.. _cmd-fish:

fish - the friendly interactive shell
=====================================

Synopsis
--------

**fish** [*OPTIONS*] [*FILE* [*ARGS* ...]]

**fish** [*OPTIONS*] [**-c** *COMMAND* [*ARGS* ...]]

Description
-----------

:command:`fish` is a command-line shell written mainly with interactive use in mind.
This page briefly describes the options for invoking :command:`fish`.
The :ref:`full manual <intro>` is available in HTML by using the :command:`help` command from inside fish, and in the `fish-doc(1)` man page.
The :ref:`tutorial <tutorial>` is available as HTML via ``help tutorial`` or in `man fish-tutorial`.


The following options are available:

- ``-c`` or ``--command=COMMANDS`` evaluate the specified commands instead of reading from the commandline, passing any additional positional arguments via :envvar:`$argv`.
  Note that, unlike other shells, the first argument is *not* the name of the program (:envvar:`$0`), but simply the first normal argument.

- ``-C`` or ``--init-command=COMMANDS`` evaluate the specified commands after reading the configuration, before running the command specified by ``-c`` or reading interactive input.

- ``-d`` or ``--debug=DEBUG_CATEGORIES`` enable debug output and specify a pattern for matching debug categories. See :ref:`Debugging <debugging-fish>` below for details.

- ``-o`` or ``--debug-output=DEBUG_FILE`` specify a file path to receive the debug output, including categories and  :envvar:`fish_trace`. The default is stderr.

- ``-i`` or ``--interactive`` specify that fish is to run in interactive mode

- ``-l`` or ``--login`` specify that fish is to run as a login shell

- ``-N`` or ``--no-config`` do not read configuration files

- ``-n`` or ``--no-execute`` do not execute any commands, only perform syntax checking

- ``-p`` or ``--profile=PROFILE_FILE`` when :command:`fish` exits, output timing information on all executed commands to the specified file. This excludes time spent starting up and reading the configuration.

- ``--profile-startup=PROFILE_FILE`` will write timing information for fish's startup to the specified file. This is useful to profile your configuration.

- ``-P`` or ``--private`` enables :ref:`private mode <private-mode>`, so fish will not access old or store new history.

- ``--print-rusage-self`` when :command:`fish` exits, output stats from getrusage.

- ``--print-debug-categories`` outputs the list of debug categories, and then exits.

- ``-v`` or ``--version`` display version and exit.

- ``-f`` or ``--features=FEATURES`` enables one or more :ref:`feature flags <featureflags>` (separated by a comma).
  These are how fish stages changes that might break scripts.

The fish exit status is generally the :ref:`exit status of the last foreground command <variables-status>`.

.. _debugging-fish:

Debugging
---------

While fish provides extensive support for :ref:`debugging fish scripts <debugging>`, it is also possible to debug and instrument its internals.
Debugging can be enabled by passing the ``--debug`` option.
For example, the following command turns on debugging for background IO thread events, in addition to the default categories, i.e. *debug*, *error*, *warning*, and *warning-path*:
::

    > fish --debug=iothread

Available categories are listed by ``fish --print-debug-categories``. The ``--debug`` option accepts a comma-separated list of categories, and supports glob syntax.
The following command turns on debugging for *complete*, *history*, *history-file*, and *profile-history*, as well as the default categories:
::

    > fish --debug='complete,*history*'

Debug messages output to stderr by default. Note that if ``fish_trace`` is set, execution tracing also outputs to stderr by default. You can output to a file using the ``--debug-output`` option:
::

    > fish --debug='complete,*history*' --debug-output=/tmp/fish.log --init-command='set fish_trace on'

These options can also be changed via the :envvar:`$FISH_DEBUG` and :envvar:`$FISH_DEBUG_OUTPUT` variables.
The categories enabled via ``--debug`` are *added* to the ones enabled by $FISH_DEBUG, so they can be disabled by prefixing them with ``-`` (``reader-*,-ast*`` enables reader debugging and disables ast debugging).

The file given in ``--debug-output`` takes precedence over the file in :envvar:`$FISH_DEBUG_OUTPUT`.