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fish 3.8.0 (released ???)

The entirety of fish's C++ code has been ported to Rust (:issue:`9512`). This means a large change in dependencies and how to build fish. Packagers should see the :ref:`For Distributors <rust-packaging>` 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 :ref:`below <changelog-new-bindings>` for details.

  • Fish no longer supports terminals that fail to ignore OSC or CSI sequences they don't recognize. The typical problem is that terminals echo the raw sequences sent by fish instead of silently ignoring them.

  • random now uses a different random number generator and so the values you get even with the same seed have changed. Notably, it will now work much more sensibly with very small seeds. The seed was never guaranteed to give the same result across systems, so we do not expect this to have a large impact (:issue:`9593`).

  • 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 (:issue:`9944`).

  • The qmark-noglob feature flag, introduced in fish 3.0, is now turned on by default. 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 :envvar:`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.

  • 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 (:issue:`10506`).

  • Under WSLv1, backgrounded 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/exec (after the usual prompt to close or disown them) to work around a WSL deficiency that sees backgrounded processes that run into SIGTTOU remain in a suspended state indefinitely (:issue:`5263`). The workaround is to explicitly disown processes you wish to outlive the shell session.

Notable improvements and fixes

  • fish asks terminals to speak keyboard protocols CSI u, XTerm's modifyOtherKeys and some progressive enhancements from the kitty keyboard protocol. Depending on terminal support, this allows to bind a lot more key combinations, including arbitrary combinations of modifiers ctrl, alt and shift, and to distinguish e.g. ctrl-i from tab.

    Additionally, builtin bind no longer requires specifying keys as byte sequences but learned a human-readable syntax. 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 compatibility for the majority of bindings.

  • A new function fish_should_add_to_history can be overridden to decide whether a command should be added to the history (:issue:`10302`).

  • ctrl-c during command input no longer prints ^C and a new prompt but merely clears the command line. This restores the behavior from version 2.2. To revert to the old behavior use bind ctrl-c __fish_cancel_commandline (:issue:`10213`).

  • Bindings can now mix special input functions and shell commands, so bind ctrl-g expand-abbr "commandline -i \n" works as expected (:issue:`8186`).

  • Special input functions run from bindings via commandline -f are now applied immediately instead of after the currently executing binding. For example, 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 (:issue:`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.

  • Abbreviations can now be restricted to specific commands. For instance:

    abbr --add --command git back 'reset --hard HEAD^'

    will expand "back" to reset --hard HEAD^, but only when the command is git (:issue:`9411`, :issue:`10452`).

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 expressions, removing the need to use "eval" in completion scripts (:issue:`10212`).

  • Two new feature flags:

    • remove-percent-self (see status features) disables PID expansion of %self which has been supplanted by $fish_pid (:issue:`10262`).
    • test-require-arg, will disable 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 regard. 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. (:issue:`10365`).

    as always these can be enabled with:

    set -Ua fish_features remove-percent-self test-require-arg

    They are available as a preview now, it is our intention to enable them by default in future, and after that eventually make them read-only.

  • Specifying key names as terminfo name (bind -k) 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 currently not meant to be 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 bash/readline). 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.

Scripting improvements

  • for-loops will no longer remember local variables from the previous iteration (:issue:`10525`).
  • Add history append subcommand to append a command to the history without executing it (:issue:`4506`).
  • A new redirection: <? /path/to/file will try opening the file as input, and if it doesn't succeed silently use /dev/null instead. This can help with checks like test -f /path/to/file; and string replace foo bar < /path/to/file. (:issue:`10387`)
  • New option commandline --tokens-raw prints a list of tokens without any unescaping (:issue:`10212`).
  • functions and type now show where a function was copied and where it originally was instead of saying Defined interactively (:issue:`6575`).
  • Stack trace now shows line numbers for copied functions.
  • foo & && bar is now a syntax error, like in other shells (:issue:`9911`).
  • if -e foo; end now prints a more accurate error (:issue:`10000`).
  • 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 (:issue:`10249`).
  • cd into a directory that is not readable but accessible (permissions --x) is now possible (:issue:`10432`).
  • An integer overflow in string repeat leading to a near-infinite loop has been fixed (:issue:`9899`).
  • string shorten behaves better in the presence of non-printable characters, including fixing an integer overflow that shortened strings more than intended. (:issue:`9854`)
  • string pad no longer allows non-printable characters as padding. (:issue:`9854`)
  • string repeat now allows omission of -n when the first argument is an integer. (:issue:`10282`)
  • functions --handlers-type caller-exit once again lists functions defined as function --on-job-exit caller, rather than them being listed by functions --handlers-type process-exit.
  • set has a new --no-event flag, to set or erase variables without triggering a variable event. This is useful e.g. to change a variable in an event handler. (:issue:`10480`)
  • Commas in command substitution output are no longer used as separators in brace expansion, preventing a surprising expansion in rare cases (:issue:`5048`).
  • Universal variables can now store strings containing invalid Unicode codepoints (:issue:`10313`).
  • path basename now takes a -E option that causes it to return the basename (i.e. "filename" with the directory prefix removed) with the final extension (if any) also removed. This is a shorter version of path change-extension "" (path basename $foo) (:issue:`10521`).
  • math now adds --scale-mode parameter. You can choose between truncate, round, floor, ceiling as you wish (default value is truncate). (:issue:`9117`).

Interactive improvements

  • When using ctrl-x on Wayland in the VSCode terminal, the clipboard is no longer cleared on ctrl-c.
  • Command-specific tab completions may now offer results whose first character is a period. For example, it is now possible to tab-complete git add for files with leading periods. The default file completions hide these files, unless the token itself has a leading period (:issue:`3707`).
  • Option completion now uses fuzzy subsequence filtering, just like non-option completion (:issue:`830`). This means that --fb may be completed to --foobar if there is no better match.
  • Completions that insert an entire token now use quotes instead of backslashes to escape special characters (:issue:`5433`).
  • Historically, file name completions are provided after the last : or = within a token. This helps commands like rsync --files-from=. If the = or : is actually part of the filename, it will be escaped as \: and \=, and no longer get this special treatment. This matches Bash's behavior.
  • Autosuggestions were sometimes not shown after recalling a line from history, which has been fixed (:issue:`10287`).
  • Up-arrow search matches -- which are highlighted in reverse video -- 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 (:issue:`10396`).
  • Abbreviations now expand after process separators like ; and |. This fixes a regression in version 3.6 (:issue:`9730`).
  • When exporting interactively defined functions (using type, functions or funcsave) the function body is now indented, same as in the interactive command line editor (:issue:`8603`).
  • ctrl-x (fish_clipboard_copy) on multiline commands now includes indentation (:issue:`10437`).
  • ctrl-v (fish_clipboard_paste) now strips ASCII control characters from the pasted text. This is consistent with normal keyboard input (:issue:`5274`).
  • When a command like fg %2 fails to find the given job, it no longer behaves as if no job spec was given (:issue:`9835`).
  • Redirection in command position like >echo is now highlighted as error (:issue:`8877`).
  • fish_vi_cursor now works properly inside the prompt created by builtin read (:issue:`10088`).
  • fish no longer fails to open a fifo if interrupted by a terminal resize signal (:issue:`10250`).
  • read --help and friends no longer ignore redirections. This fixes a regression in version 3.1 (:issue:`10274`).
  • Measuring a command with time now considers the time taken for command substitution (:issue:`9100`).
  • fish_add_path now automatically enables verbose mode when used interactively (in the commandline), in an effort to be clearer about what it does (:issue:`10532`).
  • fish no longer adopts TTY modes of failed commands (:issue:`10603`).
  • complete -e cmd now prevents autoloading completions for cmd (:issue:`6716`).

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 (:issue:`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. Same for autosuggestions.
  • ctrl-Z (also known as ctrl-shift-z) is now bound to redo.
  • Some improvements to the alt-e binding which edits the commandline in an external editor: - The editor's cursor position is copied back to fish. This is currently supported for Vim and Kakoune. - Cursor position synchronization is only supported for a set of known editors. This has been extended by also resolving aliases. 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 (:issue:`10271`).
  • Bindings like alt-l that print output in between prompts now work correctly with multiline commandlines.
  • ctrl-c no longer cancels builtin read.
  • alt-d on an empty command line lists the directory history again. This restores the behavior of version 2.1.
  • history-prefix-search-{backward,forward} now maintain the cursor position instead of moving the cursor to the end of the command line (:issue:`10430`).
  • The E binding in vi mode now correctly handles the last character of the word, by jumping to the next word (:issue:`9700`).
  • The following keys have refined behavior if the terminal supports disambiguating them: - shift-enter now inserts a newline instead of executing the command line. - ctrl-backspace now deletes the last word instead of only one character. - 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 focus in the completion pager (:issue:`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 (:issue:`2014`).
  • The accept-autosuggestion special input function now returns false when there was nothing to accept.
  • Vi mode has seen some improvements but continues to suffer from the lack of people working on it. - Insert-mode ctrl-n accepts autosuggestions (:issue:`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 (:issue:`10286`). - The cursor position after pasting (p) has been corrected. - 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 (:issue:`10394`). - Support % motion. - Support ab and ib vi text objects. New input functions are introduced jump-{to,till}-matching-bracket (:issue:`1842`).

Completions

  • Various new completion scripts and numerous updates to existing ones.
  • Generated completions are now stored in $XDG_CACHE_HOME/fish or ~/.cache/fish by default (:issue:`10369`)

Improved terminal support

  • Fish now marks the prompt and command-output regions (via OSC 133) to enable terminal shell integration (:issue:`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 (:issue:`9955`).
  • Fish now sets the terminal window title (via OSC 0) unconditionally instead of only for some terminals (:issue:`10037`).
  • Focus reporting in tmux is no longer disabled on the first prompt.
  • Focus reporting is now disabled during execution of bind commands (:issue:`6942`).
  • fish_vi_cursor no longer attempts to detect if the terminal is capable, as we can no longer find terminals that aren't and the allowlist was hard to keep up-to-date. (:issue:`10693`)

Other improvements

  • fish_indent will now collapse multiple successive empty lines into one (:issue:`10325`).
  • fish_indent now preserves the modification time of files if there were no changes (:issue:`10624`).
  • The HTML-based configuration UI (fish_config) now uses Alpine.js instead of AngularJS (:issue:`9554`).
  • fish_config now also works in a Windows MSYS environment (:issue:`10111`).
  • Performance and interactivity under WSLv1 and WSLv2 has been improved with a workaround for Windows-specific locations being appended to $PATH by default (:issue:`10506`).

For distributors

Fish has been ported to Rust. That means the dependencies have changed.

It now requires Rust 1.70 at least.

CMake remains for now because cargo is unable to install the many asset files that fish needs. The minimum required CMake version has increased to 3.19.

Some smaller changes:

  • The default build configuration has changed to "Debug". Please pass -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release if you want to build a package.
  • Xcode support has been removed (:issue:`9924`).
  • fish no longer links against the (n)curses library, opting to read the terminfo database via the terminfo crate. This means hashed terminfo databases are no longer supported (from our research, they are basically unmaintained and unused). When packaging fish, please add a dependency on the package containing your terminfo database instead of curses, if such a package is required. If it cannot find a terminfo database, fish will now fall back on an included xterm-256color definition (:issue:`10269`).

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 (:issue:`10190`).
  • Wildcards (*) will no longer sometimes generate paths that did not exist (:issue:`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 (:issue:`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 (:issue:`10318`).
  • The warning for when a builtin returns a negative exit code was improved, now mentioning the original status (:issue:`10187`).
  • Added completions for
  • 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 internals 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 remain C++ programs.

Notable improvements and fixes

  • Improvements to the history pager, including:
    • The history pager will now also attempt subsequence matches (:issue:`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 (:issue:`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 editing the command you tried to find right away (:issue:`9934`).
  • Performance improvements for command completions and globbing, where supported by the operating system, especially on slow filesystems such as NFS (:issue:`9891`, :issue:`9931`, :issue:`10032`, :issue:`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 possible. The timeout can be set via the new :envvar:`fish_sequence_key_delay_ms` variable (:issue:`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 (:issue:`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 (:issue:`9659`).
  • fish --command will now return a non-zero status if parsing failed (:issue:`9888`).
  • The jobs builtin will now escape the commands it prints (:issue:`9808`).
  • string repeat no longer overflows if the count is a multiple of the chunk size (:issue:`9900`).
  • The builtin builtin will now properly error out with invalid arguments instead of doing nothing and returning true (:issue:`9942`).
  • command time in a pipeline is allowed again, as is command and and command or (:issue:`9985`).
  • exec will now also apply variable overrides, so FOO=bar exec will now set $FOO correctly (:issue:`9995`).
  • umask will now handle empty symbolic modes correctly, like umask u=,g=rwx,o= (:issue:`10177`).
  • Improved error messages for errors occurring in command substitutions (:issue:`10054`).

