zshall - the Z shell meta-man page
SYNOPSIS
Because zsh contains many features, the zsh manual has
been split into a number of sections. This manual page
includes all the separate manual pages in the following
order:
zshmisc Anything not fitting into the other sections
zshexpn Zsh command and parameter expansion
zshparam Zsh parameters
zshoptions Zsh options
zshbuiltins Zsh built-in functions
zshzle Zsh command line editing
zshcompwid Zsh completion widgets
zshcompsys Zsh completion system
zshcompctl Zsh completion control
zshmodules Zsh loadable modules
zshzftpsys Zsh built-in FTP client
DESCRIPTION
Zsh is a UNIX command interpreter (shell) usable as an
interactive login shell and as a shell script command pro
cessor. Of the standard shells, zsh most closely resem
bles ksh but includes many enhancements. Zsh has command
line editing, builtin spelling correction, programmable
command completion, shell functions (with autoloading), a
history mechanism, and a host of other features.
AUTHOR
Zsh was originally written by Paul Falstad <pf@zsh.org>.
Zsh is now maintained by the members of the zsh-workers
mailing list <zsh-workers@sunsite.dk>. The development is
currently coordinated by Peter Stephenson <pws@zsh.org>.
The coordinator can be contacted at <coordinator@zsh.org>,
but matters relating to the code should generally go to
the mailing list.
AVAILABILITY
Zsh is available from the following anonymous FTP sites.
These mirror sites are kept frequently up to date. The
sites marked with (H) may be mirroring ftp.cs.elte.hu
instead of the primary site.
Primary site
ftp://ftp.zsh.org/pub/zsh/
http://www.zsh.org/pub/zsh/
Australia
ftp://ftp.zsh.org/pub/zsh/
http://www.zsh.org/pub/zsh/
ftp://ftp.ips.gov.au/pub/packages/zsh/ (H)
ftp://sunsite.dk/pub/unix/shells/zsh/
Finland
ftp://ftp.funet.fi/pub/unix/shells/zsh/
France
ftp://ftp.cenatls.cena.dgac.fr/shells/zsh/
Germany
ftp://ftp.fu-berlin.de/pub/unix/shells/zsh/ (H)
ftp://ftp.gmd.de/packages/zsh/
ftp://ftp.uni-trier.de/pub/unix/shell/zsh/
Hungary
ftp://ftp.cs.elte.hu/pub/zsh/
http://www.cs.elte.hu/pub/zsh/
ftp://ftp.kfki.hu/pub/packages/zsh/
Israel
ftp://ftp.math.technion.ac.il/pub/zsh/
http://www.math.technion.ac.il/pub/zsh/
Italy
ftp://ftp.unina.it/pub/Unix/pkgs/shell/zsh/
Japan
ftp://ftp.nisiq.net/pub/shells/zsh/ (H)
ftp://ftp.win.ne.jp/pub/shell/zsh/
Norway
ftp://ftp.uit.no/pub/unix/shells/zsh/
Poland
ftp://sunsite.icm.edu.pl/pub/unix/shells/zsh/
Romania
ftp://ftp.roedu.net/pub/mirrors/ftp.zsh.org/pub/zsh/
ftp://ftp.kappa.ro/pub/mirrors/ftp.zsh.org/pub/zsh/
Slovenia
ftp://ftp.siol.net/mirrors/zsh/
Sweden
ftp://ftp.lysator.liu.se/pub/unix/zsh/
UK
ftp://ftp.net.lut.ac.uk/zsh/
ftp://sunsite.org.uk/packages/zsh/
USA
ftp://uiarchive.uiuc.edu/pub/packages/shells/zsh/
ftp://ftp.rge.com/pub/shells/zsh/
ftp://foad.org/pub/zsh/
MAILING LISTS
Zsh has 3 mailing lists:
<zsh-announce@sunsite.dk>
Announcements about releases, major changes in the
shell and the monthly posting of the Zsh FAQ.
(moderated)
<zsh-users@sunsite.dk>
User discussions.
<zsh-workers@sunsite.dk>
Hacking, development, bug reports and patches.
To subscribe or unsubscribe, send mail to the associated
administrative address for the mailing list.
<zsh-announce-subscribe@sunsite.dk>
<zsh-users-subscribe@sunsite.dk>
<zsh-workers-subscribe@sunsite.dk>
<zsh-announce-unsubscribe@sunsite.dk>
<zsh-users-unsubscribe@sunsite.dk>
<zsh-workers-unsubscribe@sunsite.dk>
YOU ONLY NEED TO JOIN ONE OF THE MAILING LISTS AS THEY ARE
NESTED. All submissions to zsh-announce are automatically
forwarded to zsh-users. All submissions to zsh-users are
automatically forwarded to zsh-workers.
If you have problems subscribing/unsubscribing to any of
the mailing lists, send mail to <listmaster@zsh.org>. The
mailing lists are maintained by Karsten Thygesen
<karthy@kom.auc.dk>.
