Version 0.13 has been released on 2020-01-01, 18 months after 0.12, bringing many new features and bugfixes.

As usual, prebuilt binaries are offered for most common platforms.

Breaking changes

• This release sees a total rewrite of the line editor. As a result, there have been some changes to its API, the edit: module:

  • Binding tables no longer support the default key for overriding the default behavior of modes. All the edit:<mode>:default functions have been removed: edit:completion:default, edit:history:default, edit:insert:default, edit:listing:default and edit:navigation:default.

    The edit:insert-key and edit:listing:backspace functions have also been removed. Their functionalities are now baked into the default behavior of the insert and listing modes.

  • The edit:history:list function has been removed. Use edit:command history instead.

  • The edit:lastcmd:accept-line function has been removed. Use edit:listing:accept instead.

  • The edit:-narrow-read function and the edit:narrow: module have been removed. Used edit:listing:start-custom instead.

  • The edit:styled function has been removed. Used styled instead.

  • The edit:insert:start function has been removed. Use edit:close-listing instead.

  • The edit:location:matcher variable and edit:location:match-dir-pattern function have been removed. There is no replacement yet; the location matcher is not customizable now, although it may be made customizable again in a future version.

  • The edit:completion:trigger-filter function has been removed. The completion mode now always focuses on the filter, and it is no longer possible to focus on the main buffer during completion.

  • The edit:history:list function has been removed. There is no replacement yet.

• The names of basic colors used in styled has changed to be more standard:

  • The lightgray color (ANSI code 37) is now called white.

  • The gray color (ANSI code 90) is now called bright-black.

  • The white color (ANSI code 97) is now called bright-white.

  • All the lightX (ANSI codes 90 to 97) colors have been renamed to bright-X.

• Builtin math functions now output values of an explicit float64 number type instead of strings.

Notable fixes and enhancements

• The editor now has a minibuffer, bound to Alt-x by default. The minibuffer allows you to execute editor commands without binding them to a key.

• The editor now has an experimental “instant mode” that can be activated with edit:-instant:start. It is not bound by default. The instant mode executes the code on the command line every time it changes.

  WARNING: Beware of unintended consequences when using destructive commands. For example, if you type sudo rm -rf /tmp/* in instant mode, Elvish will attempt to execute sudo rm -rf / when you typed so far.

• The styled builtin now supports more color spaces:

  • Colors from the xterm 256-color palette can be specified as colorN, such as color22.

  • 24-bit RGB colors can be specified as #RRGGBB, such as #00ffa0.

  Proper terminal support is required to display those colors.

• Elvish can now output results in JSON in compile-only mode, by specifying -compileonly -json, thanks to @jiujieti (PR #858) and @sblundy (PR #874).

• In redirections, the 3 standard file descriptors may be specified as names (stdin, stdout, stderr ) instead of numbers, thanks to @jiujieti (PR #869).

• Code such as x = $x where $x has not been defined now correctly results in a compilation error, thanks to @jiujieti (PR #872).

• The while special form now supports an else clause, thanks to @0x005c (PR #863). This feature was previously documented but missing implementation.

• The command % no longer crashes Elvish when the divisor is 0, thanks to @0x005c (PR #866).

• Elvish is now resilient against terminal programs that leave the terminal in non-blocking IO state (issue #588 and issue #822).

• Wildcard patterns of multiple question marks (like a??) are now parsed correctly (issue #848).

• A new floating-point numeric type has been introduced, and can be constructed with the float64 builtin function (issue #816).

• A new $nil value has been introduced to represent lack of meaningful values. JSON null values are converted to Elvish $nil.

• Two new builtins, only-bytes and only-values have been introduced. They can read a mixture of byte and value inputs and only keep one type and discard the other type.

• The use special form now accepts an optional second argument for renaming the imported module.

• A new chr builtin that converts a number to its corresponding Unicode character has been added.

• New editor builtin commands edit:kill-word-right and edit:kill-word-right has been added, thanks to @kwshi (PR #721).