Some time ago I found xonsh which is a python-based shell. It had really good multiline support, and I am searching for a shell with sameish multiline support as xonsh. Fish shell also has good multiline support, it is around the same level, but it is not posix compatible. I want a shell that has that kind of level of multiline, but zsh (bash is also fine) compatible.
Does anyone know of one?
edit: based on the replies, I get this is unclear. My problem with zsh is that if i press enter and it starts a new line, I can't get back to the prevous line, because a new prompt is started. In fish this is possible, all lines are one prompt. But, fish is not posix compatible. So, I guess I want a posix-compatible shell with fish-like lines (multiple line) editing. I wanted zsh support to keep using my custom oh-my-zsh prompt, but remaking it for a new shell is not a big problem. Sorry for being unclear.
edit 2:
solution is here!
Thanks to @andy@programming.dev I started thinking and made the following:
When on the first line, enter accepts and alt-enter inserts a newline. When not on the first line, enter inserts a newline and alt-enter accepts.
Here is the code to put in your .zshrc
:
# MULTILINE!!!
bindkey '^[e' push-line-or-edit
# enter accepts when only one line found, else creates newline
function _zle_ml_enter {
if ! [[ $BUFFER == *$'\n'* ]]; then
zle accept-line
else
zle self-insert-unmeta
fi
}
zle -N _zle_ml_enter
bindkey '^M' _zle_ml_enter
# alt-enter accepts when more than one line found, else creates newline
function _zle_ml_meta_enter {
if [[ $BUFFER == *$'\n'* ]]; then
zle accept-line
else
zle self-insert-unmeta
fi
}
zle -N _zle_ml_meta_enter
bindkey '^[^M' _zle_ml_meta_enter
edit:
changed if [[ "$BUFFERLINES" -le 1 ]]; then
to if ! [[ $BUFFER == *$'\n'* ]]; then
and if [[ "$BUFFERLINES" -gt 1 ]]; then
to if [[ $BUFFER == *$'\n'* ]]; then
for improving detection. Also added alt-e shortcut because I had that configured myself but forgot to add here.
I started using this, it makes a lot of sense and I like it, thanks!
I can imagine myself forgetting how to accept multiline input with alt+enter, so I added a help message to
_zle_ml_enter
in the multiline case after the second line. It assumessetopt interactivecomments
is already set:EDIT: note that lemmy mangles the less-than symbol
So I changed some other things to improve detection. I will update the post. But nice idea adding a hint! I personaly did that in a
hint
command also specifying other shortcuts and aliases about my zsh config.Thanks again for posting your improvements! I will have them!
The idea here, checking for newline characters rather than counting lines, is to prevent it treating one line that is so long it wraps to the next as counting as a multiline input, right? So now I'm looking like
EDIT: lemmy is at least mangling ampersands here. Hard to believe it doesn't have proper code blocks yet...
For pushing the line/multiline, I combine it with my clear function (ctrl+l):