New fish shell major version is coming out!
I want to share with you all the changes that caught my attention.
Incidentally, this blog is my excuse to read the release notes to begin with c:
First of all, fish shell got rewritten from c++ to rust. This is big because it reduces the barrier of entry for contribution and probably makes fish faster.
fish_should_add_to_history function lets you decide which commands to add to history or not.
--command flag for abbr allows you to make command-specific abbreviations. Basically, you get to make subcommand aliases but with the power of your shell, not having to rely on the program to support aliasing.
Take a look at this:
Previously, if variable is unset (rather than an empty string), fish would error out — test -n expects an argument after.
It's the reason why it's good practice to surround the variable with " like "$variable", so that it resolves to a single argument even if the variable is unset.
Now test -n and test -z don't require an argument after, so passing an unset variable is now valid.
Interestingly, only those two options. All the other options work as they did before.
This feature is not enabled by default, you'd enable it with set -Ua fish_features test-require-arg.
bind recognizes more modifier combinations and differentiates more keys, for example it can tell apart Tab and ctrl+i.
Also, a more convenient syntax for specifying the key like ctrl-x is now available.
Previously you had to use bind -k for that, now you don't have to.
Omg, I literally needed this so bad: history append lets you append a command to fish history, without executing it.
<?/path/to/file tries reading the file as input; if reading fails for any reason, outputs from /dev/null (which should be an empty string).
Basically, a way to say "read this file if you can, but don't fail if you can't".
New path basename -E is like doing path change-extension '' (path basename /path/to/file.txt) — /path/to/file.txt gets turned into file.
Math --scale-mode now allows you to choose how the output value's decimal points are handled. truncate / round / floor / ceiling.
Abbreviations can now expand after command. As in, command ls will expand similar to how just ls would.
They now also do after ; and |. But if you put a | right after a command without a space in between, you're a freak.
funcsaveing a function indents the body.
If there is no second job, fg %2 won't activate the latest one, and will instead fail.
Depending on your terminal, now shift+enter will insert a newline rather than execute the command, and ctrl+backspace & ctrl+delete works.
In vim mode, the cursor will no longer be beyond the end of the line. I kinda got used to my cursor being 2 character after the end of the line at this point, lol.
Also, % motion, as well as functions to f/t to the matching bracket.
Options can now be fuzzy completed!! So, --fbr -> --foobar will happen, if there's no better match.
When you complete something that has characters that need to be escaped, previously each character would be escaped. Now the completed token uses quotes.
Say you are completing a directory named my directory.
Previously, it would turn into my\ directory, now it will turn into 'my directory'.
I opened the release notes, saw the ridiculously small scrollbar, and got terrified like "HOW HUGE IS THIS UPDATE??", but turns out the page is so long because it contains all the release notes.
So yeah, everything listed above are the neat changes that I found the most significant for myself. Keep in mind though, I might've skipped some that aren't important to me but might be important for you!