Haskshell

Haskshell is a new terminal shell powered by GHCi and Haskell. It was created to provide an interactive environment for Haskell programming that is both powerful and easy to use and has all the benefits of Haskell such as lazy evaluation, partial function application, and much more. Haskshell is free and open-source.

Features

Haskshell currently offers the following features:

Integration with GHCi: Haskshell uses GHCi as its backend, which means that it provides all of the functionality of GHCi, including the ability to run Haskell code, interact with the Haskell runtime, and even debug Haskell code.
Fugue module: Haskshell comes with a module called Fugue, which contains all of the main commands used by Haskshell. This module is named to be a play on words with Prelude, the standard Haskell library.
Passacaglia module: Haskshell also comes with a module called Passacaglia, another play on words, that is meant specifically for the user's custom functions and bindings. This module is automatically generated by Haskshell if it doesn't exist. Anything inside this module is directly imported into the next Haskshell session.
Git bindings: Haskshell has bindings for basic git commands, making it easy to work with Git repositories from within the shell.
Color module: Haskshell has its own text formatting module called Color, which allows users to easily add color to their output.
Wiki pages: The Haskshell GitHub Wiki has a wiki page for every Haskshell command, with a definition, syntax, and example for each command.

Compared To Bash

Haskell syntax is more expressive and powerful than Bash syntax, allowing users to write complex commands more easily. Haskell offers a wide range of language features, including type safety, pattern matching, and higher-order functions, which can make it easier to work with complex data structures and algorithms.

Like many things in bash, a for loop doesn't have the best syntax. For example here's how one would write a for loop to iterate through all files given by ls and print them one by one:

for file in $(ls); do
    echo $file
done

And here's how it would be done in Haskshell:

lsstr >>= mapM_ echo

But for a more literal translation, here's an unsimplifed version:

lsstr >>= \files -> mapM_ (\file -> echo file) files

And due to the nature of Haskell, it can even be split into different functions (Note that echo is an alias for putStrLn):

printFile f = echo f
printFiles files = mapM_ printFile files

lsstr >>= printFiles

Getting started

To get started with Haskshell, users can download the latest version from the repository (make sure ghci is installed). Once installed, they can launch Haskshell from the command line and begin using it immediately.

Users can also customize their Haskshell experience by modifying the run.ghci file, which is located in the project's root directory or the Passacaglia.hs file also located in the root directory. The configuration file provides a way to customize the prompt, set up aliases for common commands, and define custom commands.

Documentation

The Haskshell Git Wiki has information about all of the currently implemented functions in Haskshell from Fugue. Each page has information about what the command does, what it's syntax and type signature looks like, and even gives an example of how it can be used. The wiki is available here.

Community