berce f3cc93329c fix(try): drain a piped stderr before collecting an external (#19339)
## Description

`ignore`, `save`, `complete` and `tee` ask for an external's stdout and
stderr on their own pipes (`PipeSeparate`), so an external at the end of
a `try` block that is piped into one of them gets a stderr pipe too. A
`try` with `catch` or `finally` then collects the block's output with
`try-collect`, and `collect` calls `into_value` on the child stream.
`ChildProcess::into_bytes` refuses a child that still has a stderr pipe
("internal error: stderr should not exist"), so the error went to
`catch` even though the external exited 0.

A value can't carry a separate stderr, so `try-collect` now leaves such
a child as a stream instead of turning it into a value:

- `ChildProcess::buffer_output` reads stdout and stderr to the end
(stderr on its own thread, with the reader that `wait_with_output`
already used, now shared as `collect_pipes`), waits for the child,
checks its exit status the way `into_bytes` does, and puts the output
back so it can still be read. `do` already rebuilds a finished child
from buffers in a similar way.
- `try_collect` in `eval_ir.rs` does this for a child with a stderr pipe
and passes it on, so the command after the `try` gets stdout, stderr and
the exit status as if there were no `try`. Failing externals still error
inside the `try`, so `catch` still runs for them. Everything else still
goes through `collect`.
- The pipes are read before the pipefail exit check. Waiting for the
exit first hung on a child that filled its stderr pipe.
- `finally` gets a copy of the result, and only a value can be copied.
So at `begin-finally`, a child passed on like this becomes its stdout,
and its stderr goes to the block's stderr, the same as for `let x =
^external`.

`into_bytes` keeps its check: a caller that wants a value can't keep
stderr.

## User-facing changes (Release notes)

Fixed `try { ^external } catch { ... } | ignore` (also with `save
--stderr`, `complete`, `tee --stderr`, and inside `do` or a custom
command) running the `catch` block with "internal error: stderr should
not exist" when the external succeeded. The external's stderr now
reaches the next command the same way it does without the `try`.

With `finally`, the `try` doesn't fail that way anymore either, but the
result is still turned into a value so `finally` can see it. The next
command gets the external's stdout as a value and its stderr is printed,
like for `let x = ^external`. So `save --stderr` after `try ... finally`
gets an empty stderr, and `complete` still says it only works with
external commands.

## Additional notes

Fixes #19335

Tests in `tests/shell/mod.rs`:
- `try_catch_keeps_a_piped_stderr_of_a_successful_external` runs `try {
X } catch { print caught } | C` and `X | C` and checks that stdout and
stderr match. `C` is each of `ignore`, `ignore --stdout`, `ignore
--stderr`, `complete`, and `save --stderr`. `X` is either a short
stdout+stderr external or one that writes 200KB to stderr.
- `try_catch_piped_into_ignore_catches_only_a_failing_external` covers
the same inside a `def`, `finally` with and without `catch`, and a
failing external that is still caught.

On main, 8 of the 14 cases fail, the 5 with 200KB of stderr hang until
killed, and only the failing-external case passes.

- `cargo test --test tests`: 2421 passed
- `cargo test -p nu-protocol -p nu-engine -p nu-cmd-lang`, `cargo test
-p nu-command -- complete ignore save tee try_`: passed
- `cargo fmt --all -- --check`, `cargo clippy -p nu-engine -p
nu-protocol -p nu-cmd-lang --all-targets --no-deps -- -D warnings`, and
`cargo check -p nu-engine --no-default-features` with `-D warnings`:
clean (toolchain 1.99.1)

More than 64KB of stdout with no stderr pipe still hangs with pipefail
on, as on 0.116.2; that path isn't touched here.
2026-10-25 15:05:35 -05:00
2026-05-14 22:40:32 +03:00
2024-06-06 08:53:34 +08:00
2026-04-08 06:58:29 -05:00
2026-04-07 09:56:38 -05:00

Nushell

Crates.io Build Status Nightly Build Discord The Changelog #363 GitHub commit activity GitHub contributors

A new type of shell.

