delay_ms
variable (#7401 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/7401>), and may be set by default in future versions.
Deprecations and removed features
• LS_COLORS is no longer set automatically by the ls function (#10080
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/10080>). Users that
set .dircolors should manually import it using other means. Typically
this would be set -gx LS_COLORS (dircolors -c .dircolors | string
split ' ')[3]
Scripting improvements
• Running exit with a negative number no longer crashes fish (#9659
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/9659>).
• fish --command will now return a non-zero status if parsing failed (-
#9888 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/9888>).
• The jobs builtin will now escape the commands it prints (#9808
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/9808>).
• string repeat no longer overflows if the count is a multiple of the
chunk size (#9900 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/9900>).
• The builtin builtin will now properly error out with invalid argu-
ments instead of doing nothing and returning true (#9942
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/9942>).
• command time in a pipeline is allowed again, as is command and and
command or (#9985 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/9985>).
• exec will now also apply variable overrides, so FOO=bar exec will now
set $FOO correctly (#9995 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/9995>).
• umask will now handle empty symbolic modes correctly, like umask
u=,g=rwx,o= (#10177 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/10177>).
• Improved error messages for errors occurring in command substitutions
(#10054 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/10054>).
Interactive improvements
• read no longer enables bracketed paste so it doesn't stay enabled in
combined commandlines like mysql -p(read --silent) (#8285
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/8285>).
• Vi mode now uses fish_cursor_external to set the cursor shape for ex-
ternal commands (#4656 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/4656>).
• Opening the history search in vi mode switches to insert mode cor-
rectly (#10141 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/10141>).
• Vi mode cursor shaping is now enabled in iTerm2 (#9698
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/9698>).
• Completing commands as root includes commands not owned by root, fix-
ing a regression introduced in fish 3.2.0 (#9699
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/9699>).
• Selection uses fish_color_selection for the foreground and background
colors, as intended, rather than just the background (#9717
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/9717>).
• The completion pager will no longer sometimes skip the last entry
when moving through a long list (#9833 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/9833>).
• The interactive history delete interface now allows specifying index
ranges like "1..5" (#9736 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/9736>), and history delete --exact now properly saves
the history (#10066 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/10066>).
• Command completion will now call the stock manpath on macOS, instead
of a potential Homebrew version. This prevents awkward error messages
(#9817 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/9817>).
• the redo special input function restores the pre-undo cursor posi-
tion.
• A new bind function history-pager-delete, bound to shift-delete by
default, will delete the currently-selected history pager item from
history (#9454 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/9454>).
• fish_key_reader will now use printable characters as-is, so pressing
"" no longer leads to it telling you to bind \u00F6 (#9986
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/9986>).
• open can be used to launch terminal programs again, as an xdg-open
bug has been fixed and a workaround has been removed (#10045
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/10045>).
• The repaint-mode binding will now only move the cursor if there is
repainting to be done. This fixes alt combination bindings in vi mode
(#7910 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/7910>).
• A new clear-screen bind function is used for ctrl-l by default. This
clears the screen and repaints the existing prompt at first, so it
eliminates visible flicker unless the terminal is very slow (#10044
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/10044>).
• The alias convenience function has better support for commands with
unusual characters, like + (#8720 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/8720>).
• A longstanding issue where items in the pager would sometimes display
without proper formatting has been fixed (#9617
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/9617>).
• The alt-l binding, which lists the directory of the token under the
cursor, correctly expands tilde (~) to the home directory (#9954
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/9954>).
• Various fish utilities that use an external pager will now try a se-
lection of common pagers if the PAGER environment variable is not
set, or write the output to the screen without a pager if there is
not one available (#10074 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/10074>).
• Command-specific tab completions may now offer results whose first
character is a period. For example, it is now possible to tab-com-
plete git add for files with leading periods. The default file com-
pletions hide these files, unless the token itself has a leading pe-
riod (#3707 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/3707>).
Improved prompts
• The default theme now only uses named colors, so it will track the
terminal's palette (#9913 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/9913>).
• The Dracula theme has now been synced with upstream (#9807
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/9807>); use
fish_config to re-apply it to pick up the changes.
• fish_vcs_prompt now also supports fossil (#9497
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/9497>).
• Prompts which display the working directory using the prompt_pwd
function correctly display directories beginning with dashes (#10169
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/10169>).
Completions
• Added completions for:
• age and age-keygen (#9813 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/9813>)
• airmon-ng (#10116 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/10116>)
• ar (#9720 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/9720>)
• blender (#9905 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/9905>)
• bws (#10165 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/10165>)
• calendar (#10138 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/10138>)
• checkinstall (#10106 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/10106>)
• crc (#10034 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/10034>)
• doctl
• gimp (#9904 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/9904>)
• gojq (#9740 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/9740>)
• horcrux (#9922 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/9922>)
• ibmcloud (#10004 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/10004>)
• iwctl (#6884 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/6884>)
• java_home (#9998 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/9998>)
• krita (#9903 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/9903>)
• oc (#10034 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/10034>)
• qjs (#9723 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/9723>)
• qjsc (#9731 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/9731>)
• rename (#10136 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/10136>)
• rpm-ostool (#9669 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/9669>)
• smerge (#10135 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/10135>)
• userdel (#10056 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/10056>)
• watchexec (#10027 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/10027>)
• wpctl (#10043 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/10043>)
• xxd (#10137 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/10137>)
• zabbix (#9647 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/9647>)
• The zfs completions no longer print errors about setting a read-only
variable (#9705 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/9705>).
• The kitty completions have been removed in favor of keeping them up-
stream (#9750 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/9750>).
• git completions now support aliases that reference other aliases (-
#9992 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/9992>).
• The gw and gradlew completions are loaded properly (#10127
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/10127>).
• Improvements to many other completions.
• Improvements to the manual page completion generator (#9787
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/9787>, #9814
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/9814>, #9961
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/9961>).
Other improvements
• Improvements and corrections to the documentation.
• The Web-based configuration now uses a more readable style when
printed, such as for a keybinding reference (#9828
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/9828>).
• Updates to the German translations (#9824 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/9824>).
• The colors of the Nord theme better match their official style (-
#10168 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/10168>).
For distributors
• The licensing information for some of the derived code distributed
with fish was incomplete. Though the license information was present
in the source distribution, it was not present in the documentation.
This has been corrected (#10162 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/10162>).
• The CMake configure step will now also look for libterminfo as an al-
ternative name for libtinfo, as used in NetBSD curses (#9794
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/9794>).
----
fish 3.6.4 (released December 5, 2023)
This release contains a complete fix for the test suite failure in fish
3.6.2 and 3.6.3.
----
fish 3.6.3 (released December 4, 2023)
This release contains a fix for a test suite failure in fish 3.6.2.
----
fish 3.6.2 (released December 4, 2023)
This release of fish contains a security fix for CVE-2023-49284, a mi-
nor security problem identified in fish 3.6.1 and previous versions
(thought to affect all released versions of fish).
fish uses certain Unicode non-characters internally for marking wild-
cards and expansions. It incorrectly allowed these markers to be read
on command substitution output, rather than transforming them into a
safe internal representation.
For example, echo \UFDD2HOME has the same output as echo $HOME.
While this may cause unexpected behavior with direct input, this may
become a minor security problem if the output is being fed from an ex-
ternal program into a command substitution where this output may not be
expected.
----
fish 3.6.1 (released March 25, 2023)
This release of fish contains a number of fixes for problems identified
in fish 3.6.1, as well as some enhancements.
Notable improvements and fixes
• abbr --erase now also erases the universal variables used by the old
abbr function. That means:
abbr --erase (abbr --list)
can now be used to clean out all old abbreviations (#9468
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/9468>).
• abbr --add --universal now warns about --universal being non-func-
tional, to make it easier to detect old-style abbr calls (#9475
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/9475>).
Deprecations and removed features
• The Web-based configuration for abbreviations has been removed, as it
was not functional with the changes abbreviations introduced in 3.6.0
(#9460 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/9460>).
Scripting improvements
• abbr --list no longer escapes the abbr name, which is necessary to be
able to pass it to abbr --erase (#9470 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/9470>).
• read will now print an error if told to set a read-only variable, in-
stead of silently doing nothing (#9346 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/9346>).
• set_color -v no longer crashes fish (#9640 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/9640>).
Interactive improvements
• Using fish_vi_key_bindings in combination with fish's --no-config
mode works without locking up the shell (#9443
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/9443>).
• The history pager now uses more screen space, usually half the screen
(#9458 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/9458>)
• Variables that were set while the locale was C (the default
ASCII-only locale) will now properly be encoded if the locale is
switched (#2613 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/2613>, #9473 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/9473>).
• Escape during history search restores the original command line again
(fixing a regression in 3.6.0).
• Using --help on builtins now respects the $MANPAGER variable, in
preference to $PAGER (#9488 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/9488>).
• ctrl-g closes the history pager, like other shells (#9484
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/9484>).
• The documentation for the :, [ and . builtin commands can now be
looked up with man (#9552 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/9552>).
• fish no longer crashes when searching history for non-ASCII code-
points case-insensitively (#9628 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/9628>).
• The alt-s binding will now also use please if available (#9635
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/9635>).
• Themes that don't specify every color option can be installed cor-
rectly in the Web-based configuration (#9590
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/9590>).
• Compatibility with Midnight Commander's prompt integration has been
improved (#9540 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/9540>).
• A spurious error, noted when using fish in Google Drive directories
under WSL 2, has been silenced (#9550 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/9550>).
• Using read in fish_greeting or similar functions will not trigger an
infinite loop (#9564 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/9564>).
• Compatibility when upgrading from old versions of fish (before 3.4.0)
has been improved (#9569 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/9569>).
Improved prompts
• The git prompt will compute the stash count to be used independently
of the informative status (#9572 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/9572>).
Completions
• Added completions for:
• apkanalyzer (#9558 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/9558>)
• neovim (#9543 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/9543>)
• otool
• pre-commit (#9521 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/9521>)
• proxychains (#9486 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/9486>)
• scrypt (#9583 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/9583>)
• stow (#9571 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/9571>)
• trash and helper utilities trash-empty, trash-list, trash-put,
trash-restore (#9560 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/9560>)
• ssh-copy-id (#9675 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/9675>)
• Improvements to many completions, including the speed of completing
directories in WSL 2 (#9574 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/9574>).
• Completions using __fish_complete_suffix are now offered in the cor-
rect order, fixing a regression in 3.6.0 (#8924
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/8924>).
• git completions for git-foo-style commands was restored, fixing a re-
gression in 3.6.0 (#9457 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/9457>).
• File completion now offers ../ and ./ again, fixing a regression in
3.6.0 (#9477 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/9477>).
• The behaviour of completions using __fish_complete_path matches stan-
dard path completions (#9285 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/9285>).
Other improvements
• Improvements and corrections to the documentation.
For distributors
• fish 3.6.1 builds correctly on Cygwin (#9502
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/9502>).
----
fish 3.6.0 (released January 7, 2023)
Notable improvements and fixes
• By default, ctrl-r now opens the command history in the pager (#602
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/602>). This is fully
searchable and syntax-highlighted, as an alternative to the incremen-
tal search seen in other shells. The new special input function his-
tory-pager has been added for custom bindings.
• Abbreviations are more flexible (#9313 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/9313>, #5003 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/5003>, #2287 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/2287>):
• They may optionally replace tokens anywhere on the command line,
instead of only commands
• Matching tokens may be described using a regular expression instead
of a literal word
• The replacement text may be produced by a fish function, instead of
a literal word
• They may position the cursor anywhere in the expansion, instead of
at the end
For example:
function multicd
echo cd (string repeat -n (math (string length -- $argv[1]) - 1) ../)
end
abbr --add dotdot --regex '^\.\.+$' --function multicd
This expands .. to cd ../, ... to cd ../../ and .... to cd ../../../
and so on.
Or:
function last_history_item; echo $history[1]; end
abbr -a !! --position anywhere --function last_history_item
which expands !! to the last history item, anywhere on the command
line, mimicking other shells' history expansion.
See the documentation for more.
• path gained a new mtime subcommand to print the modification time
stamp for files. For example, this can be used to handle cache file
ages (#9057 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/9057>):
> touch foo
> sleep 10
> path mtime --relative foo
10
• string gained a new shorten subcommand to shorten strings to a given
visible width (#9156 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/9156>):
> string shorten --max 10 "Hello this is a long string"
Hello thi
• test (aka [) gained -ot (older than) and -nt (newer than) operators
to compare file modification times, and -ef to compare whether the
arguments are the same file (#3589 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/3589>).
• fish will now mark the extent of many errors with a squiggly line,
instead of just a caret (^) at the beginning (#9130
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/9130>). For example:
checks/set.fish (line 471): for: a,b: invalid variable name. See `help identifiers`
for a,b in y 1 z 3
^~^
• A new function, fish_delta, shows changes that have been made in
fish's configuration from the defaults (#9255
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/9255>).
• set --erase can now be used with multiple scopes at once, like set
-efglU foo (#7711 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/7711>, #9280 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/9280>).
• status gained a new subcommand, current-commandline, which retrieves
the entirety of the currently-executing command line when called from
a function during execution. This allows easier job introspection (-
#8905 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/8905>, #9296
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/9296>).
Deprecations and removed features
• The \x and \X escape syntax is now equivalent. \xAB previously be-
haved the same as \XAB, except that it would error if the value "AB"
was larger than "7f" (127 in decimal, the highest ASCII value) (#9247
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/9247>, #9245
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/9245>, #1352
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/1352>).
• The fish_git_prompt will now only turn on features if the appropriate
variable has been set to a true value (of "1", "yes" or "true") in-
stead of just checking if it is defined. This allows specifically
turning features off without having to erase variables, such as via
universal variables. If you have defined a variable to a different
value and expect it to count as true, you need to change it (#9274
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/9274>). For exam-
ple, set -g __fish_git_prompt_show_informative_status 0 previously
would have enabled informative status (because any value would have
done so), but now it turns it off.
• Abbreviations are no longer stored in universal variables. Existing
universal abbreviations are still imported, but new abbreviations
should be added to config.fish.
• The short option -r for abbreviations has changed from rename to
regex, for consistency with string.
Scripting improvements
• argparse can now be used without option specifications, to allow us-
ing --min-args, --max-args or for commands that take no options (but
might in future) (#9006 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/9006>):
function my_copy
argparse --min-args 2 -- $argv
or return
cp $argv
end
• set --show now shows when a variable was inherited from fish's parent
process, which should help with debugging (#9029
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/9029>):
> set --show XDG_DATA_DIRS
$XDG_DATA_DIRS: set in global scope, exported, a path variable with 4 elements
$XDG_DATA_DIRS[1]: |/home/alfa/.local/share/flatpak/exports/share|
$XDG_DATA_DIRS[2]: |/var/lib/flatpak/exports/share|
$XDG_DATA_DIRS[3]: |/usr/local/share|
$XDG_DATA_DIRS[4]: |/usr/share|
$XDG_DATA_DIRS: originally inherited as |/home/alfa/.local/share/flatpak/exports/share:/var/lib/flatpak/exports/share:/usr/local/share/:/usr/share/|
• The read limit is now restored to the default when fish_read_limit is
unset (#9129 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/9129>).
• math produces an error for division-by-zero, as well as augmenting
some errors with their extent (#9190 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/9190>). This changes behavior in some limited
cases, such as:
math min 1 / 0, 5
which would previously print "5" (because in floating point division
"1 / 0" yields infinite, and 5 is smaller than infinite) but will now
return an error.
• fish_clipboard_copy and fish_clipboard_paste can now be used in pipes
(#9271 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/9271>):
git rev-list 3.5.1 | fish_clipboard_copy
fish_clipboard_paste | string join + | math
• status fish-path returns a fully-normalised path, particularly no-
ticeable on NetBSD (#9085 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/9085>).
Interactive improvements
• If the terminal definition for TERM can't be found, fish now tries
using the "xterm-256color" and "xterm" definitions before "ansi" and
"dumb". As the majority of terminal emulators in common use are now
more or less xterm-compatible (often even explicitly claiming the
xterm-256color entry), this should often result in a fully or almost
fully usable terminal (#9026 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/9026>).
• A new variable, fish_cursor_selection_mode, can be used to configure
whether the command line selection includes the character under the
cursor (inclusive) or not (exclusive). The new default is exclusive;
use set fish_cursor_selection_mode inclusive to get the previous be-
havior back (#7762 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/7762>).
• fish's completion pager now fills half the terminal on first tab
press instead of only 4 rows, which should make results visible more
often and save key presses, without constantly snapping fish to the
top of the terminal (#9105 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/9105>, #2698 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/2698>).
• The complete-and-search binding, used with shift-tab by default, se-
lects the first item in the results immediately (#9080
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/9080>).
• bind output is now syntax-highlighted when used interactively.
• alt-h (the default __fish_man_page binding) does a better job of
showing the manual page of the command under cursor (#9020
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/9020>).
• If fish_color_valid_path contains an actual color instead of just
modifiers, those will be used for valid paths even if the underlying
color isn't "normal" (#9159 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/9159>).
• The key combination for the QUIT terminal sequence, often ctrl-\
(\x1c), can now be used as a binding (#9234 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/9234>).
• fish's vi mode uses normal xterm-style sequences to signal cursor
change, instead of using the iTerm's proprietary escape sequences.
This allows for a blinking cursor and makes it work in complicated
scenarios with nested terminals. (#3741 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/3741>, #9172 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/9172>)
• When running fish on a remote system (such as inside SSH or a con-
tainer), ctrl-x now copies to the local client system's clipboard if
the terminal supports OSC 52.
• commandline gained two new options, --selection-start and --selec-
tion-end, to set the start/end of the current selection (#9197
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/9197>, #9215
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/9215>).
• fish's builtins now handle keyboard interrupts (ctrl-c) correctly (-
#9266 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/9266>).
Completions
• Added completions for:
• ark
• asciinema (#9257 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/9257>)
• clojure (#9272 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/9272>)
• csh
• direnv (#9268 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/9268>)
• dive (#9082 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/9082>)
• dolphin
• dua (#9277 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/9277>)
• efivar (#9318 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/9318>)
• eg
• es (#9388 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/9388>)
• firefox-developer-edition and firefox (#9090
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/9090>)
• fortune (#9177 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/9177>)
• kb
• kind (#9110 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/9110>)
• konsole
• ksh
• loadkeys (#9312 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/9312>)
• okular
• op (#9300 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/9300>)
• ouch (#9405 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/9405>)
• pix
• readelf (#8746 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/8746>, #9386 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/9386>)
• qshell
• rc
• sad (#9145 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/9145>)
• tcsh
• toot
• tox (#9078 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/9078>)
• wish
• xed
• xonsh (#9389 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/9389>)
• xplayer
• xreader
• xviewer
• yash (#9391 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/9391>)
• zig (#9083 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/9083>)
• Improvements to many completions, including making cd completion much
faster (#9220 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/9220>).
• Completion of tilde (~) works properly even when the file name con-
tains an escaped character (#9073 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/9073>).
• fish no longer loads completions if the command is used via a rela-
tive path and is not in PATH (#9133 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/9133>).
• fish no longer completes inside of comments (#9320
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/9320>).
Improved terminal support
• Opening help on WSL now uses PowerShell to open the browser if avail-
able, removing some awkward UNC path errors (#9119
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/9119>).
Other improvements
• The Web-based configuration tool now works on systems with IPv6 dis-
abled (#3857 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/3857>).
• Aliases can ignore arguments by ending them with # (#9199
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/9199>).
• string is now faster when reading large strings from stdin (#9139
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/9139>).
• string repeat uses less memory and is faster. (#9124
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/9124>)
• Builtins are much faster when writing to a pipe or file. (#9229
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/9229>).
• Performance improvements to highlighting (#9180
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/9180>) should make
using fish more pleasant on slow systems.
• On 32-bit systems, globs like * will no longer fail to return some
files, as large file support has been enabled.
Fixed bugs
• The history search text for a token search is now highlighted cor-
rectly if the line contains multiple instances of that text (#9066
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/9066>).
• process-exit and job-exit events are now generated for all background
jobs, including those launched from event handlers (#9096
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/9096>).
• A crash when completing a token that contained both a potential glob
and a quoted variable expansion was fixed (#9137
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/9137>).
• prompt_pwd no longer accidentally overwrites a global or universal
$fish_prompt_pwd_full_dirs when called with the -d or
--full-length-dirs option (#9123 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/9123>).
• A bug which caused fish to freeze or exit after running a command
which does not preserve the foreground process group was fixed (#9181
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/9181>).
• The "Disco" sample prompt no longer prints an error in some working
directories (#9164 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/9164>). If you saved this prompt, you should run fish_config
prompt save disco again.
• fish launches external commands via the given path again, rather than
always using an absolute path. This behaviour was inadvertently
changed in 3.5.0 and is visible, for example, when launching a bash
script which checks $0 (#9143 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/9143>).
• printf no longer tries to interpret the first argument as an option
(#9132 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/9132>).
• Interactive read in scripts will now have the correct keybindings
again (#9227 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/9227>).
• A possible stack overflow when recursively evaluating substitutions
has been fixed (#9302 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/9302>).
• A crash with relative $CDPATH has been fixed (#9407
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/9407>).
• printf now properly fills extra %d specifiers with 0 even on macOS
and BSD (#9321 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/9321>).
• fish_key_reader now correctly exits when receiving a SIGHUP (like af-
ter closing the terminal) (#9309 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/9309>).
• fish_config theme save now works as documented instead of erroring
out (#9088 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/9088>,
#9273 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/9273>).
• fish no longer triggers prompts to install command line tools when
first run on macOS (#9343 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/9343>).
• fish_git_prompt now quietly fails on macOS if the xcrun cache is not
yet populated (#6625 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/6625>), working around a potential hang.
For distributors
• The vendored PCRE2 sources have been removed. It is recommended to
declare PCRE2 as a dependency when packaging fish. If the CMake vari-
able FISH_USE_SYSTEM_PCRE2 is false, fish will now download and build
PCRE2 from the official repo (#8355 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/8355>, #8363 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/8363>). Note this variable defaults to true
if PCRE2 is found installed on the system.
----
fish 3.5.1 (released July 20, 2022)
This release of fish introduces the following small enhancements:
• Cursor shaping for Vi mode is enabled by default in tmux, and will be
used if the outer terminal is capable (#8981
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/8981>).
• printf returns a better error when used with arguments interpreted as
octal numbers (#9035 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/9035>).
• history merge when in private mode is now an error, rather than wip-
ing out other sessions' history (#9050 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/9050>).
• The error message when launching a command that is built for the
wrong architecture on macOS is more helpful (#9052
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/9052>).
• Added completions for:
• choose (#9065 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/9065>)
• expect (#9060 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/9060>)
• navi (#9064 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/9064>)
• qdbus (#9031 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/9031>)
• reflector (#9027 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/9027>)
• Improvements to some completions.
This release also fixes a number of problems identified in fish 3.5.0.
• Completing git blame or git -C works correctly (#9053
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/9053>).
• On terminals that emit a CSI u sequence for shift-space, fish inserts
a space instead of printing an error. (#9054
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/9054>).
• status fish-path on Linux-based platforms could print the path with a
" (deleted)" suffix (such as /usr/bin/fish (deleted)), which is now
removed (#9019 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/9019>).
• Cancelling an initial command (from fish's --init-command option)
with ctrl-c no longer prevents configuration scripts from running (-
#9024 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/9024>).
• The job summary contained extra blank lines if the prompt used multi-
ple lines, which is now fixed (#9044 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/9044>).
• Using special input functions in bindings, in combination with and/or
conditionals, no longer crashes (#9051 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/9051>).
----
fish 3.5.0 (released June 16, 2022)
Notable improvements and fixes
• A new path builtin command to filter and transform paths (#7659
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/7659>, #8958
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/8958>). For example,
to list all the separate extensions used on files in /usr/share/man
(after removing one extension, commonly a ".gz"):
path filter -f /usr/share/man/** | path change-extension '' | path extension | path sort -u
• Tab (or any key bound to complete) now expands wildcards instead of
invoking completions, if there is a wildcard in the path component
under the cursor (#954 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/954>, #8593 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/8593>).
• Scripts can now catch and handle the SIGINT and SIGTERM signals, ei-
ther via function --on-signal or with trap (#6649
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/6649>).
Deprecations and removed features
• The stderr-nocaret feature flag, introduced in fish 3.0 and enabled
by default in fish 3.1, has been made read-only. That means it is no
longer possible to disable it, and code supporting the ^ redirection
has been removed (#8857 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/8857>, #8865 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/8865>).
To recap: fish used to support ^ to redirect stderr, so you could use
commands like:
test "$foo" -gt 8 ^/dev/null
to ignore error messages. This made the ^ symbol require escaping and
quoting, and was a bit of a weird shortcut considering 2> already
worked, which is only one character longer.
So the above can simply become:
test "$foo" -gt 8 2>/dev/null
• The following feature flags have been enabled by default:
• regex-easyesc, which makes string replace -r not do a superfluous
round of unescaping in the replacement expression. That means e.g.
to escape any "a" or "b" in an argument you can use string replace
-ra '([ab])' '\\\\$1' foobar instead of needing 8 backslashes.
This only affects the replacement expression, not the match expres-
sion (the '([ab])' part in the example). A survey of plugins on
GitHub did not turn up any affected code, so we do not expect this
to affect many users.
This flag was introduced in fish 3.1.
• ampersand-nobg-in-token, which means that & will not create a back-
ground job if it occurs in the middle of a word. For example, echo
foo&bar will print "foo&bar" instead of running echo foo in the
background and then starting bar as a second job.
Reformatting with fish_indent would already introduce spaces, turn-
ing echo foo&bar into echo foo & bar.
This flag was introduced in fish 3.4.
To turn off these flags, add no-regex-easyesc or no-amper-
sand-nobg-in-token to fish_features and restart fish:
set -Ua fish_features no-regex-easyesc
Like stderr-nocaret, they will eventually be made read-only.
• Most string subcommands no longer append a newline to their input if
the input didn't have one (#8473 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/8473>, #3847 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/3847>)
• Fish's escape sequence removal (like for string length --visible or
to figure out how wide the prompt is) no longer has special support
for non-standard color sequences like from Data General terminals,
e.g. the Data General Dasher D220 from 1984. This removes a bunch of
work in the common case, allowing string length --visible to be much
faster with unknown escape sequences. We don't expect anyone to have
ever used fish with such a terminal (#8769 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/8769>).
• Code to upgrade universal variables from fish before 3.0 has been re-
moved. Users who upgrade directly from fish versions 2.7.1 or before
will have to set their universal variables & abbreviations again. (-
#8781 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/8781>)
• The meaning of an empty color variable has changed (#8793
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/8793>). Previously,
when a variable was set but empty, it would be interpreted as the
"normal" color. Now, empty color variables cause the same effect as
unset variables - the general highlighting variable for that type is
used instead. For example:
set -g fish_color_command blue
set -g fish_color_keyword
would previously make keywords "normal" (usually white in a dark ter-
minal). Now it'll make them blue. To achieve the previous behavior,
use the normal color explicitly: set -g fish_color_keyword normal.