The mailing lists are archived; the archives can be
accessed via the administrative addresses listed above.
There is also a hypertext archive, maintained by Geoff
Wing <gcw@zsh.org>, available at http://www.zsh.org/mla/.
THE ZSH FAQ
Zsh has a list of Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ), main
tained by Peter Stephenson <pws@zsh.org>. It is regularly
posted to the newsgroup comp.unix.shell and the
zsh-announce mailing list. The latest version can be
found at any of the Zsh FTP sites, or at
http://www.zsh.org/FAQ/. The contact address for
FAQ-related matters is <faqmaster@zsh.org>.
THE ZSH WEB PAGE
Zsh has a web page which is located at
http://www.zsh.org/. This is maintained by Karsten Thyge
sen <karthy@zsh.org>, of SunSITE Denmark. The contact
THE ZSH USERGUIDE
A userguide is currently in preparation. It is intended
to complement the manual, with explanations and hints on
issues where the manual can be cabbalistic, hierographic,
or downright mystifying (for example, the word `hiero
graphic' does not exist). It can be viewed in its current
state at http://sunsite.dk/zsh/Guide/. At the time of
writing, chapters dealing with startup files and their
contents and the new completion system were essentially
complete.
INVOCATION OPTIONS
The following flags are interpreted by the shell when
invoked to determine where the shell will read commands
from:
-c Take the first argument as a command to execute,
rather than reading commands from a script or stan
dard input. If any further arguments are given,
the first one is assigned to $0, rather than being
used as a positional parameter.
-i Force shell to be interactive.
-s Force shell to read commands from the standard
input. If the -s flag is not present and an argu
ment is given, the first argument is taken to be
the pathname of a script to execute.
After the first one or two arguments have been appropri
ated as described above, the remaining arguments are
assigned to the positional parameters.
For further options, which are common to invocation and
the set builtin, see zshoptions(1).
Options may be specified by name using the -o option. -o
acts like a single-letter option, but takes a following
string as the option name. For example,
zsh -x -o shwordsplit scr
runs the script scr, setting the XTRACE option by the cor
responding letter `-x' and the SH_WORD_SPLIT option by
name. Options may be turned off by name by using +o
instead of -o. -o can be stacked up with preceding sin
gle-letter options, so for example `-xo shwordsplit' or
`-xoshwordsplit' is equivalent to `-x -o shwordsplit'.
Options may also be specified by name in GNU long option
style, `--option-name'. When this is done, `-' characters
in the option name are permitted: they are translated into
--sh-word-split' invokes zsh with the SH_WORD_SPLIT option
turned on. Like other option syntaxes, options can be
turned off by replacing the initial `-' with a `+'; thus
`+-sh-word-split' is equivalent to `--no-sh-word-split'.
Unlike other option syntaxes, GNU-style long options can
not be stacked with any other options, so for example
`-x-shwordsplit' is an error, rather than being treated
like `-x --shwordsplit'.
The special GNU-style option `--version' is handled; it
sends to standard output the shell's version information,
then exits successfully. `--help' is also handled; it
sends to standard output a list of options that can be
used when invoking the shell, then exits successfully.
Option processing may be finished, allowing following
arguments that start with `-' or `+' to be treated as nor
mal arguments, in two ways. Firstly, a lone `-' (or `+')
as an argument by itself ends option processing. Sec
ondly, a special option `--' (or `+-'), which may be spec
ified on its own (which is the standard POSIX usage) or
may be stacked with preceding options (so `-x-' is equiva
lent to `-x --'). Options are not permitted to be stacked
after `--' (so `-x-f' is an error), but note the GNU-style
option form discussed above, where `--shwordsplit' is per
mitted and does not end option processing.
Except when the sh/ksh emulation single-letter options are
in effect, the option `-b' (or `+b') ends option process
ing. `-b' is like `--', except that further single-letter
options can be stacked after the `-b' and will take effect
as normal.
COMPATIBILITY
Zsh tries to emulate sh or ksh when it is invoked as sh or
ksh respectively; more precisely, it looks at the first
letter of the name by which it was invoked, excluding any
initial `r' (assumed to stand for `restricted'), and if
that is `s' or `k' it will emulate sh or ksh. Further
more, if invoked as su (which happens on certain systems
when the shell is executed by the su command), the shell
will try to find an alternative name from the SHELL envi
ronment variable and perform emulation based on that.
In sh and ksh compatibility modes the following parameters
are not special and not initialized by the shell: ARGC,
argv, cdpath, fignore, fpath, HISTCHARS, mailpath, MAN
PATH, manpath, path, prompt, PROMPT, PROMPT2, PROMPT3,
PROMPT4, psvar, status, watch.
The usual zsh startup/shutdown scripts are not executed.
file. If the ENV environment variable is set on invoca
tion, $ENV is sourced after the profile scripts. The
value of ENV is subjected to parameter expansion, command
substitution, and arithmetic expansion before being inter
preted as a pathname. Note that the PRIVILEGED option
also affects the execution of startup files.