Example of nushell

Table of Contents

Status

This project has reached a minimum-viable-product level of quality. Many people use it as their daily driver, but it may be unstable for some commands. Nu's design is subject to change as it matures.

Learning About Nu

The Nushell book is the primary source of Nushell documentation. You can find a full list of Nu commands in the book, and we have many examples of using Nu in our cookbook.

We're also active on Discord; come and chat with us!

Installation

To quickly install Nu:

# Linux and macOS
brew install nushell
# Windows
winget install nushell

To use Nu in GitHub Action, check setup-nu for more detail.

Detailed installation instructions can be found in the installation chapter of the book. Nu is available via many package managers:

Packaging status

For details about which platforms the Nushell team actively supports, see our platform support policy.

Configuration

The default configurations can be found at sample_config which are the configuration files one gets when they start up Nushell for the first time.

It sets all of the default configuration to run Nushell. From here one can then customize this file for their specific needs.

To see where config.nu is located on your system simply type this command.

$nu.config-path

Please see our book for all of the Nushell documentation.

Philosophy

Nu draws inspiration from projects like PowerShell, functional programming languages, and modern CLI tools. Rather than thinking of files and data as raw streams of text, Nu looks at each input as something with structure. For example, when you list the contents of a directory what you get back is a table of rows, where each row represents an item in that directory. These values can be piped through a series of steps, in a series of commands called a 'pipeline'.

Pipelines

In Unix, it's common to pipe between commands to split up a sophisticated command over multiple steps. Nu takes this a step further and builds heavily on the idea of pipelines. As in the Unix philosophy, Nu allows commands to output to stdout and read from stdin. Additionally, commands can output structured data (you can think of this as a third kind of stream). Commands that work in the pipeline fit into one of three categories:

  • Commands that produce a stream (e.g., ls)
  • Commands that filter a stream (e.g., where type == "dir")
  • Commands that consume the output of the pipeline (e.g., table)

Commands are separated by the pipe symbol (|) to denote a pipeline flowing left to right.

ls | where type == "dir" | table
# => ╭────┬──────────┬──────┬─────────┬───────────────╮
# => │ #  │   name   │ type │  size   │   modified    │
# => ├────┼──────────┼──────┼─────────┼───────────────┤
# => │  0 │ .cargo   │ dir  │     0 B │ 9 minutes ago │
# => │  1 │ assets   │ dir  │     0 B │ 2 weeks ago   │
# => │  2 │ crates   │ dir  │ 4.0 KiB │ 2 weeks ago   │
# => │  3 │ docker   │ dir  │     0 B │ 2 weeks ago   │
# => │  4 │ docs     │ dir  │     0 B │ 2 weeks ago   │
# => │  5 │ images   │ dir  │     0 B │ 2 weeks ago   │
# => │  6 │ pkg_mgrs │ dir  │     0 B │ 2 weeks ago   │
# => │  7 │ samples  │ dir  │     0 B │ 2 weeks ago   │
# => │  8 │ src      │ dir  │ 4.0 KiB │ 2 weeks ago   │
# => │  9 │ target   │ dir  │     0 B │ a day ago     │
# => │ 10 │ tests    │ dir  │ 4.0 KiB │ 2 weeks ago   │
# => │ 11 │ wix      │ dir  │     0 B │ 2 weeks ago   │
# => ╰────┴──────────┴──────┴─────────┴───────────────╯

Because most of the time you'll want to see the output of a pipeline, table is assumed. We could have also written the above:

ls | where type == "dir"

Being able to use the same commands and compose them differently is an important philosophy in Nu. For example, we could use the built-in ps command to get a list of the running processes, using the same where as above.