Interactive improvements

  • read no longer enables bracketed paste so it doesn't stay enabled in combined commandlines like mysql -p(read --silent) (:issue:`8285`).
  • Vi mode now uses :envvar:`fish_cursor_external` to set the cursor shape for external commands (:issue:`4656`).
  • Opening the history search in vi mode switches to insert mode correctly (:issue:`10141`).
  • Vi mode cursor shaping is now enabled in iTerm2 (:issue:`9698`).
  • Completing commands as root includes commands not owned by root, fixing a regression introduced in fish 3.2.0 (:issue:`9699`).
  • Selection uses fish_color_selection for the foreground and background colors, as intended, rather than just the background (:issue:`9717`).
  • The completion pager will no longer sometimes skip the last entry when moving through a long list (:issue:`9833`).
  • The interactive history delete interface now allows specifying index ranges like "1..5" (:issue:`9736`), and history delete --exact now properly saves the history (:issue:`10066`).
  • Command completion will now call the stock manpath on macOS, instead of a potential Homebrew version. This prevents awkward error messages (:issue:`9817`).
  • the redo special input function restores the pre-undo cursor position.
  • A new bind function history-pager-delete, bound to shift-delete by default, will delete the currently-selected history pager item from history (:issue:`9454`).
  • fish_key_reader will now use printable characters as-is, so pressing "ö" no longer leads to it telling you to bind \u00F6 (:issue:`9986`).
  • open can be used to launch terminal programs again, as an xdg-open bug has been fixed and a workaround has been removed (:issue:`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 (:issue:`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 (:issue:`10044`).
  • The alias convenience function has better support for commands with unusual characters, like + (:issue:`8720`).
  • A longstanding issue where items in the pager would sometimes display without proper formatting has been fixed (:issue:`9617`).
  • The alt-l binding, which lists the directory of the token under the cursor, correctly expands tilde (~) to the home directory (:issue:`9954`).
  • Various fish utilities that use an external pager will now try a selection of common pagers if the :envvar:`PAGER` environment variable is not set, or write the output to the screen without a pager if there is not one available (:issue:`10074`).
  • Command-specific tab completions may now offer results whose first character is a period. For example, it is now possible to tab-complete git add for files with leading periods. The default file completions hide these files, unless the token itself has a leading period (:issue:`3707`).

Improved prompts

  • The default theme now only uses named colors, so it will track the terminal's palette (:issue:`9913`).
  • The Dracula theme has now been synced with upstream (:issue:`9807`); use fish_config to re-apply it to pick up the changes.
  • fish_vcs_prompt now also supports fossil (:issue:`9497`).
  • Prompts which display the working directory using the prompt_pwd function correctly display directories beginning with dashes (:issue:`10169`).

Completions

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 (:issue:`9828`).
  • Updates to the German translations (:issue:`9824`).
  • The colors of the Nord theme better match their official style (:issue:`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 (:issue:`10162`).
  • The CMake configure step will now also look for libterminfo as an alternative name for libtinfo, as used in NetBSD curses (:issue:`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 minor 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 wildcards 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 external 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 (:issue:`9468`).

  • abbr --add --universal now warns about --universal being non-functional, to make it easier to detect old-style abbr calls (:issue:`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 (:issue:`9460`).

Scripting improvements

  • abbr --list no longer escapes the abbr name, which is necessary to be able to pass it to abbr --erase (:issue:`9470`).
  • read will now print an error if told to set a read-only variable, instead of silently doing nothing (:issue:`9346`).
  • set_color -v no longer crashes fish (:issue:`9640`).

Interactive improvements

  • Using fish_vi_key_bindings in combination with fish's --no-config mode works without locking up the shell (:issue:`9443`).
  • The history pager now uses more screen space, usually half the screen (:issue:`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 (:issue:`2613`, :issue:`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 (:issue:`9488`).
  • ctrl-g closes the history pager, like other shells (:issue:`9484`).
  • The documentation for the :, [ and . builtin commands can now be looked up with man (:issue:`9552`).
  • fish no longer crashes when searching history for non-ASCII codepoints case-insensitively (:issue:`9628`).
  • The alt-s binding will now also use please if available (:issue:`9635`).
  • Themes that don't specify every color option can be installed correctly in the Web-based configuration (:issue:`9590`).
  • Compatibility with Midnight Commander's prompt integration has been improved (:issue:`9540`).
  • A spurious error, noted when using fish in Google Drive directories under WSL 2, has been silenced (:issue:`9550`).
  • Using read in fish_greeting or similar functions will not trigger an infinite loop (:issue:`9564`).
  • Compatibility when upgrading from old versions of fish (before 3.4.0) has been improved (:issue:`9569`).

Improved prompts

  • The git prompt will compute the stash count to be used independently of the informative status (:issue:`9572`).

Completions

Other improvements

  • Improvements and corrections to the documentation.

For distributors

fish 3.6.0 (released January 7, 2023)

Notable improvements and fixes

  • By default, ctrl-r now opens the command history in the pager (:issue:`602`). This is fully searchable and syntax-highlighted, as an alternative to the incremental search seen in other shells. The new special input function history-pager has been added for custom bindings.

  • Abbrevations are more flexible (:issue:`9313`, :issue:`5003`, :issue:`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 :ref:`the documentation <cmd-abbr>` 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 (:issue:`9057`):

    > touch foo
> sleep 10
> path mtime --relative foo
10

  • string gained a new shorten subcommand to shorten strings to a given visible width (:issue:`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 (:issue:`3589`).

  • fish will now mark the extent of many errors with a squiggly line, instead of just a caret (^) at the beginning (:issue:`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 (:issue:`9255`).

  • set --erase can now be used with multiple scopes at once, like set -efglU foo (:issue:`7711`, :issue:`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 (:issue:`8905`, :issue:`9296`).

Deprecations and removed features

  • The \x and \X escape syntax is now equivalent. \xAB previously behaved the same as \XAB, except that it would error if the value "AB" was larger than "7f" (127 in decimal, the highest ASCII value) (:issue:`9247`, :issue:`9245`, :issue:`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") instead 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 (:issue:`9274`). For example, 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 using --min-args, --max-args or for commands that take no options (but might in future) (:issue:`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 (:issue:`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 :envvar:`fish_read_limit` is unset (:issue:`9129`).

  • math produces an error for division-by-zero, as well as augmenting some errors with their extent (:issue:`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 (:issue:`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 noticeable on NetBSD (:issue:`9085`).

Interactive improvements

  • If the terminal definition for :envvar:`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 (:issue:`9026`).
  • A new variable, :envvar:`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 behavior back (:issue:`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 (:issue:`9105`, :issue:`2698`).
  • The complete-and-search binding, used with shift-tab by default, selects the first item in the results immediately (:issue:`9080`).
  • bind output is now syntax-highlighted when used interacively.
  • alt-h (the default __fish_man_page binding) does a better job of showing the manual page of the command under cursor (:issue:`9020`).
  • If :envvar:`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" (:issue:`9159`).
  • The key combination for the QUIT terminal sequence, often ctrl-\ (\x1c), can now be used as a binding (:issue:`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. (:issue:`3741`, :issue:`9172`)
  • When running fish on a remote system (such as inside SSH or a container), 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 --selection-end, to set the start/end of the current selection (:issue:`9197`, :issue:`9215`).
  • fish's builtins now handle keyboard interrupts (ctrl-c) correctly (:issue:`9266`).

Completions

Improved terminal support

  • Opening help on WSL now uses PowerShell to open the browser if available, removing some awkward UNC path errors (:issue:`9119`).

Other improvements

  • The Web-based configuration tool now works on systems with IPv6 disabled (:issue:`3857`).
  • Aliases can ignore arguments by ending them with # (:issue:`9199`).
  • string is now faster when reading large strings from stdin (:issue:`9139`).
  • string repeat uses less memory and is faster. (:issue:`9124`)
  • Builtins are much faster when writing to a pipe or file. (:issue:`9229`).
  • Performance improvements to highlighting (:issue:`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 correctly if the line contains multiple instances of that text (:issue:`9066`).
  • process-exit and job-exit events are now generated for all background jobs, including those launched from event handlers (:issue:`9096`).
  • A crash when completing a token that contained both a potential glob and a quoted variable expansion was fixed (:issue:`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 (:issue:`9123`).
  • A bug which caused fish to freeze or exit after running a command which does not preserve the foreground process group was fixed (:issue:`9181`).
  • The "Disco" sample prompt no longer prints an error in some working directories (:issue:`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 (:issue:`9143`).
  • printf no longer tries to interpret the first argument as an option (:issue:`9132`).
  • Interactive read in scripts will now have the correct keybindings again (:issue:`9227`).
  • A possible stack overflow when recursively evaluating substitutions has been fixed (:issue:`9302`).
  • A crash with relative $CDPATH has been fixed (:issue:`9407`).
  • printf now properly fills extra %d specifiers with 0 even on macOS and BSD (:issue:`9321`).
  • fish_key_reader now correctly exits when receiving a SIGHUP (like after closing the terminal) (:issue:`9309`).
  • fish_config theme save now works as documented instead of erroring out (:issue:`9088`, :issue:`9273`).
  • fish no longer triggers prompts to install command line tools when first run on macOS (:issue:`9343`).
  • fish_git_prompt now quietly fails on macOS if the xcrun cache is not yet populated (:issue:`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 variable FISH_USE_SYSTEM_PCRE2 is false, fish will now download and build PCRE2 from the official repo (:issue:`8355`, :issue:`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 (:issue:`8981`).
  • printf returns a better error when used with arguments interpreted as octal numbers (:issue:`9035`).
  • history merge when in private mode is now an error, rather than wiping out other sessions' history (:issue:`9050`).
  • The error message when launching a command that is built for the wrong architecture on macOS is more helpful (:issue:`9052`).
  • Added completions for:
  • 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 (:issue:`9053`).
  • On terminals that emit a CSI u sequence for shift-space, fish inserts a space instead of printing an error. (:issue:`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 (:issue:`9019`).
  • Cancelling an initial command (from fish's --init-command option) with ctrl-c no longer prevents configuration scripts from running (:issue:`9024`).
  • The job summary contained extra blank lines if the prompt used multiple lines, which is now fixed (:issue:`9044`).
  • Using special input functions in bindings, in combination with and/or conditionals, no longer crashes (:issue:`9051`).

fish 3.5.0 (released June 16, 2022)

Notable improvements and fixes

  • A new path builtin command to filter and transform paths (:issue:`7659`, :issue:`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 (:issue:`954`, :issue:`8593`).

  • Scripts can now catch and handle the SIGINT and SIGTERM signals, either via function --on-signal or with trap (:issue:`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 (:issue:`8857`, :issue:`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 expression (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 background 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, turning 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-ampersand-nobg-in-token to :envvar:`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 (:issue:`8473`, :issue:`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 (:issue:`8769`).

  • Code to upgrade universal variables from fish before 3.0 has been removed. Users who upgrade directly from fish versions 2.7.1 or before will have to set their universal variables & abbreviations again. (:issue:`8781`)

  • The meaning of an empty color variable has changed (:issue:`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 terminal). 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 adjusted 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 :envvar:`__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 (:issue:`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 (:issue:`9011`, :issue:`7918`, :issue:`8979`).

Scripting improvements

  • Quoted command substitution that directly follow a variable expansion (like echo "$var$(echo x)") no longer affect the variable expansion (:issue:`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 (:issue:`8611`, :issue:`8496`):

    math 5 + 2_123_252

  • math's min and max functions now take a variable number of arguments instead of always requiring 2 (:issue:`8644`, :issue:`8646`):

    > math min 8,2,4
2

  • read is now faster as the last process in a pipeline (:issue:`8552`).

  • string join gained a new --no-empty flag to skip empty arguments (:issue:`8774`, :issue:`8351`).

  • read now only triggers the fish_read event, not the fish_prompt event (:issue:`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 commands. (:issue:`8705`).

  • Some functions shipped with fish printed error messages to standard output, but they now they rightly go to standard error (:issue:`8855`).

