NAME
zshall - the Z shell meta-man pageOVERVIEW
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:- zsh Zsh overview
- zshroadmap Informal introduction to the manual
- 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
- zshcalsys Zsh built-in calendar functions
- zshtcpsys Zsh built-in TCP functions
- zshzftpsys Zsh built-in FTP client
- zshcontrib Additional zsh functions and utilities
DESCRIPTION
Zsh is a UNIX command interpreter (shell) usable as an interactive login shell and as a shell script command processor. Of the standard shells, zsh most closely resembles ksh but includes many enhancements. It does not provide compatibility with POSIX or other shells in its default operating mode: see the section `Compatibility' below. 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. Zsh is now maintained by the members of the zsh-workers mailing list <[email protected]>. The development is currently coordinated by Peter Stephenson <[email protected]>. The coordinator can be contacted at <[email protected]>, but matters relating to the code should generally go to the mailing list.AVAILABILITY
Zsh is available from the following HTTP and anonymous FTP site.ftp://ftp.zsh.org/pub/ https://www.zsh.org/pub/The up-to-date source code is available via Git from Sourceforge. See https://sourceforge.net/projects/zsh/ for details. A summary of instructions for the archive can be found at https://zsh.sourceforge.io/.
MAILING LISTS
Zsh has several mailing lists:- <[email protected]>
- Announcements about releases, major changes in the shell and the monthly posting of the Zsh FAQ. (moderated)
- <[email protected]>
- User discussions.
- <[email protected]>
- Hacking, development, bug reports and patches.
- <[email protected]>
- Private mailing list (the general public cannot subscribe to it) for discussing bug reports with security implications, i.e., potential vulnerabilities.
If you find a security problem in zsh itself, please mail this address.
To subscribe or unsubscribe, send mail to the associated administrative address
for the mailing list.
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 <[email protected]>.
The mailing lists are archived; the archives can be accessed via the
administrative addresses listed above. There is also a hypertext archive
available at https://www.zsh.org/mla/.
THE ZSH FAQ
Zsh has a list of Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ), maintained by Peter Stephenson <[email protected]>. 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 https://www.zsh.org/FAQ/. The contact address for FAQ-related matters is <[email protected]>.THE ZSH WEB PAGE
Zsh has a web page which is located at https://www.zsh.org/. The contact address for web-related matters is <[email protected]>.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 `hierographic' does not exist). It can be viewed in its current state at https://zsh.sourceforge.io/Guide/. At the time of writing, chapters dealing with startup files and their contents and the new completion system were essentially complete.INVOCATION
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 standard 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. It is still possible to specify a script to execute.
- -s
- Force shell to read commands from the standard input. If the -s flag is not present and an argument is given, the first argument is taken to be the pathname of a script to execute.
zsh -x -o shwordsplit scr
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 ` b', `s' or `k' it will emulate sh or ksh. Furthermore, 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 environment 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, MANPATH, manpath, path, prompt, PROMPT, PROMPT2, PROMPT3, PROMPT4, psvar, status. The usual zsh startup/shutdown scripts are not executed. Login shells source /etc/profile followed by $HOME/.profile. If the ENV environment variable is set on invocation, $ENV is sourced after the profile scripts. The value of ENV is subjected to parameter expansion, command substitution, and arithmetic expansion before being interpreted 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. Please note that, whilst reasonable efforts are taken to address incompatibilities when they arise, zsh does not guarantee complete emulation of other shells, nor POSIX compliance. For more information on the differences between zsh and other shells, please refer to chapter 2 of the shell FAQ, https://www.zsh.org/FAQ/.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 EGID, EUID, GID, HISTFILE, HISTSIZE, IFS, LD_AOUT_LIBRARY_PATH, LD_AOUT_PRELOAD, LD_LIBRARY_PATH, LD_PRELOAD, MODULE_PATH, module_path, PATH, path, SHELL, UID and USERNAME 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' argument 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/SHUTDOWN FILES
