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Oil Help

This doc describes every aspect of Oil briefly. It underlies the help builtin, and is indexed by keywords.

Navigate it with the index of Oil help topics.

Overview

Usage

This section describes how to use the Oil binary.

bin/oil Usage

Usage: oil  [OPTION]... SCRIPT [ARG]...
       oil [OPTION]... -c COMMAND [ARG]...

bin/oil is the same as bin/osh with a the oil:all option group set. So bin/oil also accepts shell flags.

oil -c 'echo hi'
oil myscript.oil
echo 'echo hi' | oil

App Bundle Usage

Usage: oil.ovm MAIN_NAME [ARG]...
       MAIN_NAME [ARG]...

oil.ovm behaves like busybox. If it's invoked through a symlink, e.g. 'osh', then it behaves like that binary. Otherwise, the binary name can be passed as the first argument, e.g.:

oil.ovm osh -c 'echo hi'

Oil Lexing

docstring

Docstrings look like this:

proc deploy {   
  ### Deploy the app
  echo hi
}

multiline-command

The ... prefix starts a single command over multiple lines. It allows writing long commands without \ continuation lines, and the resulting limitations on where you can put comments.

Single command example:

... chromium-browser
    # comment on its own line
    --no-proxy-server
    --incognito  # comment to the right
    ;

Long pipelines and and-or chains:

... find .
    # exclude tests
  | grep -v '_test.py'
  | xargs wc -l
  | sort -n
  ;

... ls /
 && ls /bin
 && ls /lib
 || error "oops"
 ;

Command Language

proc

Procs are shell-like functions, but with named parameters, and without dynamic scope (TODO):

proc copy(src, dest) {
  cp --verbose --verbose $src $dest
}

Compare with sh-func.

equal

The = keyword evaluates an expression and shows the result:

oil$ = 1 + 2*3
(Int)   7

It's meant to be used interactively. Think of it as an assignment with no variable on the left.

underscore

The _ keyword evaluates an expression and throws away the result:

var x = %(one two)
_ x.append('three')

Think of it as a shortcut for _ = expr (throwaway assignment).

typed-arg

Internal commands (procs and builtins) accept typed arguments.

json write (myobj)

TODO: Implement these

eval (myblock)
assert (x > 0)

block-arg

Blocks can be passed to builtins (and procs eventually):

cd /tmp {
  echo $PWD  # prints /tmp
}
echo $PWD

Compare with sh-block.

Assigning Variables

const

Initializes a constant name to the Oil expression on the right.

const c = 'mystr'        # equivalent to readonly c=mystr
const pat = / digit+ /   # an eggex, with no shell equivalent

It's either a global constant or scoped to the current function.

var

Initializes a name to the Oil expression on the right.

var s = 'mystr'        # equivalent to declare s=mystr
var pat = / digit+ /   # an eggex, with no shell equivalent

It's either global or scoped to the current function.

setvar

At the top-level, setvar creates or mutates a variable.

Inside a proc, it mutates a local variable declared with var.

setglobal

Creates or mutates a global variable.

setref

Mutates a variable through a named reference. See examples in doc/variables.md.

Word Language

inline-call

splice

expr-sub

Oil Expression Language

Literals

bool-literal

Oil uses JavaScript-like spellings for these three "atoms":

true   false   null

Note that the empty string is a good "special" value in some cases. The null value can't be interpolated into words.

int-literal

var myint = 42
var myfloat = 3.14
var float2 = 1e100

rune-literal

#'a'   #'_'   \n   \\   \u{3bc}

str-literal

Oil strings appear in expression contexts, and look like shell strings:

var s = 'foo'
var double = "hello $world and $(hostname)"

However, strings with backslashes are forced to specify whether they're raw strings or C-style strings:

var s = 'line\n'    # parse error: ambiguous

var s = $'line\n'   # C-style string

var s = r'[a-z]\n'  # raw strings are useful for regexes (not eggexes)

var unicode = 'mu = \u{3bc}'

list-literal

Lists have a Python-like syntax:

var mylist = ['one', 'two', 3]

And a shell-like syntax:

var list2 = %(one two)