  • jobs now correctly reports CPU usage as a percentage, instead of as a number of clock ticks (:issue:`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 (:issue:`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 :envvar:`PATH` (:issue:`8804`).
  • less and other interactive commands would occasionally be stopped when run in a pipeline with fish functions; this has been fixed (:issue:`8699`).
  • Case-changing autosuggestions generated mid-token now correctly append only the suffix, instead of duplicating the token (:issue:`8820`).
  • ulimit learned a number of new options for the resource limits available on Linux, FreeBSD ande NetBSD, and returns a specific warning if the limit specified is not available on the active operating system (:issue:`8823`, :issue:`8786`).
  • The vared command can now successfully edit variables named "tmp" or "prompt" (:issue:`8836`, :issue:`8837`).
  • time now emits an error if used after the first command in a pipeline (:issue:`8841`).
  • fish_add_path now prints a message for skipped non-existent paths when using the -v flag (:issue:`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 (:issue:`8871`).
  • A bug that caused multi-line prompts to be moved down a line when pasting or switching modes has been fixed (:issue:`3481`).
  • The Web-based configuration system no longer strips too many quotes in the abbreviation display (:issue:`8917`, :issue:`8918`).
  • Fish started with --no-config will now use the default keybindings (:issue:`8493`)
  • When fish inherits a :envvar:`USER` environment variable value that doesn't correspond to the current effective user ID, it will now correct it in all cases (:issue:`8879`, :issue:`8583`).
  • Fish sets a new :envvar:`EUID` variable containing the current effective user id (:issue:`8866`).
  • history search no longer interprets the search term as an option (:issue:`8853`)
  • The status message when a job terminates should no longer be erased by a multiline prompt (:issue:`8817`)

New or improved bindings

  • The alt-s binding will now insert doas instead of sudo if necessary (:issue:`8942`).
  • The kill-whole-line special input function now kills the newline preceeding 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 preserving newlines (:issue:`8983`).
  • On terminals that emit special sequences for these combinations, shift-space is bound like space, and ctrl-enter is bound like return (:issue:`8874`).

Improved prompts

  • A new Astronaut prompt (:issue:`8775`), a multi-line prompt using plain text reminiscent of the Starship.rs prompt.

Completions

Improved terminal support

  • Working directory reporting is enabled for kitty (:issue:`8806`).
  • Changing the cursor shape is now enabled by default in iTerm2 (:issue:`3696`).

For distributors

  • libatomic is now correctly detected as necessary when building on RISC-V (:issue:`8850`, :issue:`8851`).
  • In some cases, the build process found the wrong libintl on macOS. This has been corrected (:issue:`5244`).
  • The paths for completions, functions, and configuration snippets now include subdirectories fish/vendor_completions.d, fish/vendor_functions.d, and fish/vendor_conf.d (respectively) within XDG_DATA_HOME (or ~/.local/share if not defined) (:issue:`8887`, :issue:`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 (:issue:`8778`)
  • fish builds correctly on NetBSD (:issue:`8788`) and OpenIndiana (:issue:`8780`).
  • nextd-or-forward-word, bound to alt-right by default, was inadvertently changed to move like forward-bigword. This has been corrected (:issue:`8790`).
  • funcsave -q and funcsave --quiet now work correctly (:issue:`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 (:issue:`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 (:issue:`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 scoping variables and avoids issues with --local, which is actually block-scoped (:issue:`565`, :issue:`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. (:issue:`8182`, :issue:`7784`, :issue:`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_autosuggestion_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. (:issue:`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 (:issue:`8589`).

Deprecations and removed features

  • A new feature flag, ampersand-nobg-in-token makes & only act as background operator if followed by a separator. In combination with qmark-noglob, this allows entering most URLs at the command line without quoting or escaping (:issue:`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 --features ampersand-nobg-in-token,qmark-noglob or with a universal variable called fish_features:

    > set -Ua fish_features ampersand-nobg-in-token

  • $status is now forbidden as a command, to prevent a surprisingly common error among new users: Running if $status (:issue:`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 desireable (:issue:`8214`).

  • _ is now a reserved keyword (:issue:`8342`).

  • The special input functions delete-or-exit, nextd-or-forward-word and prevd-or-backward-word replace fish functions of the same names (:issue:`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 (:issue:`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 output capturing groups, excluding the full match. This allows string match to do simple transformations (:issue:`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 (:issue:`8117`). :ref:`fish_add_path <cmd-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 exiting (:issue:`8148`).

  • An oversight prevented all syntax checks from running on commands given to fish -c (:issue:`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 (:issue:`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 (:issue:`8142`).

  • commandline gained a --paging-full-mode option to check if the pager is showing all the possible lines (no "7 more rows" message) (:issue:`8485`).

  • List expansion correctly reports an error when used with all zero indexes (:issue:`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 (:issue:`8258`)

  • Some error messages occuring after fork, like "text file busy" have been replaced by bespoke error messages for fish (like "File is currently open for writing"). This also restores error messages with current glibc versions that removed sys_errlist (:issue:`8234`, :issue:`4183`).

  • The realpath builtin now also squashes leading slashes with the --no-symlinks option (:issue:`8281`).

  • When trying to cd to a dangling (broken) symbolic link, fish will print an error noting that the target is a broken link (:issue:`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" (:issue:`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 (:issue:`8384`).

  • math now correctly prints negative values and values larger than 2**31 when in hex or octal bases (:issue:`8417`).

  • dirs always produces an exit status of 0, instead of sometimes returning 1 (:issue:`8211`).

  • cd "" no longer crashes fish (:issue:`8147`).

  • set --query can now query whether a variable is a path variable via --path or --unpath (:issue:`8494`).

  • Tilde characters (~) produced by custom completions are no longer escaped when applied to the command line, making it easier to use the output of a recursive complete -C in completion scripts (:issue:`4570`).

  • set --show reports when a variable is read-only (:issue:`8179`).

  • Erasing $fish_emoji_width will reset fish to the default guessed emoji width (:issue:`8274`).

  • The la function no longer lists entries for "." and "..", matching other systems defaults (:issue:`8519`).

  • abbr -q returns the correct exit status when given multiple abbreviation names as arguments (:issue:`8431`).

  • command -v returns an exit status of 127 instead of 1 if no command was found (:issue:`8547`).

  • argparse with --ignore-unknown no longer breaks with multiple unknown options in a short option group (:issue:`8637`).

  • Comments inside command substitutions or brackets now correctly ignore parentheses, quotes, and brackets (:issue:`7866`, :issue:`8022`, :issue:`8695`).

  • complete -C supports a new --escape option, which turns on escaping in returned completion strings (:issue:`3469`).

  • Invalid byte or unicode escapes like \Utest or \xNotHex are now a tokenizer error instead of causing the token to be truncated (:issue:`8545`).

Interactive improvements

  • Vi mode cursors are now set properly after ctrl-c (:issue:`8125`).
  • funced will try to edit the whole file containing a function definition, if there is one (:issue:`391`).
  • Running a command line consisting of just spaces now deletes an ephemeral (starting with space) history item again (:issue:`8232`).
  • Command substitutions no longer respect job control, instead running inside fish's own process group (:issue:`8172`). This more closely matches other shells, and improves ctrl-c reliability inside a command substitution.
  • history and __fish_print_help now properly support less before version 530, including the version that ships with macOS. (:issue:`8157`).
  • help now knows which section is in which document again (:issue:`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 existing setups (:issue:`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. (:issue:`8423`).
  • fish_key_reader's output was simplified. By default, it now only prints a bind statement. The previous per-character timing information can be seen with a new --verbose switch (:issue:`8467`).
  • Custom completions are now also loaded for commands that contain tildes or variables like ~/bin/fish or $PWD/fish (:issue:`8442`).
  • Command lines spanning multiple lines will not be overwritten by the completion pager when it fills the entire terminal (:issue:`8509`, :issue:`8405`).
  • When redrawing a multiline prompt, the old prompt is now properly cleared (:issue:`8163`).
  • Interactive completion would occasionally ignore the last word on the command line due to a race condition. This has been fixed (:issue:`8175`).
  • Propagation of universal variables from a fish process that is closing is faster (:issue:`8209`).
  • The command line is drawn in the correct place if the prompt ends with a newline (:issue:`8298`).
  • history learned a new subcommand clear-session to erase all history from the current session (:issue:`5791`).
  • Pressing ctrl-c in fish_key_reader will no longer print the incorrect "Press [ctrl-C] again to exit" message (:issue:`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 (:issue:`8579`).
  • When looking for locale information, the Debian configuration is now used when available (:issue:`8557`).
  • Pasting text containing quotes from the clipboard trims spaces more appropriately (:issue:`8550`).
  • The clipboard bindings ignore X-based clipboard programs if the DISPLAY 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, including the ability to set pager colors.
  • The default fish_title prints a shorter title with shortened $PWD and no more redundant "fish" (:issue:`8641`).
  • Holding down an arrow key won't freeze the terminal with long periods of flashing (:issue:`8610`).
  • Multi-char bindings are no longer interrupted if a signal handler enqueues an event. (:issue:`8628`).

New or improved bindings

  • escape can now bound without breaking arrow key bindings (:issue:`8428`).
  • The alt-h binding (to open a command’s manual page) now also ignores command (:issue:`8447`).

Improved prompts

  • The fish_status_to_signal helper function returns the correct signal names for the current platform, rather than Linux (:issue:`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. (:issue:`8208`):

    > prompt_pwd --full-length-dirs 2 -d 1 ~/dev/fish-shell/share/tools/web_config
~/d/f/s/tools/web_config

Completions

Improved terminal support

  • Dynamic terminal titles are enabled on WezTerm (:issue:`8121`).
  • Directory history navigation works out of the box with Apple Terminal's default key settings (:issue:`2330`).
  • fish now assumes Unicode 9+ widths for emoji under iTerm 2 (:issue:`8200`).
  • Skin-tone emoji modifiers (U+1F3FB through U+1F3FF) are now measured as width 0 (:issue:`8275`).
  • fish's escape sequence removal now also knows Tmux's wrapped escapes.
  • Vi mode cursors are enabled in Apple Terminal.app (:issue:`8167`).
  • Vi cursor shaping and $PWD reporting is now also enabled on foot (:issue:`8422`).
  • ls will use colors also on newer versions of Apple Terminal.app (:issue:`8309`).
  • The delete and shift-tab keys work more reliably under st (:issue:`8352`, :issue:`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. (:issue:`7851`)
  • The HTML version of the documentation now includes copy buttons for code examples (:issue:`8218`).
  • The HTML version of the documentation and the web-based configuration tool now pick more modern system fonts instead of falling back to Arial and something like Courier New most of the time (:issue:`8632`).
  • The Debian & Ubuntu package linked from fishshell.com is now a single package, rather than split into fish and fish-common (:issue:`7845`).
  • The macOS installer does not assert that Rosetta is required to install fish on machines with Apple Silicon (:issue:`8566`).
  • The macOS installer now cleans up previous .pkg installations when upgrading. (:issue:`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_INSTALL_DATADIR (:issue:`8150`).
  • Building using NetBSD curses works on any platform (:issue:`8087`).
  • The build system now uses the default linker instead of forcing use of the gold or lld linker (:issue:`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 universal variable changes (:issue:`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 (:issue:`8095`).
  • The Vi mode indicator in the prompt is repainted correctly after ctrl-c cancels the current command (:issue:`8103`).
  • fish builds correctly on platforms that do not have a spawn.h header, such as old versions of OS X (:issue:`8097`).

A number of improvements to the documentation, and fixes for completions, 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 sample 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 (:issue:`7958`).
  • The documentation has been reorganized to be easier to understand (:issue:`7773`).

Deprecations and removed features

  • The $fish_history value "default" is no longer special. It used to be treated the same as "fish" (:issue:`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 (:issue:`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) (:issue:`7958`).

Scripting improvements

  • math gained new functions log2 (like the documentation claimed), max and min (:issue:`7856`). math functions can be used without the parentheses (eg math sin 2 + 6), and functions have the lowest precedence in the order of operations (:issue:`7877`).
  • Shebang (#!) lines are no longer required within shell scripts, improving 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 (:issue:`7802`).
  • Exit codes are better aligned with bash. A failed execution now reports $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 performance and allowing use with Linux's special API files (/proc, /sys and such) (:issue:`7836`).
  • fish should now better handle cd on filesystems with broken stat(3) responses (:issue:`7577`).
  • Builtins now properly report a $status of 1 upon unsuccessful writes (:issue:`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 arguments are provided, matching the documentation. (:issue:`7938`).
  • fish produces more specific errors when a command in a command substitution 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 (:issue:`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 directories (:issue:`7921`, :issue:`1256`).
  • When universal variables are unavailable for some reason, setting a universal variable now sets a global variable instead (:issue:`7921`).
  • $last_pid now contains the process ID of the last process in the pipeline, allowing it to be used in scripts (:issue:`5036`, :issue:`5832`, :issue:`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 correctly (:issue:`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 directories in $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/fish (by default ~/.config/fish) if they do not already exist (:issue:`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 (:issue:`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 (:issue:`7875`).
  • fish --help is more helpful if the documentation isn't installed (:issue:`7824`).
  • funced won't include an entry on where a function is defined, thanks to the new functions --no-details option (:issue:`7879`).
  • A new variable, fish_killring, containing entries from the killring, is now available (:issue:`7445`).
  • fish --private prints a note on private mode on startup even if $fish_greeting is an empty list (:issue:`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 modify them simultaneously. (:issue:`7968`).
  • wait and on-process-exit work correctly with jobs that have already exited (:issue:`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 (:issue:`7997`).
  • Errors from alias are now printed to standard error, matching other builtins and functions (:issue:`7925`).
  • ls output is colorized on OpenBSD if colorls utility is installed (:issue:`8035`)
  • The default pager color looks better in terminals with light backgrounds (:issue:`3412`).
  • Further robustness improvements to the bash history import (:issue:`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 (:issue:`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 (:issue:`8043`).
  • Color variables can now also be given like --background red and -b red, not just --background=red (:issue:`8053`).
  • exit run within fish_prompt now exits properly (:issue:`8033`).
  • When attempting to execute the unsupported POSIX-style brace command group ({ ... }) fish will suggest its equivalent begin; ...; end commands (:issue:`6415`).