Commands are first read from /etc/zsh/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 global startup files (those shown here with an path starting with a /). 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/zsh/zprofile and then $ZDOTDIR/.zprofile. Then, if the shell is interactive, commands are read from /etc/zsh/zshrc and then $ZDOTDIR/.zshrc. Finally, if the shell is a login shell, /etc/zsh/zlogin and $ZDOTDIR/.zlogin are read. When a login shell exits, the files $ZDOTDIR/.zlogout and then /etc/zsh/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. Files listed above as being in /etc may be in another directory, depending on the installation. As /etc/zsh/zshenv is run for all instances of zsh, it is important that it be kept as small as possible. In particular, 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 executed 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 extension) and it is newer than the original file, the compiled file will be used instead.NAME
zshroadmap - informal introduction to the zsh manual The Zsh Manual, like the shell itself, is large and often complicated. This section of the manual provides some pointers to areas of the shell that are likely to be of particular interest to new users, and indicates where in the rest of the manual the documentation is to be found.WHEN THE SHELL STARTS
When it starts, the shell reads commands from various files. These can be created or edited to customize the shell. See the section Startup/Shutdown Files in zsh(1). If no personal initialization files exist for the current user, a function is run to help you change some of the most common settings. It won't appear if your administrator has disabled the zsh/newuser module. The function is designed to be self-explanatory. You can run it by hand with ` autoload -Uz zsh-newuser-install; zsh-newuser-install -f'. See also the section `User Configuration Functions' in zshcontrib(1).INTERACTIVE USE
Interaction with the shell uses the builtin Zsh Line Editor, ZLE. This is described in detail in zshzle(1). The first decision a user must make is whether to use the Emacs or Vi editing mode as the keys for editing are substantially different. Emacs editing mode is probably more natural for beginners and can be selected explicitly with the command bindkey -e. A history mechanism for retrieving previously typed lines (most simply with the Up or Down arrow keys) is available; note that, unlike other shells, zsh will not save these lines when the shell exits unless you set appropriate variables, and the number of history lines retained by default is quite small (30 lines). See the description of the shell variables (referred to in the documentation as parameters) HISTFILE, HISTSIZE and SAVEHIST in zshparam(1). Note that it's currently only possible to read and write files saving history when the shell is interactive, i.e. it does not work from scripts. The shell now supports the UTF-8 character set (and also others if supported by the operating system). This is (mostly) handled transparently by the shell, but the degree of support in terminal emulators is variable. There is some discussion of this in the shell FAQ, https://www.zsh.org/FAQ/. Note in particular that for combining characters to be handled the option COMBINING_CHARS needs to be set. Because the shell is now more sensitive to the definition of the character set, note that if you are upgrading from an older version of the shell you should ensure that the appropriate variable, either LANG (to affect all aspects of the shell's operation) or LC_CTYPE (to affect only the handling of character sets) is set to an appropriate value. This is true even if you are using a single-byte character set including extensions of ASCII such as ISO-8859-1 or ISO-8859-15. See the description of LC_CTYPE in zshparam(1).Completion
Completion is a feature present in many shells. It allows the user to type only a part (usually the prefix) of a word and have the shell fill in the rest. The completion system in zsh is programmable. For example, the shell can be set to complete email addresses in arguments to the mail command from your ~/.abook/addressbook; usernames, hostnames, and even remote paths in arguments to scp, and so on. Anything that can be written in or glued together with zsh can be the source of what the line editor offers as possible completions. Zsh has two completion systems, an old, so called compctl completion (named after the builtin command that serves as its complete and only user interface), and a new one, referred to as compsys, organized as library of builtin and user-defined functions. The two systems differ in their interface for specifying the completion behavior. The new system is more customizable and is supplied with completions for many commonly used commands; it is therefore to be preferred. The completion system must be enabled explicitly when the shell starts. For more information see zshcompsys(1).Extending the line editor
Apart from completion, the line editor is highly extensible by means of shell functions. Some useful functions are provided with the shell; they provide facilities such as:- insert-composed-char
- composing characters not found on the keyboard
- match-words-by-style
- configuring what the line editor considers a word when moving or deleting by word
- history-beginning-search-backward-end, etc.
- alternative ways of searching the shell history
- replace-string, replace-pattern
- functions for replacing strings or patterns globally in the command line
- edit-command-line
- edit the command line with an external editor.