ps | where cpu > 0
# => ╭───┬───────┬──────┬───────────┬──────┬─────────┬───────┬────────────┬──────────╮
# => │ # │  pid  │ ppid │   name    │ user │ status  │  cpu  │  cpu_time  │   mem    │
# => ├───┼───────┼──────┼───────────┼──────┼─────────┼───────┼────────────┼──────────┤
# => │ 0 │  2240 │ 9872 │ Slack.exe │ dev  │ Running │ 16.40 │ 1min 12sec │ 178.3 MB │
# => │ 1 │ 16948 │ 9872 │ Slack.exe │ dev  │ Running │ 16.32 │      48sec │ 205.0 MB │
# => │ 2 │ 17700 │ 4632 │ nu.exe    │ dev  │ Running │  3.77 │       2sec │  26.1 MB │
# => ╰───┴───────┴──────┴───────────┴──────┴─────────┴───────┴────────────┴──────────╯

Opening files

Nu can load file and URL contents as raw text or structured data (if it recognizes the format). For example, you can load a .toml file as structured data and explore it:

open Cargo.toml
# => ╭──────────────────┬────────────────────╮
# => │ bin              │ [table 1 row]      │
# => │ dependencies     │ {record 25 fields} │
# => │ dev-dependencies │ {record 8 fields}  │
# => │ features         │ {record 10 fields} │
# => │ package          │ {record 13 fields} │
# => │ patch            │ {record 1 field}   │
# => │ profile          │ {record 3 fields}  │
# => │ target           │ {record 3 fields}  │
# => │ workspace        │ {record 1 field}   │
# => ╰──────────────────┴────────────────────╯

We can pipe this into a command that gets the contents of one of the columns:

open Cargo.toml | get package
# => ╭───────────────┬────────────────────────────────────╮
# => │ authors       │ [list 1 item]                      │
# => │ default-run   │ nu                                 │
# => │ description   │ A new type of shell                │
# => │ documentation │ https://www.nushell.sh/book/       │
# => │ edition       │ 2018                               │
# => │ exclude       │ [list 1 item]                      │
# => │ homepage      │ https://www.nushell.sh             │
# => │ license       │ MIT                                │
# => │ metadata      │ {record 1 field}                   │
# => │ name          │ nu                                 │
# => │ repository    │ https://github.com/nushell/nushell │
# => │ rust-version  │ 1.60                               │
# => │ version       │ 0.72.0                             │
# => ╰───────────────┴────────────────────────────────────╯

And if needed we can drill down further:

open Cargo.toml | get package.version
# => 0.72.0

Plugins

Nu supports plugins that offer additional functionality to the shell and follow the same structured data model that built-in commands use. There are a few examples in the crates/nu_plugins_* directories.

Plugins are binaries that are available in your path and follow a nu_plugin_* naming convention. These binaries interact with nu via a simple JSON-RPC protocol where the command identifies itself and passes along its configuration, making it available for use. If the plugin is a filter, data streams to it one element at a time, and it can stream data back in return via stdin/stdout. If the plugin is a sink, it is given the full vector of final data and is given free reign over stdin/stdout to use as it pleases.

The awesome-nu repo lists a variety of nu-plugins while the showcase repo shows off informative blog posts that have been written about Nushell along with videos that highlight technical topics that have been presented.

Goals

Nu adheres closely to a set of goals that make up its design philosophy. As features are added, they are checked against these goals.

  • First and foremost, Nu is cross-platform. Commands and techniques should work across platforms and Nu has first-class support for Windows, macOS, and Linux.

  • Nu ensures compatibility with existing platform-specific executables.

  • Nu's workflow and tools should have the usability expected of modern software in 2022 (and beyond).

  • Nu views data as either structured or unstructured. It is a structured shell like PowerShell.

  • Finally, Nu views data functionally. Rather than using mutation, pipelines act as a means to load, change, and save data without mutable state.

Officially Supported By

Please submit an issue or PR to be added to this list.

Contributing

See Contributing for details. Thanks to all the people who already contributed!

License

The project is made available under the MIT license. See the LICENSE file for more information.

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