New or improved bindings

  • Pasting in Vi mode puts text in the right place in normal mode (:issue:`7847`).
  • Vi mode's u is bound to undo instead of history-search-backward, following GNU readline's behavior. Similarly, ctrl-r is bound to redo instead of history-search-backward, following Vim (:issue:`7908`).
  • s in Vi visual mode now does the same thing as c (:issue:`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 (:issue:`7922`).
  • exit works correctly in bindings (:issue:`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 (:issue:`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_append allow toggling the presence of a prefix/suffix on the current commandline. (:issue:`7905`).
  • backward-kill-path-component ctrl-w) no longer erases parts of two tokens when the cursor is positioned immediately after /. (:issue:`6258`).

Improved prompts

  • The default Vi mode prompt now uses foreground instead of background colors, making it less obtrusive (:issue:`7880`).
  • Performance of the "informative" git prompt is improved somewhat (:issue:`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 (:issue:`7884`, :issue:`7897`, :issue:`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 terlar prompts (:issue:`7932`).
  • The Web-based configuration's prompt picker now shows and installs right prompts (:issue:`7930`).
  • The git prompt now has the same symbol order in normal and "informative" mode, and it's customizable via $__fish_git_prompt_status_order (:issue:`7926`).

Completions

  • Added completions for:
  • Improvements to plenty of completions!
  • Commands that wrap cd (using complete --wraps cd) get the same completions as cd (:issue:`4693`).
  • The --force-files option to complete works for bare arguments, not just options (:issue:`7920`).
  • Completion descriptions for functions don't include the function definition, making them more concise (:issue:`7911`).
  • The kill completions no longer error on MSYS2 (:issue:`8046`).
  • Completion scripts are now loaded when calling a command via a relative path (like ./git) (:issue:`6001`, :issue:`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 (:issue:`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 (:issue:`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 (:issue:`8011`).
  • If the prompt takes up the entire line, the last character should no longer be chopped off in certain terminals (:issue:`8002`).
  • fish's reflow handling has been disabled by default for kitty (:issue:`7961`).
  • The default prompt no longer produces errors when used with a dumb terminal (:issue:`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 (:issue:`7782`).
  • set_color produces an error when used with invalid arguments, rather than empty output which interacts badly with Cartesian product expansion.

For distributors

  • fish runs correctly on platforms without the O_CLOEXEC flag for open(2) (:issue:`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 (:issue:`7841`).
  • fish will no longer hang on exit if another process is in the foreground on macOS (:issue:`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 (:issue:`7853`).
  • Arguments longer than 1024 characters no longer trigger excessive CPU usage on macOS (:issue:`7837`).
  • fish builds correctly on macOS when using new versions of Xcode (:issue:`7838`).
  • Completions for aura (:issue:`7865`) and tshark (:issue:`7858`) should no longer produce errors.
  • Background jobs no longer interfere with syntax highlighting (a regression introduced in fish 3.2.1, :issue:`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 (:issue:`7770`).
  • Prompts which use the internal __fish_print_pipestatus function will display correctly rather than carrying certain modifiers (such as bold) further than intended (:issue:`7771`).
  • Redirections to internal file descriptors is allowed again, reversing the changes in 3.2.0. This fixes a problem with Midnight Commander (:issue:`7769`).
  • Universal variables should be fully reliable regardless of operating system again (:issue:`7774`).
  • fish_git_prompt no longer causes screen flickering in certain terminals (:issue:`7775`).
  • fish_add_path manipulates the fish_user_paths variable correctly when moving multiple paths (:issue:`7776`).
  • Pasting with a multi-line command no longer causes a __fish_tokenizer_state error (:issue:`7782`).
  • psub inside event handlers cleans up temporary files properly (:issue:`7792`).
  • Event handlers declared with --on-job-exit $fish_pid no longer run constantly (:issue:`7721`), although these functions should use --on-event fish_exit instead.
  • Changing terminal modes inside config.fish works (:issue:`7783`).
  • set_color --print-colors no longer prints all colors in bold (:issue:`7805`)
  • Completing commands starting with a - no longer prints an error (:issue:`7809`).
  • Running fish_command_not_found directly no longer produces an error on macOS or other OSes which do not have a handler available (:issue:`7777`).
  • The new type builtin now has the (deprecated) --quiet long form of -q (:issue:`7766`).

It also includes some small enhancements:

  • help and fish_config work correctly when fish is running in a Chrome OS Crostini Linux VM (:issue:`7789`).
  • The history file can be made a symbolic link without it being overwritten (:issue:`7754`), matching a similar improvement for the universal variable file in 3.2.0.
  • An unhelpful error ("access: No error"), seen on Cygwin, is no longer produced (:issue:`7785`).
  • Improvements to the rsync completions (:issue:`7763`), some completion descriptions (:issue:`7788`), and completions that use IP address (:issue:`7787`).
  • Improvements to the appearance of fish_config (:issue:`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 (:issue:`1367`). By default, 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 command 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 (:issue:`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 (:issue:`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 (:issue:`2315`, :issue:`7704`).

  • A new "fish_add_path" helper function to add paths to $PATH without producing duplicates, to be used interactively or in config.fish (:issue:`6960`, :issue:`7028`). For example:

    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 config.fish or interactively, and the path will just be there, once.

  • Better errors with "test" (:issue:`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 (:issue:`6500`, :issue:`7371`, :issue:`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 runtime (especially for functions). This makes it usable as a static syntax checker (:issue:`977`).

  • string match --regex now integrates named PCRE2 capture groups as fish variables, allowing variables to be set directly from string match (:issue:`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 (:issue:`7226`). Because operating 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 (:issue:`2382`), and the completion tutorial has also been moved out into its own document (:issue:`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) respectively (:issue:`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 directories. For example **/foo may match foo in the current directory (:issue:`7222`).

Scripting improvements

  • The type, _ (gettext), . (source) and : (no-op) functions are now implemented builtins for performance purposes (:issue:`7342`, :issue:`7036`, :issue:`6854`).
  • set and backgrounded jobs no longer overwrite $pipestatus (:issue:`6820`), improving its use in command substitutions (:issue:`6998`).
  • Computed ("electric") variables such as status are now only global in scope, so set -Uq status returns false (:issue:`7032`).
  • The output for set --show has been shortened, only mentioning the scopes in which a variable exists (:issue:`6944`). In addition, it now shows if a variable is a path variable.
  • A new variable, fish_kill_signal, is set to the signal that terminated the last foreground job, or 0 if the job exited normally (:issue:`6824`, :issue:`6822`).
  • A new subcommand, string pad, allows extending strings to a given width (:issue:`7340`, :issue:`7102`).
  • string sub has a new --end option to specify the end index of a substring (:issue:`6765`, :issue:`5974`).
  • string split has a new --fields option to specify fields to output, similar to cut -f (:issue:`6770`).
  • string trim now also trims vertical tabs by default (:issue:`6795`).
  • string replace no longer prints an error if a capturing group wasn't matched, instead treating it as empty (:issue:`7343`).
  • string subcommands now quit early when used with --quiet (:issue:`7495`).
  • string repeat now handles multiple arguments, repeating each one (:issue:`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 (:issue:`7030`).
  • fish_indent now removes unnecessary quotes in simple cases (:issue:`6722`) and gained a --check option to just check if a file is indented correctly (:issue:`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 successful (:issue:`6947`).
  • A new fish_job_summary function is called whenever a background job stops or ends, or any job terminates from a signal (:issue:`6959`, :issue:`2727`, :issue:`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 simplify common tasks such as running (dirname (status filename)) (:issue:`7076`, :issue:`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 descriptor. This allows better error recovery and is more in line with other shells' behaviour (:issue:`7038`).
  • jobs --quiet PID no longer prints "no suitable job" if the job for PID does not exist (eg because it has finished) (:issue:`6809`, :issue:`6812`).
  • jobs now shows continued child processes correctly (:issue:`6818`)
  • disown should no longer create zombie processes when job control is off, such as in config.fish (:issue:`7183`).
  • command, jobs and type builtins support --query as the long form of -q, matching other builtins. The long form --quiet is deprecated (:issue:`7276`).
  • argparse no longer requires a short flag letter for long-only options (:issue:`7585`) and only prints a backtrace with invalid options to argparse itself (:issue:`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 complete --command git, and it can show the loaded completions for specific commands with complete COMMANDNAME (:issue:`7321`).
  • set_color -b (without an argument) no longer prints an error message, matching other invalid invocations of this command (:issue:`7154`).
  • exec no longer produces a syntax error when the command cannot be found (:issue:`6098`).
  • set --erase and abbr --erase can now erase multiple things in one go, matching functions --erase (:issue:`7377`).
  • abbr --erase no longer prints errors when used with no arguments or on an unset abbreviation (:issue:`7376`, :issue:`7732`).
  • test -t, for testing whether file descriptors are connected to a terminal, works for file descriptors 0, 1, and 2 (:issue:`4766`). It can still return incorrect results in other cases (:issue:`1228`).
  • Trying to execute scripts with Windows line endings (CRLF) produces a sensible error (:issue:`2783`).
  • Trying to execute commands with arguments that exceed the operating system limit now produces a specific error (:issue:`6800`).
  • An alias that delegates to a command with the same name no longer triggers an error about recursive completion (:issue:`7389`).
  • math now has a --base option to output the result in hexadecimal or octal (:issue:`7496`) and produces more specific error messages (:issue:`7508`).
  • math learned bitwise functions bitand, bitor and bitxor, used like math "bitand(0xFE, 5)" (:issue:`7281`).
  • math learned tau for those who don't like typing "2 * pi".
  • Failed redirections will now set $status (:issue:`7540`).
  • fish sets exit status in a more consistent manner after errors, including 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 (:issue:`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) (:issue:`7358`).
  • A new fish_status_to_signal function for transforming exit statuses to signal names has been added (:issue:`7597`, :issue:`7595`).
  • The fallback realpath builtin supports the -s/--no-symlinks option, like GNU realpath (:issue:`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") (:issue:`7614`).
  • fish now finds user configuration even if the HOME environment variable is not set (:issue:`7620`).
  • fish no longer crashes when started from a Windows-style working directory (eg F:\path) (:issue:`7636`).
  • fish -c now reads the remaining arguments into $argv (:issue:`2314`).
  • The pwd command supports the long options --logical and --physical, matching other implementations (:issue:`6787`).
  • fish --profile now only starts profiling after fish is ready to execute commands (all configuration is completed). There is a new --profile-startup option that only profiles the startup and configuration process (:issue:`7648`).
  • Builtins return a maximum exit status of 255, rather than potentially overflowing. In particular, this affects exit, return, functions --query, and set --query (:issue:`7698`, :issue:`7702`).
  • It is no longer an error to run builtin with closed stdin. For example 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 (:issue:`3303`).

Interactive improvements

  • fish will now always attempt to become process group leader in interactive mode (:issue:`7060`). This helps avoid hangs in certain circumstances, and allows tmux's current directory introspection to work (:issue:`5699`).

  • The interactive reader now allows ending a line in a logical operators (&& 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 (:issue:`1018`).

  • fish no longer inserts a space after a completion ending in ., , or - is accepted, improving completions for tools that provide dynamic completions (:issue:`6928`).

  • If a filename is invalid when first pressing tab, but becomes valid, it will be completed properly on the next attempt (:issue:`6863`).

  • help string match/replace/<subcommand> will show the help for string subcommands (:issue:`6786`).

  • fish_key_reader sets the exit status to 0 when used with --help or --version (:issue:`6964`).

  • fish_key_reader and fish_indent send output from --version to standard output, matching other fish binaries (:issue:`6964`).

  • A new variable $status_generation is incremented only when the previous command produces an exit status (:issue:`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 config.fish (:issue:`7265`).

  • Events are properly emitted after a job is cancelled (:issue:`2356`).

  • fish_preexec and fish_postexec events are no longer triggered for empty commands (:issue:`4829`, :issue:`7085`).

  • Functions triggered by the fish_exit event are correctly run when the terminal is closed or the shell receives SIGHUP (:issue:`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 (:issue:`7039`).