OPTIONS
The shell has a large number of options for changing its behaviour. These cover all aspects of the shell; browsing the full documentation is the only good way to become acquainted with the many possibilities. See zshoptions(1).PATTERN MATCHING
The shell has a rich set of patterns which are available for file matching (described in the documentation as `filename generation' and also known for historical reasons as `globbing') and for use when programming. These are described in the section `Filename Generation' in zshexpn(1). Of particular interest are the following patterns that are not commonly supported by other systems of pattern matching:- **
- for matching over multiple directories
- |
- for matching either of two alternatives
- ~, ^
- the ability to exclude patterns from matching when the EXTENDED_GLOB option is set
- (...)
- glob qualifiers, included in parentheses at the end of the pattern, which select files by type (such as directories) or attribute (such as size).
GENERAL COMMENTS ON SYNTAX
Although the syntax of zsh is in ways similar to the Korn shell, and therefore more remotely to the original UNIX shell, the Bourne shell, its default behaviour does not entirely correspond to those shells. General shell syntax is introduced in the section `Shell Grammar' in zshmisc(1). One commonly encountered difference is that variables substituted onto the command line are not split into words. See the description of the shell option SH_WORD_SPLIT in the section `Parameter Expansion' in zshexpn(1). In zsh, you can either explicitly request the splitting (e.g. ${=foo}) or use an array when you want a variable to expand to more than one word. See the section `Array Parameters' in zshparam(1).PROGRAMMING
The most convenient way of adding enhancements to the shell is typically by writing a shell function and arranging for it to be autoloaded. Functions are described in the section `Functions' in zshmisc(1). Users changing from the C shell and its relatives should notice that aliases are less used in zsh as they don't perform argument substitution, only simple text replacement. A few general functions, other than those for the line editor described above, are provided with the shell and are described in zshcontrib(1). Features include:- promptinit
- a prompt theme system for changing prompts easily, see the section `Prompt Themes'
- zsh-mime-setup
- a MIME-handling system which dispatches commands according to the suffix of a file as done by graphical file managers
- zcalc
- a calculator
- zargs
- a version of xargs that makes the find command redundant
- zmv
- a command for renaming files by means of shell patterns.
NAME
zshmisc - everything and then someSIMPLE COMMANDS & PIPELINES
A simple command is a sequence of optional parameter assignments followed by blank-separated words, with optional redirections interspersed. For a description of assignment, see the beginning of zshparam(1). The first word is the command to be executed, and the remaining words, if any, are arguments to the command. If a command name is given, the parameter assignments modify the environment of the command when it is executed. The value of a simple command is its exit status, or 128 plus the signal number if terminated by a signal. For example,echo foo
echo foo | sed 's/foo/bar/'
dmesg | grep panic && print yes
PRECOMMAND MODIFIERS
A simple command may be preceded by a precommand modifier, which will alter how the command is interpreted. These modifiers are shell builtin commands with the exception of nocorrect which is a reserved word.- -
- The command is executed with a `-' prepended to its argv[0] string.
- builtin
- The command word is taken to be the name of a builtin command, rather than a shell function or external command.
- command [ -pvV ]
- The command word is taken to be the name of an external command, rather than a shell function or builtin. If the POSIX_BUILTINS option is set, builtins will also be executed but certain special properties of them are suppressed. The -p flag causes a default path to be searched instead of that in $path. With the -v flag, command is similar to whence and with -V, it is equivalent to whence -v.
- exec [ -cl ] [ -a argv0 ]
- The following command together with any arguments is run in place of the current process, rather than as a sub-process. The shell does not fork and is replaced. The shell does not invoke TRAPEXIT, nor does it source zlogout files. The options are provided for compatibility with other shells.
The -c option clears the environment.
The -l option is equivalent to the - precommand modifier, to treat
the replacement command as a login shell; the command is executed with a
- prepended to its argv[0] string. This flag has no effect if
used together with the -a option.
The -a option is used to specify explicitly the argv[0] string
(the name of the command as seen by the process itself) to be used by the
replacement command and is directly equivalent to setting a value for the
ARGV0 environment variable.
- nocorrect
- Spelling correction is not done on any of the words. This must appear before any other precommand modifier, as it is interpreted immediately, before any parsing is done. It has no effect in non-interactive shells.
- noglob
- Filename generation (globbing) is not performed on any of the words.
