detect type

For strings.

Command Type

built-in

Signature

> detect type {flags}

Flags

• --prefer-filesize, -f: For ints display them as human-readable file sizes.
• --prefer-dmy: Prefer day-month-year format for ambiguous dates.

Input/output types:

input	output
string	any
any	any

Examples

Bool from string

> 'true' | detect type
true

Bool is case insensitive

> 'FALSE' | detect type
false

Int from plain digits

> '42' | detect type
42

Int with underscores

> '1_000_000' | detect type
1000000

Int with commas

> '1,234,567' | detect type
1234567

Float from decimal

> '3.14' | detect type
3.14

Float in scientific notation

> '6.02e23' | detect type
601999999999999995805696.0

Prefer filesize for ints

> '1024' | detect type -f
1.0 kB

Date Y-M-D

> '2022-01-01' | detect type
Sat, 1 Jan 2022 00:00:00 +0800 (4 years ago)

Date with time and offset

> '2022-01-01T00:00:00Z' | detect type
Sat, 1 Jan 2022 00:00:00 +0000 (4 years ago)

Date D-M-Y

> '31-12-2021' | detect type
Fri, 31 Dec 2021 00:00:00 +0800 (4 years ago)

Date M-D-Y (default for ambiguous)

> '01/02/2025' | detect type
Thu, 2 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0800 (2 years ago)

Prefer DMY for ambiguous dates

> '01/02/2025' | detect type --prefer-dmy
Sat, 1 Feb 2025 00:00:00 +0800 (2 years ago)

Unknown stays a string

> 'not-a-number' | detect type
not-a-number

Ported from nushell/nushell.github.io. Copyright (c) 2021 Nushell Project. MIT License.