  • A new fish_posterror event is emitted when attempting to execute a command with syntax errors (:issue:`6880`, :issue:`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 (:issue:`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 (:issue:`6630`):

    fish --debug=-warning-path

  • The enabled debug categories are now printed on shell startup (:issue:`7007`).

  • The -o short option to fish, for --debug-output, works correctly instead of producing an invalid option error (:issue:`7254`).

  • fish's debugging can now also be enabled via FISH_DEBUG and FISH_DEBUG_OUTPUT environment variables. This helps with debugging when no commandline options can be passed, like when fish is called in a shebang (:issue:`7359`).

  • Abbreviations are now expanded after all command terminators (eg ; or |), not just space, as in fish 2.7.1 and before (:issue:`6970`), and after closing a command substitution (:issue:`6658`).

  • The history file is now created with user-private permissions, matching other shells (:issue:`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 (:issue:`6726`, :issue:`6714`) and no longer depends on locale (:issue:`6757`).

  • The command-not-found handling has been simplified. When it can't find a command, fish now just executes a function called fish_command_not_found instead of firing an event, making it easier to replace and reason about. Previously-defined __fish_command_not_found_handler functions with an appropriate event listener will still work (:issue:`7293`).

  • ctrl-c handling has been reimplemented in C++ and is therefore quicker (:issue:`5259`), no longer occasionally prints an "unknown command" error (:issue:`7145`) or overwrites multiline prompts (:issue:`3537`).

  • ctrl-c no longer kills background jobs for which job control is disabled, matching POSIX semantics (:issue:`6828`, :issue:`6861`).

  • Autosuggestions work properly after ctrl-c cancels the current commmand line (:issue:`6937`).

  • History search is now case-insensitive unless the search string contains an uppercase character (:issue:`7273`).

  • fish_update_completions gained a new --keep option, which improves speed by skipping completions that already exist (:issue:`6775`, :issue:`6796`).

  • Aliases containing an embedded backslash appear properly in the output of alias (:issue:`6910`).

  • open no longer hangs indefinitely on certain systems, as a bug in xdg-open has been worked around (:issue:`7215`).

  • Long command lines no longer add a blank line after execution (:issue:`6826`) and behave better with backspace (:issue:`6951`).

  • functions -t works like the long option --handlers-type, as documented, instead of producing an error (:issue:`6985`).

  • History search now flashes when it found no more results (:issue:`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 (:issue:`7335`).

  • set_color --print-colors now also respects the bold, dim, underline, reverse, italic and background modifiers, to better show their effect (:issue:`7314`).

  • The fish Web configuration tool (fish_config) shows prompts correctly on Termux for Android (:issue:`7298`) and detects Windows Services for Linux 2 properly (:issue:`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 Firefox's Developer Edition (:issue:`7158`). Finally, a bug in the Source Code Pro font may cause browsers to hang, so this font is no longer chosen by default (:issue:`7714`).

  • funcsave gained a new --directory option to specify the location of the saved function (:issue:`7041`).

  • help works properly on MSYS2 (:issue:`7113`) and only uses cmd.exe if running on WSL (:issue:`6797`).

  • Resuming a piped job by its number, like fg %1, works correctly (:issue:`7406`). Resumed jobs show the correct title in the terminal emulator (:issue:`7444`).

  • Commands run from key bindings now use the same TTY modes as normal commands (:issue:`7483`).

  • Autosuggestions from history are now case-sensitive (:issue:`3978`).

  • $status from completion scripts is no longer passed outside the completion, which keeps the status display in the prompt as the last command's status (:issue:`7555`).

  • Updated localisations for pt_BR (:issue:`7480`).

  • fish_trace output now starts with -> (like fish --profile), making the depth more visible (:issue:`7538`).

  • Resizing the terminal window no longer produces a corrupted prompt (:issue:`6532`, :issue:`7404`).

  • functions produces an error rather than crashing on certain invalid arguments (:issue:`7515`).

  • A crash in completions with inline variable assignment (eg A= b) has been fixed (:issue:`7344`).

  • fish_private_mode may now be changed dynamically using set (:issue:`7589`), and history is kept in memory in private mode (but not stored permanently) (:issue:`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 (:issue:`1383`).

  • Importing bash history or reporting errors with recursive globs (**) no longer hangs (:issue:`7407`, :issue:`7497`).

  • bind now shows \x7f for the del key instead of a literal DEL character (:issue:`7631`)

  • Paths containing variables or tilde expansion are only suggested when they are still valid (:issue:`7582`).

  • Syntax highlighting can now color a command as invalid even if executed quickly (:issue:`5912`).

  • Redirection targets are no longer highlighted as error if they contain variables which will likely be defined by the current commandline (:issue:`6654`).

  • fish is now more resilient against broken terminal modes (:issue:`7133`, :issue:`4873`).

  • fish handles being in control of the TTY without owning its own process group better, avoiding some hangs in special configurations (:issue:`7388`).

  • Keywords can now be colored differently by setting the fish_color_keyword variable (fish_color_command is used as a fallback) (:issue:`7678`).

  • Just like fish_indent, the interactive reader will indent continuation lines that follow a line ending in a backslash, |, && or || (:issue:`7694`).

  • Commands with a trailing escaped space are saved in history correctly (:issue:`7661`).

  • fish_prompt no longer mangles Unicode characters in the private-use range U+F600-U+F700. (:issue:`7723`).

  • The universal variable file, fish_variables, can be made a symbolic link without it being overwritten (:issue:`7466`).

  • fish is now more resilient against mktemp failing (:issue:`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 (:issue:`6570`).
  • ctrl-z is now available for binding (:issue:`7152`).
  • Additionally, using the cancel special input function (bound to escape by default) right after fish picked an unambiguous completion will undo that (:issue:`7433`).
  • fish_clipboard_paste (ctrl-v) trims indentation from multiline commands, because fish already indents (:issue:`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 (:issue:`6648`, :issue:`6755`, :issue:`6769`, :issue:`7442`, :issue:`7516`).
  • Vi mode bindings support ~ (tilde) to toggle the case of the selected character (:issue:`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 situations.
  • 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 single character from it (:issue:`7217`, :issue:`4984`).
  • Special input functions can now be joined with or as a modifier (adding to and), though only some commands set an exit status (:issue:`7217`). This includes suppress-autosuggestion to reflect whether an autosuggestion was suppressed (:issue:`1419`)
  • A new function __fish_preview_current_file, bound to alt-o, opens the current file at the cursor in a pager (:issue:`6838`, :issue:`6855`).
  • edit_command_buffer (alt-e and alt-v) passes the cursor position to the external editor if the editor is recognized (:issue:`6138`, :issue:`6954`).
  • __fish_prepend_sudo (alt-s) now toggles a sudo prefix (:issue:`7012`) and avoids shifting the cursor (:issue:`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 (:issue:`7079`).
  • __fish_toggle_comment_commandline (alt-#) now uncomments and presents the last comment from history if the commandline is empty (:issue:`7137`).
  • __fish_whatis_current_token (alt-w) prints descriptions for functions and builtins (:issue:`7191`, :issue:`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 (:issue:`7353`, :issue:`7354`, :issue:`4025`, :issue:`7328`, :issue:`7325`)
  • fish's clipboard bindings now also support Windows Subsystem for Linux via PowerShell and clip.exe (:issue:`7455`, :issue:`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 (:issue:`7398`).

Improved prompts

  • The default and example prompts print the correct exit status for commands prefixed with not (:issue:`6566`).
  • git prompts include all untracked files in the repository, not just those in the current directory (:issue:`6086`).
  • The git prompts correctly show stash states (:issue:`6876`, :issue:`7136`) and clean states (:issue:`7471`).
  • The Mercurial prompt correctly shows untracked status (:issue:`6906`), and by default only shows the branch for performance reasons. A new variable $fish_prompt_hg_show_informative_status can be set to enable more information.
  • The fish_vcs_prompt passes its arguments to the various VCS prompts that it calls (:issue:`7033`).
  • The Subversion prompt was broken in a number of ways in 3.1.0 and has been restored (:issue:`6715`, :issue:`7278`).
  • A new helper function fish_is_root_user simplifies checking for superuser privilege (:issue:`7031`, :issue:`7123`).
  • New colorschemes - ayu Light, ayu Dark and ayu Mirage (:issue:`7596`).
  • Bugs related to multiline prompts, including repainting (:issue:`5860`) or navigating directory history (:issue:`3550`) leading to graphical glitches have been fixed.
  • The nim prompt now handles vi mode better (:issue:`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, regardless of terminal (:issue:`6968`). The fish_vi_cursor option --force-iterm has been deprecated.
  • diff will now colourize output, if supported (:issue:`7308`).
  • Autosuggestions appear when the cursor passes the right prompt (:issue:`6948`) or wraps to the next line (:issue:`7213`).
  • The cursor shape in Vi mode changes properly in Windows Terminal (:issue:`6999`, :issue:`6478`).
  • The spurious warning about terminal size in small terminals has been removed (:issue:`6980`).
  • Dynamic titles are now enabled in Alacritty (:issue:`7073`) and emacs' vterm (:issue:`7122`).
  • Current working directory updates are enabled in foot (:issue:`7099`) and WezTerm (:issue:`7649`).
  • The width computation for certain emoji agrees better with terminals (especially flags). (:issue:`7237`).
  • Long command lines are wrapped in all cases, instead of sometimes being put on a new line (:issue:`5118`).
  • The pager is properly rendered with long command lines selected (:issue:`2557`).
  • Sessions with right prompts can be resized correctly in terminals that handle reflow, like GNOME Terminal (and other VTE-based terminals), upcoming Konsole releases and Alacritty. This detection can be overridden with the new fish_handle_reflow variable (:issue:`7491`).
  • fish now sets terminal modes sooner, which stops output from appearing before the greeting and prompt are ready (:issue:`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 (:issue:`6994`).

Completions

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) (:issue:`5451`, :issue:`6825`).
  • The CHANGELOG was moved to restructured text, allowing it to be included in the documentation (:issue:`7057`).
  • fish handles ncurses installed in a non-standard prefix better (:issue:`6600`, :issue:`7219`), and uses variadic tparm on NetBSD curses (:issue:`6626`).
  • The Web-based configuration tool no longer uses an obsolete Angular version (:issue:`7147`).
  • The fish project has adopted the Contributor Covenant code of conduct (:issue:`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 standard error with the ^ character is enabled. The stderr-nocaret feature 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 favor 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-defined __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 (:issue:`7039`).
  • To disable the greeting message permanently it is no longer enough to just run set fish_greeting interactively as it is no longer implicitly 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 (:issue:`7659`).
  • With the addition of new categories for debug options, the old numbered debugging levels have been removed.

