github fish-shell/fish-shell 3.1b1
fish 3.1b1 (released January 26, 2020)
on GitHub

latest releases: 3.7.1, 3.7.0, 3.6.4...
pre-release4 years ago

Download links: To download the source code for fish, we suggest the file named "fish-3.1b1.tar.gz". The file downloaded from "Source code (tar.gz)" will not build correctly. The SHA-256 sum of this file is 7847cb2777cc6ea2a18f147a0e567de5bdac4febf6afdfcf867eb45501183a1a. A GPG signature from David Adam (0x7A67D962D88A709A) is available as "fish-3.1b1.tar.gz.asc".

Notable improvements and fixes

  • A new $pipestatus variable contains a list of exit statuses of the previous job, for each of the separate commands in a pipeline (#5632).
  • fish no longer buffers pipes to the last function in a pipeline, improving many cases where pipes appeared to block or hang (#1396).
  • An overhaul of error messages for builtin commands, including a removal of the overwhelming usage summary, more readable stack traces (#3404, #5434), and stack traces for test (aka [) (#5771).
  • fish's debugging arguments have been significantly improved. The --debug-level option has been removed, and a new --debug option replaces it. This option accepts various categories, which may be listed via fish --print-debug-categories (#5879). A new --debug-output option allows for redirection of debug output.
  • string has a new collect subcommand for use in command substitutions, producing a single output instead of splitting on new lines (similar to "$(cmd)" in other shells) (#159).
  • The fish manual, tutorial and FAQ are now available in man format as fish-doc, fish-tutorial and fish-faq respectively (#5521).
  • Like other shells, cd now always looks for its argument in the current directory as a last resort, even if the CDPATH variable does not include it or "." (#4484).
  • fish now correctly handles CDPATH entries that start with .. (#6220) or contain ./ (#5887).
  • The fish_trace variable may be set to trace execution (#3427). This performs a similar role as set -x in other shells.
  • fish uses the temporary directory determined by the system, rather than relying on /tmp (#3845).
  • The fish Web configuration tool (fish_config) prints a list of commands it is executing, to help understanding and debugging (#5584).
  • Major performance improvements when pasting (#5866), executing lots of commands (#5905), importing history from bash (#6295), and when completing variables that might match $history (#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).
  • 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).
  • New redirections &> and &| may be used to redirect or pipe stdout, and also redirect stderr to stdout (#6192).
  • switch now allows arguments that expand to nothing, like empty variables (#5677).
  • The VAR=val cmd syntax can now be used to run a command in a modified environment (#6287).
  • and is no longer recognised as a command, so that nonsensical constructs like and and and produce a syntax error (#6089).
  • math's exponent operator, '^', was previously left-associative, but now uses the more commonly-used right-associative behaviour (#6280). This means that math '3^0.5^2' was previously calculated as '(3^0.5)^2', but is now calculated as '3^(0.5^2)'.
  • In fish 3.0, the variable used with for loops inside command substitutions could leak into enclosing scopes; this was an inadvertent behaviour change and has been reverted (#6480).

Scripting improvements

  • string split0 now returns 0 if it split something (#5701).
  • In the interest of consistency, builtin -q and command -q can now be used to query if a builtin or command exists (#5631).
  • math now accepts --scale=max for the maximum scale (#5579).
  • builtin $var now works correctly, allowing a variable as the builtin name (#5639).
  • cd understands the -- argument to make it possible to change to directories starting with a hyphen (#6071).
  • complete --do-complete now also does fuzzy matches (#5467).
  • complete --do-complete can be used inside completions, allowing limited recursion (#3474).
  • count now also counts lines fed on standard input (#5744).
  • eval produces an exit status of 0 when given no arguments, like other shells (#5692).
  • printf prints what it can when input hasn't been fully converted to a number, but still prints an error (#5532).
  • complete -C foo now works as expected, rather than requiring complete -Cfoo.
  • complete has a new --force-files option, to re-enable file completions. This allows sudo -E and pacman -Qo to complete correctly (#5646).
  • argparse now defaults to showing the current function name (instead of argparse) in its errors, making --name often superfluous (#5835).
  • argparse has a new --ignore-unknown option to keep unrecognized options, allowing multiple argparse passes to parse options (#5367).
  • argparse correctly handles flag value validation of options that only have short names (#5864).
  • read -S (short option of --shell) is recognised correctly (#5660).
  • read understands --list, which acts like --array in reading all arguments into a list inside a single variable, but is better named (#5846).
  • read has a new option, --tokenize, which splits a string into variables according to the shell's tokenization rules, considering quoting, escaping, and so on (#3823).
  • read interacts more correctly with the deprecated $IFS variable, in particular removing multiple separators when splitting a variable into a list (#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).
  • fish_indent --write now supports multiple file arguments, indenting them in turn.
  • The default read limit has been increased to 100MiB (#5267).
  • math now also understands x for multiplication, provided it is followed by whitespace (#5906).
  • math reports the right error when incorrect syntax is used inside parentheses (#6063), and warns when unsupported logical operations are used (#6096).
  • functions --erase now also prevents fish from autoloading a function for the first time (#5951).
  • jobs --last returns 0 to indicate success when a job is found (#6104).
  • commandline -p and commandline -j now split on && and || in addition to ; and & (#6214).
  • A bug where string split would drop empty strings if the output was only empty strings has been fixed (#5987).
  • eval no long creates a new local variable scope, but affects variables in the scope it is called from (#4443). source still creates a new local scope.
  • abbr has a new --query option to check for the existence of an abbreviation.
  • 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).
  • Empty universal variables may now be exported (#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).
  • A bug where for could use invalid variable names has been fixed (#5800).
  • A bug where local variables would not be exported to functions has been fixed (#6153).
  • The null command (:) now always exits successfully, rather than passing through the previous exit status (#6022).
  • The output of functions FUNCTION matches the declaration of the function, correctly including comments or blank lines (#5285), and correctly includes any --wraps flags (#1625).
  • type supports a new option, --short, which suppress function expansion (#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).
  • The $hostname variable is no longer truncated to 32 characters (#5758).
  • Line numbers in function backtraces are calculated correctly (#6350).
  • A new fish_cancel event is emitted when the command line is cancelled, which is useful for terminal integration (#5973).