This makes it easier to make self-contained color schemes that don't
accidentally use color that was set before. fish_config has been ad-
justed to set known color variables that a theme doesn't explicitly
set to empty.
• eval is now a reserved keyword, so it can't be used as a function
name. This follows set and read, and is necessary because it can't be
cleanly shadowed by a function - at the very least eval set -l argv
foo breaks. Fish will ignore autoload files for it, so left over
eval.fish from previous fish versions won't be loaded.
• The git prompt in informative mode now defaults to skipping counting
untracked files, as this was extremely slow. To turn it on, set
__fish_git_prompt_showuntrackedfiles or set the git config value
"bash.showuntrackedfiles" to true explicitly (which can be done for
individual repositories). The "informative+vcs" sample prompt already
skipped display of untracked files, but didn't do so in a way that
skipped the computation, so it should be quite a bit faster in many
cases (#8980 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/8980>).
• The __terlar_git_prompt function, used by the "Terlar" sample prompt,
has been rebuilt as a configuration of the normal fish_git_prompt to
ease maintenance, improve performance and add features (like reading
per-repo git configuration). Some slight changes remain; users who
absolutely must have the same behavior are encouraged to copy the old
function (#9011 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/9011>, #7918 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/7918>, #8979 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/8979>).
Scripting improvements
• Quoted command substitution that directly follow a variable expansion
(like echo "$var$(echo x)") no longer affect the variable expansion
(#8849 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/8849>).
• Fish now correctly expands command substitutions that are preceded by
an escaped dollar (like echo \$(echo)). This regressed in version
3.4.0.
• math can now handle underscores (_) as visual separators in numbers
(#8611 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/8611>, #8496
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/8496>):
math 5 + 2_123_252
• math's min and max functions now take a variable number of arguments
instead of always requiring 2 (#8644 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/8644>, #8646 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/8646>):
> math min 8,2,4
2
• read is now faster as the last process in a pipeline (#8552
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/8552>).
• string join gained a new --no-empty flag to skip empty arguments (-
#8774 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/8774>, #8351
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/8351>).
• read now only triggers the fish_read event, not the fish_prompt event
(#8797 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/8797>). It
was supposed to work this way in fish 3.2.0 and later, but both
events were emitted.
• The TTY modes are no longer restored when non-interactive shells
exit. This fixes wrong tty modes in pipelines with interactive com-
mands. (#8705 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/8705>).
• Some functions shipped with fish printed error messages to standard
output, but they now they rightly go to standard error (#8855
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/8855>).
• jobs now correctly reports CPU usage as a percentage, instead of as a
number of clock ticks (#8919 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/8919>).
• process-exit events now fire when the process exits even if the job
has not yet exited, fixing a regression in 3.4.1 (#8914
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/8914>).
Interactive improvements
• Fish now reports a special error if a command wasn't found and there
is a non-executable file by that name in PATH (#8804
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/8804>).
• less and other interactive commands would occasionally be stopped
when run in a pipeline with fish functions; this has been fixed (-
#8699 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/8699>).
• Case-changing autosuggestions generated mid-token now correctly ap-
pend only the suffix, instead of duplicating the token (#8820
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/8820>).
• ulimit learned a number of new options for the resource limits avail-
able on Linux, FreeBSD ande NetBSD, and returns a specific warning if
the limit specified is not available on the active operating system
(#8823 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/8823>, #8786
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/8786>).
• The vared command can now successfully edit variables named "tmp" or
"prompt" (#8836 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/8836>, #8837 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/8837>).
• time now emits an error if used after the first command in a pipeline
(#8841 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/8841>).
• fish_add_path now prints a message for skipped non-existent paths
when using the -v flag (#8884 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/8884>).
• Since fish 3.2.0, pressing ctrl-d while a command is running would
end up inserting a space into the next commandline, which has been
fixed (#8871 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/8871>).
• A bug that caused multi-line prompts to be moved down a line when
pasting or switching modes has been fixed (#3481
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/3481>).
• The Web-based configuration system no longer strips too many quotes
in the abbreviation display (#8917 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/8917>, #8918 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/8918>).
• Fish started with --no-config will now use the default keybindings (-
#8493 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/8493>)
• When fish inherits a USER environment variable value that doesn't
correspond to the current effective user ID, it will now correct it
in all cases (#8879 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/8879>, #8583 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/8583>).
• Fish sets a new EUID variable containing the current effective user
id (#8866 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/8866>).
• history search no longer interprets the search term as an option (-
#8853 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/8853>)
• The status message when a job terminates should no longer be erased
by a multiline prompt (#8817 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/8817>)
New or improved bindings
• The alt-s binding will now insert doas instead of sudo if necessary
(#8942 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/8942>).
• The kill-whole-line special input function now kills the newline pre-
ceding the last line. This makes dd in vi-mode clear the last line
properly.
• The new kill-inner-line special input function kills the line without
any newlines, allowing cc in vi-mode to clear the line while preserv-
ing newlines (#8983 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/8983>).
• On terminals that emit special sequences for these combinations,
shift-space is bound like space, and ctrl-enter is bound like return
(#8874 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/8874>).
Improved prompts
• A new Astronaut prompt (#8775 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/8775>), a multi-line prompt using plain text reminiscent
of the Starship.rs prompt.
Completions
• Added completions for:
• archlinux-java (#8911 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/8911>)
• apk (#8951 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/8951>)
• brightnessctl (#8758 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/8758>)
• efibootmgr (#9010 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/9010>)
• fastboot (#8904 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/8904>)
• optimus-manager (#8913 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/8913>)
• rclone (#8819 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/8819>)
• sops (#8821 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/8821>)
• tuned-adm (#8760 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/8760>)
• wg-quick (#8687 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/8687>)
• complete can now be given multiple --condition options. They will be
attempted in the order they were given, and only if all succeed will
the completion be made available (as if they were connected with &&).
This helps with caching - fish's complete system stores the return
value of each condition as long as the commandline doesn't change, so
this can reduce the number of conditions that need to be evaluated (-
#8536 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/8536>, #8967
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/8967>).
Improved terminal support
• Working directory reporting is enabled for kitty (#8806
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/8806>).
• Changing the cursor shape is now enabled by default in iTerm2 (#3696
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/3696>).
For distributors
• libatomic is now correctly detected as necessary when building on
RISC-V (#8850 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/8850>,
#8851 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/8851>).
• In some cases, the build process found the wrong libintl on macOS.
This has been corrected (#5244 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/5244>).
• The paths for completions, functions, and configuration snippets now
include subdirectories fish/vendor_completions.d, fish/vendor_func-
tions.d, and fish/vendor_conf.d (respectively) within XDG_DATA_HOME
(or ~/.local/share if not defined) (#8887 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/8887>, #7816 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/7816>).
----
fish 3.4.1 (released March 25, 2022)
This release of fish fixes the following problems identified in fish
3.4.0:
• An error printed after upgrading, where old instances could pick up a
newer version of the fish_title function, has been fixed (#8778
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/8778>)
• fish builds correctly on NetBSD (#8788 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/8788>) and OpenIndiana (#8780
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/8780>).
• nextd-or-forward-word, bound to alt-right by default, was inadver-
tently changed to move like forward-bigword. This has been corrected
(#8790 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/8790>).
• funcsave -q and funcsave --quiet now work correctly (#8830
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/8830>).
• Issues with the csharp and nmcli completions were corrected.
If you are upgrading from version 3.3.1 or before, please also review
the release notes for 3.4.0 (included below).
----
fish 3.4.0 (released March 12, 2022)
Notable improvements and fixes
• fish's command substitution syntax has been extended: $(cmd) now has
the same meaning as (cmd) but it can be used inside double quotes, to
prevent line splitting of the results (#159 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/159>):
foo (bar | string collect)
# can now be written as
foo "$(bar)"
# and
foo (bar)
# can now be written as
foo $(bar)
# this will still split on newlines only.
• Complementing the prompt command in 3.3.0, fish_config gained a theme
subcommand to show and pick from the sample themes (meaning color
schemes) directly in the terminal, instead of having to open a Web
browser. For example fish_config theme choose Nord loads the Nord
theme in the current session (#8132 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/8132>). The current theme can be saved with
fish_config theme dump, and custom themes can be added by saving them
in ~/.config/fish/themes/.
• set and read learned a new option, --function, to set a variable in
the function's top scope. This should be a more familiar way of scop-
ing variables and avoids issues with --local, which is actually
block-scoped (#565 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/565>, #8145 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/8145>):
function demonstration
if true
set --function foo bar
set --local baz banana
end
echo $foo # prints "bar" because $foo is still valid
echo $baz # prints nothing because $baz went out of scope
end
• string pad now excludes escape sequences like colors that fish knows
about, and a new --visible flag to string length makes it use that
kind of visible width. This is useful to get the number of terminal
cells an already colored string would occupy, like in a prompt. (-
#8182 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/8182>, #7784
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/7784>, #4012
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/4012>):
> string length --visible (set_color red)foo
3
• Performance improvements to globbing, especially on systems using
glibc. In some cases (large directories with files with many numbers
in the names) this almost halves the time taken to expand the glob.
• Autosuggestions can now be turned off by setting $fish_autosugges-
tion_enabled to 0, and (almost) all highlighting can be turned off by
choosing the new "None" theme. The exception is necessary colors,
like those which distinguish autosuggestions from the actual command
line. (#8376 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/8376>)
• The fish_git_prompt function, which is included in the default
prompts, now overrides git to avoid running commands set by
per-repository configuration. This avoids a potential security issue
in some circumstances, and has been assigned CVE-2022-20001 (#8589
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/8589>).
Deprecations and removed features
• A new feature flag, ampersand-nobg-in-token makes & only act as back-
ground operator if followed by a separator. In combination with
qmark-noglob, this allows entering most URLs at the command line
without quoting or escaping (#7991 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/7991>). For example:
> echo foo&bar # will print "foo&bar", instead of running "echo foo" in the background and executing "bar"
> echo foo & bar # will still run "echo foo" in the background and then run "bar"
# with both ampersand-nobg-in-token and qmark-noglob, this argument has no special characters anymore
> open https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ&feature=youtu.be
As a reminder, feature flags can be set on startup with fish --fea-
tures ampersand-nobg-in-token,qmark-noglob or with a universal vari-
able called fish_features:
> set -Ua fish_features ampersand-nobg-in-token
• $status is now forbidden as a command, to prevent a surprisingly com-
mon error among new users: Running if $status (#8171
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/8171>). This applies
only to $status, other variables are still allowed.
• set --query now returns an exit status of 255 if given no variable
names. This means if set -q $foo will not enter the if-block if $foo
is empty or unset. To restore the previous behavior, use if not set
-q foo; or set -q $foo - but this is unlikely to be desirable (#8214
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/8214>).
• _ is now a reserved keyword (#8342 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/8342>).
• The special input functions delete-or-exit, nextd-or-forward-word and
prevd-or-backward-word replace fish functions of the same names (-
#8538 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/8538>).
• Mac OS X 10.9 is no longer supported. The minimum Mac version is now
10.10 "Yosemite."
Scripting improvements
• string collect supports a new --allow-empty option, which will output
one empty argument in a command substitution that has no output (-
#8054 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/8054>). This
allows commands like test -n (echo -n | string collect --allow-empty)
to work more reliably. Note this can also be written as test -n
"$(echo -n)" (see above).
• string match gained a --groups-only option, which makes it only out-
put capturing groups, excluding the full match. This allows string
match to do simple transformations (#6056 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/6056>):
> string match -r --groups-only '(.*)fish' 'catfish' 'twofish' 'blue fish' | string escape
cat
two
'blue '
• $fish_user_paths is now automatically deduplicated to fix a common
user error of appending to it in config.fish when it is universal (-
#8117 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/8117>).
fish_add_path remains the recommended way to add to $PATH.
• return can now be used outside functions. In scripts, it does the
same thing as exit. In interactive mode,it sets $status without exit-
ing (#8148 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/8148>).
• An oversight prevented all syntax checks from running on commands
given to fish -c (#8171 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/8171>). This includes checks such as exec not being allowed in a
pipeline, and $$ not being a valid variable. Generally, another error
was generated anyway.
• fish_indent now correctly reformats tokens that end with a backslash
followed by a newline (#8197 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/8197>).
• commandline gained an --is-valid option to check if the command line
is syntactically valid and complete. This allows basic implementation
of transient prompts (#8142 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/8142>).
• commandline gained a --paging-full-mode option to check if the pager
is showing all the possible lines (no "7 more rows" message) (#8485
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/8485>).
• List expansion correctly reports an error when used with all zero in-
dexes (#8213 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/8213>).
• Running fish with a directory instead of a script as argument (eg
fish .) no longer leads to an infinite loop. Instead it errors out
immediately (#8258 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/8258>)
• Some error messages occurring after fork, like "text file busy" have
been replaced by bespoke error messages for fish (like "File is cur-
rently open for writing"). This also restores error messages with
current glibc versions that removed sys_errlist (#8234
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/8234>, #4183
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/4183>).
• The realpath builtin now also squashes leading slashes with the
--no-symlinks option (#8281 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/8281>).
• When trying to cd to a dangling (broken) symbolic link, fish will
print an error noting that the target is a broken link (#8264
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/8264>).
• On MacOS terminals that are not granted permissions to access a
folder, cd would print a spurious "rotten symlink" error, which has
been corrected to "permission denied" (#8264
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/8264>).
• Since fish 3.0, for loops would trigger a variable handler function
before the loop was entered. As the variable had not actually changed
or been set, this was a spurious event and has been removed (#8384
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/8384>).
• math now correctly prints negative values and values larger than
2**31 when in hex or octal bases (#8417 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/8417>).
• dirs always produces an exit status of 0, instead of sometimes re-
turning 1 (#8211 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/8211>).
• cd "" no longer crashes fish (#8147 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/8147>).
• set --query can now query whether a variable is a path variable via
--path or --unpath (#8494 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/8494>).
• Tilde characters (~) produced by custom completions are no longer es-
caped when applied to the command line, making it easier to use the
output of a recursive complete -C in completion scripts (#4570
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/4570>).
• set --show reports when a variable is read-only (#8179
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/8179>).
• Erasing $fish_emoji_width will reset fish to the default guessed
emoji width (#8274 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/8274>).
• The la function no longer lists entries for "." and "..", matching
other systems defaults (#8519 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/8519>).
• abbr -q returns the correct exit status when given multiple abbrevia-
tion names as arguments (#8431 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/8431>).
• command -v returns an exit status of 127 instead of 1 if no command
was found (#8547 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/8547>).
• argparse with --ignore-unknown no longer breaks with multiple unknown
options in a short option group (#8637 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/8637>).
• Comments inside command substitutions or brackets now correctly ig-
nore parentheses, quotes, and brackets (#7866
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/7866>, #8022
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/8022>, #8695
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/8695>).
• complete -C supports a new --escape option, which turns on escaping
in returned completion strings (#3469 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/3469>).
• Invalid byte or unicode escapes like \Utest or \xNotHex are now a to-
kenizer error instead of causing the token to be truncated (#8545
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/8545>).
Interactive improvements
• Vi mode cursors are now set properly after ctrl-c (#8125
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/8125>).
• funced will try to edit the whole file containing a function defini-
tion, if there is one (#391 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/391>).
• Running a command line consisting of just spaces now deletes an
ephemeral (starting with space) history item again (#8232
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/8232>).
• Command substitutions no longer respect job control, instead running
inside fish's own process group (#8172 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/8172>). This more closely matches other
shells, and improves ctrl-c reliability inside a command substitu-
tion.
• history and __fish_print_help now properly support less before ver-
sion 530, including the version that ships with macOS. (#8157
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/8157>).
• help now knows which section is in which document again (#8245
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/8245>).
• fish's highlighter will now color options (starting with - or --)
with the color given in the new $fish_color_option, up to the first
--. It falls back on $fish_color_param, so nothing changes for exist-
ing setups (#8292 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/8292>).
• When executing a command, abbreviations are no longer expanded when
the cursor is separated from the command by spaces, making it easier
to suppress abbreviation expansion of commands without arguments. (-
#8423 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/8423>).
• fish_key_reader's output was simplified. By default, it now only
prints a bind statement. The previous per-character timing informa-
tion can be seen with a new --verbose switch (#8467
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/8467>).
• Custom completions are now also loaded for commands that contain
tildes or variables like ~/bin/fish or $PWD/fish (#8442
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/8442>).
• Command lines spanning multiple lines will not be overwritten by the
completion pager when it fills the entire terminal (#8509
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/8509>, #8405
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/8405>).
• When redrawing a multiline prompt, the old prompt is now properly
cleared (#8163 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/8163>).
• Interactive completion would occasionally ignore the last word on the
command line due to a race condition. This has been fixed (#8175
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/8175>).
• Propagation of universal variables from a fish process that is clos-
ing is faster (#8209 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/8209>).
• The command line is drawn in the correct place if the prompt ends
with a newline (#8298 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/8298>).
• history learned a new subcommand clear-session to erase all history
from the current session (#5791 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/5791>).
• Pressing ctrl-c in fish_key_reader will no longer print the incorrect
"Press [ctrl-C] again to exit" message (#8510
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/8510>).
• The default command-not-found handler for Fedora/PackageKit now
passes the whole command line, allowing for functionality such as
running the suggested command directly (#8579
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/8579>).
• When looking for locale information, the Debian configuration is now
used when available (#8557 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/8557>).
• Pasting text containing quotes from the clipboard trims spaces more
appropriately (#8550 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/8550>).
• The clipboard bindings ignore X-based clipboard programs if the DIS-
PLAY environment variable is not set, which helps prefer the Windows
clipboard when it is available (such as on WSL).
• funcsave will remove a saved copy of a function that has been erased
with functions --erase.
• The Web-based configuration tool gained a number of improvements, in-
cluding the ability to set pager colors.
• The default fish_title prints a shorter title with shortened $PWD and
no more redundant "fish" (#8641 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/8641>).
• Holding down an arrow key won't freeze the terminal with long periods
of flashing (#8610 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/8610>).
• Multi-char bindings are no longer interrupted if a signal handler en-
queues an event. (#8628 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/8628>).
New or improved bindings
• escape can now bound without breaking arrow key bindings (#8428
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/8428>).
• The alt-h binding (to open a commands manual page) now also ignores
command (#8447 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/8447>).
Improved prompts
• The fish_status_to_signal helper function returns the correct signal
names for the current platform, rather than Linux (#8530
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/8530>).
• The prompt_pwd helper function learned a --full-length-dirs N option
to keep the last N directory components unshortened. In addition the
number of characters to shorten each component should be shortened to
can now be given as -d N or --dir-length N. (#8208
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/8208>):
> prompt_pwd --full-length-dirs 2 -d 1 ~/dev/fish-shell/share/tools/web_config
~/d/f/s/tools/web_config
Completions
• Added completions for:
• Apple's shortcuts
• argparse (#8434 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/8434>)
• asd (#8759 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/8759>)
• az (#8141 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/8141>)
• black (#8123 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/8123>)
• clasp (#8373 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/8373>)
• cpupower (#8302 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/8302>)
• dart (#8315 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/8315>)
• dscacheutil
• elvish (#8416 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/8416>)
• ethtool (#8283 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/8283>)
• exif (#8246 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/8246>)
• findstr (#8481 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/8481>)
• git-sizer (#8156 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/8156>)
• gnome-extensions (#8732 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/8732>)
• gping (#8181 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/8181>)
• isatty (#8609 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/8609>)
• istioctl (#8343 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/8343>)
• kmutil
• kubectl (#8734 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/8734>)
• matlab (#8505 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/8505>)
• mono (#8415 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/8415>)
and related tools csharp, gacutil, gendarme, ikdasm, ilasm, mkbun-
dle, monodis, monop, sqlsharp and xsp (#8452
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/8452>)
• Angular's ng (#8111 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/8111>)
• nodeenv (#8533 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/8533>)
• octave (#8505 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/8505>)
• pabcnet_clear (#8421 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/8421>)
• qmk (#8180 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/8180>)
• rakudo (#8113 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/8113>)
• rc-status (#8757 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/8757>)
• roswell (#8330 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/8330>)
• sbcl (#8330 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/8330>)
• starship (#8520 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/8520>)
• topgrade (#8651 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/8651>)
• wine, wineboot and winemaker (#8411 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/8411>)
• Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL)'s wslpath (#8364
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/8364>)
• Windows' color (#8483 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/8483>), attrib, attributes, choice, clean, cleanmgr, cmd, cmd-
key, comp, forfiles, powershell, reg, schtasks, setx (#8486
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/8486>)
• zef (#8114 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/8114>)
• Improvements to many completions, especially for git aliases (#8129
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/8129>), subcommands
(#8134 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/8134>) and
submodules (#8716 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/8716>).
• Many adjustments to complete correct options for system utilities on
BSD and macOS.
• When evaluating custom completions, the command line state no longer
includes variable overrides (var=val). This unbreaks completions that
read commandline -op.
Improved terminal support
• Dynamic terminal titles are enabled on WezTerm (#8121
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/8121>).
• Directory history navigation works out of the box with Apple Termi-
nal's default key settings (#2330 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/2330>).
• fish now assumes Unicode 9+ widths for emoji under iTerm 2 (#8200
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/8200>).
• Skin-tone emoji modifiers (U+1F3FB through U+1F3FF) are now measured
as width 0 (#8275 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/8275>).
• fish's escape sequence removal now also knows Tmux's wrapped escapes.
• Vi mode cursors are enabled in Apple Terminal.app (#8167
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/8167>).
• Vi cursor shaping and $PWD reporting is now also enabled on foot (-
#8422 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/8422>).
• ls will use colors also on newer versions of Apple Terminal.app (-
#8309 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/8309>).
• The delete and shift-tab keys work more reliably under st (#8352
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/8352>, #8354
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/8354>).
Other improvements
• Fish's test suite now uses ctest, and has become much faster to run.
It is now also possible to run only specific tests with targets named
test_$filename - make test_set.fish only runs the set.fish test. (-
#7851 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/7851>)
• The HTML version of the documentation now includes copy buttons for
code examples (#8218 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/8218>).
• The HTML version of the documentation and the web-based configuration
tool now pick more modern system fonts instead of falling back to Ar-
ial and something like Courier New most of the time (#8632
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/8632>).
• The Debian & Ubuntu package linked from fishshell.com is now a single
package, rather than split into fish and fish-common (#7845
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/7845>).
• The macOS installer does not assert that Rosetta is required to in-
stall fish on machines with Apple Silicon (#8566
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/8566>).
• The macOS installer now cleans up previous .pkg installations when
upgrading. (#2963 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/2963>).
For distributors
• The minimum version of CMake required to build fish is now 3.5.0.
• The CMake installation supports absolute paths for CMAKE_IN-
STALL_DATADIR (#8150 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/8150>).
• Building using NetBSD curses works on any platform (#8087
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/8087>).
• The build system now uses the default linker instead of forcing use
of the gold or lld linker (#8152 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/8152>).
----
fish 3.3.1 (released July 6, 2021)
This release of fish fixes the following problems identified in fish
3.3.0:
• The prompt and command line are redrawn correctly in response to uni-
versal variable changes (#8088 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/8088>).
• A superfluous error that was produced when setting the PATH or CDPATH
environment variables to include colon-delimited components that do
not exist was removed (#8095 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/8095>).
• The Vi mode indicator in the prompt is repainted correctly after
ctrl-c cancels the current command (#8103 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/8103>).
• fish builds correctly on platforms that do not have a spawn.h header,
such as old versions of OS X (#8097 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/8097>).
A number of improvements to the documentation, and fixes for comple-
tions, are included as well.
If you are upgrading from version 3.2.2 or before, please also review
the release notes for 3.3.0 (included below).
----
fish 3.3.0 (released June 28, 2021)
Notable improvements and fixes
• fish_config gained a prompt subcommand to show and pick from the sam-
ple prompts directly in the terminal, instead of having to open a
webbrowser. For example fish_config prompt choose default loads the
default prompt in the current session (#7958
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/7958>).
• The documentation has been reorganized to be easier to understand (-
#7773 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/7773>).
Deprecations and removed features
• The $fish_history value "default" is no longer special. It used to be
treated the same as "fish" (#7650 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/7650>).
• Redirection to standard error with the ^ character has been disabled
by default. It can be turned back on using the stderr-nocaret feature
flag, but will eventually be disabled completely (#7105
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/7105>).
• Specifying an initial tab to fish_config now only works with
fish_config browse (eg fish_config browse variables), otherwise it
would interfere with the new prompt subcommand (see below) (#7958
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/7958>).
Scripting improvements
• math gained new functions log2 (like the documentation claimed), max
and min (#7856 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/7856>). math functions can be used without the parentheses (eg
math sin 2 + 6), and functions have the lowest precedence in the or-
der of operations (#7877 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/7877>).
• Shebang (#!) lines are no longer required within shell scripts, im-
proving support for scripts with concatenated binary contents. If a
file fails to execute and passes a (rudimentary) binary safety check,
fish will re-invoke it using /bin/sh (#7802 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/7802>).
• Exit codes are better aligned with bash. A failed execution now re-
ports $status of 127 if the file is not found, and 126 if it is not
executable.
• echo no longer writes its output one byte at a time, improving per-
formance and allowing use with Linux's special API files (/proc, /sys
and such) (#7836 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/7836>).
• fish should now better handle cd on filesystems with broken stat(3)
responses (#7577 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/7577>).
• Builtins now properly report a $status of 1 upon unsuccessful writes
(#7857 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/7857>).
• string match with unmatched capture groups and without the --all flag
now sets an empty variable instead of a variable containing the empty
string. It also correctly imports the first match if multiple argu-
ments are provided, matching the documentation. (#7938
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/7938>).
• fish produces more specific errors when a command in a command sub-
stitution wasn't found or is not allowed. This now prints something
like "Unknown command" instead of "Unknown error while evaluating
command substitution".
• fish_indent allows inline variable assignments (FOO=BAR command) to
use line continuation, instead of joining them into one line (#7955
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/7955>).
• fish gained a --no-config option to disable configuration files. This
applies to user-specific and the systemwide config.fish (typically in
/etc/fish/config.fish), and configuration snippets (typically in
conf.d directories). It also disables universal variables, history,
and loading of functions from system or user configuration directo-
ries (#7921 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/7921>,
#1256 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/1256>).
• When universal variables are unavailable for some reason, setting a
universal variable now sets a global variable instead (#7921
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/7921>).
• $last_pid now contains the process ID of the last process in the
pipeline, allowing it to be used in scripts (#5036
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/5036>, #5832
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/5832>, #7721
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/7721>). Previously,
this value contained the process group ID, but in scripts this was
the same as the running fish's process ID.
• process-exit event handlers now receive the same value as $status in
all cases, instead of receiving -1 when the exit was due to a signal.
• process-exit event handlers for PID 0 also received JOB_EXIT events;
this has been fixed.
• job-exit event handlers may now be created with any of the PIDs from
the job. The handler is passed the last PID in the job as its second
argument, instead of the process group.
• Trying to set an empty variable name with set no longer works (these
variables could not be used in expansions anyway).
• fish_add_path handles an undefined PATH environment variable cor-
rectly (#8082 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/8082>).