For distributors and developers

  • fish source tarballs are now distributed using the XZ compression method (:issue:`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 (:issue:`6952`, :issue:`6792`).
  • Building on on macOS earlier than 10.13.6 succeeds, instead of failing on code-signing (:issue:`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 (:issue:`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 codesigning is enabled (:issue:`6952`).
  • Running the full interactive test suite now requires Python 3.5+ and the pexpect package (:issue:`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 (:issue:`6537`).
  • The Web-based configuration tool is compatible with Python 3.10 (:issue:`7600`) and no longer requires Python's distutils package (:issue:`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 (:issue:`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 (:issue:`6613`).
  • Conflicts between upstream packages for ripgrep and bat, and the fish packages, have been resolved (:issue:`5822`).
  • Starting fish in a directory without read access, such as via su, no longer crashes (:issue:`6597`).
  • Glob ordering changes which were introduced in 3.1.0 have been reverted, returning the order of globs to the previous state (:issue:`6593`).
  • Redirections using the deprecated caret syntax to a file descriptor (eg ^&2) work correctly (:issue:`6591`).
  • Redirections that append to a file descriptor (eg 2>>&1) work correctly (:issue:`6614`).
  • Building fish on macOS (:issue:`6602`) or with new versions of GCC (:issue:`6604`, :issue:`6609`) is now successful.
  • time is now correctly listed in the output of builtin -n, and time --help works correctly (:issue:`6598`).
  • Exported universal variables now update properly (:issue:`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 (:issue:`6635`).
  • test no longer crashes when used with “nan” or “inf” arguments, erroring out instead (:issue:`6655`).
  • Copying from the end of the command line no longer crashes fish (:issue:`6680`).
  • read no longer removes multiple separators when splitting a variable into a list, restoring the previous behaviour from fish 3.0 and before (:issue:`6650`).
  • Functions using --on-job-exit and --on-process-exit work reliably again (:issue:`6679`).
  • Functions using --on-signal INT work reliably in interactive sessions, as they did in fish 2.7 and before (:issue:`6649`). These handlers 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” (:issue:`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) (:issue:`6701`).
  • The Mercurial (hg) prompt no longer produces an error when the current working directory is removed (:issue:`6699`). Also, for performance reasons it shows only basic information by default; to restore the detailed status, 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 (:issue:`6681`).
  • Pasting of commands has been sped up (:issue:`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 (:issue:`6736`).
  • help prefers to use xdg-open, avoiding the use of open on Debian systems where this command is actually openvt (:issue:`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 (:issue:`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 (:issue:`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. (:issue:`6624`, :issue:`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 (:issue:`6564`).
  • Fixes a number of problems in compiling and testing on Cygwin (:issue:`6549`) and Solaris-derived systems such as Illumos (:issue:`6553`, :issue:`6554`, :issue:`6555`, :issue:`6556`, and :issue:`6558`).
  • Fixes the process for building macOS packages.
  • Fixes a regression where excessive error messages are printed if Unicode characters are emitted in non-Unicode-capable locales (:issue:`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 $pipestatus variable contains a list of exit statuses of the previous job, for each of the separate commands in a pipeline (:issue:`5632`).
  • fish no longer buffers pipes to the last function in a pipeline, improving many cases where pipes appeared to block or hang (:issue:`1396`).
  • An overhaul of error messages for builtin commands, including a removal of the overwhelming usage summary, more readable stack traces (:issue:`3404`, :issue:`5434`), and stack traces for test (aka [) (:issue:`5771`).
  • fish’s debugging arguments have been significantly improved. The --debug-level option has been removed, and a new --debug option replaces it. This option accepts various categories, which may be listed via fish --print-debug-categories (:issue:`5879`). A new --debug-output option allows for redirection of debug output.
  • string has a new collect subcommand for use in command substitutions, producing a single output instead of splitting on new lines (similar to "$(cmd)" in other shells) (:issue:`159`).
  • The fish manual, tutorial and FAQ are now available in man format as fish-doc, fish-tutorial and fish-faq respectively (:issue:`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 “.” (:issue:`4484`).
  • fish now correctly handles CDPATH entries that start with .. (:issue:`6220`) or contain ./ (:issue:`5887`).
  • The fish_trace variable may be set to trace execution (:issue:`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 (:issue:`3845`).
  • The fish Web configuration tool (fish_config) prints a list of commands it is executing, to help understanding and debugging (:issue:`5584`).
  • Major performance improvements when pasting (:issue:`5866`), executing lots of commands (:issue:`5905`), importing history from bash (:issue:`6295`), and when completing variables that might match $history (:issue:`6288`).

Syntax changes and new commands

  • A new builtin command, time, which allows timing of fish functions and builtins as well as external commands (:issue:`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 (:issue:`5869`).
  • New redirections &> and &| may be used to redirect or pipe stdout, and also redirect stderr to stdout (:issue:`6192`).
  • switch now allows arguments that expand to nothing, like empty variables (:issue:`5677`).
  • The VAR=val cmd syntax can now be used to run a command in a modified environment (:issue:`6287`).
  • and is no longer recognised as a command, so that nonsensical constructs like and and and produce a syntax error (:issue:`6089`).
  • math‘s exponent operator,’^‘, was previously left-associative, but now uses the more commonly-used right-associative behaviour (:issue:`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 substitutions could leak into enclosing scopes; this was an inadvertent behaviour change and has been reverted (:issue:`6480`).

Scripting improvements

  • string split0 now returns 0 if it split something (:issue:`5701`).
  • In the interest of consistency, builtin -q and command -q can now be used to query if a builtin or command exists (:issue:`5631`).
  • math now accepts --scale=max for the maximum scale (:issue:`5579`).
  • builtin $var now works correctly, allowing a variable as the builtin name (:issue:`5639`).
  • cd understands the -- argument to make it possible to change to directories starting with a hyphen (:issue:`6071`).
  • complete --do-complete now also does fuzzy matches (:issue:`5467`).
  • complete --do-complete can be used inside completions, allowing limited recursion (:issue:`3474`).
  • count now also counts lines fed on standard input (:issue:`5744`).
  • eval produces an exit status of 0 when given no arguments, like other shells (:issue:`5692`).
  • printf prints what it can when input hasn’t been fully converted to a number, but still prints an error (:issue:`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 (:issue:`5646`).
  • argparse now defaults to showing the current function name (instead of argparse) in its errors, making --name often superfluous (:issue:`5835`).
  • argparse has a new --ignore-unknown option to keep unrecognized options, allowing multiple argparse passes to parse options (:issue:`5367`).
  • argparse correctly handles flag value validation of options that only have short names (:issue:`5864`).
  • read -S (short option of --shell) is recognised correctly (:issue:`5660`).
  • read understands --list, which acts like --array in reading all arguments into a list inside a single variable, but is better named (:issue:`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 (:issue:`3823`).
  • read interacts more correctly with the deprecated $IFS variable, in particular removing multiple separators when splitting a variable into a list (:issue:`6406`), matching other shells.
  • fish_indent now handles semicolons better, including leaving them in place for ; and and ; or instead of breaking the line (:issue:`5859`).
  • fish_indent --write now supports multiple file arguments, indenting them in turn.
  • The default read limit has been increased to 100MiB (:issue:`5267`).
  • math now also understands x for multiplication, provided it is followed by whitespace (:issue:`5906`).
  • math reports the right error when incorrect syntax is used inside parentheses (:issue:`6063`), and warns when unsupported logical operations are used (:issue:`6096`).
  • functions --erase now also prevents fish from autoloading a function for the first time (:issue:`5951`).
  • jobs --last returns 0 to indicate success when a job is found (:issue:`6104`).
  • commandline -p and commandline -j now split on && and || in addition to ; and & (:issue:`6214`).
  • A bug where string split would drop empty strings if the output was only empty strings has been fixed (:issue:`5987`).
  • eval no long creates a new local variable scope, but affects variables in the scope it is called from (:issue:`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 (:issue:`5812`).
  • Empty universal variables may now be exported (:issue:`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 (:issue:`5258`).
  • A bug where for could use invalid variable names has been fixed (:issue:`5800`).
  • A bug where local variables would not be exported to functions has been fixed (:issue:`6153`).
  • The null command (:) now always exits successfully, rather than passing through the previous exit status (:issue:`6022`).
  • The output of functions FUNCTION matches the declaration of the function, correctly including comments or blank lines (:issue:`5285`), and correctly includes any --wraps flags (:issue:`1625`).
  • type supports a new option, --short, which suppress function expansion (:issue:`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 (:issue:`6411`).
  • The $hostname variable is no longer truncated to 32 characters (:issue:`5758`).
  • Line numbers in function backtraces are calculated correctly (:issue:`6350`).
  • A new fish_cancel event is emitted when the command line is cancelled, which is useful for terminal integration (:issue:`5973`).

Interactive improvements

  • New Base16 color options are available through the Web-based configuration (:issue:`6504`).
  • fish only parses /etc/paths on macOS in login shells, matching the bash implementation (:issue:`5637`) and avoiding changes to path ordering in child shells (:issue:`5456`). It now ignores blank lines like the bash implementation (:issue:`5809`).
  • The locale is now reloaded when the LOCPATH variable is changed (:issue:`5815`).
  • read no longer keeps a history, making it suitable for operations that shouldn’t end up there, like password entry (:issue:`5904`).
  • dirh outputs its stack in the correct order (:issue:`5477`), and behaves as documented when universal variables are used for its stack (:issue:`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 (:issue:`5625`).
  • Builtins now pipe their help output to a pager automatically (:issue:`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 (:issue:`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 (:issue:`5658`) and redirections to close file descriptors (:issue:`6092`).
  • help works properly on Windows Subsytem for Linux (:issue:`5759`, :issue:`6338`).
  • A bug where disown could crash the shell has been fixed (:issue:`5720`).
  • fish will not autosuggest files ending with ~ unless there are no other candidates, as these are generally backup files (:issue:`985`).
  • Escape in the pager works correctly (:issue:`5818`).
  • Key bindings that call fg no longer leave the terminal in a broken state (:issue:`2114`).
  • Brackets (:issue:`5831`) and filenames containing $ (:issue:`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 (:issue:`6120`), and launches correctly under Termux (:issue:`6248`) and OpenBSD (:issue:`6522`).
  • function now correctly validates parameters for --argument-names as valid variable names (:issue:`6147`) and correctly parses options following --argument-names, as in “--argument-names foo --description bar” (:issue:`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 (:issue:`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 (:issue:`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 (:issue:`6316`).
  • Ctrl-C always repaints the prompt (:issue:`6394`).
  • When run interactively from another program (such as Python), fish will correctly start a new process group, like other shells (:issue:`5909`).
  • Job identifiers (for example, for background jobs) are assigned more logically (:issue:`6053`).
  • A bug where history would appear truncated if an empty command was executed was fixed (:issue:`6032`).

New or improved bindings

  • Pasting strips leading spaces to avoid pasted commands being omitted from the history (:issue:`4327`).
  • Shift-Left and Shift-Right now default to moving backwards and forwards by one bigword (words separated by whitespace) (:issue:`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 (:issue:`3904`).
  • The forward-bigword binding now interacts correctly with autosuggestions (:issue:`5336`).
  • The fish_clipboard_* functions support Wayland by using wl-clipboard (:issue:`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 (:issue:`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 (:issue:`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 (:issue:`5841`).
  • The NULL character can now be bound via bind -k nul. Terminals often generate this character via control-space. (:issue:`3189`).
  • A new readline command expand-abbr can be used to trigger abbreviation expansion (:issue:`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 (:issue:`6140`).
  • The Alt-W binding to describe a command should now work better with multiline prompts (:issue:`6110`)
  • The Alt-H binding to open a command’s man page now tries to ignore sudo (:issue:`6122`).
  • A new pair of bind functions, history-prefix-search-backward (and forward), was introduced (:issue:`6143`).
  • Vi mode now supports R to enter replace mode (:issue:`6342`), and d0 to delete the current line (:issue:`6292`).
  • In Vi mode, hitting Enter in replace-one mode no longer erases the prompt (:issue:`6298`).
  • Selections in Vi mode are inclusive, matching the actual behaviour of Vi (:issue:`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 (:issue:`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 (:issue:`5524`).
  • Better detection and support for using fish from various system consoles, where limited colors and special characters are supported (:issue:`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 (:issue:`5722`).
  • Improvements to the display of wide characters, particularly Korean characters and emoji (:issue:`5583`, :issue:`5729`).
  • The Vi mode cursor is correctly redrawn when regaining focus under terminals that report focus (eg tmux) (:issue:`4788`).
  • Variables that control background colors (such as fish_pager_color_search_match) can now use --reverse.

Completions

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 (:issue:`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 (:issue:`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 (:issue:`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 (:issue:`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 (:issue:`5489`).
  • Some bugs preventing building on Solaris-derived systems such as Illumos were fixed (:issue:`5458`, :issue:`5461`, :issue:`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 (:issue:`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 (:issue:`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 (:issue:`5449`).
  • while loops now evaluate to the last executed command in the loop body (or zero if the body was empty), matching POSIX semantics (:issue:`4982`).
  • read --silent no longer echoes to the tty when run from a non-interactive script (:issue:`5519`).
  • On macOS, path entries with spaces in /etc/paths and /etc/paths.d now correctly set path entries with spaces. Likewise, MANPATH is correctly set from /etc/manpaths and /etc/manpaths.d (:issue:`5481`).
  • fish starts correctly under Cygwin/MSYS2 (:issue:`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 (:issue:`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 :/) (:issue:`5578`, :issue:`5574`, :issue:`5476`), and ignoring shell aliases, so enterprising users can set up the wrapping command (via set -g __fish_git_alias_$command $whatitwraps) (:issue:`5412`).
  • Significant performance improvements to core shell functions (:issue:`5447`) and to the kill completions (:issue:`5541`).
  • Starting in symbolically-linked working directories works correctly (:issue:`5525`).
  • The default fish_title function no longer contains extra spaces (:issue:`5517`).
  • The nim prompt now works correctly when chosen in the Web-based configuration (:issue:`5490`).
  • string now prints help to stdout, like other builtins (:issue:`5495`).
  • Killing the terminal while fish is in vi normal mode will no longer send it spinning and eating CPU. (:issue:`5528`)
  • A number of crashes have been fixed (:issue:`5550`, :issue:`5548`, :issue:`5479`, :issue:`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 (:issue:`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 (:issue:`5407`)
  • handles huge numeric arguments to test correctly (:issue:`5414`)
  • removes the history colouring introduced in 3.0b1, which did not always 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 (:issue:`5423`), but does not run correctly (:issue:`5426`) and will result in a hanging terminal when started. Cygwin users are encouraged to continue using 2.7.1 until a release which corrects this is available.