The shell-like syntax accepts the same syntax that a command can:

ls $mystr @ARGV *.py {foo,bar}@example.com

# Rather than executing ls, evaluate and store words
var cmd = %(ls $mystr @ARGV *.py {foo,bar}@example.com)

dict-literal

{name: 'value'}

block-literal

var myblock = ^(echo $PWD)

expr-literal

var myexpr = ^[1 + 2*3]

arglist

var myargs = ^{'foo', split=true}

Operators

concat

var s = 's'
var concat1 = s ++ '_suffix'
var concat2 = "${s}_suffix"  # similar

var c = %(one two)
var concat3 = c ++ %(three 4)
var concat4 = %( @c three 4 )

var mydict = {a: 1, b: 2}
var otherdict = {a: 10, c: 20}
var concat5 = mydict ++ otherdict

oil-compare

a == b        # Python-like equality, no type conversion
3 ~== 3.0     # True, type conversion
3 ~== '3'     # True, type conversion
3 ~== '3.0'   # True, type conversion

oil-logical

not  and  or

oil-arith

+  -  *  /   //   %   **

oil-bitwise

~  &  |  ^

oil-ternary

Like Python:

display = 'yes' if len(s) else 'empty'

oil-index

Like Python:

myarray[3]
mystr[3]

TODO: Does string indexing give you an integer back?

oil-slice

Like Python:

myarray[1 : -1]
mystr[1 : -1]

func-call

Like Python:

f(x, y)

Eggex

re-literal

re-compound

re-primitive

named-class

class-literal

re-flags

re-multiline

Not implemented.

re-glob-ops

Not implemented.

~~  !~~

Builtin Commands

Oil Builtins

oil-cd

It takes a block:

cd / {
  echo $PWD
}

oil-shopt

It takes a block:

shopt --unset errexit {
  false
  echo 'ok'
}

fork

The preferred alternative to shell's &.

fork { sleep 1 }
wait -n

forkwait

The preferred alternative to shell's (). Prefer cd with a block if possible.

forkwait {
  not_mutated=zzz
}
echo $not_mutated

append

Append a string to an array of strings:

var mylist = %(one two)
push :mylist three

This is a command-mode synonym for the expression:

_ mylist.append('three')

pp

Pretty prints interpreter state. Some of these are implementation details, subject to change.

Examples:

pp proc  # print all procs and their doc comments

var x = %(one two)
pp .cell x  # print a cell, which is a location for a value

The .cell action starts with . to indicate that its format is unstable.

write

write fixes problems with shell's echo builtin.

The default separator is a newline, and the default terminator is a newline.

Examples:

write -- ale bean        # write two lines
write --qsn -- ale bean  # QSN encode, guarantees two lines
write -n -- ale bean     # synonym for --end '', like echo -n
write --sep '' --end '' -- a b        # write 2 bytes
write --sep $'\t' --end $'\n' -- a b  # TSV line

oil-read

read --line             # default var is $_line
read --line --with-eol  # keep the \n
read --line --qsn       # decode QSN too
read --all              # whole file including newline; var is $_all
read -0                 # read until NUL, synonym for read -r -d ''

When --qsn is passed, the line is check for an opening single quote. If so, it's decoded as QSN. The line must have a closing single quote, and there can't be any non-whitespace characters after it.

try

Run a block of code, stopping at the first error (i.e. errexit is enabled). Set the _status variable to the exit status of the block, and returns 0.

try {
  ls /nonexistent

  ls | wc -l

  diff <(sort left.txt) <(sort right.txt)

  var x = 1 / 0
}
if (_status !== 0) {
  echo 'error'
}

# Shortcut for a single command
try grep PATTERN FILE.txt
case $_status in
  (0) echo 'found' ;;
  (1) echo 'not found' ;;
  (*) echo "error $_status" ;;
esac

boolstatus

Runs a command and requires the exit code to be 0 or 1.

if boolstatus egrep '[0-9]+' myfile {  # may abort
  echo 'found'               # status 0 means found
} else {
  echo 'not found'           # status 1 means not found
}

runproc

Runs a named proc with the given arguments. It's often useful as the only top level statement in a "task file":

proc p {
  echo hi
}
runproc @ARGV

Like 'builtin' and 'command', it affects the lookup of the first word.

module

Registers a name in the global module dict. Returns 0 if it doesn't exist, or 1 if it does.