Interactive improvements
• Commands entered before the previous command finishes will now be
properly syntax highlighted.
• fish now automatically creates config.fish and the configuration di-
rectories in $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/fish (by default ~/.config/fish) if
they do not already exist (#7402 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/7402>).
• $SHLVL is no longer incremented in non-interactive shells. This means
it won't be set to values larger than 1 just because your environment
happens to run some scripts in $SHELL in its startup path (#7864
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/7864>).
• fish no longer rings the bell when flashing the command line. The
flashing should already be enough notification and the bell can be
annoying (#7875 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/7875>).
• fish --help is more helpful if the documentation isn't installed (-
#7824 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/7824>).
• funced won't include an entry on where a function is defined, thanks
to the new functions --no-details option (#7879
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/7879>).
• A new variable, fish_killring, containing entries from the killring,
is now available (#7445 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/7445>).
• fish --private prints a note on private mode on startup even if
$fish_greeting is an empty list (#7974 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/7974>).
• fish no longer attempts to lock history or universal variable files
on remote filesystems, including NFS and Samba mounts. In rare cases,
updates to these files may be dropped if separate fish instances mod-
ify them simultaneously. (#7968 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/7968>).
• wait and on-process-exit work correctly with jobs that have already
exited (#7210 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/7210>).
• __fish_print_help (used for --help output for fish's builtins) now
respects the LESS environment variable, and if not set, uses better
default pager settings (#7997 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/7997>).
• Errors from alias are now printed to standard error, matching other
builtins and functions (#7925 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/7925>).
• ls output is colorized on OpenBSD if colorls utility is installed (-
#8035 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/8035>)
• The default pager color looks better in terminals with light back-
grounds (#3412 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/3412>).
• Further robustness improvements to the bash history import (#7874
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/7874>).
• fish now tries to find a Unicode-aware locale for encoding (LC_CTYPE)
if started without any locale information, improving the display of
emoji and other non-ASCII text on misconfigured systems (#8031
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/8031>). To allow a C
locale, set the variable fish_allow_singlebyte_locale to 1.
• The Web-based configuration and documentation now feature a dark mode
if the browser requests it (#8043 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/8043>).
• Color variables can now also be given like --background red and -b
red, not just --background=red (#8053 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/8053>).
• exit run within fish_prompt now exits properly (#8033
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/8033>).
• When attempting to execute the unsupported POSIX-style brace command
group ({ ... }) fish will suggest its equivalent begin; ...; end com-
mands (#6415 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/6415>).
New or improved bindings
• Pasting in Vi mode puts text in the right place in normal mode (#7847
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/7847>).
• Vi mode's u is bound to undo instead of history-search-backward, fol-
lowing GNU readline's behavior. Similarly, ctrl-r is bound to redo
instead of history-search-backward, following Vim (#7908
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/7908>).
• s in Vi visual mode now does the same thing as c (#8039
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/8039>).
• The binding for ",*,y now uses fish_clipboard_copy, allowing it to
support more than just xsel.
• The ctrl-space binding can be correctly customised (#7922
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/7922>).
• exit works correctly in bindings (#7967 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/7967>).
• The f1 binding, which opens the manual page for the current command,
now works around a bug in certain less versions that fail to clear
the screen (#7863 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/7863>).
• The binding for alt-s now toggles whether sudo is prepended, even
when it took the commandline from history instead of only adding it.
• The new functions fish_commandline_prepend and fish_commandline_ap-
pend allow toggling the presence of a prefix/suffix on the current
commandline. (#7905 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/7905>).
• backward-kill-path-component ctrl-w) no longer erases parts of two
tokens when the cursor is positioned immediately after /. (#6258
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/6258>).
Improved prompts
• The default Vi mode prompt now uses foreground instead of background
colors, making it less obtrusive (#7880 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/7880>).
• Performance of the "informative" git prompt is improved somewhat (-
#7871 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/7871>). This
is still slower than the non-informative version by its very nature.
In particular it is IO-bound, so it will be very slow on slow disks
or network mounts.
• The sample prompts were updated. Some duplicated prompts, like the
various classic variants, or less useful ones, like the "justadollar"
prompt were removed, some prompts were cleaned up, and in some cases
renamed. A new "simple" and "disco" prompt were added (#7884
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/7884>, #7897
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/7897>, #7930
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/7930>). The new
prompts will only take effect when selected and existing installed
prompts will remain unchanged.
• A new prompt_login helper function to describe the kind of "login"
(user, host and chroot status) for use in prompts. This replaces the
old "debian chroot" prompt and has been added to the default and ter-
lar prompts (#7932 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/7932>).
• The Web-based configuration's prompt picker now shows and installs
right prompts (#7930 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/7930>).
• The git prompt now has the same symbol order in normal and "informa-
tive" mode, and it's customizable via $__fish_git_prompt_status_order
(#7926 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/7926>).
Completions
• Added completions for:
• firewall-cmd (#7900 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/7900>)
• sv (#8069 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/8069>)
• Improvements to plenty of completions!
• Commands that wrap cd (using complete --wraps cd) get the same com-
pletions as cd (#4693 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/4693>).
• The --force-files option to complete works for bare arguments, not
just options (#7920 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/7920>).
• Completion descriptions for functions don't include the function def-
inition, making them more concise (#7911 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/7911>).
• The kill completions no longer error on MSYS2 (#8046
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/8046>).
• Completion scripts are now loaded when calling a command via a rela-
tive path (like ./git) (#6001 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/6001>, #7992 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/7992>).
• When there are multiple completion candidates, fish inserts their
shared prefix. This prefix was computed in a case-insensitive way,
resulting in wrong case in the completion pager. This was fixed by
only inserting prefixes with matching case (#7744
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/7744>).
Improved terminal support
• fish no longer tries to detect a missing new line during startup,
preventing an erroneous from appearing if the terminal is resized at
the wrong time, which can happen in tiling window managers (#7893
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/7893>).
• fish behaves better when it disagrees with the terminal on the width
of characters. In particular, staircase effects with right prompts
should be gone in most cases (#8011 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/8011>).
• If the prompt takes up the entire line, the last character should no
longer be chopped off in certain terminals (#8002
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/8002>).
• fish's reflow handling has been disabled by default for kitty (#7961
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/7961>).
• The default prompt no longer produces errors when used with a dumb
terminal (#7904 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/7904>).
• Terminal size variables are updated for window size change signal
handlers (SIGWINCH).
• Pasting within a multi-line command using a terminal that supports
bracketed paste works correctly, instead of producing an error (#7782
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/7782>).
• set_color produces an error when used with invalid arguments, rather
than empty output which interacts badly with Cartesian product expan-
sion.
For distributors
• fish runs correctly on platforms without the O_CLOEXEC flag for
open(2) (#8023 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/8023>).
----
fish 3.2.2 (released April 7, 2021)
This release of fish fixes a number of additional issues identified in
the fish 3.2 series:
• The command-not-found handler used suggestions from pacman on Arch
Linux, but this caused major slowdowns on some systems and has been
disabled (#7841 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/7841>).
• fish will no longer hang on exit if another process is in the fore-
ground on macOS (#7901 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/7901>).
• Certain programs (such as lazygit) could create situations where fish
would not receive keystrokes correctly, but it is now more robust in
these situations (#7853 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/7853>).
• Arguments longer than 1024 characters no longer trigger excessive CPU
usage on macOS (#7837 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/7837>).
• fish builds correctly on macOS when using new versions of Xcode (-
#7838 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/7838>).
• Completions for aura (#7865 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/7865>) and tshark (#7858 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/7858>) should no longer produce errors.
• Background jobs no longer interfere with syntax highlighting (a re-
gression introduced in fish 3.2.1, #7842 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/7842>).
If you are upgrading from version 3.1.2 or before, please also review
the release notes for 3.2.1 and 3.2.0 (included below).
----
fish 3.2.1 (released March 18, 2021)
This release of fish fixes the following problems identified in fish
3.2.0:
• Commands in key bindings are run with fish's internal terminal modes,
instead of the terminal modes typically used for commands. This fixes
a bug introduced in 3.2.0, where text would unexpectedly appear on
the terminal, especially when pasting (#7770
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/7770>).
• Prompts which use the internal __fish_print_pipestatus function will
display correctly rather than carrying certain modifiers (such as
bold) further than intended (#7771 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/7771>).
• Redirections to internal file descriptors is allowed again, reversing
the changes in 3.2.0. This fixes a problem with Midnight Commander (-
#7769 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/7769>).
• Universal variables should be fully reliable regardless of operating
system again (#7774 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/7774>).
• fish_git_prompt no longer causes screen flickering in certain termi-
nals (#7775 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/7775>).
• fish_add_path manipulates the fish_user_paths variable correctly when
moving multiple paths (#7776 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/7776>).
• Pasting with a multi-line command no longer causes a __fish_tok-
enizer_state error (#7782 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/7782>).
• psub inside event handlers cleans up temporary files properly (#7792
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/7792>).
• Event handlers declared with --on-job-exit $fish_pid no longer run
constantly (#7721 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/7721>), although these functions should use --on-event fish_exit
instead.
• Changing terminal modes inside config.fish works (#7783
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/7783>).
• set_color --print-colors no longer prints all colors in bold (#7805
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/7805>)
• Completing commands starting with a - no longer prints an error (-
#7809 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/7809>).
• Running fish_command_not_found directly no longer produces an error
on macOS or other OSes which do not have a handler available (#7777
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/7777>).
• The new type builtin now has the (deprecated) --quiet long form of -q
(#7766 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/7766>).
It also includes some small enhancements:
• help and fish_config work correctly when fish is running in a Chrome
OS Crostini Linux VM (#7789 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/7789>).
• The history file can be made a symbolic link without it being over-
written (#7754 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/7754>), matching a similar improvement for the universal vari-
able file in 3.2.0.
• An unhelpful error ("access: No error"), seen on Cygwin, is no longer
produced (#7785 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/7785>).
• Improvements to the rsync completions (#7763
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/7763>), some comple-
tion descriptions (#7788 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/7788>), and completions that use IP address (#7787
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/7787>).
• Improvements to the appearance of fish_config (#7811
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/7811>).
If you are upgrading from version 3.1.2 or before, please also review
the release notes for 3.2.0 (included below).
----
fish 3.2.0 (released March 1, 2021)
Notable improvements and fixes
• Undo and redo support for the command-line editor and pager search (-
#1367 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/1367>). By de-
fault, undo is bound to Control+Z, and redo to Alt+/.
• Builtins can now output before all data is read. For example, string
replace no longer has to read all of stdin before it can begin to
output. This makes it usable also for pipes where the previous com-
mand hasn't finished yet, like:
# Show all dmesg lines related to "usb"
dmesg -w | string match '*usb*'
• Prompts will now be truncated instead of replaced with "> " if they
are wider than the terminal (#904 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/904>). For example:
~/dev/build/fish-shell-git/src/fish-shell/build (makepkg)>
will turn into:
h-shell/build (makepkg)>
It is still possible to react to the COLUMNS variable inside the
prompt to implement smarter behavior.
• fish completes ambiguous completions after pressing tab even when
they have a common prefix, without the user having to press tab again
(#6924 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/6924>).
• fish is less aggressive about resetting terminal modes, such as flow
control, after every command. Although flow control remains off by
default, enterprising users can now enable it with stty (#2315
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/2315>, #7704
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/7704>).
• A new "fish_add_path" helper function to add paths to $PATH without
producing duplicates, to be used interactively or in config.fish (-
#6960 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/6960>, #7028
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/7028>). For exam-
ple:
fish_add_path /opt/mycoolthing/bin
will add /opt/mycoolthing/bin to the beginning of $fish_user_path
without creating duplicates, so it can be called safely from con-
fig.fish or interactively, and the path will just be there, once.
• Better errors with "test" (#6030 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/6030>):
> test 1 = 2 and echo true or false
test: Expected a combining operator like '-a' at index 4
1 = 2 and echo true or echo false
^
This includes numbering the index from 1 instead of 0, like fish
lists.
• A new theme for the documentation and Web-based configuration (#6500
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/6500>, #7371
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/7371>, #7523
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/7523>), matching the
design on fishshell.com.
• fish --no-execute will no longer complain about unknown commands or
non-matching wildcards, as these could be defined differently at run-
time (especially for functions). This makes it usable as a static
syntax checker (#977 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/977>).
• string match --regex now integrates named PCRE2 capture groups as
fish variables, allowing variables to be set directly from string
match (#7459 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/7459>).
To support this functionality, string is now a reserved word and can
no longer be wrapped in a function.
• Globs and other expansions are limited to 512,288 results (#7226
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/7226>). Because op-
erating systems limit the number of arguments to commands, larger
values are unlikely to work anyway, and this helps to avoid hangs.
• A new "fish for bash users" documentation page gives a quick overview
of the scripting differences between bash and fish (#2382
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/2382>), and the com-
pletion tutorial has also been moved out into its own document (#6709
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/6709>).
Syntax changes and new commands
• Range limits in index range expansions like $x[$start..$end] may be
omitted: $start and $end default to 1 and -1 (the last item) respec-
tively (#6574 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/6574>):
echo $var[1..]
echo $var[..-1]
echo $var[..]
All print the full list $var.
• When globbing, a segment which is exactly ** may now match zero di-
rectories. For example **/foo may match foo in the current directory
(#7222 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/7222>).
Scripting improvements
• The type, _ (gettext), . (source) and : (no-op) functions are now im-
plemented builtins for performance purposes (#7342
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/7342>, #7036
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/7036>, #6854
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/6854>).
• set and backgrounded jobs no longer overwrite $pipestatus (#6820
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/6820>), improving
its use in command substitutions (#6998 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/6998>).
• Computed ("electric") variables such as status are now only global in
scope, so set -Uq status returns false (#7032
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/7032>).
• The output for set --show has been shortened, only mentioning the
scopes in which a variable exists (#6944 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/6944>). In addition, it now shows if a vari-
able is a path variable.
• A new variable, fish_kill_signal, is set to the signal that termi-
nated the last foreground job, or 0 if the job exited normally (#6824
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/6824>, #6822
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/6822>).
• A new subcommand, string pad, allows extending strings to a given
width (#7340 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/7340>,
#7102 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/7102>).
• string sub has a new --end option to specify the end index of a sub-
string (#6765 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/6765>,
#5974 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/5974>).
• string split has a new --fields option to specify fields to output,
similar to cut -f (#6770 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/6770>).
• string trim now also trims vertical tabs by default (#6795
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/6795>).
• string replace no longer prints an error if a capturing group wasn't
matched, instead treating it as empty (#7343
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/7343>).
• string subcommands now quit early when used with --quiet (#7495
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/7495>).
• string repeat now handles multiple arguments, repeating each one (-
#5988 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/5988>).
• printf no longer prints an error if not given an argument (not even a
format string).
• The true and false builtins ignore any arguments, like other shells
(#7030 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/7030>).
• fish_indent now removes unnecessary quotes in simple cases (#6722
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/6722>) and gained a
--check option to just check if a file is indented correctly (#7251
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/7251>).
• fish_indent indents continuation lines that follow a line ending in a
backslash, |, && or ||.
• pushd only adds a directory to the stack if changing to it was suc-
cessful (#6947 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/6947>).
• A new fish_job_summary function is called whenever a background job
stops or ends, or any job terminates from a signal (#6959
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/6959>, #2727
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/2727>, #4319
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/4319>). The default
behaviour can now be customized by redefining it.
• status gained new dirname and basename convenience subcommands to get
just the directory to the running script or the name of it, to sim-
plify common tasks such as running (dirname (status filename)) (#7076
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/7076>, #1818
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/1818>).
• Broken pipelines are now handled more smoothly; in particular, bad
redirection mid-pipeline results in the job continuing to run but
with the broken file descriptor replaced with a closed file descrip-
tor. This allows better error recovery and is more in line with other
shells' behaviour (#7038 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/7038>).
• jobs --quiet PID no longer prints "no suitable job" if the job for
PID does not exist (eg because it has finished) (#6809
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/6809>, #6812
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/6812>).
• jobs now shows continued child processes correctly (#6818
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/6818>)
• disown should no longer create zombie processes when job control is
off, such as in config.fish (#7183 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/7183>).
• command, jobs and type builtins support --query as the long form of
-q, matching other builtins. The long form --quiet is deprecated (-
#7276 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/7276>).
• argparse no longer requires a short flag letter for long-only options
(#7585 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/7585>) and
only prints a backtrace with invalid options to argparse itself (-
#6703 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/6703>).
• argparse now passes the validation variables (e.g. $_flag_value) as
local-exported variables, avoiding the need for --no-scope-shadowing
in validation functions.
• complete takes the first argument as the name of the command if the
--command/-c option is not used, so complete git is treated like com-
plete --command git, and it can show the loaded completions for spe-
cific commands with complete COMMANDNAME (#7321
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/7321>).
• set_color -b (without an argument) no longer prints an error message,
matching other invalid invocations of this command (#7154
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/7154>).
• exec no longer produces a syntax error when the command cannot be
found (#6098 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/6098>).
• set --erase and abbr --erase can now erase multiple things in one go,
matching functions --erase (#7377 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/7377>).
• abbr --erase no longer prints errors when used with no arguments or
on an unset abbreviation (#7376 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/7376>, #7732 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/7732>).
• test -t, for testing whether file descriptors are connected to a ter-
minal, works for file descriptors 0, 1, and 2 (#4766
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/4766>). It can
still return incorrect results in other cases (#1228
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/1228>).
• Trying to execute scripts with Windows line endings (CRLF) produces a
sensible error (#2783 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/2783>).
• Trying to execute commands with arguments that exceed the operating
system limit now produces a specific error (#6800
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/6800>).
• An alias that delegates to a command with the same name no longer
triggers an error about recursive completion (#7389
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/7389>).
• math now has a --base option to output the result in hexadecimal or
octal (#7496 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/7496>)
and produces more specific error messages (#7508
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/7508>).
• math learned bitwise functions bitand, bitor and bitxor, used like
math "bitand(0xFE, 5)" (#7281 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/7281>).
• math learned tau for those who don't like typing "2 * pi".
• Failed redirections will now set $status (#7540
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/7540>).
• fish sets exit status in a more consistent manner after errors, in-
cluding invalid expansions like $foo[.
• Using read --silent while fish is in private mode was adding these
potentially-sensitive entries to the history; this has been fixed (-
#7230 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/7230>).
• read can now read interactively from other files, and can be used to
read from the terminal via read </dev/tty (if the operating system
provides /dev/tty) (#7358 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/7358>).
• A new fish_status_to_signal function for transforming exit statuses
to signal names has been added (#7597 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/7597>, #7595 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/7595>).
• The fallback realpath builtin supports the -s/--no-symlinks option,
like GNU realpath (#7574 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/7574>).
• functions and type now explain when a function was defined via source
instead of just saying Defined in -.
• Significant performance improvements when globbing, appending to
variables or in math.
• echo no longer interprets options at the beginning of an argument (eg
echo "-n foo") (#7614 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/7614>).
• fish now finds user configuration even if the HOME environment vari-
able is not set (#7620 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/7620>).
• fish no longer crashes when started from a Windows-style working di-
rectory (eg F:\path) (#7636 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/7636>).
• fish -c now reads the remaining arguments into $argv (#2314
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/2314>).
• The pwd command supports the long options --logical and --physical,
matching other implementations (#6787 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/6787>).
• fish --profile now only starts profiling after fish is ready to exe-
cute commands (all configuration is completed). There is a new --pro-
file-startup option that only profiles the startup and configuration
process (#7648 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/7648>).
• Builtins return a maximum exit status of 255, rather than potentially
overflowing. In particular, this affects exit, return, functions
--query, and set --query (#7698 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/7698>, #7702 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/7702>).
• It is no longer an error to run builtin with closed stdin. For exam-
ple count <&- now prints 0, instead of failing.
• Blocks, functions, and builtins no longer permit redirecting to file
descriptors other than 0 (standard input), 1 (standard output) and 2
(standard error). For example, echo hello >&5 is now an error. This
prevents corruption of internal state (#3303
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/3303>).
Interactive improvements
• fish will now always attempt to become process group leader in inter-
active mode (#7060 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/7060>). This helps avoid hangs in certain circumstances, and al-
lows tmux's current directory introspection to work (#5699
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/5699>).
• The interactive reader now allows ending a line in a logical opera-
tors (&& and ||) instead of complaining about a missing command.
(This was already syntactically valid, but interactive sessions
didn't know about it yet).
• The prompt is reprinted after a background job exits (#1018
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/1018>).
• fish no longer inserts a space after a completion ending in ., , or -
is accepted, improving completions for tools that provide dynamic
completions (#6928 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/6928>).
• If a filename is invalid when first pressing tab, but becomes valid,
it will be completed properly on the next attempt (#6863
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/6863>).
• help string match/replace/<subcommand> will show the help for string
subcommands (#6786 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/6786>).
• fish_key_reader sets the exit status to 0 when used with --help or
--version (#6964 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/6964>).
• fish_key_reader and fish_indent send output from --version to stan-
dard output, matching other fish binaries (#6964
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/6964>).
• A new variable $status_generation is incremented only when the previ-
ous command produces an exit status (#6815 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/6815>). This can be used, for example, to
check whether a failure status is a holdover due to a background job,
or actually produced by the last run command.
• fish_greeting is now a function that reads a variable of the same
name, and defaults to setting it globally. This removes a universal
variable by default and helps with updating the greeting. However,
to disable the greeting it is now necessary to explicitly specify
universal scope (set -U fish_greeting) or to disable it in con-
fig.fish (#7265 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/7265>).
• Events are properly emitted after a job is cancelled (#2356
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/2356>).
• fish_preexec and fish_postexec events are no longer triggered for
empty commands (#4829 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/4829>, #7085 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/7085>).
• Functions triggered by the fish_exit event are correctly run when the
terminal is closed or the shell receives SIGHUP (#7014
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/7014>).
• The fish_prompt event no longer fires when read is used. If you need
a function to run any time read is invoked by a script, use the new
fish_read event instead (#7039 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/7039>).
• A new fish_posterror event is emitted when attempting to execute a
command with syntax errors (#6880 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/6880>, #6816 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/6816>).
• The debugging system has now fully switched from the old numbered
level to the new named category system introduced in 3.1. A number of
new debugging categories have been added, including config, path,
reader and screen (#6511 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/6511>). See the output of fish --print-debug-categories
for the full list.
• The warning about read-only filesystems has been moved to a new
"warning-path" debug category and can be disabled by setting a debug
category of -warning-path (#6630 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/6630>):
fish --debug=-warning-path
• The enabled debug categories are now printed on shell startup (#7007
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/7007>).
• The -o short option to fish, for --debug-output, works correctly in-
stead of producing an invalid option error (#7254
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/7254>).
• fish's debugging can now also be enabled via FISH_DEBUG and FISH_DE-
BUG_OUTPUT environment variables. This helps with debugging when no
commandline options can be passed, like when fish is called in a she-
bang (#7359 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/7359>).
• Abbreviations are now expanded after all command terminators (eg ; or
|), not just space, as in fish 2.7.1 and before (#6970
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/6970>), and after
closing a command substitution (#6658 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/6658>).
• The history file is now created with user-private permissions, match-
ing other shells (#6926 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/6926>). The directory containing the history file was already
private, so there should not have been any private data revealed.
• The output of time is now properly aligned in all cases (#6726
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/6726>, #6714
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/6714>) and no longer
depends on locale (#6757 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/6757>).
• The command-not-found handling has been simplified. When it can't
find a command, fish now just executes a function called fish_com-
mand_not_found instead of firing an event, making it easier to re-
place and reason about. Previously-defined __fish_com-
mand_not_found_handler functions with an appropriate event listener
will still work (#7293 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/7293>).
• ctrl-c handling has been reimplemented in C++ and is therefore
quicker (#5259 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/5259>), no longer occasionally prints an "unknown command" error
(#7145 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/7145>) or
overwrites multiline prompts (#3537 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/3537>).
• ctrl-c no longer kills background jobs for which job control is dis-
abled, matching POSIX semantics (#6828 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/6828>, #6861 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/6861>).
• Autosuggestions work properly after ctrl-c cancels the current com-
mand line (#6937 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/6937>).
• History search is now case-insensitive unless the search string con-
tains an uppercase character (#7273 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/7273>).
• fish_update_completions gained a new --keep option, which improves
speed by skipping completions that already exist (#6775
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/6775>, #6796
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/6796>).
• Aliases containing an embedded backslash appear properly in the out-
put of alias (#6910 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/6910>).
• open no longer hangs indefinitely on certain systems, as a bug in
xdg-open has been worked around (#7215 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/7215>).
• Long command lines no longer add a blank line after execution (#6826
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/6826>) and behave
better with backspace (#6951 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/6951>).
• functions -t works like the long option --handlers-type, as docu-
mented, instead of producing an error (#6985
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/6985>).
• History search now flashes when it found no more results (#7362
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/7362>)
• fish now creates the path in the environment variable XDG_RUNTIME_DIR
if it does not exist, before using it for runtime data storage (#7335
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/7335>).
• set_color --print-colors now also respects the bold, dim, underline,
reverse, italic and background modifiers, to better show their effect
(#7314 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/7314>).
• The fish Web configuration tool (fish_config) shows prompts correctly
on Termux for Android (#7298 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/7298>) and detects Windows Services for Linux 2 properly
(#7027 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/7027>). It no
longer shows the history variable as it may be too large (one can use
the History tab instead). It also starts the browser in another
thread, avoiding hangs in some circumstances, especially with Fire-
fox's Developer Edition (#7158 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/7158>). Finally, a bug in the Source Code Pro font may
cause browsers to hang, so this font is no longer chosen by default
(#7714 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/7714>).
• funcsave gained a new --directory option to specify the location of
the saved function (#7041 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/7041>).
• help works properly on MSYS2 (#7113 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/7113>) and only uses cmd.exe if running on
WSL (#6797 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/6797>).
• Resuming a piped job by its number, like fg %1, works correctly (-
#7406 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/7406>). Re-
sumed jobs show the correct title in the terminal emulator (#7444
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/7444>).
• Commands run from key bindings now use the same TTY modes as normal
commands (#7483 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/7483>).
• Autosuggestions from history are now case-sensitive (#3978
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/3978>).
• $status from completion scripts is no longer passed outside the com-
pletion, which keeps the status display in the prompt as the last
command's status (#7555 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/7555>).
• Updated localisations for pt_BR (#7480 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/7480>).
• fish_trace output now starts with -> (like fish --profile), making
the depth more visible (#7538 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/7538>).
• Resizing the terminal window no longer produces a corrupted prompt (-
#6532 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/6532>, #7404
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/7404>).
• functions produces an error rather than crashing on certain invalid
arguments (#7515 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/7515>).
• A crash in completions with inline variable assignment (eg A= b) has
been fixed (#7344 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/7344>).
• fish_private_mode may now be changed dynamically using set (#7589
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/7589>), and history
is kept in memory in private mode (but not stored permanently) (#7590
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/7590>).
• Commands with leading spaces may be retrieved from history with
up-arrow until a new command is run, matching zsh's HIST_IGNORE_SPACE
(#1383 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/1383>).