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 % (:issue:`4230`, :issue:`1202`).
  • set x[1] x[2] a b, to set multiple elements of an array at once, is no longer valid syntax (:issue:`4236`).
  • A literal {} now expands to itself, rather than nothing. This makes working with find -exec easier (:issue:`1109`, :issue:`4632`).
  • Literally accessing a zero-index is now illegal syntax and is caught by the parser (:issue:`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 (:issue:`3002`, :issue:`4632`).
  • for loop control variables are no longer local to the for block (:issue:`1935`).
  • Variables set in if and while conditions are available outside the block (:issue:`4820`).
  • Local exported (set -lx) vars are now visible to functions (:issue:`1091`).
  • The new math builtin (see below) does not support logical expressions; test should be used instead (:issue:`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 (à la bash); --shell’s abbreviation (formerly -s) is now -S instead (:issue:`4490`).
  • cd no longer resolves symlinks. fish now maintains a virtual path, matching other shells (:issue:`3350`).
  • source now requires an explicit - as the filename to read from the terminal (:issue:`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 unintentionally breaking stuff (:issue:`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 (:issue:`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 (:issue:`436`).
  • The history builtin’s --with-time option has been removed; this has been deprecated in favor of --show-time since 2.7.0 (:issue:`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 alternatives. 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. (:issue:`4940`)

  • The use of the IFS variable for read is deprecated; IFS will be ignored in the future (:issue:`4156`). Use the read --delimiter option instead.
  • The function --on-process-exit switch will be removed in future (:issue:`4700`). Use the fish_exit event instead: function --on-event fish_exit.
  • $_ is deprecated and will removed in the future (:issue:`813`). Use status current-command in a command substitution instead.
  • ^ as a redirection deprecated and will be removed in the future. (:issue:`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 future (:issue:`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 (:issue:`4620`).
  • Variables may be used as commands (:issue:`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 user’s wish for privacy.
  • A new wait command for waiting on backgrounded processes (:issue:`4498`).
  • math is now a builtin rather than a wrapper around bc (:issue:`3157`). Floating point computations is now used by default, and can be controlled with the new --scale option (:issue:`4478`).
  • Setting $PATH no longer warns on non-existent directories, allowing for a single $PATH to be shared across machines (eg via dotfiles) (:issue:`2969`).
  • while sets $status to a non-zero value if the loop is not executed (:issue:`4982`).
  • Command substitution output is now limited to 10 MB by default, controlled by the fish_read_limit variable (:issue:`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 $hostname reserved variable. This removes the dependency on the hostname executable (:issue:`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 (:issue:`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 immediately (:issue:`4878`).
  • bind has a new --silent option to ignore bind requests for named keys not available under the current terminal (:issue:`4188`, :issue:`4431`).
  • complete has a new --keep-order option to show the provided or dynamically-generated argument list in the same order as specified, rather than alphabetically (:issue:`361`).
  • exec prompts for confirmation if background jobs are running.
  • funced has a new --save option to automatically save the edited function after successfully editing (:issue:`4668`).
  • functions has a new --handlers option to show functions registered as event handlers (:issue:`4694`).
  • history search supports globs for wildcard searching (:issue:`3136`) and has a new --reverse option to show entries from oldest to newest (:issue:`4375`).
  • jobs has a new --quiet option to silence the output.
  • read has a new --delimiter option for splitting input into arrays (:issue:`4256`).
  • read writes directly to stdout if called without arguments (:issue:`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 (:issue:`1326`).
  • string match with an empty pattern and --entire in glob mode now matches everything instead of nothing (:issue:`4971`).
  • string split supports a new --no-empty option to exclude empty strings from the result (:issue:`4779`).
  • string has new subcommands split0 and join0 for working with NUL-delimited output.
  • string no longer stops processing text after NUL characters (:issue:`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 (:issue:`1285`).
  • Italics and dim support out of the box on macOS for Terminal.app and iTerm (:issue:`4436`).
  • cd tab completions no longer descend into the deepest unambiguous path (:issue:`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 (:issue:`4680`).
  • Typing normal characters while the completion pager is active no longer shows the search field. Instead it enters them into the command line, and ends paging (:issue:`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 (:issue:`5213`).
  • The pager will now show the full command instead of just its last line if the number of completions is large (:issue:`4702`).
  • Abbreviations can be tab-completed (:issue:`3233`).
  • Tildes in file names are now properly escaped in completions (:issue:`2274`).
  • Wrapping completions (from complete --wraps or function --wraps) can now inject arguments. For example, complete gco --wraps 'git checkout' now works properly (:issue:`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 relative 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 (:issue:`4962`).
  • The screen is no longer reset after a BEL, fixing graphical glitches (:issue:`3693`).
  • vi-mode now supports ‘;’ and ‘,’ motions. This introduces new {forward,backward}-jump-till and repeat-jump{,-reverse} bind functions (:issue:`5140`).
  • The *y vi-mode binding now works (:issue:`5100`).
  • True color is now enabled in neovim by default (:issue:`2792`).
  • Terminal size variables ($COLUMNS/$LINES) are now updated before fish_prompt is called, allowing the prompt to react (:issue:`904`).
  • Multi-line prompts no longer repeat when the terminal is resized (:issue:`2320`).
  • xclip support has been added to the clipboard integration (:issue:`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 (:issue:`5011`).
  • Deleting a one-character word no longer erases the next word as well (:issue:`4747`).
  • Token history search (Alt-Up) omits duplicate entries (:issue:`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 (:issue:`5206`).
  • commandline can now be used to set the commandline for the next command, restoring a behavior in 3.4.1 (:issue:`8807`).
  • Added completions for
  • Lots of improvements to completions (especially darcs (:issue:`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

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 encouraged 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 display a warning about paste bracketing being left on when starting a new fish session (:issue:`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 upgrading 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 (:issue:`2847`).
  • A new argparse command is available to allow fish script to parse arguments with the same behavior as builtin commands. This also includes the fish_opt helper command. (:issue:`4190`).
  • Invalid array indexes are now silently ignored (:issue:`826`, :issue:`4127`).
  • Improvements to the debugging facility, including a prompt specific to the debugger (fish_breakpoint_prompt) and a status is-breakpoint subcommand (:issue:`1310`).
  • string supports new lower and upper subcommands, for altering the case of strings (:issue:`4080`). The case changing is not locale-aware yet.- string escape has a new --style=xxx flag where xxx can be script, var, or url (:issue:`4150`), and can be reversed with string unescape (:issue:`3543`).
  • History can now be split into sessions with the fish_history variable, or not saved to disk at all (:issue:`102`).
  • Read history is now controlled by the fish_history variable rather than the --mode-name flag (:issue:`1504`).
  • command now supports an --all flag to report all directories with the command. which is no longer a runtime dependency (:issue:`2778`).
  • fish can run commands before starting an interactive session using the new --init-command/-C options (:issue:`4164`).
  • set has a new --show option to show lots of information about variables (:issue:`4265`).

Other significant changes

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 (:issue:`4043`), and improvements 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 (:issue:`2810`).
  • Command substitutions now have access to the terminal, like in other shells. This allows tools like fzf to work properly (:issue:`1362`, :issue:`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 (:issue:`3772` & :issue:`3788`) and improved German (:issue:`3834`) translations.
  • fish no longer depends on the which external command.

Other significant changes

  • Performance improvements in launching processes, including major reductions in signal blocking. Although this has been heavily tested, it may cause problems in some circumstances; set the FISH_NO_SIGNAL_BLOCK variable to 0 in your fish configuration file to return to the old behaviour (:issue:`2007`).
  • Performance improvements in prompts and functions that set lots of colours (:issue:`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 (:issue:`3295`), and a --details --verbose option which includes the function description (:issue:`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 (:issue:`838`), for when reading sensitive data from the terminal. read also now accepts simple strings for the prompt (rather than scripts) with the new -P and --prompt-str options (:issue:`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 (:issue:`4103`).
  • bind supports a new --list-modes option (:issue:`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 (:issue:`3909`).
  • funced warns if the function being edited has not been modified (:issue:`3961`).
  • printf correctly outputs “long long” integers (:issue:`3352`).
  • status supports a new current-function subcommand to print the current function name (:issue:`1743`).
  • string supports a new repeat subcommand (:issue:`3864`). string match supports a new --entire option to emit the entire line matched by a pattern (:issue:`3957`). string replace supports a new --filter option to only emit lines which underwent a replacement (:issue:`3348`).
  • test supports the -k option to test for sticky bits (:issue:`733`).
  • umask understands symbolic modes (:issue:`738`).
  • Empty components in the CDPATH, MANPATH and PATH variables are now converted to “.” (:issue:`2106`, :issue:`3914`).
  • New versions of ncurses (6.0 and up) wipe terminal scrollback buffers with certain commands; the C-l binding tries to avoid this (:issue:`2855`).
  • Some systems’ su implementations do not set the USER environment variable; it is now reset for root users (:issue:`3916`).
  • Under terminals which support it, bracketed paste is enabled, escaping problematic characters for security and convience (:issue:`3871`). Inside single quotes ('), single quotes and backslashes in pasted text are escaped (:issue:`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 (:issue:`1926`). This behaviour matches other shells mre closely.
  • All functions requiring Python work with whichever version of Python is installed (:issue:`3970`). Python 3 is preferred, but Python 2.6 remains the minimum version required.
  • The color of the cancellation character can be controlled by the fish_color_cancel variable (:issue:`3963`).
  • Added completions for:
  • caddy (:issue:`4008`)
  • castnow (:issue:`3744`)
  • climate (:issue:`3760`)
  • flatpak
  • gradle (:issue:`3859`)
  • gsettings (:issue:`4001`)
  • helm (:issue:`3829`)
  • i3-msg (:issue:`3787`)
  • ipset (:issue:`3924`)
  • jq (:issue:`3804`)
  • light (:issue:`3752`)
  • minikube (:issue:`3778`)
  • mocha (:issue:`3828`)
  • mkdosfs (:issue:`4017`)
  • pv (:issue:`3773`)
  • setsid (:issue:`3791`)
  • terraform (:issue:`3960`)
  • usermod (:issue:`3775`)
  • xinput
  • yarn (:issue:`3816`)
  • Improved completions for adb (:issue:`3853`), apt (:issue:`3771`), bzr (:issue:`3769`), dconf, git (including :issue:`3743`), grep (:issue:`3789`), go (:issue:`3789`), help (:issue:`3789`), hg (:issue:`3975`), htop (:issue:`3789`), killall (:issue:`3996`), lua, man (:issue:`3762`), mount (:issue:`3764` & :issue:`3841`), obnam (:issue:`3924`), perl (:issue:`3856`), portmaster (:issue:`3950`), python (:issue:`3840`), ssh (:issue:`3781`), scp (:issue:`3781`), systemctl (:issue:`3757`) and udisks (:issue:`3764`).

fish 2.5.0 (released February 3, 2017)

There are no major changes between 2.5b1 and 2.5.0. If you are upgrading 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 (:issue:`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, GCC’s g++ 4.8 or later, or LLVM’s 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 packages are no longer published by the fish-shell developers for the following 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 required 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. (:issue:`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 (:issue:`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 (:issue:`3556`).
  • function now returns an error when called with invalid options, rather than defining the function anyway (:issue:`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 compatiblity with Android (:issue:`3585`), MSYS/mingw (:issue:`2360`), and Solaris (:issue:`3456`, :issue:`3340`).
  • Like other shells, the test builting now returns an error for numeric operations on invalid integers (:issue:`3346`, :issue:`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-interactive. The old options continue to be supported for the foreseeable future (:issue:`3526`), although only one subcommand or option can be specified at a time.
  • Selection mode (used with “begin-selection”) no longer selects a character the cursor does not move over (:issue:`3684`).
  • List indexes are handled better, and a bit more liberally in some cases (echo $PATH[1 .. 3] is now valid) (:issue:`3579`).
  • The fish_mode_prompt function is now simply a stub around fish_default_mode_prompt, which allows the mode prompt to be included more easily in customised prompt functions (:issue:`3641`).

Notable fixes and improvements

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 version identifier.
  • Automatic cursor changes are now only enabled on the subset of XTerm versions known to support them, resolving a problem where older versions printed garbage to the terminal before and after every prompt (:issue:`3499`).
  • Improved the title set in Apple Terminal.app.
  • Added completions for defaults and improved completions for diskutil (:issue:`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 clipboard - 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). (:issue:`3061`)
  • history uses subcommands (history delete) rather than options (history --delete) for its actions (:issue:`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 (:issue:`3175`, :issue:`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) (:issue:`3236`).
  • history delete now correctly handles multiline commands (:issue:`31`).
  • Vi-style bindings no longer include all of the default emacs-style bindings; instead, they share some definitions (:issue:`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 (:issue:`277`).
  • A number followed by a caret (e.g. 5^) is no longer treated as a redirection (:issue:`1873`).
  • The $version special variable can be overwritten, so that it can be used for other purposes if required.

