Elvish is an expressive programming language and a versatile interactive shell, combined into one seamless package. It runs on Linux, BSDs, macOS and Windows.

Demos

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Powerful Pipelines

Pipelines in Elvish can carry structured data, not just text. Stream lists, maps and even functions through the pipeline. 

~> range 1100 1111 |
   each {|x| curl -sL xkcd.com/$x/info.0.json } |
   from-json |
   each {|x| printf "%g: %s\n" $x[num] $x[title] }
1100: Vows
1101: Sketchiness
1102: Fastest-Growing
1103: Nine
1104: Feathers
1105: License Plate
1106: ADD
1107: Sports Cheat Sheet
1108: Cautionary Ghost
1109: Refrigerator
1110: Click and Drag

Intuitive Control Structures

Control structures in Elvish have a familiar C-like syntax. Never spell if backwards again. 

~> if $true { echo good } else { echo bad }
good
~> for x [lorem ipsum] {
     echo $x.pdf
   }
lorem.pdf
ipsum.pdf
~> try {
     fail 'something bad happened'
   } catch e {
     echo (styled 'error:' red) $e[reason][content]
   } else {
     echo ok
   }
error: something bad happened

Directory History

Press Ctrl-L and jump to any directory you've been to. Type cd java/com/lorem/ipsum once and only once. 

~>                                          elf@host
 LOCATION 
 10 ~/elvish                                        
 10 ~/.local/share/elvish                           
 10 ~/elvish/website                                
 10 ~/.config/elvish                                
  9 ~/elvish/pkg/edit                               
  9 ~/elvish/pkg/eval                               
  9 /opt                                            
  9 /usr/local                                      
  9 /usr/local/share                                
  9 /usr/local/bin                                  
  9 /usr                                            
  9 /tmp                                           │
  8 ~/zsh                                          │

Command History

Press Ctrl-R and find that beautiful ffmpeg command you used to transcode a video file two months ago. 

~>                                          elf@host
 HISTORY (dedup on)                     Ctrl-D dedup
   3 echo "hello\nbye" > /tmp/x                    │
   4 from-lines < /tmp/x                           │
   5 cd /tmp                                        
   6 cd ~/elvish                                    
   7 git branch                                     
   8 git checkout .                                 
   9 git commit                                     
  19 git status                                     
  20 cd /usr/local/bin                              
  21 echo $pwd                                      
  22 * (+ 3 4) (- 100 94)                           
  31 make                                           
  32 math:min 3 1 30

Built-in File Manager

Press Ctrl-N to explore directories and preview files, with the full power of a shell still under your fingertips. 

~/elvish>                                   elf@host
 NAVIGATING              Ctrl-H hidden Ctrl-F filter
 bash    1.0-release.m   1.0 has not been released y
 elvis   CONTRIBUTING.  
 zsh     Dockerfile     
         LICENSE        
         Makefile       
         PACKAGING.md   
         README.md      
         SECURITY.md    
         cmd            
         go.mod         
         go.sum         
         pkg           │
         syntaxes      │

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