• Importing bash history or reporting errors with recursive globs (**)
no longer hangs (#7407 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/7407>, #7497 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/7497>).
• bind now shows \x7f for the del key instead of a literal DEL charac-
ter (#7631 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/7631>)
• Paths containing variables or tilde expansion are only suggested when
they are still valid (#7582 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/7582>).
• Syntax highlighting can now color a command as invalid even if exe-
cuted quickly (#5912 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/5912>).
• Redirection targets are no longer highlighted as error if they con-
tain variables which will likely be defined by the current command-
line (#6654 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/6654>).
• fish is now more resilient against broken terminal modes (#7133
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/7133>, #4873
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/4873>).
• fish handles being in control of the TTY without owning its own
process group better, avoiding some hangs in special configurations
(#7388 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/7388>).
• Keywords can now be colored differently by setting the
fish_color_keyword variable (fish_color_command is used as a fall-
back) (#7678 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/7678>).
• Just like fish_indent, the interactive reader will indent continua-
tion lines that follow a line ending in a backslash, |, && or || (-
#7694 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/7694>).
• Commands with a trailing escaped space are saved in history correctly
(#7661 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/7661>).
• fish_prompt no longer mangles Unicode characters in the private-use
range U+F600-U+F700. (#7723 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/7723>).
• The universal variable file, fish_variables, can be made a symbolic
link without it being overwritten (#7466 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/7466>).
• fish is now more resilient against mktemp failing (#7482
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/7482>).
New or improved bindings
• As mentioned above, new special input functions undo (ctrl-_ or
ctrl-z) and redo (alt-/) can be used to revert changes to the command
line or the pager search field (#6570 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/6570>).
• ctrl-z is now available for binding (#7152 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/7152>).
• Additionally, using the cancel special input function (bound to es-
cape by default) right after fish picked an unambiguous completion
will undo that (#7433 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/7433>).
• fish_clipboard_paste (ctrl-v) trims indentation from multiline com-
mands, because fish already indents (#7662 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/7662>).
• Vi mode bindings now support dh, dl, c0, cf, ct, cF, cT, ch, cl, y0,
ci, ca, yi, ya, di, da, d;, d,, o, O and Control+left/right keys to
navigate by word (#6648 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/6648>, #6755 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/6755>, #6769 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/6769>, #7442 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/7442>, #7516 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/7516>).
• Vi mode bindings support ~ (tilde) to toggle the case of the selected
character (#6908 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/6908>).
• Functions up-or-search and down-or-search (up and down) can cross
empty lines, and don't activate search mode if the search fails,
which makes them easier to use to move between lines in some situa-
tions.
• If history search fails to find a match, the cursor is no longer
moved. This is useful when accidentally starting a history search on
a multi-line commandline.
• The special input function beginning-of-history (pageup) now moves to
the oldest search instead of the youngest - that's end-of-history
(pagedown).
• A new special input function forward-single-char moves one character
to the right, and if an autosuggestion is available, only take a sin-
gle character from it (#7217 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/7217>, #4984 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/4984>).
• Special input functions can now be joined with or as a modifier
(adding to and), though only some commands set an exit status (#7217
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/7217>). This in-
cludes suppress-autosuggestion to reflect whether an autosuggestion
was suppressed (#1419 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/1419>)
• A new function __fish_preview_current_file, bound to alt-o, opens the
current file at the cursor in a pager (#6838
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/6838>, #6855
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/6855>).
• edit_command_buffer (alt-e and alt-v) passes the cursor position to
the external editor if the editor is recognized (#6138
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/6138>, #6954
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/6954>).
• __fish_prepend_sudo (alt-s) now toggles a sudo prefix (#7012
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/7012>) and avoids
shifting the cursor (#6542 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/6542>).
• __fish_prepend_sudo (alt-s) now uses the previous commandline if the
current one is empty, to simplify rerunning the previous command with
sudo (#7079 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/7079>).
• __fish_toggle_comment_commandline (alt-#) now uncomments and presents
the last comment from history if the commandline is empty (#7137
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/7137>).
• __fish_whatis_current_token (alt-w) prints descriptions for functions
and builtins (#7191 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/7191>, #2083 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/2083>).
• The definition of "word" and "bigword" for movements was refined,
fixing (eg) vi mode's behavior with e on the second-to-last char, and
bigword's behavior with single-character words and non-blank
non-graphical characters (#7353 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/7353>, #7354 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/7354>, #4025 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/4025>, #7328 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/7328>, #7325 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/7325>)
• fish's clipboard bindings now also support Windows Subsystem for
Linux via PowerShell and clip.exe (#7455 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/7455>, #7458 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/7458>) and will properly copy newlines in
multi-line commands.
• Using the *-jump special input functions before typing anything else
no longer crashes fish.
• Completing variable overrides (foo=bar) could replace the entire
thing with just the completion in some circumstances. This has been
fixed (#7398 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/7398>).
Improved prompts
• The default and example prompts print the correct exit status for
commands prefixed with not (#6566 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/6566>).
• git prompts include all untracked files in the repository, not just
those in the current directory (#6086 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/6086>).
• The git prompts correctly show stash states (#6876
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/6876>, #7136
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/7136>) and clean
states (#7471 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/7471>).
• The Mercurial prompt correctly shows untracked status (#6906
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/6906>), and by de-
fault only shows the branch for performance reasons. A new variable
$fish_prompt_hg_show_informative_status can be set to enable more in-
formation.
• The fish_vcs_prompt passes its arguments to the various VCS prompts
that it calls (#7033 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/7033>).
• The Subversion prompt was broken in a number of ways in 3.1.0 and has
been restored (#6715 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/6715>, #7278 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/7278>).
• A new helper function fish_is_root_user simplifies checking for supe-
ruser privilege (#7031 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/7031>, #7123 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/7123>).
• New colorschemes - ayu Light, ayu Dark and ayu Mirage (#7596
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/7596>).
• Bugs related to multiline prompts, including repainting (#5860
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/5860>) or navigating
directory history (#3550 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/3550>) leading to graphical glitches have been fixed.
• The nim prompt now handles vi mode better (#6802
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/6802>)
Improved terminal support
• A new variable, fish_vi_force_cursor, can be set to force
fish_vi_cursor to attempt changing the cursor shape in vi mode, re-
gardless of terminal (#6968 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/6968>). The fish_vi_cursor option --force-iterm has been
deprecated.
• diff will now colourize output, if supported (#7308
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/7308>).
• Autosuggestions appear when the cursor passes the right prompt (#6948
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/6948>) or wraps to
the next line (#7213 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/7213>).
• The cursor shape in Vi mode changes properly in Windows Terminal (-
#6999 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/6999>, #6478
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/6478>).
• The spurious warning about terminal size in small terminals has been
removed (#6980 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/6980>).
• Dynamic titles are now enabled in Alacritty (#7073
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/7073>) and emacs'
vterm (#7122 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/7122>).
• Current working directory updates are enabled in foot (#7099
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/7099>) and WezTerm
(#7649 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/7649>).
• The width computation for certain emoji agrees better with terminals
(especially flags). (#7237 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/7237>).
• Long command lines are wrapped in all cases, instead of sometimes be-
ing put on a new line (#5118 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/5118>).
• The pager is properly rendered with long command lines selected (-
#2557 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/2557>).
• Sessions with right prompts can be resized correctly in terminals
that handle reflow, like GNOME Terminal (and other VTE-based termi-
nals), upcoming Konsole releases and Alacritty. This detection can be
overridden with the new fish_handle_reflow variable (#7491
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/7491>).
• fish now sets terminal modes sooner, which stops output from appear-
ing before the greeting and prompt are ready (#7489
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/7489>).
• Better detection of new Konsole versions for true color support and
cursor shape changing.
• fish no longer attempts to modify the terminal size via TIOCSWINSZ,
improving compatibility with Kitty (#6994 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/6994>).
Completions
• Added completions for
• 7z, 7za and 7zr (#7220 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/7220>)
• alias (#7035 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/7035>)
• alternatives (#7616 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/7616>)
• apk (#7108 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/7108>)
• asciidoctor (#7000 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/7000>)
• avifdec and avifenc (#7674 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/7674>)
• bluetoothctl (#7438 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/7438>)
• cjxl and djxl (#7673 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/7673>)
• cmark (#7000 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/7000>)
• create_ap (#7096 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/7096>)
• deno (#7138 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/7138>)
• dhclient (#6684 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/6684>)
• Postgres-related commands dropdb, createdb, pg_restore, pg_dump and
pg_dumpall (#6620 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/6620>)
• dotnet (#7558 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/7558>)
• downgrade (#6751 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/6751>)
• gapplication, gdbus, gio and gresource (#7300
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/7300>)
• gh (#7112 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/7112>)
• gitk
• groups (#6889 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/6889>)
• hashcat (#7746 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/7746>)
• hikari (#7083 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/7083>)
• icdiff (#7503 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/7503>)
• imv (#6675 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/6675>)
• john (#7746 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/7746>)
• julia (#7468 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/7468>)
• k3d (#7202 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/7202>)
• ldapsearch (#7578 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/7578>)
• lightdm and dm-tool (#7624 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/7624>)
• losetup (#7621 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/7621>)
• micro (#7339 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/7339>)
• mpc (#7169 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/7169>)
• Metasploit's msfconsole, msfdb and msfvenom (#6930
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/6930>)
• mtr (#7638 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/7638>)
• mysql (#6819 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/6819>)
• ncat, nc.openbsd, nc.traditional and nmap (#6873
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/6873>)
• openssl (#6845 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/6845>)
• prime-run (#7241 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/7241>)
• ps2pdf{12,13,14,wr} (#6673 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/6673>)
• pyenv (#6551 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/6551>)
• rst2html, rst2html4, rst2html5, rst2latex, rst2man, rst2odt,
rst2pseudoxml, rst2s5, rst2xetex, rst2xml and rstpep2html (#7019
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/7019>)
• spago (#7381 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/7381>)
• sphinx-apidoc, sphinx-autogen, sphinx-build and sphinx-quickstart
(#7000 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/7000>)
• strace (#6656 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/6656>)
• systemd's bootctl, coredumpctl, hostnamectl (#7428
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/7428>), homectl (-
#7435 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/7435>), net-
workctl (#7668 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/7668>) and userdbctl (#7667 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/7667>)
• tcpdump (#6690 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/6690>)
• tig
• traceroute and tracepath (#6803 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/6803>)
• windscribe (#6788 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/6788>)
• wireshark, tshark, and dumpcap
• xbps-* (#7239 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/7239>)
• xxhsum, xxh32sum, xxh64sum and xxh128sum (#7103
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/7103>)
• yadm (#7100 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/7100>)
• zopfli and zopflipng (#6872 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/6872>)
• Lots of improvements to completions, including:
• git completions can complete the right and left parts of a commit
range like from..to or left...right.
• Completion scripts for custom Git subcommands like git-xyz are now
loaded with Git completions. The completions can now be defined di-
rectly on the subcommand (using complete git-xyz), and completion
for git xyz will work. (#7075 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/7075>, #7652 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/7652>, #4358 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/4358>)
• make completions no longer second-guess make's file detection, fix-
ing target completion in some cases (#7535
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/7535>).
• Command completions now correctly print the description even if the
command was fully matched (like in ls<TAB>).
• set completions no longer hide variables starting with __, they are
sorted last instead.
• Improvements to the manual page completion generator (#7086
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/7086>, #6879
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/6879>, #7187
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/7187>).
• Significant performance improvements to completion of the available
commands (#7153 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/7153>), especially on macOS Big Sur where there was a signifi-
cant regression (#7365 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/7365>, #7511 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/7511>).
• Suffix completion using __fish_complete_suffix uses the same fuzzy
matching logic as normal file completion, and completes any file but
sorts files with matching suffix first (#7040
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/7040>, #7547
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/7547>). Previously,
it only completed files with matching suffix.
For distributors
• fish has a new interactive test driver based on pexpect, removing the
optional dependency on expect (and adding an optional dependency on
pexpect) (#5451 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/5451>, #6825 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/6825>).
• The CHANGELOG was moved to restructured text, allowing it to be in-
cluded in the documentation (#7057 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/7057>).
• fish handles ncurses installed in a non-standard prefix better (#6600
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/6600>, #7219
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/7219>), and uses
variadic tparm on NetBSD curses (#6626 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/6626>).
• The Web-based configuration tool no longer uses an obsolete Angular
version (#7147 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/7147>).
• The fish project has adopted the Contributor Covenant code of conduct
(#7151 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/7151>).
Deprecations and removed features
• The fish_color_match variable is no longer used. (Previously this
controlled the color of matching quotes and parens when using read).
• fish 3.2.0 will be the last release in which the redirection to stan-
dard error with the ^ character is enabled. The stderr-nocaret fea-
ture flag will be changed to "on" in future releases.
• string is now a reserved word and cannot be used for function names
(see above).
• fish_vi_cursor's option --force-iterm has been deprecated (see
above).
• command, jobs and type long-form option --quiet is deprecated in fa-
vor of --query (see above).
• The fish_command_not_found event is no longer emitted, instead there
is a function of that name. By default it will call a previously-de-
fined __fish_command_not_found_handler. To emit the event manually
use emit fish_command_not_found.
• The fish_prompt event no longer fires when read is used. If you need
a function to run any time read is invoked by a script, use the new
fish_read event instead (#7039 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/7039>).
• To disable the greeting message permanently it is no longer enough to
just run set fish_greeting interactively as it is no longer implic-
itly a universal variable. Use set -U fish_greeting or disable it in
config.fish with set -g fish_greeting.
• The long-deprecated and non-functional -m/--read-mode options to read
were removed in 3.1b1. Using the short form, or a never-implemented
-B option, no longer crashes fish (#7659 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/7659>).
• With the addition of new categories for debug options, the old num-
bered debugging levels have been removed.
For distributors and developers
• fish source tarballs are now distributed using the XZ compression
method (#5460 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/5460>).
• The fish source tarball contains an example FreeDesktop entry and
icon.
• The CMake variable MAC_CODESIGN_ID can now be set to "off" to disable
code-signing (#6952 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/6952>, #6792 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/6792>).
• Building on on macOS earlier than 10.13.6 succeeds, instead of fail-
ing on code-signing (#6791 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/6791>).
• The pkg-config file now uses variables to ensure paths used are
portable across prefixes.
• The default values for the extra_completionsdir, extra_functionsdir
and extra_confdir options now use the installation prefix rather than
/usr/local (#6778 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/6778>).
• A new CMake variable FISH_USE_SYSTEM_PCRE2 controls whether fish
builds with the system-installed PCRE2, or the version it bundles. By
default it prefers the system library if available, unless Mac code-
signing is enabled (#6952 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/6952>).
• Running the full interactive test suite now requires Python 3.5+ and
the pexpect package (#6825 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/6825>); the expect package is no longer required.
• Support for Python 2 in fish's tools (fish_config and the manual page
completion generator) is no longer guaranteed. Please use Python 3.5
or later (#6537 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/6537>).
• The Web-based configuration tool is compatible with Python 3.10 (-
#7600 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/7600>) and no
longer requires Python's distutils package (#7514
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/7514>).
• fish 3.2 is the last release to support Red Hat Enterprise Linux &
CentOS version 6.
----
fish 3.1.2 (released April 29, 2020)
This release of fish fixes a major issue discovered in fish 3.1.1:
• Commands such as fzf and enhancd, when used with eval, would hang.
eval buffered output too aggressively, which has been fixed (#6955
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/6955>).
If you are upgrading from version 3.0.0 or before, please also review
the release notes for 3.1.1, 3.1.0 and 3.1b1 (included below).
----
fish 3.1.1 (released April 27, 2020)
This release of fish fixes a number of major issues discovered in fish
3.1.0.
• Commands which involve . ( ... | psub) now work correctly, as a bug
in the function --on-job-exit option has been fixed (#6613
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/6613>).
• Conflicts between upstream packages for ripgrep and bat, and the fish
packages, have been resolved (#5822 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/5822>).
• Starting fish in a directory without read access, such as via su, no
longer crashes (#6597 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/6597>).
• Glob ordering changes which were introduced in 3.1.0 have been re-
verted, returning the order of globs to the previous state (#6593
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/6593>).
• Redirections using the deprecated caret syntax to a file descriptor
(eg ^&2) work correctly (#6591 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/6591>).
• Redirections that append to a file descriptor (eg 2>>&1) work cor-
rectly (#6614 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/6614>).
• Building fish on macOS (#6602 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/6602>) or with new versions of GCC (#6604
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/6604>, #6609
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/6609>) is now suc-
cessful.
• time is now correctly listed in the output of builtin -n, and time
--help works correctly (#6598 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/6598>).
• Exported universal variables now update properly (#6612
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/6612>).
• status current-command gives the expected output when used with an
environment override - that is, F=B status current-command returns
status instead of F=B (#6635 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/6635>).
• test no longer crashes when used with nan or inf arguments, erroring
out instead (#6655 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/6655>).
• Copying from the end of the command line no longer crashes fish (-
#6680 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/6680>).
• read no longer removes multiple separators when splitting a variable
into a list, restoring the previous behaviour from fish 3.0 and be-
fore (#6650 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/6650>).
• Functions using --on-job-exit and --on-process-exit work reliably
again (#6679 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/6679>).
• Functions using --on-signal INT work reliably in interactive ses-
sions, as they did in fish 2.7 and before (#6649
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/6649>). These han-
dlers have never worked in non-interactive sessions, and making them
work is an ongoing process.
• Functions using --on-variable work reliably with variables which are
set implicitly (rather than with set), such as fish_bind_mode and PWD
(#6653 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/6653>).
• 256 colors are properly enabled under certain conditions that were
incorrectly detected in fish 3.1.0 ($TERM begins with xterm, does not
include 256color, and $TERM_PROGRAM is not set) (#6701
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/6701>).
• The Mercurial (hg) prompt no longer produces an error when the cur-
rent working directory is removed (#6699 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/6699>). Also, for performance reasons it
shows only basic information by default; to restore the detailed sta-
tus, set $fish_prompt_hg_show_informative_status.
• The VCS prompt, fish_vcs_prompt, no longer displays Subversion (svn)
status by default, due to the potential slowness of this operation (-
#6681 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/6681>).
• Pasting of commands has been sped up (#6713 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/6713>).
• Using extended Unicode characters, such as emoji, in a non-Unicode
capable locale (such as the C or POSIX locale) no longer renders all
output blank (#6736 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/6736>).
• help prefers to use xdg-open, avoiding the use of open on Debian sys-
tems where this command is actually openvt (#6739
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/6739>).
• Command lines starting with a space, which are not saved in history,
now do not get autosuggestions. This fixes an issue with Midnight
Commander integration (#6763 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/6763>), but may be changed in a future version.
• Copying to the clipboard no longer inserts a newline at the end of
the content, matching fish 2.7 and earlier (#6927
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/6927>).
• fzf in complex pipes no longer hangs. More generally, code run as
part of command substitutions or eval will no longer have separate
process groups. (#6624 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/6624>, #6806 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/6806>).
This release also includes:
• several changes to improve macOS compatibility with code signing and
notarization;
• several improvements to completions; and
• several content and formatting improvements to the documentation.
If you are upgrading from version 3.0.0 or before, please also review
the release notes for 3.1.0 and 3.1b1 (included below).
Errata for fish 3.1
A new builtin, time, was introduced in the fish 3.1 releases. This
builtin is a reserved word (like test, function, and others) because of
the way it is implemented, and functions can no longer be named time.
This was not clear in the fish 3.1b1 changelog.
----
fish 3.1.0 (released February 12, 2020)
Compared to the beta release of fish 3.1b1, fish version 3.1.0:
• Fixes a regression where spaces after a brace were removed despite
brace expansion not occurring (#6564 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/6564>).
• Fixes a number of problems in compiling and testing on Cygwin (#6549
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/6549>) and So-
laris-derived systems such as Illumos (#6553
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/6553>, #6554
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/6554>, #6555
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/6555>, #6556
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/6556>, and #6558
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/6558>).
• Fixes the process for building macOS packages.
• Fixes a regression where excessive error messages are printed if Uni-
code characters are emitted in non-Unicode-capable locales (#6584
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/6584>).
• Contains some improvements to the documentation and a small number of
completions.
If you are upgrading from version 3.0.0 or before, please also review
the release notes for 3.1b1 (included below).
----
fish 3.1b1 (released January 26, 2020)
Notable improvements and fixes
• A new $pipestatus variable contains a list of exit statuses of the
previous job, for each of the separate commands in a pipeline (#5632
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/5632>).
• fish no longer buffers pipes to the last function in a pipeline, im-
proving many cases where pipes appeared to block or hang (#1396
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/1396>).
• An overhaul of error messages for builtin commands, including a re-
moval of the overwhelming usage summary, more readable stack traces
(#3404 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/3404>, #5434
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/5434>), and stack
traces for test (aka [) (#5771 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/5771>).
• fishs debugging arguments have been significantly improved. The --de-
bug-level option has been removed, and a new --debug option replaces
it. This option accepts various categories, which may be listed via
fish --print-debug-categories (#5879 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/5879>). A new --debug-output option allows
for redirection of debug output.
• string has a new collect subcommand for use in command substitutions,
producing a single output instead of splitting on new lines (similar
to "$(cmd)" in other shells) (#159 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/159>).
• The fish manual, tutorial and FAQ are now available in man format as
fish-doc, fish-tutorial and fish-faq respectively (#5521
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/5521>).
• Like other shells, cd now always looks for its argument in the cur-
rent directory as a last resort, even if the CDPATH variable does not
include it or . (#4484 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/4484>).
• fish now correctly handles CDPATH entries that start with .. (#6220
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/6220>) or contain ./
(#5887 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/5887>).
• The fish_trace variable may be set to trace execution (#3427
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/3427>). This per-
forms a similar role as set -x in other shells.
• fish uses the temporary directory determined by the system, rather
than relying on /tmp (#3845 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/3845>).
• The fish Web configuration tool (fish_config) prints a list of com-
mands it is executing, to help understanding and debugging (#5584
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/5584>).
• Major performance improvements when pasting (#5866
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/5866>), executing
lots of commands (#5905 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/5905>), importing history from bash (#6295
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/6295>), and when
completing variables that might match $history (#6288
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/6288>).
Syntax changes and new commands
• A new builtin command, time, which allows timing of fish functions
and builtins as well as external commands (#117
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/117>).
• Brace expansion now only takes place if the braces include a , or a
variable expansion, meaning common commands such as git reset
HEAD@{0} do not require escaping (#5869 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/5869>).
• New redirections &> and &| may be used to redirect or pipe stdout,
and also redirect stderr to stdout (#6192 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/6192>).
• switch now allows arguments that expand to nothing, like empty vari-
ables (#5677 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/5677>).
• The VAR=val cmd syntax can now be used to run a command in a modified
environment (#6287 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/6287>).
• and is no longer recognised as a command, so that nonsensical con-
structs like and and and produce a syntax error (#6089
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/6089>).
• maths exponent operator,^, was previously left-associative, but now
uses the more commonly-used right-associative behaviour (#6280
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/6280>). This means
that math '3^0.5^2' was previously calculated as(30.5)2, but is now
calculated as 3(0.52).
• In fish 3.0, the variable used with for loops inside command substi-
tutions could leak into enclosing scopes; this was an inadvertent be-
haviour change and has been reverted (#6480 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/6480>).
Scripting improvements
• string split0 now returns 0 if it split something (#5701
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/5701>).
• In the interest of consistency, builtin -q and command -q can now be
used to query if a builtin or command exists (#5631
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/5631>).
• math now accepts --scale=max for the maximum scale (#5579
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/5579>).
• builtin $var now works correctly, allowing a variable as the builtin
name (#5639 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/5639>).
• cd understands the -- argument to make it possible to change to di-
rectories starting with a hyphen (#6071 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/6071>).
• complete --do-complete now also does fuzzy matches (#5467
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/5467>).
• complete --do-complete can be used inside completions, allowing lim-
ited recursion (#3474 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/3474>).
• count now also counts lines fed on standard input (#5744
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/5744>).
• eval produces an exit status of 0 when given no arguments, like other
shells (#5692 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/5692>).
• printf prints what it can when input hasnt been fully converted to a
number, but still prints an error (#5532 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/5532>).
• complete -C foo now works as expected, rather than requiring complete
-Cfoo.
• complete has a new --force-files option, to re-enable file comple-
tions. This allows sudo -E and pacman -Qo to complete correctly (-
#5646 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/5646>).
• argparse now defaults to showing the current function name (instead
of argparse) in its errors, making --name often superfluous (#5835
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/5835>).
• argparse has a new --ignore-unknown option to keep unrecognized op-
tions, allowing multiple argparse passes to parse options (#5367
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/5367>).
• argparse correctly handles flag value validation of options that only
have short names (#5864 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/5864>).
• read -S (short option of --shell) is recognised correctly (#5660
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/5660>).
• read understands --list, which acts like --array in reading all argu-
ments into a list inside a single variable, but is better named (-
#5846 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/5846>).
• read has a new option, --tokenize, which splits a string into vari-
ables according to the shells tokenization rules, considering quot-
ing, escaping, and so on (#3823 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/3823>).
• read interacts more correctly with the deprecated $IFS variable, in
particular removing multiple separators when splitting a variable
into a list (#6406 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/6406>), matching other shells.
• fish_indent now handles semicolons better, including leaving them in
place for ; and and ; or instead of breaking the line (#5859
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/5859>).
• fish_indent --write now supports multiple file arguments, indenting
them in turn.
• The default read limit has been increased to 100MiB (#5267
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/5267>).
• math now also understands x for multiplication, provided it is fol-
lowed by whitespace (#5906 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/5906>).
• math reports the right error when incorrect syntax is used inside
parentheses (#6063 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/6063>), and warns when unsupported logical operations are used
(#6096 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/6096>).
• functions --erase now also prevents fish from autoloading a function
for the first time (#5951 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/5951>).
• jobs --last returns 0 to indicate success when a job is found (#6104
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/6104>).
• commandline -p and commandline -j now split on && and || in addition
to ; and & (#6214 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/6214>).
• A bug where string split would drop empty strings if the output was
only empty strings has been fixed (#5987 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/5987>).
• eval no long creates a new local variable scope, but affects vari-
ables in the scope it is called from (#4443 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/4443>). source still creates a new local
scope.
• abbr has a new --query option to check for the existence of an abbre-
viation.
• Local values for fish_complete_path and fish_function_path are now
ignored; only their global values are respected.
• Syntax error reports now display a marker in the correct position (-
#5812 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/5812>).
• Empty universal variables may now be exported (#5992
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/5992>).
• Exported universal variables are no longer imported into the global
scope, preventing shadowing. This makes it easier to change such
variables for all fish sessions and avoids breakage when the value is
a list of multiple elements (#5258 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/5258>).
• A bug where for could use invalid variable names has been fixed (-
#5800 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/5800>).
• A bug where local variables would not be exported to functions has
been fixed (#6153 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/6153>).
• The null command (:) now always exits successfully, rather than pass-
ing through the previous exit status (#6022 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/6022>).
• The output of functions FUNCTION matches the declaration of the func-
tion, correctly including comments or blank lines (#5285
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/5285>), and cor-
rectly includes any --wraps flags (#1625 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/1625>).
