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• Mention using 'just --tasks' • Mention using the '--release' flag • Mention how to build and install the man pages
264 lines
11 KiB
Markdown
264 lines
11 KiB
Markdown
<div align="center">
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<h1>exa</h1>
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[exa](https://the.exa.website/) is a modern replacement for _ls_.
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**README Sections:** [Options](#options) — [Installation](#installation) — [Development](#development)
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<a href="https://travis-ci.org/github/ogham/exa">
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<img src="https://travis-ci.org/ogham/exa.svg?branch=master" alt="Build status" />
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</a>
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<a href="https://saythanks.io/to/ogham%40bsago.me">
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<img src="https://img.shields.io/badge/Say%20Thanks-!-1EAEDB.svg" alt="Say thanks!" />
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</a>
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</div>
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---
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**exa** is a modern replacement for the venerable file-listing command-line program `ls` that ships with Unix and Linux operating systems, giving it more features and better defaults.
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It uses colours to distinguish file types and metadata.
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It knows about symlinks, extended attributes, and Git.
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And it’s **small**, **fast**, and just **one single binary**.
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By deliberately making some decisions differently, exa attempts to be a more featureful, more user-friendly version of `ls`.
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For more information, see [exa’s website](https://the.exa.website/).
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---
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<a id="options">
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<h1>Command-line options</h1>
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</a>
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exa’s options are almost, but not quite, entirely unlike `ls`’s.
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### Display options
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- **-1**, **--oneline**: display one entry per line
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- **-G**, **--grid**: display entries as a grid (default)
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- **-l**, **--long**: display extended details and attributes
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- **-R**, **--recurse**: recurse into directories
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- **-T**, **--tree**: recurse into directories as a tree
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- **-x**, **--across**: sort the grid across, rather than downwards
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- **-F**, **--classify**: display type indicator by file names
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- **--colo[u]r**: when to use terminal colours
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- **--colo[u]r-scale**: highlight levels of file sizes distinctly
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- **--icons**: display icons
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### Filtering options
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- **-a**, **--all**: show hidden and 'dot' files
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- **-d**, **--list-dirs**: list directories like regular files
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- **-L**, **--level=(depth)**: limit the depth of recursion
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- **-r**, **--reverse**: reverse the sort order
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- **-s**, **--sort=(field)**: which field to sort by
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- **--group-directories-first**: list directories before other files
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- **-D**, **--only-dirs**: list only directories
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- **--git-ignore**: ignore files mentioned in `.gitignore`
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- **-I**, **--ignore-glob=(globs)**: glob patterns (pipe-separated) of files to ignore
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Pass the `--all` option twice to also show the `.` and `..` directories.
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### Long view options
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These options are available when running with `--long` (`-l`):
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- **-b**, **--binary**: list file sizes with binary prefixes
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- **-B**, **--bytes**: list file sizes in bytes, without any prefixes
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- **-g**, **--group**: list each file’s group
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- **-h**, **--header**: add a header row to each column
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- **-H**, **--links**: list each file’s number of hard links
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- **-i**, **--inode**: list each file’s inode number
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- **-m**, **--modified**: use the modified timestamp field
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- **-S**, **--blocks**: list each file’s number of file system blocks
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- **-t**, **--time=(field)**: which timestamp field to use
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- **-u**, **--accessed**: use the accessed timestamp field
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- **-U**, **--created**: use the created timestamp field
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- **-@**, **--extended**: list each file’s extended attributes and sizes
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- **--changed**: use the changed timestamp field
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- **--git**: list each file’s Git status, if tracked or ignored
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- **--time-style**: how to format timestamps
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- **--no-permissions**: suppress the permissions field
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- **--no-filesize**: suppress the filesize field
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- **--no-user**: suppress the user field
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- **--no-time**: suppress the time field
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Some of the options accept parameters:
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- Valid **--color** options are **always**, **automatic**, and **never**.
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- Valid sort fields are **accessed**, **changed**, **created**, **extension**, **Extension**, **inode**, **modified**, **name**, **Name**, **size**, **type**, and **none**. Fields starting with a capital letter sort uppercase before lowercase. The modified field has the aliases **date**, **time**, and **newest**, while its reverse has the aliases **age** and **oldest**.
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- Valid time fields are **modified**, **changed**, **accessed**, and **created**.
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- Valid time styles are **default**, **iso**, **long-iso**, and **full-iso**.
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---
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<a id="installation">
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<h1>Installation</h1>
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</a>
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exa is available for macOS and Linux.
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More information on how to install exa is available on [the Installation page](https://the.exa.website/install).
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### Arch Linux
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On Arch, install the [`exa`](https://www.archlinux.org/packages/community/x86_64/exa/) package.
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$ pacman -S exa
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### Debian
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On Debian, install the [`exa`](https://packages.debian.org/unstable/exa) package.
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For now, exa is in the _unstable_ repository.
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$ apt install exa
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### Fedora
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On Fedora, install the [`exa`](https://src.fedoraproject.org/modules/exa) package.
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$ dnf install exa
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### Gentoo
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On Gentoo, install the [`sys-apps/exa`](https://packages.gentoo.org/packages/sys-apps/exa) package.
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$ emerge sys-apps/exa
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### Homebrew
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If you’re using [Homebrew](https://brew.sh/) on macOS, install the [`exa`](http://formulae.brew.sh/formula/exa) formula.