Notable fixes and improvements

fish 2.3.1 (released July 3, 2016)

This is a functionality and bugfix release. This release does not contain all the changes to fish since the last release, but fixes a number of issues directly affecting users at present and includes a small number of new features.

Significant changes

  • A new fish_key_reader binary for decoding interactive keypresses (:issue:`2991`).
  • fish_mode_prompt has been updated to reflect the changes in the way the Vi input mode is set up (:issue:`3067`), making this more reliable.
  • fish_config can now properly be launched from the OS X app bundle (:issue:`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 timestamps not being updated (:issue:`2859`).
  • The string builtin’s match mode now handles the combination of -rnv (match, invert and count) correctly (:issue:`3098`).
  • Improvements to TTY special character handling (:issue:`3064`), locale handling (:issue:`3124`) and terminal environment variable handling (:issue:`3060`).
  • Work towards handling the terminal modes for external commands launched from initialisation files (:issue:`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 (:issue:`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 (:issue:`3123`).
  • Improved completions for apt (:issue:`3097`), aura (:issue:`3102`),git (:issue:`3114`), npm (:issue:`3158`), string and suspend (:issue:`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

Known issues

  • Interactive commands started from fish configuration files or from the -c option may, under certain circumstances, be started with incorrect terminal modes and fail to behave as expected. A fix is planned but requires further testing (:issue:`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 don’t ship an appropriate command (:issue:`2932`).
  • Alt-# toggles the current command line between commented and uncommented 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

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 expressions. 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. (:issue:`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. (:issue:`1356`)
  • Add new directories for vendor functions and configuration snippets (:issue:`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 (:issue:`2719`)
  • and and or will now bind to the closest if or while, allowing compound conditions without begin and end (:issue:`1428`)
  • set -ql now searches up to function scope for variables (:issue:`2502`)
  • status -f will now behave the same when run as the main script or using source (:issue:`2643`)
  • source no longer puts the file name in $argv if no arguments are given (:issue:`139`)
  • History files are stored under the XDG_DATA_HOME hierarchy (by default, in ~/.local/share), and existing history will be moved on first use (:issue:`744`)

Other notable fixes and improvements

  • Fish no longer silences errors in config.fish (:issue:`2702`)
  • Directory autosuggestions will now descend as far as possible if there is only one child directory (:issue:`2531`)
  • Add support for bright colors (:issue:`1464`)
  • Allow Ctrl-J (\cj) to be bound separately from Ctrl-M (\cm) (:issue:`217`)
  • psub now has a “-s”/“–suffix” option to name the temporary file with that suffix
  • Enable 24-bit colors on select terminals (:issue:`2495`)
  • Support for SVN status in the prompt (:issue:`2582`)
  • Mercurial and SVN support have been added to the Classic + Git (now Classic + VCS) prompt (via the new __fish_vcs_prompt function) (:issue:`2592`)
  • export now handles variables with a “=” in the value (:issue:`2403`)
  • New completions for:
  • Fish no longer has a function called sgrep, freeing it for user customization (:issue:`2245`)
  • A rewrite of the completions for cd, fixing a few bugs (:issue:`2299`, :issue:`2300`, :issue:`562`)
  • Linux VTs now run in a simplified mode to avoid issues (:issue:`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 (:issue:`2268`)
  • A new suspend function (:issue:`2269`)
  • Subcommand completion now works better with split /usr (:issue:`2141`)
  • The command-not-found-handler can now be overridden by defining a function called __fish_command_not_found_handler in config.fish (:issue:`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 component (:issue:`2473`)
  • fish no longer requires /etc/fish/config.fish to correctly start, and now ships a skeleton file that only contains some documentation (:issue:`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 (:issue:`731`).
  • Vi mode: run fish_vi_mode to switch fish into the key bindings and prompt familiar to users of the Vi editor (:issue:`65`).
  • New inline and interactive pager, which will be familiar to users of zsh (:issue:`291`).
  • Underlying architectural changes: the fishd universal variable server has been removed as it was a source of many bugs and security problems. Notably, old fish sessions will not be able to communicate universal 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 behaving as expected (:issue:`1567`).
  • The previously-undocumented CMD_DURATION variable is now set for all commands and contains the execution time of the last command in milliseconds (:issue:`1585`). It is no longer exported to other commands (:issue:`1896`).
  • if / else conditional statements now return values consistent with the Single Unix Specification, like other shells (:issue:`1443`).
  • A new “top-level” local scope has been added, allowing local variables declared on the commandline to be visible to subsequent commands. (:issue:`1908`)

Other notable fixes and improvements

fish 2.1.2 (released Feb 24, 2015)

fish 2.1.2 contains a workaround for a filesystem bug in Mac OS X Yosemite. :issue:`1859`

Specifically, after installing fish 2.1.1 and then rebooting, “Verify Disk” in Disk Utility will report “Invalid number of hard links.” We don’t 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 required. 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). :issue:`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). :issue:`1437`
  • fishd uses a secure path for its socket, preventing a local privilege escalation attack (closing CVE-2014-2905). :issue:`1436`
  • __fish_print_packages is no longer vulnerable to attacks which would allow local privilege escalation and data tampering (closing CVE-2014-3219). :issue:`1440`

Other fixes

  • fishd now ignores SIGPIPE, fixing crashes using tools like GNU Parallel and which occurred more often as a result of the other fishd changes. :issue:`1084` & :issue:`1690`

fish 2.1.0

Significant Changes

  • Tab completions will fuzzy-match files. :issue:`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. :issue:`110`, :issue:`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. :issue:`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. :issue:`995`

  • VTE based terminals should now know the working directory. :issue:`906`

  • The autotools build now works on Mavericks. :issue:`968`

  • The end-of-line binding (ctrl+E) now accepts autosuggestions. :issue:`932`

  • Directories in /etc/paths (used on OS X) are now prepended instead of appended, similar to other shells. :issue:`927`

  • Option-right-arrow (used for partial autosuggestion completion) now works on iTerm2. :issue:`920`

  • Tab completions now work properly within nested subcommands. :issue:`913`

  • printf supports \e, the escape character. :issue:`910`

  • fish_config history no longer shows duplicate items. :issue:`900`

  • $fish_user_paths is now prepended to $PATH instead of appended. :issue:`888`

  • Jobs complete when all processes complete. :issue:`876`

    For example, in previous versions of fish, sleep 10 | echo Done returns control immediately, because echo does not read from stdin. Now it does not complete until sleep exits (presumably after 10 seconds).

  • Better error reporting for square brackets. :issue:`875`

  • fish no longer tries to add /bin to $PATH unless PATH is totally empty. :issue:`852`

  • History token substitution (alt-up) now works correctly inside subshells. :issue:`833`

  • Flow control is now disabled, freeing up ctrl-S and ctrl-Q for other uses. :issue:`814`

  • sh-style variable setting like foo=bar now produces better error messages. :issue:`809`

  • Commands with wildcards no longer produce autosuggestions. :issue:`785`

  • funced no longer freaks out when supplied with no arguments. :issue:`780`

  • fish.app now works correctly in a directory containing spaces. :issue:`774`

  • Tab completion cycling no longer occasionally fails to repaint. :issue:`765`

  • Comments now work in eval’d strings. :issue:`684`

  • History search (up-arrow) now shows the item matching the autosuggestion, if that autosuggestion was truncated. :issue:`650`

  • Ctrl-T now transposes characters, as in other shells. :issue:`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 effectively 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 :issue:`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 :issue:`300`

  • New syntax for index ranges (sometimes known as “slices”) :issue:`212`

  • fish now supports an ``else if`` statement :issue:`134`

  • Process and pid completion now works on OS X :issue:`129`

  • fish is now relocatable, and no longer depends on compiled-in paths :issue:`125`

  • fish now supports a right prompt (RPROMPT) through the fish_right_prompt function :issue:`80`

  • fish now uses posix_spawn instead of fork when possible, which is much faster on BSD and OS X :issue:`11`

Other Notable Fixes

  • Updated VCS completions (darcs, cvs, svn, etc.)
  • Avoid calling getcwd on the main thread, as it can hang :issue:`696`
  • Control-D (forward delete) no longer stops at a period :issue:`667`
  • Completions for many new commands
  • fish now respects rxvt’s unique keybindings :issue:`657`
  • xsel is no longer built as part of fish. It will still be invoked if installed separately :issue:`633`
  • __fish_filter_mime no longer spews :issue:`628`
  • The –no-execute option to fish no longer falls over when reaching the end of a block :issue:`624`
  • fish_config knows how to find fish even if it’s not in the $PATH :issue:`621`
  • A leading space now prevents writing to history, as is done in bash and zsh :issue:`615`
  • Hitting enter after a backslash only goes to a new line if it is followed by whitespace or the end of the line :issue:`613`
  • printf is now a builtin :issue:`611`
  • Event handlers should no longer fire if signals are blocked :issue:`608`
  • set_color is now a builtin :issue:`578`
  • man page completions are now located in a new generated_completions directory, instead of your completions directory :issue:`576`
  • tab now clears autosuggestions :issue:`561`
  • tab completion from within a pair of quotes now attempts to “appropriate” the closing quote :issue:`552`
  • $EDITOR can now be a list: for example, set EDITOR gvim -f) :issue:`541`
  • case bodies are now indented :issue:`530`
  • The profile switch -p no longer crashes :issue:`517`
  • You can now control-C out of read :issue:`516`
  • umask is now functional on OS X :issue:`515`
  • Avoid calling getpwnam on the main thread, as it can hang :issue:`512`
  • Alt-F or Alt-right-arrow (Option-F or option-right-arrow) now accepts one word of an autosuggestion :issue:`435`
  • Setting fish as your login shell no longer kills OpenSUSE :issue:`367`
  • Backslashes now join lines, instead of creating multiple commands :issue:`347`
  • echo now implements the -e flag to interpret escapes :issue:`337`
  • When the last token in the user’s input contains capital letters, use its case in preference to that of the autosuggestion :issue:`335`
  • Descriptions now have their own muted color :issue:`279`
  • Wildcards beginning with a . (for example, ls .*) no longer match . and .. :issue:`270`
  • Recursive wildcards now handle symlink loops :issue:`268`
  • You can now delete history items from the fish_config web interface :issue:`250`
  • The OS X build now weak links wcsdup and wcscasecmp :issue:`240`
  • fish now saves and restores the process group, which prevents certain processes from being erroneously reported as stopped :issue:`197`
  • funced now takes an editor option :issue:`187`
  • Alternating row colors are available in fish pager through fish_pager_color_secondary :issue:`186`
  • Universal variable values are now stored based on your MAC address, not your hostname :issue:`183`
  • The caret ^ now only does a stderr redirection if it is the first character of a token, making git users happy :issue:`168`
  • Autosuggestions will no longer cause line wrapping :issue:`167`
  • Better handling of Unicode combining characters :issue:`155`
  • fish SIGHUPs processes more often :issue:`138`
  • fish no longer causes sudo to ask for a password every time
  • fish behaves better under Midnight Commander :issue:`121`
  • set -e no longer crashes :issue:`100`
  • fish now will automatically import history from bash, if there is no fish history :issue:`66`
  • Backslashed-newlines inside quoted strings now behave more intuitively :issue:`52`
  • Tab titles should be shown correctly in iTerm2 :issue:`47`
  • scp remote path completion now sometimes works :issue:`42`
  • The read builtin no longer shows autosuggestions :issue:`29`
  • Custom key bindings can now be set via the fish_user_key_bindings function :issue:`21`
  • All Python scripts now run correctly under both Python 2 and Python 3 :issue:`14`
  • The “accept autosuggestion” key can now be configured :issue:`19`
  • Autosuggestions will no longer suggest invalid commands :issue:`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 functions work again.
  • A SIGTERM now ends the whole execution stack again (resolving :issue:`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 beginning 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 command, 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; there’s a lot of potential for improvement here. The suggestions are computed on a background pthread, so they never slow down your typing. The autosuggestion feature 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 specifying 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 supported via this mechanism (but in addition to, not instead of, command line mechanisms).
  • Man page completions. There is a new function ‘fish_update_completions’. This function reads all the man1 files from your manpath, removes the roff formatting, parses them to find the commands and options, and outputs fish completions into ~/.config/fish/completions. It won’t overwrite existing completion files (except ones that it generated 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. We’ve made an effort 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 don’t 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 instead of wchar_t *
  • fish now spawns pthreads for tasks like syntax highlighting that require blocking I/O.
  • History has been completely rewritten. History files now use an extensible 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 ‘internalized’ into C strings that get compiled in with fish. This substantially 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 fish’s insanely expensive default prompt, which is unchanged in my version. If we switch to a prompt comparable to bash’s (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.

We’ve got some work to do to be as lean as bash, but we’re on the right track.