• type supports a new option, --short, which suppress function expan-
sion (#6403 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/6403>).
• type --path with a function argument will now output the path to the
file containing the definition of that function, if it exists.
• type --force-path with an argument that cannot be found now correctly
outputs nothing, as documented (#6411 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/6411>).
• The $hostname variable is no longer truncated to 32 characters (#5758
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/5758>).
• Line numbers in function backtraces are calculated correctly (#6350
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/6350>).
• A new fish_cancel event is emitted when the command line is can-
celled, which is useful for terminal integration (#5973
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/5973>).
Interactive improvements
• New Base16 color options are available through the Web-based configu-
ration (#6504 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/6504>).
• fish only parses /etc/paths on macOS in login shells, matching the
bash implementation (#5637 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/5637>) and avoiding changes to path ordering in child
shells (#5456 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/5456>). It now ignores blank lines like the bash implementation
(#5809 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/5809>).
• The locale is now reloaded when the LOCPATH variable is changed (-
#5815 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/5815>).
• read no longer keeps a history, making it suitable for operations
that shouldnt end up there, like password entry (#5904
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/5904>).
• dirh outputs its stack in the correct order (#5477
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/5477>), and behaves
as documented when universal variables are used for its stack (#5797
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/5797>).
• funced and the edit-commandline-in-buffer bindings did not work in
fish 3.0 when the $EDITOR variable contained spaces; this has been
corrected (#5625 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/5625>).
• Builtins now pipe their help output to a pager automatically (#6227
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/6227>).
• set_color now colors the --print-colors output in the matching colors
if it is going to a terminal.
• fish now underlines every valid entered path instead of just the last
one (#5872 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/5872>).
• When syntax highlighting a string with an unclosed quote, only the
quote itself will be shown as an error, instead of the whole argu-
ment.
• Syntax highlighting works correctly with variables as commands (#5658
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/5658>) and redirec-
tions to close file descriptors (#6092 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/6092>).
• help works properly on Windows Subsystem for Linux (#5759
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/5759>, #6338
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/6338>).
• A bug where disown could crash the shell has been fixed (#5720
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/5720>).
• fish will not autosuggest files ending with ~ unless there are no
other candidates, as these are generally backup files (#985
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/985>).
• Escape in the pager works correctly (#5818 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/5818>).
• Key bindings that call fg no longer leave the terminal in a broken
state (#2114 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/2114>).
• Brackets (#5831 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/5831>) and filenames containing $ (#6060
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/6060>) are completed
with appropriate escaping.
• The output of complete and functions is now colorized in interactive
terminals.
• The Web-based configuration handles aliases that include single
quotes correctly (#6120 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/6120>), and launches correctly under Termux (#6248
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/6248>) and OpenBSD
(#6522 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/6522>).
• function now correctly validates parameters for --argument-names as
valid variable names (#6147 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/6147>) and correctly parses options following --argu-
ment-names, as in --argument-names foo --description bar (#6186
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/6186>).
• History newly imported from bash includes command lines using && or
||.
• The automatic generation of completions from manual pages is better
described in job and process listings, and no longer produces a warn-
ing when exiting fish (#6269 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/6269>).
• In private mode, setting $fish_greeting to an empty string before
starting the private session will prevent the warning about history
not being saved from being printed (#6299 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/6299>).
• In the interactive editor, a line break (Enter) inside unclosed
brackets will insert a new line, rather than executing the command
and producing an error (#6316 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/6316>).
• Ctrl-C always repaints the prompt (#6394 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/6394>).
• When run interactively from another program (such as Python), fish
will correctly start a new process group, like other shells (#5909
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/5909>).
• Job identifiers (for example, for background jobs) are assigned more
logically (#6053 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/6053>).
• A bug where history would appear truncated if an empty command was
executed was fixed (#6032 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/6032>).
New or improved bindings
• Pasting strips leading spaces to avoid pasted commands being omitted
from the history (#4327 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/4327>).
• Shift-Left and Shift-Right now default to moving backwards and for-
wards by one bigword (words separated by whitespace) (#1505
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/1505>).
• The default escape delay (to differentiate between the escape key and
an alt-combination) has been reduced to 30ms, down from 300ms for the
default mode and 100ms for Vi mode (#3904 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/3904>).
• The forward-bigword binding now interacts correctly with autosugges-
tions (#5336 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/5336>).
• The fish_clipboard_* functions support Wayland by using wl-clipboard
<https://github.com/bugaevc/wl-clipboard> (#5450
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/5450>).
• The nextd and prevd functions no longer print Hit end of history, in-
stead using a bell. They correctly store working directories contain-
ing symbolic links (#6395 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/6395>).
• If a fish_mode_prompt function exists, Vi mode will only execute it
on mode-switch instead of the entire prompt. This should make it much
more responsive with slow prompts (#5783 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/5783>).
• The path-component bindings (like Ctrl-w) now also stop at : and @,
because those are used to denote user and host in commands such as
ssh (#5841 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/5841>).
• The NULL character can now be bound via bind -k nul. Terminals often
generate this character via control-space. (#3189
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/3189>).
• A new readline command expand-abbr can be used to trigger abbrevia-
tion expansion (#5762 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/5762>).
• A new readline command, delete-or-exit, removes a character to the
right of the cursor or exits the shell if the command line is empty
(moving this functionality out of the delete-or-exit function).
• The self-insert readline command will now insert the binding se-
quence, if not empty.
• A new binding to prepend sudo, bound to Alt-S by default (#6140
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/6140>).
• The Alt-W binding to describe a command should now work better with
multiline prompts (#6110 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/6110>)
• The Alt-H binding to open a commands man page now tries to ignore
sudo (#6122 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/6122>).
• A new pair of bind functions, history-prefix-search-backward (and
forward), was introduced (#6143 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/6143>).
• Vi mode now supports R to enter replace mode (#6342
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/6342>), and d0 to
delete the current line (#6292 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/6292>).
• In Vi mode, hitting Enter in replace-one mode no longer erases the
prompt (#6298 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/6298>).
• Selections in Vi mode are inclusive, matching the actual behaviour of
Vi (#5770 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/5770>).
Improved prompts
• The Git prompt in informative mode now shows the number of stashes if
enabled.
• The Git prompt now has an option ($__fish_git_prompt_use_informa-
tive_chars) to use the (more modern) informative characters without
enabling informative mode.
• The default prompt now also features VCS integration and will color
the host if running via SSH (#6375 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/6375>).
• The default and example prompts print the pipe status if an earlier
command in the pipe fails.
• The default and example prompts try to resolve exit statuses to sig-
nal names when appropriate.
Improved terminal output
• New fish_pager_color_ options have been added to control more ele-
ments of the pagers colors (#5524 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/5524>).
• Better detection and support for using fish from various system con-
soles, where limited colors and special characters are supported (-
#5552 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/5552>).
• fish now tries to guess if the system supports Unicode 9 (and dis-
plays emoji as wide), eliminating the need to set $fish_emoji_width
in most cases (#5722 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/5722>).
• Improvements to the display of wide characters, particularly Korean
characters and emoji (#5583 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/5583>, #5729 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/5729>).
• The Vi mode cursor is correctly redrawn when regaining focus under
terminals that report focus (eg tmux) (#4788
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/4788>).
• Variables that control background colors (such as
fish_pager_color_search_match) can now use --reverse.
Completions
• Added completions for
• aws
• bat (#6052 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/6052>)
• bosh (#5700 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/5700>)
• btrfs
• camcontrol
• cf (#5700 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/5700>)
• chronyc (#6496 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/6496>)
• code (#6205 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/6205>)
• cryptsetup (#6488 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/6488>)
• csc and csi (#6016 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/6016>)
• cwebp (#6034 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/6034>)
• cygpath and cygstart (#6239 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/6239>)
• epkginfo (#5829 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/5829>)
• ffmpeg, ffplay, and ffprobe (#5922 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/5922>)
• fsharpc and fsharpi (#6016 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/6016>)
• fzf (#6178 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/6178>)
• g++ (#6217 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/6217>)
• gpg1 (#6139 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/6139>)
• gpg2 (#6062 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/6062>)
• grub-mkrescue (#6182 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/6182>)
• hledger (#6043 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/6043>)
• hwinfo (#6496 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/6496>)
• irb (#6260 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/6260>)
• iw (#6232 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/6232>)
• kak
• keepassxc-cli (#6505 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/6505>)
• keybase (#6410 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/6410>)
• loginctl (#6501 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/6501>)
• lz4, lz4c and lz4cat (#6364 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/6364>)
• mariner (#5718 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/5718>)
• nethack (#6240 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/6240>)
• patool (#6083 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/6083>)
• phpunit (#6197 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/6197>)
• plutil (#6301 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/6301>)
• pzstd (#6364 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/6364>)
• qubes-gpg-client (#6067 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/6067>)
• resolvectl (#6501 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/6501>)
• rg
• rustup
• sfdx (#6149 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/6149>)
• speedtest and speedtest-cli (#5840 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/5840>)
• src (#6026 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/6026>)
• tokei (#6085 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/6085>)
• tsc (#6016 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/6016>)
• unlz4 (#6364 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/6364>)
• unzstd (#6364 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/6364>)
• vbc (#6016 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/6016>)
• zpaq (#6245 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/6245>)
• zstd, zstdcat, zstdgrep, zstdless and zstdmt (#6364
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/6364>)
• Lots of improvements to completions.
• Selecting short options which also have a long name from the comple-
tion pager is possible (#5634 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/5634>).
• Tab completion will no longer add trailing spaces if they already ex-
ist (#6107 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/6107>).
• Completion of subcommands to builtins like and or not now works cor-
rectly (#6249 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/6249>).
• Completion of arguments to short options works correctly when multi-
ple short options are used together (#332 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/332>).
• Activating completion in the middle of an invalid completion does not
move the cursor any more, making it easier to fix a mistake (#4124
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/4124>).
• Completion in empty commandlines now lists all available commands.
• Functions listed as completions could previously leak parts of the
function as other completions; this has been fixed.
Deprecations and removed features
• The vcs-prompt functions have been promoted to names without dou-
ble-underscore, so __fish_git_prompt is now fish_git_prompt,
__fish_vcs_prompt is now fish_vcs_prompt, __fish_hg_prompt is now
fish_hg_prompt and __fish_svn_prompt is now fish_svn_prompt. Shims at
the old names have been added, and the variables have kept their old
names (#5586 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/5586>).
• string replace has an additional round of escaping in the replacement
expression, so escaping backslashes requires many escapes (eg string
replace -ra '([ab])' '\\\\\\\$1' a). The new feature flag
regex-easyesc can be used to disable this, so that the same effect
can be achieved with string replace -ra '([ab])' '\\\\$1' a (#5556
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/5556>). As a re-
minder, the intention behind feature flags is that this will eventu-
ally become the default and then only option, so scripts should be
updated.
• The fish_vi_mode function, deprecated in fish 2.3, has been removed.
Use fish_vi_key_bindings instead (#6372 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/6372>).
For distributors and developers
• fish 3.0 introduced a CMake-based build system. In fish 3.1, both the
Autotools-based build and legacy Xcode build system have been re-
moved, leaving only the CMake build system. All distributors and de-
velopers must install CMake.
• fish now depends on the common tee external command, for the psub
process substitution function.
• The documentation is now built with Sphinx. The old Doxygen-based
documentation system has been removed. Developers, and distributors
who wish to rebuild the documentation, must install Sphinx.
• The INTERNAL_WCWIDTH build option has been removed, as fish now al-
ways uses an internal wcwidth function. It has a number of configura-
tion options that make it more suitable for general use (#5777
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/5777>).
• mandoc can now be used to format the output from --help if nroff is
not installed, reducing the number of external dependencies on sys-
tems with mandoc installed (#5489 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/5489>).
• Some bugs preventing building on Solaris-derived systems such as Il-
lumos were fixed (#5458 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/5458>, #5461 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/5461>, #5611 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/5611>).
• Completions for npm, bower and yarn no longer require the jq utility
for full functionality, but will use Python instead if it is avail-
able.
• The paths for completions, functions and configuration snippets have
been extended. On systems that define XDG_DATA_DIRS, each of the di-
rectories in this variable are searched in the subdirectories
fish/vendor_completions.d, fish/vendor_functions.d, and fish/ven-
dor_conf.d respectively. On systems that do not define this variable
in the environment, the vendor directories are searched for in both
the installation prefix and the default extra directory, which now
defaults to /usr/local (#5029 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/5029>).
----
fish 3.0.2 (released February 19, 2019)
This release of fish fixes an issue discovered in fish 3.0.1.
Fixes and improvements
• The PWD environment variable is now ignored if it does not resolve to
the true working directory, fixing strange behaviour in terminals
started by editors and IDEs (#5647 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/5647>).
If you are upgrading from version 2.7.1 or before, please also review
the release notes for 3.0.1, 3.0.0 and 3.0b1 (included below).
fish 3.0.1 (released February 11, 2019)
This release of fish fixes a number of major issues discovered in fish
3.0.0.
Fixes and improvements
• exec does not complain about running foreground jobs when called (-
#5449 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/5449>).
• while loops now evaluate to the last executed command in the loop
body (or zero if the body was empty), matching POSIX semantics (#4982
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/4982>).
• read --silent no longer echoes to the tty when run from a non-inter-
active script (#5519 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/5519>).
• On macOS, path entries with spaces in /etc/paths and /etc/paths.d now
correctly set path entries with spaces. Likewise, MANPATH is cor-
rectly set from /etc/manpaths and /etc/manpaths.d (#5481
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/5481>).
• fish starts correctly under Cygwin/MSYS2 (#5426
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/5426>).
• The pager-toggle-search binding (Ctrl-S by default) will now activate
the search field, even when the pager is not focused.
• The error when a command is not found is now printed a single time,
instead of once per argument (#5588 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/5588>).
• Fixes and improvements to the git completions, including printing
correct paths with older git versions, fuzzy matching again, reducing
unnecessary offers of root paths (starting with :/) (#5578
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/5578>, #5574
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/5574>, #5476
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/5476>), and ignoring
shell aliases, so enterprising users can set up the wrapping command
(via set -g __fish_git_alias_$command $whatitwraps) (#5412
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/5412>).
• Significant performance improvements to core shell functions (#5447
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/5447>) and to the
kill completions (#5541 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/5541>).
• Starting in symbolically-linked working directories works correctly
(#5525 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/5525>).
• The default fish_title function no longer contains extra spaces (-
#5517 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/5517>).
• The nim prompt now works correctly when chosen in the Web-based con-
figuration (#5490 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/5490>).
• string now prints help to stdout, like other builtins (#5495
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/5495>).
• Killing the terminal while fish is in vi normal mode will no longer
send it spinning and eating CPU. (#5528 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/5528>)
• A number of crashes have been fixed (#5550 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/5550>, #5548 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/5548>, #5479 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/5479>, #5453 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/5453>).
• Improvements to the documentation and certain completions.
Known issues
There is one significant known issue that was not corrected before the
release:
• fish does not run correctly under Windows Services for Linux before
Windows 10 version 1809/17763, and the message warning of this may
not be displayed (#5619 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/5619>).
If you are upgrading from version 2.7.1 or before, please also review
the release notes for 3.0.0 and 3.0b1 (included below).
----
fish 3.0.0 (released December 28, 2018)
fish 3 is a major release, which introduces some breaking changes
alongside improved functionality. Although most existing scripts will
continue to work, they should be reviewed against the list contained in
the 3.0b1 release notes below.
Compared to the beta release of fish 3.0b1, fish version 3.0.0:
• builds correctly against musl libc (#5407 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/5407>)
• handles huge numeric arguments to test correctly (#5414
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/5414>)
• removes the history colouring introduced in 3.0b1, which did not al-
ways work correctly
There is one significant known issue which was not able to be corrected
before the release:
• fish 3.0.0 builds on Cygwin (#5423 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/5423>), but does not run correctly (#5426
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/5426>) and will re-
sult in a hanging terminal when started. Cygwin users are encouraged
to continue using 2.7.1 until a release which corrects this is avail-
able.
If you are upgrading from version 2.7.1 or before, please also review
the release notes for 3.0b1 (included below).
----
fish 3.0b1 (released December 11, 2018)
fish 3 is a major release, which introduces some breaking changes
alongside improved functionality. Although most existing scripts will
continue to work, they should be reviewed against the list below.
Notable non-backward compatible changes
• Process and job expansion has largely been removed. % will no longer
perform these expansions, except for %self for the PID of the current
shell. Additionally, job management commands (disown, wait, bg, fg
and kill) will expand job specifiers starting with % (#4230
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/4230>, #1202
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/1202>).
• set x[1] x[2] a b, to set multiple elements of an array at once, is
no longer valid syntax (#4236 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/4236>).
• A literal {} now expands to itself, rather than nothing. This makes
working with find -exec easier (#1109 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/1109>, #4632 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/4632>).
• Literally accessing a zero-index is now illegal syntax and is caught
by the parser (#4862 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/4862>). (fish indices start at 1)
• Successive commas in brace expansions are handled in less surprising
manner. For example, {,,,} expands to four empty strings rather than
an empty string, a comma and an empty string again (#3002
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/3002>, #4632
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/4632>).
• for loop control variables are no longer local to the for block (-
#1935 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/1935>).
• Variables set in if and while conditions are available outside the
block (#4820 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/4820>).
• Local exported (set -lx) vars are now visible to functions (#1091
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/1091>).
• The new math builtin (see below) does not support logical expres-
sions; test should be used instead (#4777 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/4777>).
• Range expansion will now behave sensibly when given a single positive
and negative index ($foo[5..-1] or $foo[-1..5]), clamping to the last
valid index without changing direction if the list has fewer elements
than expected.
• read now uses -s as short for --silent ( la bash); --shells abbrevi-
ation (formerly -s) is now -S instead (#4490
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/4490>).
• cd no longer resolves symlinks. fish now maintains a virtual path,
matching other shells (#3350 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/3350>).
• source now requires an explicit - as the filename to read from the
terminal (#2633 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/2633>).
• Arguments to end are now errors, instead of being silently ignored.
• The names argparse, read, set, status, test and [ are now reserved
and not allowed as function names. This prevents users unintention-
ally breaking stuff (#3000 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/3000>).
• The fish_user_abbreviations variable is no longer used; abbreviations
will be migrated to the new storage format automatically.
• The FISH_READ_BYTE_LIMIT variable is now called fish_byte_limit (-
#4414 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/4414>).
• Environment variables are no longer split into arrays based on the
record separator character on startup. Instead, variables are not
split, unless their name ends in PATH, in which case they are split
on colons (#436 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/436>).
• The history builtins --with-time option has been removed; this has
been deprecated in favor of --show-time since 2.7.0 (#4403
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/4403>).
• The internal variables __fish_datadir and __fish_sysconfdir are now
known as __fish_data_dir and __fish_sysconf_dir respectively.
Deprecations
With the release of fish 3, a number of features have been marked for
removal in the future. All users are encouraged to explore alterna-
tives. A small number of these features are currently behind feature
flags, which are turned on at present but may be turned off by default
in the future.
A new feature flags mechanism is added for staging deprecations and
breaking changes. Feature flags may be specified at launch with fish
--features ... or by setting the universal fish_features variable. (-
#4940 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/4940>)
• The use of the IFS variable for read is deprecated; IFS will be ig-
nored in the future (#4156 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/4156>). Use the read --delimiter option instead.
• The function --on-process-exit switch will be removed in future (-
#4700 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/4700>). Use
the fish_exit event instead: function --on-event fish_exit.
• $_ is deprecated and will removed in the future (#813
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/813>). Use status
current-command in a command substitution instead.
• ^ as a redirection deprecated and will be removed in the future. (-
#4394 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/4394>). Use 2>
to redirect stderr. This is controlled by the stderr-nocaret feature
flag.
• ? as a glob (wildcard) is deprecated and will be removed in the fu-
ture (#4520 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/4520>).
This is controlled by the qmark-noglob feature flag.
Notable fixes and improvements
Syntax changes and new commands
• fish now supports && (like and), || (like or), and ! (like not), for
better migration from POSIX-compliant shells (#4620
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/4620>).
• Variables may be used as commands (#154 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/154>).
• fish may be started in private mode via fish --private. Private mode
fish sessions do not have access to the history file and any commands
evaluated in private mode are not persisted for future sessions. A
session variable $fish_private_mode can be queried to detect private
mode and adjust the behavior of scripts accordingly to respect the
users wish for privacy.
• A new wait command for waiting on backgrounded processes (#4498
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/4498>).
• math is now a builtin rather than a wrapper around bc (#3157
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/3157>). Floating
point computations is now used by default, and can be controlled with
the new --scale option (#4478 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/4478>).
• Setting $PATH no longer warns on non-existent directories, allowing
for a single $PATH to be shared across machines (eg via dotfiles) (-
#2969 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/2969>).
• while sets $status to a non-zero value if the loop is not executed (-
#4982 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/4982>).
• Command substitution output is now limited to 10 MB by default, con-
trolled by the fish_read_limit variable (#3822
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/3822>). Notably,
this is larger than most operating systems argument size limit, so
trying to pass argument lists this size to external commands has
never worked.
• The machine hostname, where available, is now exposed as the $host-
name reserved variable. This removes the dependency on the hostname
executable (#4422 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/4422>).
• Bare bind invocations in config.fish now work. The
fish_user_key_bindings function is no longer necessary, but will
still be executed if it exists (#5191 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/5191>).
• $fish_pid and $last_pid are available as replacements for %self and
%last.
New features in commands
• alias has a new --save option to save the generated function immedi-
ately (#4878 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/4878>).
• bind has a new --silent option to ignore bind requests for named keys
not available under the current terminal (#4188
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/4188>, #4431
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/4431>).
• complete has a new --keep-order option to show the provided or dynam-
ically-generated argument list in the same order as specified, rather
than alphabetically (#361 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/361>).
• exec prompts for confirmation if background jobs are running.
• funced has a new --save option to automatically save the edited func-
tion after successfully editing (#4668 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/4668>).
• functions has a new --handlers option to show functions registered as
event handlers (#4694 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/4694>).
• history search supports globs for wildcard searching (#3136
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/3136>) and has a new
--reverse option to show entries from oldest to newest (#4375
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/4375>).
• jobs has a new --quiet option to silence the output.
• read has a new --delimiter option for splitting input into arrays (-
#4256 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/4256>).
• read writes directly to stdout if called without arguments (#4407
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/4407>).
• read can now read individual lines into separate variables without
consuming the input in its entirety via the new /--line option.
• set has new --append and --prepend options (#1326
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/1326>).
• string match with an empty pattern and --entire in glob mode now
matches everything instead of nothing (#4971
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/4971>).
• string split supports a new --no-empty option to exclude empty
strings from the result (#4779 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/4779>).
• string has new subcommands split0 and join0 for working with NUL-de-
limited output.
• string no longer stops processing text after NUL characters (#4605
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/4605>)
• string escape has a new --style regex option for escaping strings to
be matched literally in string regex operations.
• test now supports floating point values in numeric comparisons.
Interactive improvements
• A pipe at the end of a line now allows the job to continue on the
next line (#1285 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/1285>).
• Italics and dim support out of the box on macOS for Terminal.app and
iTerm (#4436 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/4436>).
• cd tab completions no longer descend into the deepest unambiguous
path (#4649 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/4649>).
• Pager navigation has been improved. Most notably, moving down now
wraps around, moving up from the commandline now jumps to the last
element and moving right and left now reverse each other even when
wrapping around (#4680 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/4680>).
• Typing normal characters while the completion pager is active no
longer shows the search field. Instead it enters them into the com-
mand line, and ends paging (#2249 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/2249>).
• A new input binding pager-toggle-search toggles the search field in
the completions pager on and off. By default, this is bound to
Ctrl-S.
• Searching in the pager now does a full fuzzy search (#5213
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/5213>).
• The pager will now show the full command instead of just its last
line if the number of completions is large (#4702
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/4702>).
• Abbreviations can be tab-completed (#3233 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/3233>).
• Tildes in file names are now properly escaped in completions (#2274
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/2274>).
• Wrapping completions (from complete --wraps or function --wraps) can
now inject arguments. For example, complete gco --wraps 'git check-
out' now works properly (#1976 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/1976>). The alias function has been updated to respect
this behavior.
• Path completions now support expansions, meaning expressions like
python ~/<TAB> now provides file suggestions just like any other rel-
ative or absolute path. (This includes support for other expansions,
too.)
• Autosuggestions try to avoid arguments that are already present in
the command line.
• Notifications about crashed processes are now always shown, even in
command substitutions (#4962 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/4962>).
• The screen is no longer reset after a BEL, fixing graphical glitches
(#3693 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/3693>).
• vi-mode now supports ; and , motions. This introduces new {for-
ward,backward}-jump-till and repeat-jump{,-reverse} bind functions (-
#5140 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/5140>).
• The *y vi-mode binding now works (#5100 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/5100>).
• True color is now enabled in neovim by default (#2792
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/2792>).
• Terminal size variables ($COLUMNS/$LINES) are now updated before
fish_prompt is called, allowing the prompt to react (#904
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/904>).
• Multi-line prompts no longer repeat when the terminal is resized (-
#2320 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/2320>).
• xclip support has been added to the clipboard integration (#5020
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/5020>).
• The Alt-P keybinding paginates the last command if the command line
is empty.
• $cmd_duration is no longer reset when no command is executed (#5011
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/5011>).
• Deleting a one-character word no longer erases the next word as well
(#4747 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/4747>).
• Token history search (Alt-Up) omits duplicate entries (#4795
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/4795>).
• The fish_escape_delay_ms timeout, allowing the use of the escape key
both on its own and as part of a control sequence, was applied to all
control characters; this has been reduced to just the escape key.
• Completing a function shows the description properly (#5206
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/5206>).
• commandline can now be used to set the commandline for the next com-
mand, restoring a behavior in 3.4.1 (#8807 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/8807>).
• Added completions for
• ansible, including ansible-galaxy, ansible-playbook and ansi-
ble-vault (#4697 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/4697>)
• bb-power (#4800 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/4800>)
• bd (#4472 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/4472>)
• bower
• clang and clang++ (#4174 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/4174>)
• conda (#4837 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/4837>)
• configure (for autoconf-generated files only)
• curl
• doas (#5196 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/5196>)
• ebuild (#4911 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/4911>)
• emaint (#4758 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/4758>)
• eopkg (#4600 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/4600>)
• exercism (#4495 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/4495>)
• hjson
• hugo (#4529 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/4529>)
• j (from autojump #4344 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/4344>)
• jbake (#4814 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/4814>)
• jhipster (#4472 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/4472>)
• kitty
• kldload
• kldunload
• makensis (#5242 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/5242>)
• meson
• mkdocs (#4906 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/4906>)
• ngrok (#4642 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/4642>)
• OpenBSDs pkg_add, pkg_delete, pkg_info, pfctl, rcctl, signify, and
vmctl (#4584 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/4584>)
• openocd
• optipng
• opkg (#5168 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/5168>)
• pandoc (#2937 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/2937>)
• port (#4737 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/4737>)
• powerpill (#4800 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/4800>)
• pstack (#5135 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/5135>)
• serve (#5026 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/5026>)
• ttx
• unzip
• virsh (#5113 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/5113>)
• xclip (#5126 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/5126>)
• xsv
• zfs and zpool (#4608 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/4608>)
• Lots of improvements to completions (especially darcs (#5112
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/5112>), git, hg and
sudo).