Interactive improvements

  • New Base16 color options are available through the Web-based configuration (#6504).
  • fish only parses /etc/paths on macOS in login shells, matching the bash implementation (#5637) and avoiding changes to path ordering in child shells (#5456). It now ignores blank lines like the bash implementation (#5809).
  • The locale is now reloaded when the LOCPATH variable is changed (#5815).
  • read no longer keeps a history, making it suitable for operations that shouldn't end up there, like password entry (#5904).
  • dirh outputs its stack in the correct order (#5477), and behaves as documented when universal variables are used for its stack (#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).
  • Builtins now pipe their help output to a pager automatically (#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).
  • When syntax highlighting a string with an unclosed quote, only the quote itself will be shown as an error, instead of the whole argument.
  • Syntax highlighting works correctly with variables as commands (#5658) and redirections to close file descriptors (#6092).
  • help works properly on Windows Subsytem for Linux (#5759, #6338).
  • A bug where disown could crash the shell has been fixed (#5720).
  • fish will not autosuggest files ending with ~ unless there are no other candidates, as these are generally backup files (#985).
  • Escape in the pager works correctly (#5818).
  • Key bindings that call fg no longer leave the terminal in a broken state (#2114).
  • Brackets (#5831) and filenames containing $ (#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), and launches correctly under Termux (#6248) and OpenBSD (#6522).
  • function now correctly validates parameters for --argument-names as valid variable names (#6147) and correctly parses options following --argument-names, as in "--argument-names foo --description bar" (#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 warning when exiting fish (#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).
  • 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).
  • Ctrl-C always repaints the prompt (#6394).
  • When run interactively from another program (such as Python), fish will correctly start a new process group, like other shells (#5909).
  • Job identifiers (for example, for background jobs) are assigned more logically (#6053).
  • A bug where history would appear truncated if an empty command was executed was fixed (#6032).

New or improved bindings

  • Pasting strips leading spaces to avoid pasted commands being omitted from the history (#4327).
  • Shift-Left and Shift-Right now default to moving backwards and forwards by one bigword (words separated by whitespace) (#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).
  • The forward-bigword binding now interacts correctly with autosuggestions (#5336).
  • The fish_clipboard_* functions support Wayland by using wl-clipboard (#5450).
  • The nextd and prevd functions no longer print "Hit end of history", instead using a bell. They correctly store working directories containing symbolic links (#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).
  • 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).
  • The NULL character can now be bound via bind -k nul. Terminals often generate this character via control-space. (#3189).
  • A new readline command expand-abbr can be used to trigger abbreviation expansion (#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 sequence, if not empty.
  • A new binding to prepend sudo, bound to Alt-S by default (#6140).
  • The Alt-W binding to describe a command should now work better with multiline prompts (#6110)
  • The Alt-H binding to open a command's man page now tries to ignore sudo (#6122).
  • A new pair of bind functions, history-prefix-search-backward (and forward), was introduced (#6143).
  • Vi mode now supports R to enter replace mode (#6342), and d0 to delete the current line (#6292).
  • In Vi mode, hitting Enter in replace-one mode no longer erases the prompt (#6298).
  • Selections in Vi mode are inclusive, matching the actual behaviour of Vi (#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_informative_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).
  • 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 signal names when appropriate.

Improved terminal output

  • New fish_pager_color_ options have been added to control more elements of the pager's colors (#5524).
  • Better detection and support for using fish from various system consoles, where limited colors and special characters are supported (#5552).
  • fish now tries to guess if the system supports Unicode 9 (and displays emoji as wide), eliminating the need to set $fish_emoji_width in most cases (#5722).
  • Improvements to the display of wide characters, particularly Korean characters and emoji (#5583, #5729).
  • The Vi mode cursor is correctly redrawn when regaining focus under terminals that report focus (eg tmux) (#4788).
  • Variables that control background colors (such as fish_pager_color_search_match) can now use --reverse.

Completions

  • Added completions for
  • Lots of improvements to completions.
  • Selecting short options which also have a long name from the completion pager is possible (#5634).
  • Tab completion will no longer add trailing spaces if they already exist (#6107).
  • Completion of subcommands to builtins like and or not now works correctly (#6249).
  • Completion of arguments to short options works correctly when multiple short options are used together (#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).
  • 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 double-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).
  • 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). As a reminder, the intention behind feature flags is that this will eventually 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).

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 removed, leaving only the CMake build system. All distributors and developers 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 always uses an internal wcwidth function. It has a number of configuration options that make it more suitable for general use (#5777).
  • mandoc can now be used to format the output from --help if nroff is not installed, reducing the number of external dependencies on systems with mandoc installed (#5489).
  • Some bugs preventing building on Solaris-derived systems such as Illumos were fixed (#5458, #5461, #5611).
  • Completions for npm, bower and yarn no longer require the jq utility for full functionality, but will use Python instead if it is available.
  • The paths for completions, functions and configuration snippets have been extended. On systems that define XDG_DATA_DIRS, each of the directories in this variable are searched in the subdirectories fish/vendor_completions.d, fish/vendor_functions.d, and fish/vendor_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).
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