jammy (7) elvish-command.7.gz

Introduction

       The  Elvish  command,  elvish,  contains  the  Elvish  shell  and  is  the  main way for using the Elvish
       programming language.  This documentation describes its behavior that is not part of the language or  any
       of the standard modules.

Using Elvish interactively

       Invoking  Elvish  with no argument runs it in interactive mode (unless there are flags that suppress this
       behavior).

       In this mode, Elvish runs a REPL (read-eval-print loop) that evaluates input  continuously.   The  “read”
       part  of the REPL is a rich interactive editor, and its API is exposed by the edit: module.  Each unit of
       code read is executed as a code chunk.

   RC file
       Before the REPL starts, Elvish will execute the RC file.  Its path is determined as follows:

       • If the legacy ~/.elvish/rc.elv exists, it is used (this will be ignored in a future version).

       • Otherwise:

         • On   UNIX   (including   macOS),    $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/elvish/rc.elv    is    used,    defaulting    to
           ~/.config/elvish/rc.elv if $XDG_CONFIG_HOME is unset or empty.

         • On Windows, %AppData%\elvish\rc.elv is used.

       If the RC file doesn’t exist, Elvish does not execute any RC file.

   Database file
       Elvish  in  interactive  mode  uses  a  database file to keep command and directory history.  Its path is
       determined as follows:

       • If the legacy ~/.elvish/db exists, it is used (this will be ignored in a future version).

       • Otherwise:

         • On   UNIX   (including    macOS),    $XDG_DATA_HOME/elvish/db.bolt    is    used,    defaulting    to
           ~/.local/state/elvish/db.bolt if $XDG_DATA_HOME is unset or empty.

         • On Windows, %LocalAppData%\elvish\db.bolt is used.

Running a script

       Invoking  Elvish with one or more arguments will cause Elvish to execute a script (unless there are flags
       that suppress this behavior).

       If the -c flag is given, the first argument is executed as a single code chunk.

       If the -c flag is not given, the first argument is taken as a filename, and the content of  the  file  is
       executed as a single code chunk.

       The remaining arguments are put in $args.

Module search directories

       When importing modules, Elvish searches the following directories:

       • On UNIX:

         1. $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/elvish/lib,  defaulting  to  ~/.config/elvish/lib  if  $XDG_CONFIG_HOME is unset or
            empty;

         2. $XDG_DATA_HOME/elvish/lib, defaulting to ~/.local/share/elvish/lib if  $XDG_DATA_HOME  is  unset  or
            empty;

         3. Paths  specified  in  the  colon-delimited  $XDG_DATA_DIRS,  followed  by  elvish/lib, defaulting to
            /usr/local/share/elvish/lib and /usr/share/elvish/lib if $XDG_DATA_DIRS is unset or empty.

       • On Windows: %AppData%\elvish\lib, followed by %LocalAppData%\elvish\lib.

       If the legacy ~/.elvish/lib directory exists, it is also searched.

Other command-line flags

       Running elvish -help lists all supported command-line flags, which are not repeated here.