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103 lines
5.1 KiB
Markdown
103 lines
5.1 KiB
Markdown
# Environment Variables (addition explaining the Values part)
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(this is supposed to go to the Environment book chapter)
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## Environment Variables Are Values
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Since Nushell extends the idea of classic shells "Everything is a text" into "Everything is a structured data", it feels natural to apply this philosophy to environment variables as well.
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In Nushell, environment variables can hold any value, not just a string.
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Since the host environment (i.e., the OS Nushell is running in) treats environment variables as strings, we need a way to convert them between strings and arbitrary values seamlessly.
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In general, there are two places when Nushell needs to interact with the host environment:
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1. On startup, Nushell inherits the host environment variables.
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2. When running an external program that is not part of Nushell's commands, the program expects environment variables to be strings.
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3. When an environment variable is passed to an extenal library in the Nushell's codebase (this includes plugins as well). These variables are listed later in this section.
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## Configuration
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By default, if you do not configure anything, all environment variables are imported as strings on startup and then directly passed to any external program we might be spawning.
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However, you can configure selected any environment variable to be converted to/from any value:
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```
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# config.nu
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let config = {
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... other config ...
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env_conversions: {
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FOO: {
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from_string: {|s| $s | split row ':' }
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to_string: {|v| $v | str collect ':' }
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}
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}
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}
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```
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The above snippet will configure Nushell to run the `from_string` block with the `FOO` environment variable value as an argument on startup.
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Whenever we run some external tool, the `to_string` block will be called with `FOO` as the argument and the result passed to the tool.
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You can test the conversions by manually calling them:
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```
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> let-env FOO = "a:b:c"
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> let list = (do $config.env_conversions.from_string $env.FOO)
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> $list
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╭───┬───╮
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│ 0 │ a │
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│ 1 │ b │
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│ 2 │ c │
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╰───┴───╯
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> do $config.env_conversions.to_string $list
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a:b:c
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```
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To verify the conversion works on startup, you can first set up `FOO`, then launch a new instance of Nushell (denoted as `>>`):
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```
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> let-env FOO = "a:b:c"
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> nu
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>> $env.FOO
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╭───┬───╮
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│ 0 │ a │
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│ 1 │ b │
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│ 2 │ c │
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╰───┴───╯
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```
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To verify we're sending the correct value to an external tool, we would need to make a small program or script that prints its environment variables.
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This is not hard, but we have a built-in command `env` to help.
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Let's continue the previous session:
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```
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>> env
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╭────┬───────────────────┬───────────────┬───────────────────┬───────────────────╮
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│ # │ name │ type │ value │ raw │
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├────┼───────────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────────┼───────────────────┤
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│ 0 │ ... │ ... │ ... │ ... │
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│ X │ FOO │ list<unknown> │ [list 3 items] │ a:b:c │
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│ Y │ ... │ ... │ ... │ ... │
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╰────┴───────────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────────┴───────────────────╯
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```
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The `env` command will print every environment variable, its value and a type and also the translated value as a string under the `raw` column.
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The `raw` values is the values external tools will see when spawned from Nushell.
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## Special Variables
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Out of the box, Nushell ships with several environment variables serving a special purpose:
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* `PROMPT_COMMAND` (block): To set the prompt. Every time Nushell REPL enters a new line, it will run the block stored as its value and set the result as the prompt.
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* `PATH`/`Path`: Not yet used except passthrough to externals but is planned to support both its string and list forms.
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* `LS_COLORS`: Sets up file coloring rules when running `ls` or `grid`. Supports `env_conversions` settings.
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## Breaking Changes
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* Setting environment variable to `$nothing` will no longer remove it -- it will be `$nothing`. Instead, you can use `hide $env.FOO`.
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* `$env.PROMPT_COMMAND` is a block instead of a string containing the source of the command to run. You can put this into your `config.nu`, for example: `let-env PROMPT_COMMAND = { echo "foo" }`.
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## Future Directions
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* We might add default conversion of PATH/Path environment variables between a list and a string.
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* We can make Nushell recognize both PATH and Path (and throw an error if they are both set and have different values?).
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