• Completions for yarn and npm now require the all-the-package-names
NPM package for full functionality.
• Completions for bower and yarn now require the jq utility for full
functionality.
• Improved French translations.
Other fixes and improvements
• Significant performance improvements to abbr (#4048
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/4048>), setting
variables (#4200 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/4200>, #4341 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/4341>), executing functions, globs (#4579
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/4579>), string read-
ing from standard input (#4610 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/4610>), and slicing history (in particular, $history[1]
for the last executed command).
• Fishs internal wcwidth function has been updated to deal with newer
Unicode, and the width of some characters can be configured via the
fish_ambiguous_width (#5149 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/5149>) and fish_emoji_width (#2652
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/2652>) variables.
Alternatively, a new build-time option INTERNAL_WCWIDTH can be used
to use the systems wcwidth instead (#4816 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/4816>).
• functions correctly supports -d as the short form of --description.
(#5105 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/5105>)
• /etc/paths is now parsed like macOS bash path_helper, fixing $PATH
order (#4336 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/4336>,
#4852 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/4852>) on ma-
cOS.
• Using a read-only variable in a for loop produces an error, rather
than silently producing incorrect results (#4342
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/4342>).
• The universal variables filename no longer contains the hostname or
MAC address. It is now at the fixed location .config/fish/fish_vari-
ables (#1912 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/1912>).
• Exported variables in the global or universal scope no longer have
their exported status affected by local variables (#2611
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/2611>).
• Major rework of terminal and job handling to eliminate bugs (#3805
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/3805>, #3952
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/3952>, #4178
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/4178>, #4235
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/4235>, #4238
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/4238>, #4540
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/4540>, #4929
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/4929>, #5210
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/5210>).
• Improvements to the manual page completion generator (#2937
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/2937>, #4313
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/4313>).
• suspend --force now works correctly (#4672 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/4672>).
• Pressing Ctrl-C while running a script now reliably terminates fish
(#5253 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/5253>).
For distributors and developers
• fish ships with a new build system based on CMake. CMake 3.2 is the
minimum required version. Although the autotools-based Makefile and
the Xcode project are still shipped with this release, they will be
removed in the near future. All distributors and developers are en-
couraged to migrate to the CMake build.
• Build scripts for most platforms no longer require bash, using the
standard sh instead.
• The hostname command is no longer required for fish to operate.
fish 2.7.1 (released December 23, 2017)
This release of fish fixes an issue where iTerm 2 on macOS would dis-
play a warning about paste bracketing being left on when starting a new
fish session (#4521 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/4521>).
If you are upgrading from version 2.6.0 or before, please also review
the release notes for 2.7.0 and 2.7b1 (included below).
fish 2.7.0 (released November 23, 2017)
There are no major changes between 2.7b1 and 2.7.0. If you are upgrad-
ing from version 2.6.0 or before, please also review the release notes
for 2.7b1 (included below).
Xcode builds and macOS packages could not be produced with 2.7b1, but
this is fixed in 2.7.0.
fish 2.7b1 (released October 31, 2017)
Notable improvements
• A new cdh (change directory using recent history) command provides a
more friendly alternative to prevd/nextd and pushd/popd (#2847
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/2847>).
• A new argparse command is available to allow fish script to parse ar-
guments with the same behavior as builtin commands. This also in-
cludes the fish_opt helper command. (#4190 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/4190>).
• Invalid array indexes are now silently ignored (#826
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/826>, #4127
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/4127>).
• Improvements to the debugging facility, including a prompt specific
to the debugger (fish_breakpoint_prompt) and a status is-breakpoint
subcommand (#1310 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/1310>).
• string supports new lower and upper subcommands, for altering the
case of strings (#4080 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/4080>). The case changing is not locale-aware yet.- string es-
cape has a new --style=xxx flag where xxx can be script, var, or url
(#4150 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/4150>), and
can be reversed with string unescape (#3543 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/3543>).
• History can now be split into sessions with the fish_history vari-
able, or not saved to disk at all (#102 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/102>).
• Read history is now controlled by the fish_history variable rather
than the --mode-name flag (#1504 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/1504>).
• command now supports an --all flag to report all directories with the
command. which is no longer a runtime dependency (#2778
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/2778>).
• fish can run commands before starting an interactive session using
the new --init-command/-C options (#4164 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/4164>).
• set has a new --show option to show lots of information about vari-
ables (#4265 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/4265>).
Other significant changes
• The COLUMNS and LINES environment variables are now correctly set the
first time fish_prompt is run (#4141 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/4141>).
• completes --no-files option works as intended (#112
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/112>).
• echo -h now correctly echoes -h in line with other shells (#4120
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/4120>).
• The export compatibility function now returns zero on success, rather
than always returning 1 (#4435 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/4435>).
• Stop converting empty elements in MANPATH to . (#4158
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/4158>). The behavior
being changed was introduced in fish 2.6.0.
• count -h and count --help now return 1 rather than produce command
help output (#4189 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/4189>).
• An attempt to read which stops because too much data is available
still defines the variables given as parameters (#4180
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/4180>).
• A regression in fish 2.4.0 which prevented pushd +1 from working has
been fixed (#4091 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/4091>).
• A regression in fish 2.6.0 where multiple read commands in non-inter-
active scripts were broken has been fixed (#4206
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/4206>).
• A regression in fish 2.6.0 involving universal variables with
side-effects at startup such as set -U fish_escape_delay_ms 10 has
been fixed (#4196 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/4196>).
• Added completions for:
• as (#4130 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/4130>)
• cdh (#2847 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/2847>)
• dhcpd (#4115 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/4115>)
• ezjail-admin (#4324 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/4324>)
• Fabrics fab (#4153 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/4153>)
• grub-file (#4119 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/4119>)
• grub-install (#4119 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/4119>)
• jest (#4142 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/4142>)
• kdeconnect-cli
• magneto (#4043 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/4043>, #4108 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/4108>)
• mdadm (#4198 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/4198>)
• passwd (#4209 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/4209>)
• pip and pipenv (#4448 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/4448>)
• s3cmd (#4332 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/4332>)
• sbt (#4347 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/4347>)
• snap (#4215 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/4215>)
• Sublime Text 3s subl (#4277 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/4277>)
• Lots of improvements to completions.
• Updated Chinese and French translations.
• Improved completions for:
• apt
• cd (#4061 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/4061>)
• composer (#4295 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/4295>)
• eopkg
• flatpak (#4456 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/4456>)
• git (#4117 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/4117>,
#4147 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/4147>, #4329
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/4329>, #4368
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/4368>)
• gphoto2
• killall (#4052 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/4052>)
• ln
• npm (#4241 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/4241>)
• ssh (#4377 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/4377>)
• tail
• xdg-mime (#4333 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/4333>)
• zypper (#4325 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/4325>)
fish 2.6.0 (released June 3, 2017)
Since the beta release of fish 2.6b1, fish version 2.6.0 contains a
number of minor fixes, new completions for magneto (#4043
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/4043>), and improve-
ments to the documentation.
Known issues
• Apple macOS Sierra 10.12.5 introduced a problem with launching web
browsers from other programs using AppleScript. This affects the fish
Web configuration (fish_config); users on these platforms will need
to manually open the address displayed in the terminal, such as by
copying and pasting it into a browser. This problem will be fixed
with macOS 10.12.6.
If you are upgrading from version 2.5.0 or before, please also review
the release notes for 2.6b1 (included below).
----
fish 2.6b1 (released May 14, 2017)
Notable fixes and improvements
• Jobs running in the background can now be removed from the list of
jobs with the new disown builtin, which behaves like the same command
in other shells (#2810 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/2810>).
• Command substitutions now have access to the terminal, like in other
shells. This allows tools like fzf to work properly (#1362
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/1362>, #3922
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/3922>).
• In cases where the operating system does not report the size of the
terminal, the COLUMNS and LINES environment variables are used; if
they are unset, a default of 80x24 is assumed.
• New French (#3772 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/3772> & #3788 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/3788>) and improved German (#3834 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/3834>) translations.
• fish no longer depends on the which external command.
Other significant changes
• Performance improvements in launching processes, including major re-
ductions in signal blocking. Although this has been heavily tested,
it may cause problems in some circumstances; set the FISH_NO_SIG-
NAL_BLOCK variable to 0 in your fish configuration file to return to
the old behaviour (#2007 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/2007>).
• Performance improvements in prompts and functions that set lots of
colours (#3793 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/3793>).
• The Delete key no longer deletes backwards (a regression in 2.5.0).
• functions supports a new --details option, which identifies where the
function was loaded from (#3295 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/3295>), and a --details --verbose option which includes
the function description (#597 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/597>).
• read will read up to 10 MiB by default, leaving the target variable
empty and exiting with status 122 if the line is too long. You can
set a different limit with the FISH_READ_BYTE_LIMIT variable.
• read supports a new --silent option to hide the characters typed (-
#838 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/838>), for when
reading sensitive data from the terminal. read also now accepts sim-
ple strings for the prompt (rather than scripts) with the new -P and
--prompt-str options (#802 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/802>).
• export and setenv now understand colon-separated PATH, CDPATH and
MANPATH variables.
• setenv is no longer a simple alias for set -gx and will complain,
just like the csh version, if given more than one value (#4103
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/4103>).
• bind supports a new --list-modes option (#3872
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/3872>).
• bg will check all of its arguments before backgrounding any jobs; any
invalid arguments will cause a failure, but non-existent (eg recently
exited) jobs are ignored (#3909 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/3909>).
• funced warns if the function being edited has not been modified (-
#3961 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/3961>).
• printf correctly outputs long long integers (#3352
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/3352>).
• status supports a new current-function subcommand to print the cur-
rent function name (#1743 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/1743>).
• string supports a new repeat subcommand (#3864
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/3864>). string
match supports a new --entire option to emit the entire line matched
by a pattern (#3957 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/3957>). string replace supports a new --filter option to only
emit lines which underwent a replacement (#3348
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/3348>).
• test supports the -k option to test for sticky bits (#733
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/733>).
• umask understands symbolic modes (#738 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/738>).
• Empty components in the CDPATH, MANPATH and PATH variables are now
converted to . (#2106 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/2106>, #3914 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/3914>).
• New versions of ncurses (6.0 and up) wipe terminal scrollback buffers
with certain commands; the C-l binding tries to avoid this (#2855
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/2855>).
• Some systems su implementations do not set the USER environment vari-
able; it is now reset for root users (#3916 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/3916>).
• Under terminals which support it, bracketed paste is enabled, escap-
ing problematic characters for security and convenience (#3871
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/3871>). Inside sin-
gle quotes ('), single quotes and backslashes in pasted text are es-
caped (#967 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/967>).
The fish_clipboard_paste function (bound to C-v by default) is still
the recommended pasting method where possible as it includes this
functionality and more.
• Processes in pipelines are no longer signalled as soon as one command
in the pipeline has completed (#1926 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/1926>). This behaviour matches other shells
mre closely.
• All functions requiring Python work with whichever version of Python
is installed (#3970 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/3970>). Python 3 is preferred, but Python 2.6 remains the mini-
mum version required.
• The color of the cancellation character can be controlled by the
fish_color_cancel variable (#3963 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/3963>).
• Added completions for:
• caddy (#4008 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/4008>)
• castnow (#3744 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/3744>)
• climate (#3760 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/3760>)
• flatpak
• gradle (#3859 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/3859>)
• gsettings (#4001 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/4001>)
• helm (#3829 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/3829>)
• i3-msg (#3787 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/3787>)
• ipset (#3924 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/3924>)
• jq (#3804 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/3804>)
• light (#3752 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/3752>)
• minikube (#3778 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/3778>)
• mocha (#3828 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/3828>)
• mkdosfs (#4017 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/4017>)
• pv (#3773 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/3773>)
• setsid (#3791 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/3791>)
• terraform (#3960 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/3960>)
• usermod (#3775 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/3775>)
• xinput
• yarn (#3816 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/3816>)
• Improved completions for adb (#3853 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/3853>), apt (#3771 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/3771>), bzr (#3769 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/3769>), dconf, git (including #3743
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/3743>), grep (#3789
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/3789>), go (#3789
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/3789>), help (#3789
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/3789>), hg (#3975
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/3975>), htop (#3789
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/3789>), killall (-
#3996 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/3996>), lua,
man (#3762 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/3762>),
mount (#3764 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/3764> &
#3841 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/3841>), obnam
(#3924 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/3924>), perl
(#3856 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/3856>), port-
master (#3950 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/3950>), python (#3840 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/3840>), ssh (#3781 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/3781>), scp (#3781 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/3781>), systemctl (#3757 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/3757>) and udisks (#3764
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/3764>).
----
fish 2.5.0 (released February 3, 2017)
There are no major changes between 2.5b1 and 2.5.0. If you are upgrad-
ing from version 2.4.0 or before, please also review the release notes
for 2.5b1 (included below).
Notable fixes and improvements
• The Home, End, Insert, Delete, Page Up and Page Down keys work in
Vi-style key bindings (#3731 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/3731>).
----
fish 2.5b1 (released January 14, 2017)
Platform Changes
Starting with version 2.5, fish requires a more up-to-date version of
C++, specifically C++11 (from 2011). This affects some older platforms:
Linux
For users building from source, GCCs g++ 4.8 or later, or LLVMs clang
3.3 or later, are known to work. Older platforms may require a newer
compiler installed.
Unfortunately, because of the complexity of the toolchain, binary pack-
ages are no longer published by the fish-shell developers for the fol-
lowing platforms:
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux and CentOS 5 & 6 for 64-bit builds
• Ubuntu 12.04 (EoLTS April 2017)
• Debian 7 (EoLTS May 2018)
Installing newer version of fish on these systems will require building
from source.
OS X SnowLeopard
Starting with version 2.5, fish requires a C++11 standard library on OS
X 10.6 (SnowLeopard). If this library is not installed, you will see
this error: dyld: Library not loaded: /usr/lib/libc++.1.dylib
MacPorts is the easiest way to obtain this library. After installing
the SnowLeopard MacPorts release from the install page, run:
sudo port -v install libcxx
Now fish should launch successfully. (Please open an issue if it does
not.)
This is only necessary on 10.6. OS X 10.7 and later include the re-
quired library by default.
Other significant changes
• Attempting to exit with running processes in the background produces
a warning, then signals them to terminate if a second attempt to exit
is made. This brings the behaviour for running background processes
into line with stopped processes. (#3497 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/3497>)
• random can now have start, stop and step values specified, or the new
choice subcommand can be used to pick an argument from a list (#3619
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/3619>).
• A new key bindings preset, fish_hybrid_key_bindings, including all
the Emacs-style and Vi-style bindings, which behaves like
fish_vi_key_bindings in fish 2.3.0 (#3556 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/3556>).
• function now returns an error when called with invalid options,
rather than defining the function anyway (#3574
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/3574>). This was a
regression present in fish 2.3 and 2.4.0.
• fish no longer prints a warning when it identifies a running instance
of an old version (2.1.0 and earlier). Changes to universal variables
may not propagate between these old versions and 2.5b1.
• Improved compatibility with Android (#3585 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/3585>), MSYS/mingw (#2360
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/2360>), and Solaris
(#3456 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/3456>, #3340
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/3340>).
• Like other shells, the test built-in now returns an error for numeric
operations on invalid integers (#3346 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/3346>, #3581 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/3581>).
• complete no longer recognises --authoritative and --unauthoritative
options, and they are marked as obsolete.
• status accepts subcommands, and should be used like status is-inter-
active. The old options continue to be supported for the foreseeable
future (#3526 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/3526>), although only one subcommand or option can be specified
at a time.
• Selection mode (used with begin-selection) no longer selects a char-
acter the cursor does not move over (#3684 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/3684>).
• List indexes are handled better, and a bit more liberally in some
cases (echo $PATH[1 .. 3] is now valid) (#3579
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/3579>).
• The fish_mode_prompt function is now simply a stub around fish_de-
fault_mode_prompt, which allows the mode prompt to be included more
easily in customised prompt functions (#3641
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/3641>).
Notable fixes and improvements
• alias, run without options or arguments, lists all defined aliases,
and aliases now include a description in the function signature that
identifies them.
• complete accepts empty strings as descriptions (#3557
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/3557>).
• command accepts -q/--quiet in combination with --search (#3591
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/3591>), providing a
simple way of checking whether a command exists in scripts.
• Abbreviations can now be renamed with abbr --rename OLD_KEY NEW_KEY
(#3610 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/3610>).
• The command synopses printed by --help options work better with copy-
ing and pasting (#2673 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/2673>).
• help launches the browser specified by the $fish_help_browser vari-
able if it is set (#3131 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/3131>).
• History merging could lose items under certain circumstances and is
now fixed (#3496 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/3496>).
• The $status variable is now set to 123 when a syntactically invalid
command is entered (#3616 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/3616>).
• Exiting fish now signals all background processes to terminate, not
just stopped jobs (#3497 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/3497>).
• A new prompt_hostname function which prints a hostname suitable for
use in prompts (#3482 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/3482>).
• The __fish_man_page function (bound to Alt-h by default) now tries to
recognize subcommands (e.g. git add will now open the git-add man
page) (#3678 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/3678>).
• A new function edit_command_buffer (bound to Alt-e & Alt-v by de-
fault) to edit the command buffer in an external editor (#1215
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/1215>, #3627
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/3627>).
• set_color now supports italics (--italics), dim (--dim) and reverse
(--reverse) modes (#3650 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/3650>).
• Filesystems with very slow locking (eg incorrectly-configured NFS)
will no longer slow fish down (#685 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/685>).
• Improved completions for apt (#3695 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/3695>), fusermount (#3642
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/3642>), make (#3628
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/3628>), netctl-auto
(#3378 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/3378>), nmcli
(#3648 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/3648>), pyg-
mentize (#3378 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/3378>), and tar (#3719 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/3719>).
• Added completions for:
• VBoxHeadless (#3378 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/3378>)
• VBoxSDL (#3378 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/3378>)
• base64 (#3378 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/3378>)
• caffeinate (#3524 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/3524>)
• dconf (#3638 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/3638>)
• dig (#3495 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/3495>)
• dpkg-reconfigure (#3521 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/3521> & #3522 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/3522>)
• feh (#3378 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/3378>)
• launchctl (#3682 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/3682>)
• lxc (#3554 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/3554> &
#3564 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/3564>),
• mddiagnose (#3524 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/3524>)
• mdfind (#3524 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/3524>)
• mdimport (#3524 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/3524>)
• mdls (#3524 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/3524>)
• mdutil (#3524 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/3524>)
• mkvextract (#3492 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/3492>)
• nvram (#3524 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/3524>)
• objdump (#3378 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/3378>)
• sysbench (#3491 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/3491>)
• tmutil (#3524 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/3524>)
----
fish 2.4.0 (released November 8, 2016)
There are no major changes between 2.4b1 and 2.4.0.
Notable fixes and improvements
• The documentation is now generated properly and with the correct ver-
sion identifier.
• Automatic cursor changes are now only enabled on the subset of XTerm
versions known to support them, resolving a problem where older ver-
sions printed garbage to the terminal before and after every prompt
(#3499 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/3499>).
• Improved the title set in Apple Terminal.app.
• Added completions for defaults and improved completions for diskutil
(#3478 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/3478>).
----
fish 2.4b1 (released October 18, 2016)
Significant changes
• The clipboard integration has been revamped with explicit bindings.
The killring commands no longer copy from, or paste to, the X11 clip-
board - use the new copy (C-x) and paste (C-v) bindings instead. The
clipboard is now available on OS X as well as systems using X11
(e.g. Linux). (#3061 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/3061>)
• history uses subcommands (history delete) rather than options (his-
tory --delete) for its actions (#3367 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/3367>). You can no longer specify multiple
actions via flags (e.g., history --delete --save something).
• New history options have been added, including --max=n to limit the
number of history entries, --show-time option to show timestamps (-
#3175 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/3175>, #3244
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/3244>), and --null
to null terminate history entries in the search output.
• history search is now case-insensitive by default (which also affects
history delete) (#3236 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/3236>).
• history delete now correctly handles multiline commands (#31
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/31>).
• Vi-style bindings no longer include all of the default emacs-style
bindings; instead, they share some definitions (#3068
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/3068>).
• If there is no locale set in the environment, various known system
configuration files will be checked for a default. If no locale can
be found, en_US-UTF.8 will be used (#277 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/277>).
• A number followed by a caret (e.g. 5^) is no longer treated as a
redirection (#1873 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/1873>).
• The $version special variable can be overwritten, so that it can be
used for other purposes if required.
Notable fixes and improvements
• The fish_realpath builtin has been renamed to realpath and made com-
patible with GNU realpath when run without arguments (#3400
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/3400>). It is used
only for systems without a realpath or grealpath utility (#3374
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/3374>).
• Improved color handling on terminals/consoles with 8-16 colors, par-
ticularly the use of bright named color (#3176
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/3176>, #3260
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/3260>).
• fish_indent can now read from files given as arguments, rather than
just standard input (#3037 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/3037>).
• Fuzzy tab completions behave in a less surprising manner (#3090
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/3090>, #3211
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/3211>).
• jobs should only print its header line once (#3127
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/3127>).
• Wildcards in redirections are highlighted appropriately (#2789
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/2789>).
• Suggestions will be offered more often, like after removing charac-
ters (#3069 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/3069>).
• history --merge now correctly interleaves items in chronological or-
der (#2312 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/2312>).
• Options for fish_indent have been aligned with the other binaries -
in particular, -d now means --debug. The --dump option has been re-
named to --dump-parse-tree (#3191 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/3191>).
• The display of bindings in the Web-based configuration has been
greatly improved (#3325 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/3325>), as has the rendering of prompts (#2924
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/2924>).
• fish should no longer hang using 100% CPU in the C locale (#3214
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/3214>).
• A bug in FreeBSD 11 & 12, Dragonfly BSD & illumos prevented fish from
working correctly on these platforms under UTF-8 locales; fish now
avoids the buggy behaviour (#3050 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/3050>).
• Prompts which show git repository information (via __fish_git_prompt)
are faster in large repositories (#3294 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/3294>) and slow filesystems (#3083
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/3083>).
• fish 2.3.0 reintroduced a problem where the greeting was printed even
when using read; this has been corrected again (#3261
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/3261>).
• Vi mode changes the cursor depending on the current mode (#3215
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/3215>).
• Command lines with escaped space characters at the end tab-complete
correctly (#2447 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/2447>).
• Added completions for:
• arcanist (#3256 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/3256>)
• connmanctl (#3419 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/3419>)
• figlet (#3378 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/3378>)
• mdbook (#3378 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/3378>)
• ninja (#3415 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/3415>)
• p4, the Perforce client (#3314 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/3314>)
• pygmentize (#3378 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/3378>)
• ranger (#3378 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/3378>)
• Improved completions for aura (#3297 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/3297>), abbr (#3267 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/3267>), brew (#3309 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/3309>), chown (#3380
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/3380>, #3383
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/3383>),cygport (-
#3392 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/3392>), git (-
#3274 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/3274>, #3226
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/3226>, #3225
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/3225>, #3094
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/3094>, #3087
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/3087>, #3035
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/3035>, #3021
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/3021>, #2982
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/2982>, #3230
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/3230>), kill & pkill
(#3200 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/3200>),
screen (#3271 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/3271>), wget (#3470 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/3470>), and xz (#3378 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/3378>).
• Distributors, packagers and developers will notice that the build
process produces more succinct output by default; use make V=1 to get
verbose output (#3248 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/3248>).
• Improved compatibility with minor platforms including musl (#2988
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/2988>), Cygwin (-
#2993 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/2993>), An-
droid (#3441 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/3441>,
#3442 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/3442>), Haiku
(#3322 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/3322>) and
Solaris .
----
fish 2.3.1 (released July 3, 2016)
This is a functionality and bugfix release. This release does not con-
tain all the changes to fish since the last release, but fixes a number
of issues directly affecting users at present and includes a small num-
ber of new features.
Significant changes
• A new fish_key_reader binary for decoding interactive keypresses (-
#2991 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/2991>).
• fish_mode_prompt has been updated to reflect the changes in the way
the Vi input mode is set up (#3067 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/3067>), making this more reliable.
• fish_config can now properly be launched from the OS X app bundle (-
#3140 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/3140>).
Notable fixes and improvements
• Extra lines were sometimes inserted into the output under Windows
(Cygwin and Microsoft Windows Subsystem for Linux) due to TTY time-
stamps not being updated (#2859 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/2859>).
• The string builtins match mode now handles the combination of -rnv
(match, invert and count) correctly (#3098 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/3098>).
• Improvements to TTY special character handling (#3064
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/3064>), locale han-
dling (#3124 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/3124>)
and terminal environment variable handling (#3060
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/3060>).
• Work towards handling the terminal modes for external commands
launched from initialisation files (#2980 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/2980>).
• Ease the upgrade path from fish 2.2.0 and before by warning users to
restart fish if the string builtin is not available (#3057
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/3057>).
• type -a now syntax-colorizes function source output.
• Added completions for alsamixer, godoc, gofmt, goimports, gorename,
lscpu, mkdir, modinfo, netctl-auto, poweroff, termite, udisksctl and
xz (#3123 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/3123>).
• Improved completions for apt (#3097 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/3097>), aura (#3102 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/3102>),git (#3114 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/3114>), npm (#3158 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/3158>), string and suspend (#3154
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/3154>).
----
fish 2.3.0 (released May 20, 2016)
There are no significant changes between 2.3.0 and 2.3b2.
Other notable fixes and improvements
• abbr now allows non-letter keys (#2996 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/2996>).
• Define a few extra colours on first start (#2987
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/2987>).
• Multiple documentation updates.
• Added completions for rmmod (#3007 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/3007>).
• Improved completions for git (#2998 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/2998>).
Known issues
• Interactive commands started from fish configuration files or from
the -c option may, under certain circumstances, be started with in-
correct terminal modes and fail to behave as expected. A fix is
planned but requires further testing (#2619 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/2619>).
----
fish 2.3b2 (released May 5, 2016)
Significant changes
• A new fish_realpath builtin and associated function to allow the use
of realpath even on those platforms that dont ship an appropriate
command (#2932 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/2932>).
• Alt-# toggles the current command line between commented and uncom-
mented states, making it easy to save a command in history without
executing it.
• The fish_vi_mode function is now deprecated in favour of
fish_vi_key_bindings.
Other notable fixes and improvements
• Fix the build on Cygwin (#2952 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/2952>) and RedHat Enterprise Linux/CentOS 5 (#2955
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/2955>).
• Avoid confusing the terminal line driver with non-printing characters
in fish_title (#2453 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/2453>).
• Improved completions for busctl, git (#2585 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/2585>, #2879 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/2879>, #2984 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/2984>), and netctl.
