Windows Guide

Installation

The easy way

The easiest way to install xonsh on windows is through the Anaconda Python Distribution and the conda package manager.

Note

Be sure to install the version with Python3.4 or later. Xonsh is not yet supported on legacy Python (2.7).

Install xonsh with the following command:

> conda config --add channels conda-forge
> conda install xonsh

Note

For the bleeding edge development version use conda install -c xonsh/channel/dev xonsh

This will install xonsh and all the recommended dependencies. Next, run xonsh:

> xonsh
snail@home ~ $

Install from source

To install xonsh from source on Windows, first install Python v3.4+ from http://python.org. Remember to select “Add python to PATH” during installation.

Next, install the prompt_toolkit dependency via pip:

> pip install prompt-toolkit

While prompt-toolkit is considered an optional dependency, it is the recommended alternative to pyreadline for Windows users. For Windows, it is recommended to use a replacement console emulator. Good choices are cmder or conemu.

Download the latest xonsh-master.zip from github and unzip it to xonsh-master.

Now install xonsh:

> cd xonsh-master
> python setup.py install

Next, run xonsh:

> xonsh
snail@home ~ $

Usage

Name space conflicts

Due to ambiguity with the Python dir builtin, to list the current directory via the cmd.exe builtin you must explicitly request the ., like this:

>>> dir .
 Volume in drive C is Windows
 Volume Serial Number is 30E8-8B86

 Directory of C:\Users\snail\xonsh

2015-05-12  03:04    <DIR>          .
2015-05-12  03:04    <DIR>          ..
2015-05-01  01:31    <DIR>          xonsh
               0 File(s)              0 bytes
               3 Dir(s)  11,008,000,000 bytes free

Many people create a d alias for the dir command to save typing and avoid the ambiguity altogether:

>>> aliases['d'] = ['cmd', '/c', 'dir']

You can add aliases to your ~/.xonshrc to have it always available when xonsh starts.

Unicode support for Windows

Python’s utf-8 unicode is not compatible with the default shell ‘cmd.exe’ on Windows. The package win_unicode_console fixes this. Xonsh will use win_unicode_console if it is installed. This can be disabled/enabled with the $WIN_UNICODE_CONSOLE` environment variable.

Note

Even with unicode support enabled the symbols available will depend on the font used in cmd.exe.

The packages win_unicode_console can be installed using pip or conda.

> pip install win_unicode_console

> conda install --channel xonsh win_unicode_console

Running Under Cygwin

Cygwin support in xonsh is a work in progress. Currently, there are some issues. Most noticeably, running xonsh by running the xonsh command from within Cygwin bash will cause xonsh to background itself after every command that is run. This should be addressed in a future version, but in the meantime, invoking xonsh via exec xonsh should work.

It is possible to use xonsh as your default shell in Cygwin by adding exec xonsh to your .bash_profile file.