The following options are set if the shell is invoked as
sh or ksh: NO_BAD_PATTERN, NO_BANG_HIST, NO_BG_NICE,
NO_EQUALS, NO_FUNCTION_ARGZERO, GLOB_SUBST,
NO_GLOBAL_EXPORT, NO_HUP, INTERACTIVE_COMMENTS,
KSH_ARRAYS, NO_MULTIOS, NO_NOMATCH, NO_NOTIFY,
POSIX_BUILTINS, NO_PROMPT_PERCENT, RM_STAR_SILENT,
SH_FILE_EXPANSION, SH_GLOB, SH_OPTION_LETTERS,
SH_WORD_SPLIT. Additionally the BSD_ECHO and
IGNORE_BRACES options are set if zsh is invoked as sh.
Also, the KSH_OPTION_PRINT, LOCAL_OPTIONS, PROMPT_BANG,
PROMPT_SUBST and SINGLE_LINE_ZLE options are set if zsh is
invoked as ksh.
RESTRICTED SHELL
When the basename of the command used to invoke zsh starts
with the letter `r' or the `-r' command line option is
supplied at invocation, the shell becomes restricted.
Emulation mode is determined after stripping the letter
`r' from the invocation name. The following are disabled
in restricted mode:
· changing directories with the cd builtin
· changing or unsetting the PATH, path, MODULE_PATH,
module_path, SHELL, HISTFILE, HISTSIZE, GID, EGID,
UID, EUID, USERNAME, LD_LIBRARY_PATH,
LD_AOUT_LIBRARY_PATH, LD_PRELOAD and
LD_AOUT_PRELOAD parameters
· specifying command names containing /
· specifying command pathnames using hash
· redirecting output to files
· using the exec builtin command to replace the shell
with another command
· using jobs -Z to overwrite the shell process' argu
ment and environment space
· using the ARGV0 parameter to override argv[0] for
external commands
· turning off restricted mode with set +r or unsetopt
RESTRICTED
startup files. The startup files should set up PATH to
point to a directory of commands which can be safely
invoked in the restricted environment. They may also add
further restrictions by disabling selected builtins.
Restricted mode can also be activated any time by setting
the RESTRICTED option. This immediately enables all the
restrictions described above even if the shell still has
not processed all startup files.
STARTUP/SHUTDOWN FILES
Commands are first read from /etc/zshenv; this cannot be
overridden. Subsequent behaviour is modified by the RCS
and GLOBAL_RCS options; the former affects all startup
files, while the second only affects those in the /etc
directory. If one of the options is unset at any point,
any subsequent startup file(s) of the corresponding type
will not be read. It is also possible for a file in
$ZDOTDIR to re-enable GLOBAL_RCS. Both RCS and GLOBAL_RCS
are set by default.
Commands are then read from $ZDOTDIR/.zshenv. If the
shell is a login shell, commands are read from /etc/zpro
file and then $ZDOTDIR/.zprofile. Then, if the shell is
interactive, commands are read from /etc/zshrc and then
$ZDOTDIR/.zshrc. Finally, if the shell is a login shell,
/etc/zlogin and $ZDOTDIR/.zlogin are read.
When a login shell exits, the files $ZDOTDIR/.zlogout and
then /etc/zlogout are read. This happens with either an
explicit exit via the exit or logout commands, or an
implicit exit by reading end-of-file from the terminal.
However, if the shell terminates due to exec'ing another
process, the logout files are not read. These are also
affected by the RCS and GLOBAL_RCS options. Note also
that the RCS option affects the saving of history files,
i.e. if RCS is unset when the shell exits, no history file
will be saved.
If ZDOTDIR is unset, HOME is used instead. Those files
listed above as being in /etc may be in another directory,
depending on the installation.
As /etc/zshenv is run for all instances of zsh, it is
important that it be kept as small as possible. In par
ticular, it is a good idea to put code that does not need
to be run for every single shell behind a test of the form
`if [[ -o rcs ]]; then ...' so that it will not be exe
cuted when zsh is invoked with the `-f' option.
Any of these files may be pre-compiled with the zcompile
builtin command (see zshbuiltins(1)). If a compiled file
exists (named for the original file plus the .zwc
compiled file will be used instead.
$ZDOTDIR/.zshenv
$ZDOTDIR/.zprofile
$ZDOTDIR/.zshrc
$ZDOTDIR/.zlogin
$ZDOTDIR/.zlogout
${TMPPREFIX}* (default is /tmp/zsh*)
/etc/zshenv
/etc/zprofile
/etc/zshrc
/etc/zlogin
/etc/zlogout (installation-specific - /etc is the
default)
SEE ALSO
sh(1), csh(1), tcsh(1), rc(1), bash(1), ksh(1)
IEEE Standard for information Technology - Portable Oper
ating System Interface (POSIX) - Part 2: Shell and Utili
ties, IEEE Inc, 1993, ISBN 1-55937-255-9.
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