----
fish 2.3b1 (released April 19, 2016)
Significant Changes
• A new string builtin to handle strings! This builtin will measure,
split, search and replace text strings, including using regular ex-
pressions. It can also be used to turn lists into plain strings using
join. string can be used in place of sed, grep, tr, cut, and awk in
many situations. (#2296 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/2296>)
• Allow using escape as the Meta modifier key, by waiting after seeing
an escape character wait up to 300ms for an additional character.
This is consistent with readline (e.g. bash) and can be configured
via the fish_escape_delay_ms variable. This allows using escape as
the Meta modifier. (#1356 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/1356>)
• Add new directories for vendor functions and configuration snippets
(#2500 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/2500>)
• A new fish_realpath builtin and associated realpath function should
allow scripts to resolve path names via realpath regardless of
whether there is an external command of that name; albeit with some
limitations. See the associated documentation.
Backward-incompatible changes
• Unmatched globs will now cause an error, except when used with for,
set or count (#2719 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/2719>)
• and and or will now bind to the closest if or while, allowing com-
pound conditions without begin and end (#1428
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/1428>)
• set -ql now searches up to function scope for variables (#2502
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/2502>)
• status -f will now behave the same when run as the main script or us-
ing source (#2643 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/2643>)
• source no longer puts the file name in $argv if no arguments are
given (#139 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/139>)
• History files are stored under the XDG_DATA_HOME hierarchy (by de-
fault, in ~/.local/share), and existing history will be moved on
first use (#744 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/744>)
Other notable fixes and improvements
• Fish no longer silences errors in config.fish (#2702
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/2702>)
• Directory autosuggestions will now descend as far as possible if
there is only one child directory (#2531 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/2531>)
• Add support for bright colors (#1464 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/1464>)
• Allow Ctrl-J (\cj) to be bound separately from Ctrl-M (\cm) (#217
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/217>)
• psub now has a -s/suffix option to name the temporary file with that
suffix
• Enable 24-bit colors on select terminals (#2495
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/2495>)
• Support for SVN status in the prompt (#2582 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/2582>)
• Mercurial and SVN support have been added to the Classic + Git (now
Classic + VCS) prompt (via the new __fish_vcs_prompt function) (#2592
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/2592>)
• export now handles variables with a = in the value (#2403
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/2403>)
• New completions for:
• alsactl
• Archlinuxs asp, makepkg
• Atoms apm (#2390 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/2390>)
• entr - the Event Notify Test Runner (#2265
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/2265>)
• Fedoras dnf (#2638 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/2638>)
• OSX diskutil (#2738 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/2738>)
• pkgng (#2395 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/2395>)
• pulseaudios pacmd and pactl
• rusts rustc and cargo (#2409 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/2409>)
• sysctl (#2214 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/2214>)
• systemds machinectl (#2158 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/2158>), busctl (#2144 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/2144>), systemd-nspawn, systemd-analyze,
localectl, timedatectl
• and more
• Fish no longer has a function called sgrep, freeing it for user cus-
tomization (#2245 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/2245>)
• A rewrite of the completions for cd, fixing a few bugs (#2299
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/2299>, #2300
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/2300>, #562
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/562>)
• Linux VTs now run in a simplified mode to avoid issues (#2311
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/2311>)
• The vi-bindings now inherit from the emacs bindings
• Fish will also execute fish_user_key_bindings when in vi-mode
• funced will now also check $VISUAL (#2268 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/2268>)
• A new suspend function (#2269 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/2269>)
• Subcommand completion now works better with split /usr (#2141
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/2141>)
• The command-not-found-handler can now be overridden by defining a
function called __fish_command_not_found_handler in config.fish (-
#2332 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/2332>)
• A few fixes to the Sorin theme
• PWD shortening in the prompt can now be configured via the
fish_prompt_pwd_dir_length variable, set to the length per path com-
ponent (#2473 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/2473>)
• fish no longer requires /etc/fish/config.fish to correctly start, and
now ships a skeleton file that only contains some documentation (-
#2799 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/2799>)
----
fish 2.2.0 (released July 12, 2015)
Significant changes
• Abbreviations: the new abbr command allows for interactively-expanded
abbreviations, allowing quick access to frequently-used commands (-
#731 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/731>).
• Vi mode: run fish_vi_mode to switch fish into the key bindings and
prompt familiar to users of the Vi editor (#65
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/65>).
• New inline and interactive pager, which will be familiar to users of
zsh (#291 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/291>).
• Underlying architectural changes: the fishd universal variable server
has been removed as it was a source of many bugs and security prob-
lems. Notably, old fish sessions will not be able to communicate uni-
versal variable changes with new fish sessions. For best results,
restart all running instances of fish.
• The web-based configuration tool has been redesigned, featuring a
prompt theme chooser and other improvements.
• New German, Brazilian Portuguese, and Chinese translations.
Backward-incompatible changes
These are kept to a minimum, but either change undocumented features or
are too hard to use in their existing forms. These changes may break
existing scripts.
• commandline no longer interprets functions in reverse, instead behav-
ing as expected (#1567 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/1567>).
• The previously-undocumented CMD_DURATION variable is now set for all
commands and contains the execution time of the last command in mil-
liseconds (#1585 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/1585>). It is no longer exported to other commands (#1896
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/1896>).
• if / else conditional statements now return values consistent with
the Single Unix Specification, like other shells (#1443
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/1443>).
• A new top-level local scope has been added, allowing local variables
declared on the commandline to be visible to subsequent commands. (-
#1908 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/1908>)
Other notable fixes and improvements
• New documentation design (#1662 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/1662>), which requires a Doxygen version 1.8.7 or newer
to build.
• Fish now defines a default directory for other packages to provide
completions. By default this is /usr/share/fish/vendor-completions.d;
on systems with pkgconfig installed this path is discoverable with
pkg-config --variable completionsdir fish.
• A new parser removes many bugs; all existing syntax should keep work-
ing.
• New fish_preexec and fish_postexec events are fired before and after
job execution respectively (#1549 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/1549>).
• Unmatched wildcards no longer prevent a job from running. Wildcards
used interactively will still print an error, but the job will pro-
ceed and the wildcard will expand to zero arguments (#1482
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/1482>).
• The . command is deprecated and the source command is preferred (#310
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/310>).
• bind supports bind modes, which allows bindings to be set for a par-
ticular named mode, to support the implementation of Vi mode.
• A new export alias, which behaves like other shells (#1833
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/1833>).
• command has a new --search option to print the name of the disk file
that would be executed, like other shells command -v (#1540
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/1540>).
• commandline has a new --paging-mode option to support the new pager.
• complete has a new --wraps option, which allows a command to (recur-
sively) inherit the completions of a wrapped command (#393
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/393>), and complete
-e now correctly erases completions (#380 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/380>).
• Completions are now generated from manual pages by default on the
first run of fish (#997 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/997>).
• fish_indent can now produce colorized (--ansi) and HTML (--html) out-
put (#1827 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/1827>).
• functions --erase now prevents autoloaded functions from being re-
loaded in the current session.
• history has a new --merge option, to incorporate history from other
sessions into the current session (#825 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/825>).
• jobs returns 1 if there are no active jobs (#1484
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/1484>).
• read has several new options:
• --array to break input into an array (#1540 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/1540>)
• --null to break lines on NUL characters rather than newlines (#1694
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/1694>)
• --nchars to read a specific number of characters (#1616
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/1616>)
• --right-prompt to display a right-hand-side prompt during interactive
read (#1698 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/1698>).
• type has a new -q option to suppress output (#1540
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/1540> and, like
other shells, type -a now prints all matches for a command (#261
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/261>).
• Pressing f1 now shows the manual page for the current command (#1063
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/1063>).
• fish_title functions have access to the arguments of the currently
running argument as $argv[1] (#1542 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/1542>).
• The OS command-not-found handler is used on Arch Linux (#1925
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/1925>), nixOS (#1852
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/1852>), openSUSE and
Fedora (#1280 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/1280>).
• Alt+. searches backwards in the token history, mapping to the same
behavior as inserting the last argument of the previous command, like
other shells (#89 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/89>).
• The SHLVL environment variable is incremented correctly (#1634
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/1634> & #1693
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/1693>).
• Added completions for adb (#1165 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/1165> & #1211 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/1211>), apt (#2018 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/2018>), aura (#1292 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/1292>), composer (#1607 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/1607>), cygport (#1841
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/1841>), dropbox (-
#1533 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/1533>), elixir
(#1167 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/1167>), fos-
sil, heroku (#1790 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/1790>), iex (#1167 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/1167>), kitchen (#2000 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/2000>), nix (#1167 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/1167>), node/npm (#1566 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/1566>), opam (#1615 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/1615>), setfacl (#1752
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/1752>), tmuxinator
(#1863 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/1863>), and
yast2 (#1739 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/1739>).
• Improved completions for brew (#1090 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/1090> & #1810 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/1810>), bundler (#1779
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/1779>), cd (#1135
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/1135>), emerge (-
#1840 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/1840>),git (-
#1680 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/1680>, #1834
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/1834> & #1951
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/1951>), man (#960
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/960>), modprobe (-
#1124 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/1124>), pacman
(#1292 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/1292>), rpm
(#1236 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/1236>), rsync
(#1872 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/1872>), scp
(#1145 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/1145>), ssh
(#1234 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/1234>), sshfs
(#1268 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/1268>), sys-
temctl (#1462 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/1462>,
#1950 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/1950> & #1972
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/1972>), tmux (#1853
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/1853>), vagrant (-
#1748 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/1748>), yum (-
#1269 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/1269>), and
zypper (#1787 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/1787>).
----
fish 2.1.2 (released Feb 24, 2015)
fish 2.1.2 contains a workaround for a filesystem bug in Mac OS X
Yosemite. #1859 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/1859>
Specifically, after installing fish 2.1.1 and then rebooting, Verify
Disk in Disk Utility will report Invalid number of hard links. We dont
have any reports of data loss or other adverse consequences. fish 2.1.2
avoids triggering the bug, but does not repair an already affected
filesystem. To repair the filesystem, you can boot into Recovery Mode
and use Repair Disk from Disk Utility. Linux and versions of OS X prior
to Yosemite are believed to be unaffected.
There are no other changes in this release.
----
fish 2.1.1 (released September 26, 2014)
Important: if you are upgrading, stop all running instances of fishd as
soon as possible after installing this release; it will be restarted
automatically. On most systems, there will be no further action re-
quired. Note that some environments (where XDG_RUNTIME_DIR is set),
such as Fedora 20, will require a restart of all running fish processes
before universal variables work as intended.
Distributors are highly encouraged to call killall fishd, pkill fishd
or similar in installation scripts, or to warn their users to do so.
Security fixes
• The fish_config web interface now uses an authentication token to
protect requests and only responds to requests from the local machine
with this token, preventing a remote code execution attack. (closing
CVE-2014-2914). #1438 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/1438>
• psub and funced are no longer vulnerable to attacks which allow local
privilege escalation and data tampering (closing CVE-2014-2906 and
CVE-2014-3856). #1437 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/1437>
• fishd uses a secure path for its socket, preventing a local privilege
escalation attack (closing CVE-2014-2905). #1436
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/1436>
• __fish_print_packages is no longer vulnerable to attacks which would
allow local privilege escalation and data tampering (closing
CVE-2014-3219). #1440 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/1440>
Other fixes
• fishd now ignores SIGPIPE, fixing crashes using tools like GNU Paral-
lel and which occurred more often as a result of the other fishd
changes. #1084 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/1084>
& #1690 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/1690>
----
fish 2.1.0
Significant Changes
• Tab completions will fuzzy-match files. #568
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/568>
When tab-completing a file, fish will first attempt prefix matches
(foo matches foobar), then substring matches (ooba matches foobar),
and lastly subsequence matches (fbr matches foobar). For example, in
a directory with files foo1.txt, foo2.txt, foo3.txt, you can type
only the numeric part and hit tab to fill in the rest.
This feature is implemented for files and executables. It is not yet
implemented for options (like --foobar), and not yet implemented
across path components (like /u/l/b to match /usr/local/bin).
• Redirections now work better across pipelines. #110
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/110>, #877
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/877>
In particular, you can pipe stderr and stdout together, for example,
with cmd ^&1 | tee log.txt, or the more familiar cmd 2>&1 | tee
log.txt.
• A single ``%`` now expands to the last job backgrounded. #1008
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/1008>
Previously, a single % would pid-expand to either all backgrounded
jobs, or all jobs owned by your user. Now it expands to the last job
backgrounded. If no job is in the background, it will fail to expand.
In particular, fg % can be used to put the most recent background job
in the foreground.
Other Notable Fixes
• alt-U and alt+C now uppercase and capitalize words, respectively.
#995 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/995>
• VTE based terminals should now know the working directory. #906
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/906>
• The autotools build now works on Mavericks. #968
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/968>
• The end-of-line binding (ctrl+E) now accepts autosuggestions. #932
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/932>
• Directories in /etc/paths (used on OS X) are now prepended instead of
appended, similar to other shells. #927 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/927>
• Option-right-arrow (used for partial autosuggestion completion) now
works on iTerm2. #920 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/920>
• Tab completions now work properly within nested subcommands. #913
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/913>
• printf supports \e, the escape character. #910
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/910>
• fish_config history no longer shows duplicate items. #900
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/900>
• $fish_user_paths is now prepended to $PATH instead of appended. #888
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/888>
• Jobs complete when all processes complete. #876
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/876>
For example, in previous versions of fish, sleep 10 | echo Done re-
turns control immediately, because echo does not read from stdin.
Now it does not complete until sleep exits (presumably after 10 sec-
onds).
• Better error reporting for square brackets. #875
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/875>
• fish no longer tries to add /bin to $PATH unless PATH is totally
empty. #852 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/852>
• History token substitution (alt-up) now works correctly inside sub-
shells. #833 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/833>
• Flow control is now disabled, freeing up ctrl-S and ctrl-Q for other
uses. #814 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/814>
• sh-style variable setting like foo=bar now produces better error mes-
sages. #809 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/809>
• Commands with wildcards no longer produce autosuggestions. #785
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/785>
• funced no longer freaks out when supplied with no arguments. #780
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/780>
• fish.app now works correctly in a directory containing spaces. #774
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/774>
• Tab completion cycling no longer occasionally fails to repaint. #765
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/765>
• Comments now work in evald strings. #684 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/684>
• History search (up-arrow) now shows the item matching the autosugges-
tion, if that autosuggestion was truncated. #650
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/650>
• Ctrl-T now transposes characters, as in other shells. #128
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/128>
----
fish 2.0.0
Significant Changes
• Command substitutions now modify ``$status`` :issue:`547`. Previously
the exit status of command substitutions (like (pwd)) was ignored;
however now it modifies $status. Furthermore, the set command now
only sets $status on failure; it is untouched on success. This allows
for the following pattern:
if set python_path (which python)
...
end
Because set does not modify $status on success, the if branch effec-
tively tests whether which succeeded, and if so, whether the set also
succeeded.
• Improvements to PATH handling. There is a new variable,
fish_user_paths, which can be set universally, and whose contents are
appended to $PATH #527 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/527>
• /etc/paths and /etc/paths.d are now respected on OS X
• fish no longer modifies $PATH to find its own binaries
• Long lines no longer use ellipsis for line breaks, and copy and paste
should no longer include a newline even if the line was broken #300
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/300>
• New syntax for index ranges (sometimes known as slices) #212
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/212>
• fish now supports an ``else if`` statement #134
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/134>
• Process and pid completion now works on OS X #129
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/129>
• fish is now relocatable, and no longer depends on compiled-in paths
#125 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/125>
• fish now supports a right prompt (RPROMPT) through the
fish_right_prompt function #80 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/80>
• fish now uses posix_spawn instead of fork when possible, which is
much faster on BSD and OS X #11 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/11>
Other Notable Fixes
• Updated VCS completions (darcs, cvs, svn, etc.)
• Avoid calling getcwd on the main thread, as it can hang #696
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/696>
• Control-D (forward delete) no longer stops at a period #667
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/667>
• Completions for many new commands
• fish now respects rxvts unique keybindings #657
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/657>
• xsel is no longer built as part of fish. It will still be invoked if
installed separately #633 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/633>
• __fish_filter_mime no longer spews #628 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/628>
• The no-execute option to fish no longer falls over when reaching the
end of a block #624 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/624>
• fish_config knows how to find fish even if its not in the $PATH #621
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/621>
• A leading space now prevents writing to history, as is done in bash
and zsh #615 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/615>
• Hitting enter after a backslash only goes to a new line if it is fol-
lowed by whitespace or the end of the line #613
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/613>
• printf is now a builtin #611 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/611>
• Event handlers should no longer fire if signals are blocked #608
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/608>
• set_color is now a builtin #578 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/578>
• man page completions are now located in a new generated_completions
directory, instead of your completions directory #576
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/576>
• tab now clears autosuggestions #561 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/561>
• tab completion from within a pair of quotes now attempts to appropri-
ate the closing quote #552 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/552>
• $EDITOR can now be a list: for example, set EDITOR gvim -f) #541
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/541>
• case bodies are now indented #530 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/530>
• The profile switch -p no longer crashes #517
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/517>
• You can now control-C out of read #516 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/516>
• umask is now functional on OS X #515 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/515>
• Avoid calling getpwnam on the main thread, as it can hang #512
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/512>
• Alt-F or Alt-right-arrow (Option-F or option-right-arrow) now accepts
one word of an autosuggestion #435 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/435>
• Setting fish as your login shell no longer kills OpenSUSE #367
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/367>
• Backslashes now join lines, instead of creating multiple commands
#347 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/347>
• echo now implements the -e flag to interpret escapes #337
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/337>
• When the last token in the users input contains capital letters, use
its case in preference to that of the autosuggestion #335
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/335>
• Descriptions now have their own muted color #279
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/279>
• Wildcards beginning with a . (for example, ls .*) no longer match .
and .. #270 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/270>
• Recursive wildcards now handle symlink loops #268
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/268>
• You can now delete history items from the fish_config web interface
#250 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/250>
• The OS X build now weak links wcsdup and wcscasecmp #240
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/240>
• fish now saves and restores the process group, which prevents certain
processes from being erroneously reported as stopped #197
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/197>
• funced now takes an editor option #187 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/187>
• Alternating row colors are available in fish pager through
fish_pager_color_secondary #186 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/186>
• Universal variable values are now stored based on your MAC address,
not your hostname #183 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/is-
sues/183>
• The caret ^ now only does a stderr redirection if it is the first
character of a token, making git users happy #168
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/168>
• Autosuggestions will no longer cause line wrapping #167
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/167>
• Better handling of Unicode combining characters #155
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/155>
• fish SIGHUPs processes more often #138 <https://github.com/fish-
shell/fish-shell/issues/138>
• fish no longer causes sudo to ask for a password every time
• fish behaves better under Midnight Commander #121
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/121>
• set -e no longer crashes #100 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-
shell/issues/100>
• fish now will automatically import history from bash, if there is no
fish history #66 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/66>
• Backslashed-newlines inside quoted strings now behave more intu-
itively #52 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/52>
• Tab titles should be shown correctly in iTerm2 #47
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/47>
• scp remote path completion now sometimes works #42
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/42>
• The read builtin no longer shows autosuggestions #29
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/29>
• Custom key bindings can now be set via the fish_user_key_bindings
function #21 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/21>
• All Python scripts now run correctly under both Python 2 and Python 3
#14 <https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/14>
• The accept autosuggestion key can now be configured #19
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/19>
• Autosuggestions will no longer suggest invalid commands #6
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/6>
----
fishfish Beta r2
Bug Fixes
• Implicit cd is back, for paths that start with one or two dots, a
slash, or a tilde.
• Overrides of default functions should be fixed. The internalized
scripts feature is disabled for now.
• Disabled delayed suspend. This is a strange job-control feature of
BSD systems, including OS X. Disabling it frees up Control Y for
other purposes; in particular, for yank, which now works on OS X.
• fish_indent is fixed. In particular, the funced and funcsave func-
tions work again.
• A SIGTERM now ends the whole execution stack again (resolving #13
<https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/13>).
• Bumped the __fish_config_interactive version number so the default
fish_color_autosuggestion kicks in.
• fish_config better handles combined term256 and classic colors like
555 yellow.
New Features
• A history builtin, and associated interactive function that enables
deleting history items. Example usage: * Print all history items be-
ginning with echo: history --prefix echo * Print all history items
containing foo: history --contains foo * Interactively delete some
items containing foo: history --delete --contains foo
Credit to @siteshwar for implementation. Thanks @siteshwar!
----
fishfish Beta r1
Scripting
• No changes! All existing fish scripts, config files, completions,
etc. from trunk should continue to work.
New Features
• Autosuggestions. Think URL fields in browsers. When you type a com-
mand, fish will suggest the rest of the command after the cursor, in
a muted gray when possible. You can accept the suggestion with the
right arrow key or Ctrl-F. Suggestions come from command history,
completions, and some custom code for cd; theres a lot of potential
for improvement here. The suggestions are computed on a background
pthread, so they never slow down your typing. The autosuggestion fea-
ture is incredible. I miss it dearly every time I use anything else.
• term256 support where available, specifically modern xterms and OS X
Lion. You can specify colors the old way (set_color cyan) or by spec-
ifying RGB hex values (set_color FF3333); fish will pick the closest
supported color. Some xterms do not advertise term256 support either
in the $TERM or terminfo max_colors field, but nevertheless support
it. For that reason, fish will default into using it on any xterm
(but it can be disabled with an environment variable).
• Web-based configuration page. There is a new function fish_config.
This spins up a simple Python web server and opens a browser window
to it. From this web page, you can set your shell colors and view
your functions, variables, and history; all changes apply immediately
to all running shells. Eventually all configuration ought to be sup-
ported via this mechanism (but in addition to, not instead of, com-
mand line mechanisms).
• Man page completions. There is a new function fish_update_comple-
tions. This function reads all the man1 files from your manpath, re-
moves the roff formatting, parses them to find the commands and op-
tions, and outputs fish completions into ~/.config/fish/completions.
It wont overwrite existing completion files (except ones that it gen-
erated itself).
Programmatic Changes
• fish is now entirely in C++. I have no particular love for C++, but
it provides a ready memory-model to replace halloc. Weve made an ef-
fort to keep it to a sane and portable subset (no C++11, no boost, no
going crazy with templates or smart pointers), but we do use the STL
and a little tr1.
• halloc is entirely gone, replaced by normal C++ ownership semantics.
If you dont know what halloc is, well, now you have two reasons to be
happy.
• All the crufty C data structures are entirely gone. array_list_t,
priority_queue_t, hash_table_t, string_buffer_t have been removed and
replaced by STL equivalents like std::vector, std::map, and
std::wstring. A lot of the string handling now uses std::wstring in-
stead of wchar_t *
• fish now spawns pthreads for tasks like syntax highlighting that re-
quire blocking I/O.
• History has been completely rewritten. History files now use an ex-
tensible YAML-style syntax. History merging (multiple shells writing
to the same history file) now works better. There is now a maximum
history length of about 250k items (256 * 1024).
• The parser has been instanced, so you can now create more than one.
• Total #LoC has shrunk slightly even with the new features.
Performance
• fish now runs syntax highlighting in a background thread, so typing
commands is always responsive even on slow filesystems.
• echo, test, and pwd are now builtins, which eliminates many forks.
• The files in share/functions and share/completions now get internal-
ized into C strings that get compiled in with fish. This substan-
tially reduces the number of files touched at startup. A consequence
is that you cannot change these functions without recompiling, but
often other functions depend on these standard functions, so changing
them is perhaps not a good idea anyways.
Here are some system call counts for launching and then exiting fish
with the default configuration, on OS X. The first column is fish
trunk, the next column is with our changes, and the last column is bash
for comparison. This data was collected via dtrace.
before
after
bash
open
9
4
5
fork
28
14
0
stat
131
85
11
lstat
670
0
0
read
332
80
4
write
172
149
0
The large number of forks relative to bash are due to fishs insanely
expensive default prompt, which is unchanged in my version. If we
switch to a prompt comparable to bashs (lame) default, the forks drop
to 16 with trunk, 4 after our changes.
The large reduction in lstat() numbers is due to fish no longer needing
to call ttyname() on OS X.
Weve got some work to do to be as lean as bash, but were on the right
track.
Terminal Compatibility
fish writes various control sequences to the terminal. Some must be
implemented to enable basic functionality, while others enable optional
features and may be ignored by the terminal.
The terminal must be able to parse Control Sequence Introducer (CSI)
commands, Operating System Commands (OSC) and optionally Device Control
Strings (DCS). These are defined by ECMA-48. If a valid CSI, OSC or
DCS sequence does not represent a command implemented by the terminal,
the terminal must ignore it. For historical reasons, OSC sequences may
be terminated with \x07 instead of \e\\.
Control sequences are denoted in a fish-like syntax. Special charac-
ters other than \ are not escaped. Spaces are only added for readabil-
ity and are not part of the sequence. Placeholders are written as Ps
for a number or Pt for an arbitrary printable string.
NOTE: fish does not rely on your system's terminfo database. In this
document, terminfo (TI) codes are included for reference only.
