3

if you

curl https://www.toptal.com/developers/gitignore/api/python

you see the file as expected, with newlines. But if I

set response (curl https://www.toptal.com/developers/gitignore/api/python)
echo $response

in fish the newlines are gone. I've looked at fish read but

url $gitignoreurlbase/python | read response # I have also tried read -d 'blah'
echo $response

just shows a blank.

How do I capture the multi-line output?

Chris F Carroll
  • 386
  • 1
  • 3
  • 10

1 Answers1

6

Replace set var (command) with set var (command | string split0)

Explanation:

command substition splits on newlines by default. The $response variable is a list of lines of the output. This is documented

$ set var (seq 10)
$ set --show var
$var: not set in local scope
$var: set in global scope, unexported, with 10 elements
$var[1]: length=1 value=|1|
$var[2]: length=1 value=|2|
$var[3]: length=1 value=|3|
$var[4]: length=1 value=|4|
$var[5]: length=1 value=|5|
$var[6]: length=1 value=|6|
$var[7]: length=1 value=|7|
$var[8]: length=1 value=|8|
$var[9]: length=1 value=|9|
$var[10]: length=2 value=|10|
$var: not set in universal scope

Fortunately so is the remedy

$ set var (seq 10 | string split0)
$ set -S var
$var: not set in local scope
$var: set in global scope, unexported, with 1 elements
$var[1]: length=21 value=|1\n2\n3\n4\n5\n6\n7\n8\n9\n10\n|
$var: not set in universal scope

OR


$ set oldIFS $IFS
$ set --erase IFS
$ set var (seq 10)
$ set -S var
$var: not set in local scope
$var: set in global scope, unexported, with 1 elements
$var[1]: length=20 value=|1\n2\n3\n4\n5\n6\n7\n8\n9\n10|
$var: not set in universal scope
$ set IFS $oldIFS

Note the difference with the string split0 keeping the trailing newline.

If you're OK with $response being a list of lines, but you just want to display it properly:

printf "%s\n" $response

or, with just a literal newline as the join string


string join "
" $respose
Chris F Carroll
  • 386
  • 1
  • 3
  • 10
glenn jackman
  • 85,964
  • 1
    My apologies I didn't RTFM carefullly enough. The very short version of your answer would be “pipe through string split0 before capturing” ? – Chris F Carroll Aug 11 '20 at 14:35
  • A small addition - if you want to specify a variable inline, not through another command, use echo with '-e' option: set var (echo -e "line1\nline2" | string split0) – Alex Fedulov Apr 19 '23 at 14:37