Use it like this in executable files:

module main || return 0   

And like this in libraries:

module myfile.oil || return 0   

push-registers

Save global registers like $? on a stack. It's useful for preventing plugins from interfering with user code. Example:

status_42         # returns 42 and sets $?
push-registers {  # push a new frame
  status_43       # top of stack changed here
  echo done
}                 # stack popped
echo $?           # 42, read from new top-of-stack

Current list of registers:

BASH_REMATCH   aka  _match()
$?             aka  _status
PIPESTATUS     aka  _pipeline_status
_process_sub_status

Data Formats

External Lang

Testing

Shell Options

Option Groups

strict:all

Option in this group disallow problematic or confusing shell constructs. The resulting script will still run in another shell.

shopt --set strict:all  # turn on all options
shopt -p strict:all     # print their current state

oil:basic

Options in this group enable Oil features that are less likely to break existing shell scripts.

For example, parse_at means that @myarray is now the operation to splice an array. This will break scripts that expect @ to be literal, but you can simply quote it like '@literal' to fix the problem.

shopt --set oil:basic   # turn on all options
shopt -p oil:basic      # print their current state

oil:all

Enable the full Oil language. This includes everything in the oil:basic group.

shopt --set oil:all     # turn on all options
shopt -p oil:all        # print their current state

Strictness

strict_control_flow

Disallow break and continue at the top level, and disallow empty args like return $empty.

strict_tilde

Failed tilde expansions cause hard errors (like zsh) rather than silently evaluating to ~ or ~bad.

strict_word_eval

TODO

strict_nameref

When strict_nameref is set, undefined references produce fatal errors:

declare -n ref
echo $ref  # fatal error, not empty string
ref=x      # fatal error instead of decaying to non-reference

References that don't contain variables also produce hard errors:

declare -n ref='not a var'
echo $ref  # fatal
ref=x      # fatal

parse_ignored

For compatibility, Oil will parse some constructs it doesn't execute, like:

return 0 2>&1  # redirect on control flow

When this option is disabled, that statement is a syntax error.

Oil Basic

parse_at

TODO

parse_brace

TODO

parse_paren

TODO

parse_raw_string

Allow the r prefix for raw strings in command mode:

echo r'\'  # a single backslash

Since shell strings are already raw, this means that Oil just ignores the r prefix.

command_sub_errexit

TODO

process_sub_fail

TODO

sigpipe_status_ok

If a process that's part of a pipeline exits with status 141 when this is option is on, it's turned into status 0, which avoids failure.

SIGPIPE errors occur in cases like 'yes | head', and generally aren't useful.

simple_word_eval

TODO:

Oil Breaking

copy_env

parse_equals

Special Variables

ARGV

Replacement for "$@"

_this_dir

The directory the current script resides in. This knows about 3 situations:

• The location of oshrc in an interactive shell
• The location of the main script, e.g. in osh myscript.sh
• The location of script loaded with the source builtin

It's useful for "relative imports".

_status

Alias for $?.

if (_status != 0) {
  echo 'failed'
}

_pipeline_status

Alias for PIPESTATUS.

_process_sub_status

The exit status of all the process subs in the last command.

_match

TODO: The regex match.

_start

TODO

_end

TODO

Platform

OIL_VERSION

The version of Oil that is being run, e.g. 0.9.0.

TODO: comparison algorithm.

Oil Libraries

Collections

len()

• len(mystr) is its length in bytes
• len(myarray) is the number of elements
• len(assocarray) is the number of pairs

copy():

var d = {name: value}

var alias = d  # illegal, because it can create ownership problems
               # reference cycles
var new = copy(d)  # valid

Pattern

_match()   _start()   _end()

String

Better Syntax

These functions give better syntax to existing shell constructs.

• shquote() for printf %q and ${x@Q}
• lstrip() for ${x#prefix} and ${x##prefix}
• rstrip() for ${x%suffix} and ${x%%suffix}
• lstripglob() and rstripglob() for slow, legacy glob
• upper() for ${x^^}
• lower() for ${x,,}
• strftime(): hidden in printf

Arrays

• index(A, item) is like the awk function

Assoc Arrays

• @names()
• values(). Problem: these aren't all strings?

Block

libc

strftime()

Useful for logging callbacks. NOTE: bash has this with the obscure printf '%(...)' syntax.

Hashing

TODO