Configurable behavior on expression (not command) input | Unnamed alias

[LhKipp]

Currently:

$ /etc

Would cd into the directory /etc
I want this behavior configurable. I would rather like the shell to ls /etc here.

As nushell is Syntax aware a mapping from
SyntaxShape1 -> alias
is possible as soon as aliases have signatures with meaning.

Describe the solution you'd like

alias --unnamed unnamed_ls [path] {ls $path}

nushell will now automatically deduct the type of path, check if one such mapping for this syntactical type exists already, and warn me if so. Otherwise typing "/etc" has the same result as "ls /etc" :)

[thegedge]

There are two other possibilities:

1. config set where we have a config value with a block that runs on this behaviour, or
2. have nushell emit events that people can write scripts to hook into. Some examples of events:
   • before command execute
   • after parse
   • render prompt
   • non-executable path as command
   • exit/enter directory

We've definitely been thinking about hooks (option #2), but haven't designed anything for that yet, since our scripting support isn't top notch. #1 would be a good solution for now, and I would prefer it over a specially named alias / flag on alias because I think it's a bit easier to discover. What do you think?

[LhKipp]

I agree. config set is the way to go.
I personally think when typing $ path-to-cd-to as a command (without name) to execute with path-to-cd-to as argument 1. Therefore I don't like alternative 2 that much, as it sounds more complicated.
I would like to reiterate, that I want a configuration option not only for the above mentioned use case, but a general one.
For every SyntaxShape nushell can distinguish, 1 mapping to a command to run when this SyntaxShape gets entered by the user.

$path --> cd into path
$math-expression --> drop me in a python shell and let python evaluate the expression
$column-path --> echo the value pointed to by column-path in the last table, which has been printed to the screen

This proposed idea has the shortcoming of not being able to determine between:

$ ./file --> execute file
$ path --> cd into path

As file and path are both of SyntaxShape::Path. Therefore a special rule needs to be encoded in nushell for this use case.

[thegedge]

Thanks for expanding. That helps clarify your request.

I think that this is a fairly significant feature that would be good to explore in an RFC. I'd love to see us get rid of our hardcoded behaviour for "auto cd when directory" 🙂

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