Required Commands
+----------+-------+---------------------+
| Sequence | TI | Description |
+----------+-------+---------------------+
| \r | n/a | Move cursor to the |
| | | beginning of the |
| | | line |
+----------+-------+---------------------+
| \n | cud1 | Move cursor down |
| | | one line. |
+----------+-------+---------------------+
| \e[ Ps A | cuu | Move cursor up Ps |
| | | columns, or one |
| | | column if no para- |
| | | meter. |
+----------+-------+---------------------+
| \e[ Ps C | cuf | Move cursor to the |
| | | right Ps columns, |
| | | or one column if no |
| | | parameter. |
+----------+-------+---------------------+
| \x08 | cub1 | Move cursor one |
| | | column to the left. |
+----------+-------+---------------------+
| \e[ Ps D | cub | Move cursor to the |
| | | left Ps times. |
+----------+-------+---------------------+
| \e[H | cup | Set cursor position |
| | | (no parameters |
| | | means: move to row |
| | | 1, column 1). |
+----------+-------+---------------------+
| \e[K | el | Clear to end of |
| | | line. |
+----------+-------+---------------------+
| \e[J | ed | Clear to the end of |
| | | screen. |
+----------+-------+---------------------+
| \e[2J | clear | Clear the screen. |
+----------+-------+---------------------+
| \e[0c | | Request Primary De- |
| | | vice Attribute. |
| | | The terminal must |
| | | respond with a CSI |
| | | command that starts |
| | | with the ? parame- |
| | | ter byte (so a se- |
| | | quence starting |
| | | with \e[?) and has |
| | | c as final byte. |
| | | |
| | | Failure to imple- |
| | | ment this will |
| | | cause a brief pause |
| | | at startup followed |
| | | by a warning. For |
| | | the time being, |
| | | both can be turned |
| | | off by turning off |
| | | the query-terminal |
| | | feature flag. |
+----------+-------+---------------------+
| n/a | am | Soft wrap text at |
| | | screen width. |
+----------+-------+---------------------+
| n/a | xenl | Printing to the |
| | | last column does |
| | | not move the cursor |
| | | to the next line. |
| | | Verify this by run- |
| | | ning printf |
| | | %0"$COLUMNS"d 0; |
| | | sleep 3 |
+----------+-------+---------------------+
Optional Commands
+---------------------+-------------+---------------------------------+
| Sequence | TI | Description |
+---------------------+-------------+---------------------------------+
| \t | it | Move the cursor to |
| | | the next tab stop |
| | | ( 8 columns). |
| | | This is mainly rel- |
| | | evant if your |
| | | prompt includes |
| | | tabs. |
+---------------------+-------------+---------------------------------+
| \e[m | sgr0 | Turn off |
| | | bold/dim/italic/un- |
| | | derline/reverse at- |
| | | tribute modes and |
| | | select default col- |
| | | ors. |
+---------------------+-------------+---------------------------------+
| \e[1m | bold | Enter bold mode. |
+---------------------+-------------+---------------------------------+
| \e[2m | dim | Enter dim mode. |
+---------------------+-------------+---------------------------------+
| \e[3m | sitm | Enter italic mode. |
+---------------------+-------------+---------------------------------+
| \e[4m | smul | Enter underline |
| | | mode. |
+---------------------+-------------+---------------------------------+
| \e[4:2m | Su | Enter double under- |
| | | line mode. |
+---------------------+-------------+---------------------------------+
| \e[4:3m | Su | Enter curly under- |
| | | line mode. |
+---------------------+-------------+---------------------------------+
| \e[4:4m | Su | Enter dotted under- |
| | | line mode. |
+---------------------+-------------+---------------------------------+
| \e[4:5m | Su | Enter dashed under- |
| | | line mode. |
+---------------------+-------------+---------------------------------+
| \e[7m | rev | Enter reverse video |
| | | mode (swap fore- |
| | | ground and back- |
| | | ground colors). |
+---------------------+-------------+---------------------------------+
| \e[23m | ritm | Exit italic mode. |
+---------------------+-------------+---------------------------------+
| \e[24m | rmul | Exit underline |
| | | mode. |
+---------------------+-------------+---------------------------------+
| \e[38;5; Ps m | setaf | Select foreground |
| | | color Ps from the |
| | | 256-color-palette. |
+---------------------+-------------+---------------------------------+
| \e[48;5; Ps m | setab | Select background |
| | | color Ps from the |
| | | 256-color-palette. |
+---------------------+-------------+---------------------------------+
| \e[58:5: Ps m | Su | Select underline |
| (note: colons not | | color Ps from the |
| semicolons) | | 256-color-palette. |
+---------------------+-------------+---------------------------------+
| \e[ Ps m | setaf setab | Select fore- |
| | | ground/background |
| | | color. This uses a |
| | | color in the afore- |
| | | mentioned |
| | | 256-color-palette, |
| | | based on the range |
| | | that contains the |
| | | parameter: 30-37 |
| | | maps to foreground |
| | | 0-7, 40-47 maps to |
| | | background 0-7, |
| | | 90-97 maps to fore- |
| | | ground 8-15 and |
| | | 100-107 maps to |
| | | background 8-15. |
+---------------------+-------------+---------------------------------+
| \e[38;2; Ps ; Ps ; | | Select foreground |
| Ps m | | color from 24-bit |
| | | RGB colors. |
+---------------------+-------------+---------------------------------+
| \e[48;2; Ps ; Ps ; | | Select background |
| Ps m | | color from 24-bit |
| | | RGB colors. |
+---------------------+-------------+---------------------------------+
| \e[49m | | Reset background |
| | | color to the termi- |
| | | nal's default. |
+---------------------+-------------+---------------------------------+
| \e[58:2:: Ps : Ps : | Su | Select underline |
| Ps m (note: colons | | color from 24-bit |
| not semicolons) | | RGB colors. |
+---------------------+-------------+---------------------------------+
| \e[59m | Su | Reset underline |
| | | color to the de- |
| | | fault (follow the |
| | | foreground color). |
+---------------------+-------------+---------------------------------+
| \e[ Ps S | indn | Scroll up the con- |
| | | tent (not the view- |
| | | port) Ps lines |
| | | (called SCROLL UP / |
| | | SU by ECMA-48 and |
| | | "scroll forward" by |
| | | terminfo). When |
| | | fish detects sup- |
| | | port for this fea- |
| | | ture, status |
| | | test-terminal-fea- |
| | | tures scroll-con- |
| | | tent-up will return |
| | | 0, which enables |
| | | the ctrl-l binding |
| | | to use the |
| | | scrollback-push |
| | | special input func- |
| | | tion. |
+---------------------+-------------+---------------------------------+
| \e[= Ps u, \e[? Ps | n/a | Enable the kitty |
| u | | keyboard protocol. |
+---------------------+-------------+---------------------------------+
| \e[6n | n/a | Request cursor po- |
| | | sition report. The |
| | | response must be of |
| | | the form \e[ Ps ; |
| | | Ps R where the |
| | | first parameter is |
| | | the row number and |
| | | the second parame- |
| | | ter is the column |
| | | number. Both start |
| | | at 1. |
| | | |
| | | This is used for |
| | | truncating multi- |
| | | line autosugges- |
| | | tions at the |
| | | screen's bottom |
| | | edge, by the |
| | | scrollback-push |
| | | special input func- |
| | | tion, and inside |
| | | terminals that im- |
| | | plement the OSC 133 |
| | | click_events fea- |
| | | ture. |
+---------------------+-------------+---------------------------------+
| \e[ \x20 q | Se | Reset cursor style |
| | | to the terminal's |
| | | default. This is |
| | | not used as of to- |
| | | day but may be in |
| | | future. |
+---------------------+-------------+---------------------------------+
| \e[ Ps \x20 q | Ss | Set cursor style |
| | | (DECSCUSR); Ps is |
| | | 2, 4 or 6 for |
| | | block, underscore |
| | | or line shape. |
+---------------------+-------------+---------------------------------+
| \e[ Ps q | n/a | Request terminal |
| | | name and version |
| | | (XTVERSION). This |
| | | is only used for |
| | | temporary |
| | | workarounds for in- |
| | | compatible termi- |
| | | nals. |
+---------------------+-------------+---------------------------------+
| \e[?25h | cvvis | Enable cursor visi- |
| | | bility (DECTCEM). |
+---------------------+-------------+---------------------------------+
| \e[?1004h | n/a | Enable focus re- |
| | | porting. |
+---------------------+-------------+---------------------------------+
| \e[?1004l | n/a | Disable focus re- |
| | | porting. |
+---------------------+-------------+---------------------------------+
| \e[?1049h | n/a | Enable alternate |
| | | screen buffer. |
+---------------------+-------------+---------------------------------+
| \e[?1049l | n/a | Disable alternate |
| | | screen buffer. |
+---------------------+-------------+---------------------------------+
| \e[?2004h | | Enable bracketed |
| | | paste. |
+---------------------+-------------+---------------------------------+
| \e[?2004l | | Disable bracketed |
| | | paste. |
+---------------------+-------------+---------------------------------+
| \e[?2031h | | Enable unsolicited |
| | | color theme report- |
| | | ing <https://con- |
| | | tour-termi- |
| | | nal.org/vt-exten- |
| | | sions/color- |
| | | palette-update-no- |
| | | tifications/>. |
| | | When enabled, the |
| | | terminal should |
| | | send \e[?997;1n or |
| | | \e[?997;2n whenever |
| | | its color theme has |
| | | changed. This |
| | | prompts fish to |
| | | query for |
| | | background color. |
+---------------------+-------------+---------------------------------+
| \e[?2031l | | Disable unsolicited |
| | | color theme report- |
| | | ing. |
+---------------------+-------------+---------------------------------+
| \e]0; Pt \e\\ | ts | Set terminal window |
| | | title (OSC 0). Used |
| | | in fish_title. |
+---------------------+-------------+---------------------------------+
| \e]2; Pt \e\\ | ts | Set terminal tab |
| | | title (OSC 1). Used |
| | | in fish_tab_title. |
+---------------------+-------------+---------------------------------+
| \e]7;file:// Pt / | | Report working di- |
| Pt \e\\ | | rectory (OSC 7). |
| | | Since the terminal |
| | | may be running on a |
| | | different system |
| | | than a (remote) |
| | | shell, the hostname |
| | | (first parameter) |
| | | will not be local- |
| | | host. |
+---------------------+-------------+---------------------------------+
| \e]8;; Pt \e\\ | | Create a hyperlink |
| | | (OSC 8) |
| | | <https://gist.github.com/egmon- |
| | | tkob/eb114294ef- |
| | | bcd5adb1944c9f3cb5feda>. |
| | | This is used in |
| | | fish's man pages. |
+---------------------+-------------+---------------------------------+
| \e]11;?\e\\ | n/a | Query background color. |
| | | |
| | | A valid response would be of |
| | | the form \e]11;rgb: Pt / Pt / |
| | | Pt \e\\ or \e]11;rgba: Pt / Pt |
| | | / Pt / Pt\e\\ where the first |
| | | three parameters consist of one |
| | | to four hex digits each, repre- |
| | | senting red, blue and green |
| | | components. |
| | | |
| | | This is used to populate |
| | | fish_terminal_color_theme, |
| | | which is used to select a theme |
| | | variant optimized for the ter- |
| | | minal's color theme. |
+---------------------+-------------+---------------------------------+
| \e]52;c; Pt \e\\ | | Copy to clipboard (OSC 52). |
| | | Used by fish_clipboard_copy. |
+---------------------+-------------+---------------------------------+
| \e]133;A; | | Mark prompt start (OSC 133), |
| click_events=1\e\\ | | with kitty's click_events ex- |
| | | tension. The click_events ex- |
| | | tension enables mouse clicks to |
| | | move the cursor or select pager |
| | | items, assuming that cursor po- |
| | | sition reporting is available. |
+---------------------+-------------+---------------------------------+
| \e]133;B\e\\ | | Mark prompt end (OSC 133). |
+---------------------+-------------+---------------------------------+
| \e]133;C; cmd- | | Mark command start (OSC 133), |
| line_url= Pt \e\\ | | with kitty's cmdline_url exten- |
| | | sion whose parameter is the |
| | | URL-encoded command line. |
+---------------------+-------------+---------------------------------+
| \e]133;D; Ps \e\\ | | Mark command end (OSC 133); Ps |
| | | is the exit status. |
+---------------------+-------------+---------------------------------+
| \eP+q Pt \e\\ | | Request terminfo capability |
| | | (XTGETTCAP). The parameter is |
| | | the capability's hex-encoded |
| | | terminfo code. |
| | | |
| | | The response must be of the |
| | | form \eP1+q Pt \e\\ ("boolean") |
| | | or \eP1+q Pt = Pt \e\\ |
| | | ("string"). In either variant, |
| | | the first parameter must be the |
| | | same as the request parameter. |
| | | |
| | | fish queries the following |
| | | string capabilities: |
| | | |
| | | • indn |
| | | |
| | | The response's second |
| | | parameter is ignored. |
| | | |
| | | • query-os-name (for |
| | | status terminal-os) |
| | | |
| | | Terminals running on |
| | | Unix should respond |
| | | with the hex encoding |
| | | of $(uname -s) as sec- |
| | | ond parameter. |
+---------------------+-------------+---------------------------------+
DCS commands and GNU screen
DCS parsing is optional because fish temporarily switches to the alter-
nate screen before printing any DCS commands. However, since GNU
screen neither allows turning on the alternate screen buffer by de-
fault, nor treats DCS commands in a compatible way, fish's initial
prompt may be garbled by a DCS payload like +q696e646e. For the time
being, fish works around this by checking for presence of the STY envi-
ronment variable. If that doesn't work for some reason, you can add
this to your ~/.screenrc:
altscreen on
Or add this to your config.fish:
function GNU-screen-workaround --on-event fish_prompt
commandline -f repaint
functions --erase GNU-screen-workaround
end
Unicode Codepoints
By default, fish outputs the following non-ASCII characters:
as well as control pictures (U+2400 through U+241F), and locale-spe-
cific ones in translated strings.
Contributing To Fish
This document tells you how you can contribute to fish.
Fish is free and open source software, distributed under the terms of
the GPLv2.
Contributions are welcome, and there are many ways to contribute!
Whether you want to change some of the core Rust source, enhance or add
a completion script or function, improve the documentation or translate
something, this document will tell you how.
Mailing List
Send patches to the public mailing list:
mailto:~krobelus/fish-shell@lists.sr.ht. Archives are available at
https://lists.sr.ht/~krobelus/fish-shell/.
GitHub
Fish is available on GitHub, at
https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell.
First, you'll need an account there, and you'll need a git clone of
fish. Fork it on GitHub and then run:
git clone https://github.com/<USERNAME>/fish-shell.git
This will create a copy of the fish repository in the directory
fish-shell in your current working directory.
Also, for most changes you want to run the tests and so you'd get a
setup to compile fish. For that, you'll require:
• Rust - when in doubt, try rustup
• CMake
• PCRE2 (headers and libraries) - optional, this will be downloaded if
missing
• gettext (only the msgfmt tool) - optional, for translation support
• Sphinx - optional, to build the documentation
Of course not everything is required always - if you just want to con-
tribute something to the documentation you'll just need Sphinx, and if
the change is very simple and obvious you can just send it in. Use your
judgement!
Once you have your changes, open a pull request on
https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/pulls.
Guidelines
In short:
• Be conservative in what you need (keep to the agreed minimum sup-
ported Rust version, limit new dependencies)
• Use automated tools to help you (build_tools/check.sh)
Commit History
We use a linear, recipe-style <https://www.bitsnbites.eu/git-history-
work-log-vs-recipe/> history. Every commit should pass our checks. We
do not want "fixup" commits in our history. If you notice an issue
with a commit in a pull request, or get feedback suggesting changes,
you should rewrite the commit history and fix the relevant commits di-
rectly, instead of adding new "fixup" commits. When a pull request is
ready, we rebase it on top of the current master branch, so don't be
shy about rewriting the history of commits which are not on master yet.
Rebasing (not merging) your pull request on the latest version of mas-
ter is also welcome, especially if it resolves conflicts.
If you're using Git, consider using jj <https://www.jj-vcs.dev/> to
make this easier.
If a commit should close an issue, add a Fixes #<issue-number> line at
the end of the commit description.
Contributing completions
Completion scripts are the most common contribution to fish, and they
are very welcome.
In general, we'll take all well-written completion scripts for a com-
mand that is publicly available. This means no private tools or per-
sonal scripts, and we do reserve the right to reject for other reasons.
Before you try to contribute them to fish, consider if the authors of
the tool you are completing want to maintain the script instead. Often
that makes more sense, specifically because they can add new options to
the script immediately once they add them, and don't have to maintain
one completion script for multiple versions. If the authors no longer
wish to maintain the script, they can of course always contact the fish
maintainers to hand it over, preferably by opening a PR. This isn't a
requirement - if the authors don't want to maintain it, or you simply
don't want to contact them, you can contribute your script to fish.
Completion scripts should
1. Use as few dependencies as possible - try to use fish's builtins
like string instead of grep and awk, use python to read json instead
of jq (because it's already a soft dependency for fish's tools)
2. If it uses a common unix tool, use POSIX-compatible invocations -
ideally it would work on GNU/Linux, macOS, the BSDs and other sys-
tems
3. Option and argument descriptions should be kept short. The shorter
the description, the more likely it is that fish can use more
columns.
4. Function names should start with __fish, and functions should be
kept in the completion file unless they're used elsewhere.
5. Run fish_indent on your script.
6. Try not to use minor convenience features right after they are
available in fish - we do try to keep completion scripts back-
portable. If something has a real impact on the correctness or per-
formance, feel free to use it, but if it is just a shortcut, please
leave it.
Put your completion script into share/completions/name-of-command.fish.
If you have multiple commands, you need multiple files.
If you want to add tests, you probably want to add a littlecheck test.
See below for details.
Contributing documentation
The documentation is stored in doc_src/, and written in ReStructured
Text and built with Sphinx.
To build it locally, run either:
sphinx-build -j auto -b html doc_src/ /tmp/fish-doc/
which will output HTML docs to /tmp/fish-doc. You can open it in a
browser and see that it looks okay.
Alternatively, you can use:
cmake --build build -t sphinx-docs
which outputs to build/user_doc/html/.
The builtins and various functions shipped with fish are documented in
doc_src/cmds/.
Code Style
For formatting, we use:
• rustfmt for Rust
• fish_indent (shipped with fish) for fish script
• ruff format for Python
To reformat files, there is a script
build_tools/style.fish --all
build_tools/style.fish somefile.rs some.fish
Fish Script Style Guide
1. All fish scripts, such as those in the share/functions and tests di-
rectories, should be formatted using the fish_indent command.
2. Function names should be in all lowercase with words separated by
underscores. Private functions should begin with an underscore. The
first word should be fish if the function is unique to fish.
3. The first word of global variable names should generally be fish for
public vars or _fish for private vars to minimize the possibility of
name clashes with user defined vars.
Configuring Your Editor for Fish Scripts
If you use Vim: Install vim-fish <https://github.com/dag/vim-fish>,
make sure you have syntax and filetype functionality in ~/.vimrc:
syntax enable
filetype plugin indent on
Then turn on some options for nicer display of fish scripts in
~/.vim/ftplugin/fish.vim:
" Set up :make to use fish for syntax checking.
compiler fish
" Set this to have long lines wrap inside comments.
setlocal textwidth=79
" Enable folding of block structures in fish.
setlocal foldmethod=expr
If you use Emacs: Install fish-mode <https://github.com/wwwjfy/emacs-
fish> (also available in melpa and melpa-stable) and (setq-default in-
dent-tabs-mode nil) for it (via a hook or in use-packages :init block).
It can also be made to run fish_indent via e.g.
(add-hook 'fish-mode-hook (lambda ()
(add-hook 'before-save-hook 'fish_indent-before-save)))
Minimum Supported Rust Version (MSRV) Policy
We support at least the version of rustc available in Debian Stable.
Testing
The source code for fish includes a large collection of tests. If you
are making any changes to fish, running these tests is a good way to
make sure the behaviour remains consistent and regressions are not in-
troduced. Even if you dont run the tests on your machine, they will
still be run via GitHub Actions.
You are strongly encouraged to add tests when changing the functional-
ity of fish, especially if you are fixing a bug to help ensure there
are no regressions in the future (i.e., we dont reintroduce the bug).
Unit tests live next to the implementation in Rust source files, in in-
line submodules (mod tests {}).
System tests live in tests/:
• tests/checks are run by littlecheck <https://github.com/ridiculous-
fish/littlecheck> and test noninteractive (script) behavior, except
for tests/checks/tmux-* which test interactive scenarios.
• tests/pexpects tests interactive scenarios using pexpect
<https://pexpect.readthedocs.io/en/stable/>
When in doubt, the bulk of the tests should be added as a littlecheck
test in tests/checks, as they are the easiest to modify and run, and
much faster and more dependable than pexpect tests. The syntax is
fairly self-explanatory. It's a fish script with the expected output
in # CHECK: or # CHECKERR: (for stderr) comments. If your littlecheck
test has a specific dependency, use # REQUIRE: ... with a POSIX sh
script.
The pexpect tests are written in Python and can simulate input and out-
put to/from a terminal, so they are needed for anything that needs ac-
tual interactivity. The runner is in tests/pexpect_helper.py, in case
you need to modify something there.
These tests can be run via the tests/test_driver.py Python script,
which will set up the environment. It sets up a temporary $HOME and
also uses it as the current directory, so you do not need to create a
temporary directory in them.
If you need a command to do something weird to test something, maybe
add it to the fish_test_helper binary (in tests/fish_test_helper.c).
Local testing
The tests can be run on your local system:
cargo build
# Run unit tests
cargo test
# Run system tests
tests/test_driver.py target/debug
# Run a specific system test.
tests/test_driver.py target/debug tests/checks/abbr.fish
Here, the first argument to test_driver.py refers to a directory with
fish, fish_indent and fish_key_reader in it. In this example we're in
the root of the workspace and have run cargo build without --release,
so it's a debug build.
To run all tests and linters, use:
build_tools/check.sh
Contributing Translations
Fish uses GNU gettext to translate messages from English to other lan-
guages. We use custom tools for extracting messages from source files
and to localize at runtime. This means that we do not have a runtime
dependency on the gettext library. It also means that some features
are not supported, such as message context and plurals. We also expect
all files to be UTF-8-encoded. In practice, this should not matter
much for contributing translations.
Translation sources are stored in the localization/po directory and
named ll_CC.po, where ll is the two (or possibly three) letter ISO
639-1 language code of the target language (e.g. pt for Portuguese). CC
is an ISO 3166 country/territory code, (e.g. BR for Brazil). An exam-
ple for a valid name is pt_BR.po, indicating Brazilian Portuguese.
These are the files you will interact with when adding translations.
Adding translations for a new language
Creating new translations requires the Gettext tools. More specifi-
cally, you will need msguniq and msgmerge for creating translations for
a new language. To create a new translation, run:
build_tools/update_translations.fish localization/po/ll_CC.po
This will create a new PO file containing all messages available for
translation. If the file already exists, it will be updated.
After modifying a PO file, you can recompile fish, and it will inte-
grate the modifications you made. This requires that the msgfmt util-
ity is installed (comes as part of gettext). It is important that the
localize-messages cargo feature is enabled, which it is by default.
You can explicitly enable it using:
cargo build --features=localize-messages
Use environment variables to tell fish which language to use, e.g.:
LANG=pt_BR.utf8 fish
or within the running fish shell:
set LANG pt_BR.utf8
For more options regarding how to choose languages, see the correspond-
ing gettext documentation <https://www.gnu.org/software/gettext/man-
ual/html_node/Locale-Environment-Variables.html>. One neat thing you
can do is set a list of languages to check for translations in the or-
der defined using the LANGUAGE variable, e.g.:
set LANGUAGE pt_BR de_DE
to try to translate messages to Portuguese, if that fails try German,
and if that fails too you will see the English version defined in the
source code.
Modifying existing translations
If you want to work on translations for a language which already has a
corresponding po file, it is sufficient to edit this file. No other
changes are necessary.
After recompiling fish, you should be able to see your translations in
action. See the previous section for details.
Editing PO files
Many tools are available for editing translation files, including com-
mand-line and graphical user interface programs. For simple use, you
can use your text editor.
Open up the PO file, for example localization/po/sv.po, and you'll see
something like:
msgid "%s: No suitable job\n"
msgstr ""
The msgid here is the "name" of the string to translate, typically the
English string to translate. The second line (msgstr) is where your
translation goes.
For example:
msgid "%s: No suitable job\n"
msgstr "%s: Inget passande jobb\n"
Any %s or %d are placeholders that fish will use for formatting at run-
time. It is important that they match - the translated string should
have the same placeholders in the same order.
Also any escaped characters, like that \n newline at the end, should be
kept so the translation has the same behavior.
Our tests run msgfmt --check-format /path/to/file, so they would catch
mismatched placeholders - otherwise fish would crash at runtime when
the string is about to be used.
Be cautious about blindly updating an existing translation file. msgid
strings should never be updated manually, only by running the appropri-
ate script.
Modifications to strings in source files
If a string changes in the sources, the old translations will no longer
work. They will be preserved in the PO files, but commented-out
(starting with #~). If you add/remove/change a translatable strings in
a source file, run build_tools/update_translations.fish to propagate
this to all translation files (localization/po/*.po). This is only
relevant for developers modifying the source files of fish or fish
scripts.
Setting Code Up For Translations
All non-debug messages output for user consumption should be marked for
translation. In Rust, this requires the use of the wgettext! or wget-
text_fmt! macros:
streams.out.append(wgettext_fmt!("%s: There are no jobs\n", argv[0]));
All messages in fish script must be enclosed in single or double quote
characters for our message extraction script to find them. They must
also be translated via a command substitution. This means that the fol-
lowing are not valid:
echo (_ hello)
_ "goodbye"
Above should be written like this instead:
echo (_ "hello")
echo (_ "goodbye")
You can use either single or double quotes to enclose the message to be
translated. You can also optionally include spaces after the opening
parentheses or before the closing parentheses.
Updating Dependencies
To update dependencies, run build_tools/update-dependencies.sh. This
currently requires updatecli <https://github.com/updatecli/updatecli>
and a few other tools.
Versioning
The fish version is constructed by the build_tools/git_version_gen.sh
script. For developers the version is the branch name plus the output
of git describe --always --dirty. Normally the main part of the version
will be the closest annotated tag. Which itself is usually the most re-
cent release number (e.g., 2.6.0).
License
License for fish
fish Copyright 2005-2009 Axel Liljencrantz, 2009- fish-shell contribu-
tors. fish is released under the GNU General Public License, version 2.
fish includes other code licensed under the GNU General Public License,
version 2, including GNU printf.
Copyright 1990-2007 Free Software Foundation, Inc. Printf (from GNU
Coreutils 6.9) is released under the GNU General Public License, ver-
sion 2.
The GNU General Public License agreement follows.
GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE
Version 2, June 1991
Copyright (C) 1989, 1991 Free Software Foundation, Inc. 51 Franklin
Street, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301, USA
Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies of this
license document, but changing it is not allowed.
Preamble
The licenses for most software are designed to take away your freedom
to share and change it. By contrast, the GNU General Public License is
intended to guarantee your freedom to share and change free software -
to make sure the software is free for all its users. This General Pub-
lic License applies to most of the Free Software Foundation's software
and to any other program whose authors commit to using it. (Some other
Free Software Foundation software is covered by the GNU Library General
Public License instead.) You can apply it to your programs, too.
When we speak of free software, we are referring to freedom, not price.
Our General Public Licenses are designed to make sure that you have the
freedom to distribute copies of free software (and charge for this ser-
vice if you wish), that you receive source code or can get it if you
want it, that you can change the software or use pieces of it in new
free programs; and that you know you can do these things.
To protect your rights, we need to make restrictions that forbid anyone
to deny you these rights or to ask you to surrender the rights. These
restrictions translate to certain responsibilities for you if you dis-
tribute copies of the software, or if you modify it.
For example, if you distribute copies of such a program, whether gratis
or for a fee, you must give the recipients all the rights that you
have. You must make sure that they, too, receive or can get the source
code. And you must show them these terms so they know their rights.
We protect your rights with two steps: (1) copyright the software, and
(2) offer you this license which gives you legal permission to copy,
distribute and/or modify the software.
Also, for each author's protection and ours, we want to make certain
that everyone understands that there is no warranty for this free soft-
ware. If the software is modified by someone else and passed on, we
want its recipients to know that what they have is not the original, so
that any problems introduced by others will not reflect on the original
authors' reputations.
Finally, any free program is threatened constantly by software patents.
We wish to avoid the danger that redistributors of a free program will
individually obtain patent licenses, in effect making the program pro-
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In doc_src/python_docs_theme/, taken from
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MIT License
fish includes a copy of Alpine.js, which is copyright 2019-2021 Caleb
Porzio and contributors, and licensed under the MIT License. It also
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This code is used under the terms of the MIT license.
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fish contains code derived from the GNU C Library, licensed under the
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Free Software Foundation, Inc.
The GNU Library General Public License agreement follows.
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Copyright (C) 1991 Free Software Foundation, Inc. 51 Franklin Street,
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