rubish

rubish [-c command] [-r] [script] [arguments...]

rubish is an interactive UNIX shell implemented entirely in Ruby. It parses familiar bash syntax and compiles it to Ruby for execution, so existing scripts keep working while the full Ruby language becomes available on the command line. It can be used as a login shell via chsh.The shell blurs the line between shell and scripting language. External commands return objects that can be chained with dot notation (for example ls().sort.uniq), output can be processed line by line with Ruby iterators such as .each and .map, and Ruby expressions may be used as conditions in if, while, and until by wrapping them in { }. A line beginning with a capital letter is evaluated directly as Ruby code, and functions can be defined with Ruby's def...end syntax.For familiarity it also supports a number of zsh conveniences, including setopt, autoload, and abbreviated path expansion, along with custom dynamically-generated prompts and lazy loading of slow initializations in background threads.

-c command

Execute command as a single string and exit.

Restricted mode: disable Ruby integration features for running untrusted scripts.

Rubish is configured in Ruby rather than a bespoke config language. Prompts are defined as Ruby functions for fully dynamic prompt strings, options can be toggled with zsh-style setopt, and expensive startup work can be deferred with lazy loading so the shell stays responsive.

Rubish requires a compatible Ruby interpreter to be available. As a young project it is best treated as experimental for daily use, and the deep Ruby integration is a security concern when running untrusted input, which is why -r restricted mode exists.

rubish was created by Atsushi Matsuda (amatsuda), a prominent Ruby on Rails core contributor, as a shell written in pure Ruby. It is released as open-source software under the MIT license.

bash(1), zsh(1), fish(1), ruby(1), irb(1)