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$ brew install exa
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### MacPorts
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If you're using [MacPorts](https://www.macports.org/) on macOS, install the [`exa`](https://ports.macports.org/port/exa/summary) port.
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$ port install exa
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### Nix
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On nixOS, install the [`exa`](https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/blob/master/pkgs/tools/misc/exa/default.nix) package.
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$ nix-env -i exa
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### openSUSE
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On openSUSE, install the [`exa`](https://software.opensuse.org/package/exa) package.
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$ zypper install exa
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### Ubuntu
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On Ubuntu 20.10 (Groovy Gorilla) and later, install the [`exa`](https://packages.ubuntu.com/groovy/exa) package.
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$ apt install exa
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### Void Linux
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On Void Linux, install the [`exa`](https://github.com/void-linux/void-packages/blob/master/srcpkgs/exa/template) package.
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$ xbps-install -S exa
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### Manual installation from GitHub
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Compiled binary versions of exa are uploaded to GitHub when a release is made.
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You can install exa manually by [downloading a release](https://github.com/ogham/exa/releases), extracting it, and copying the binary to a directory in your `$PATH`, such as `/usr/local/bin`.
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For more information, see the [Manual Installation page](https://the.exa.website/install/linux#manual).
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### Cargo
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If you already have a Rust environment set up, you can use the `cargo install` command:
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$ cargo install exa
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Cargo will build the `exa` binary and place it in `$HOME/.cargo`.
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To build without Git support, run `cargo install --no-default-features exa` is also available, if the requisite dependencies are not installed.
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---
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<a id="development">
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<h1>Development
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<a href="https://blog.rust-lang.org/2020/03/12/Rust-1.42.html">
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<img src="https://img.shields.io/badge/rustc-1.42+-lightgray.svg" alt="Rust 1.42+" />
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</a>
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<a href="https://github.com/ogham/exa/blob/master/LICENCE">
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<img src="https://img.shields.io/badge/licence-MIT-green" alt="MIT Licence" />
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</a>
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</h1></a>
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exa is written in [Rust](https://www.rust-lang.org/).
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You will need rustc version 1.42.0 or higher.
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The recommended way to install Rust for development is from the [official download page](https://www.rust-lang.org/tools/install), using rustup.
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Once Rust is installed, you can compile exa with Cargo:
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$ cargo build
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$ cargo test
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- The [just](https://github.com/casey/just) command runner can be used to run some helpful development commands, in a manner similar to `make`.
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Run `just --tasks` to get an overview of what’s available.
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- If you are compiling a copy for yourself, be sure to run `cargo build --release` or `just build-release` to benefit from release-mode optimisations.
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Copy the resulting binary, which will be in the `target/release` directory, into a folder in your `$PATH`.
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`/usr/local/bin` is usually a good choice.
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- To compile and install the manual pages, you will need [pandoc](https://pandoc.org/).
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The `just man` command will compile the Markdown into manual pages, which it will place in the `target/man` directory.
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To use them, copy them into a directory that `man` will read.
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`/usr/local/share/man` is usually a good choice.
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- exa depends on [libgit2](https://github.com/rust-lang/git2-rs) for certain features.
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If you’re unable to compile libgit2, you can opt out of Git support by running `cargo build --no-default-features`.
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- If you intend to compile for musl, you will need to use the flag `vendored-openssl` if you want to get the Git feature working.
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The full command is `cargo build --release --target=x86_64-unknown-linux-musl --features vendored-openssl,git`.
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For more information, see the [Building from Source page](https://the.exa.website/install/source).
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### Testing with Vagrant
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exa uses [Vagrant][] to configure virtual machines for testing.
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Programs such as exa that are basically interfaces to the system are [notoriously difficult to test][testing].
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Although the internal components have unit tests, it’s impossible to do a complete end-to-end test without mandating the current user’s name, the time zone, the locale, and directory structure to test.
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(And yes, these tests are worth doing. I have missed an edge case on many an occasion.)
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The initial attempt to solve the problem was just to create a directory of “awkward” test cases, run exa on it, and make sure it produced the correct output.
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But even this output would change if, say, the user’s locale formats dates in a different way.
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These can be mocked inside the code, but at the cost of making that code more complicated to read and understand.
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An alternative solution is to fake *everything*: create a virtual machine with a known state and run the tests on *that*.
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This is what Vagrant does.
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Although it takes a while to download and set up, it gives everyone the same development environment to test for any obvious regressions.
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[Vagrant]: https://www.vagrantup.com/
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[testing]: https://eev.ee/blog/2016/08/22/testing-for-people-who-hate-testing/#troublesome-cases
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First, initialise the VM:
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host$ vagrant up
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The first command downloads the virtual machine image, and then runs our provisioning script, which installs Rust and exa’s build-time dependencies, configures the environment, and generates some awkward files and folders to use as test cases.
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Once this is done, you can SSH in, and build and test:
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host$ vagrant ssh
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vm$ cd /vagrant
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vm$ cargo build
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vm$ ./xtests/run
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All the tests passed!
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Of course, the drawback of having a standard development environment is that you stop noticing bugs that occur outside of it.
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For this reason, Vagrant isn’t a *necessary* development step — it’s there if you’d like to use it, but exa still gets used and tested on other platforms.
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It can still be built and compiled on any target triple that it supports, VM or no VM, with `cargo build` and `cargo test`.
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