COMPLEX COMMANDS
A complex command in zsh is one of the following:- if list then list [ elif list then list ] ... [ else list ] fi
- The if list is executed, and if it returns a zero exit status, the then list is executed. Otherwise, the elif list is executed and if its status is zero, the then list is executed. If each elif list returns nonzero status, the else list is executed.
- for name ... [ in word ... ] term do list done
- Expand the list of words, and set the parameter name to each of them in turn, executing list each time. If the ` in word' is omitted, use the positional parameters instead of the words.
The term consists of one or more newline or ; which terminate the
words, and are optional when the ` in word' is omitted.
More than one parameter name can appear before the list of words.
If N names are given, then on each execution of the loop the
next N words are assigned to the corresponding parameters. If
there are more names than remaining words, the remaining
parameters are each set to the empty string. Execution of the loop ends when
there is no remaining word to assign to the first name. It is
only possible for in to appear as the first name in the list,
else it will be treated as marking the end of the list.
- for (( [expr1] ; [expr2] ; [ expr3] )) do list done
- The arithmetic expression expr1 is evaluated first (see the section `Arithmetic Evaluation'). The arithmetic expression expr2 is repeatedly evaluated until it evaluates to zero and when non-zero, list is executed and the arithmetic expression expr3 evaluated. If any expression is omitted, then it behaves as if it evaluated to 1.
- while list do list done
- Execute the do list as long as the while list returns a zero exit status.
- until list do list done
- Execute the do list as long as until list returns a nonzero exit status.
- repeat word do list done
- word is expanded and treated as an arithmetic expression, which must evaluate to a number n. list is then executed n times.
The repeat syntax is disabled by default when the shell starts in a mode
emulating another shell. It can be enabled with the command ` enable -r
repeat'
- case word in [ [(] pattern [ | pattern ] ... ) list (;;| ;&|;|) ] ... esac
- Execute the list associated with the first pattern that matches word, if any. The form of the patterns is the same as that used for filename generation. See the section `Filename Generation'.
Note further that, unless the SH_GLOB option is set, the whole pattern
with alternatives is treated by the shell as equivalent to a group of patterns
within parentheses, although white space may appear about the parentheses and
the vertical bar and will be stripped from the pattern at those points. White
space may appear elsewhere in the pattern; this is not stripped. If the
SH_GLOB option is set, so that an opening parenthesis can be
unambiguously treated as part of the case syntax, the expression is parsed
into separate words and these are treated as strict alternatives (as in other
shells).
If the list that is executed is terminated with ;& rather than
;;, the following list is also executed. The rule for the terminator of
the following list ;;, ;& or ;| is applied unless the
esac is reached.
If the list that is executed is terminated with ;| the shell
continues to scan the patterns looking for the next match, executing
the corresponding list, and applying the rule for the corresponding
terminator ;;, ;& or ;|. Note that word is not
re-expanded; all applicable patterns are tested with the same
word.
- select name [ in word ... term ] do list done
- where term is one or more newline or ; to terminate the words. Print the set of words, each preceded by a number. If the in word is omitted, use the positional parameters. The PROMPT3 prompt is printed and a line is read from the line editor if the shell is interactive and that is active, or else standard input. If this line consists of the number of one of the listed words, then the parameter name is set to the word corresponding to this number. If this line is empty, the selection list is printed again. Otherwise, the value of the parameter name is set to null. The contents of the line read from standard input is saved in the parameter REPLY. list is executed for each selection until a break or end-of-file is encountered.
- ( list )
- Execute list in a subshell. Traps set by the trap builtin are reset to their default values while executing list; an exception is that ignored signals will continue to be ignored if the option POSIXTRAPS is set.
- { list }
- Execute list.
- { try-list } always { always-list }
- First execute try-list. Regardless of errors, or break or continue commands encountered within try-list, execute always-list. Execution then continues from the result of the execution of try-list; in other words, any error, or break or continue command is treated in the normal way, as if always-list were not present. The two chunks of code are referred to as the `try block' and the `always block'.
Optional newlines or semicolons may appear after the always; note,
however, that they may not appear between the preceding closing brace
and the always.
An `error' in this context is a condition such as a syntax error which causes
the shell to abort execution of the current function, script, or list. Syntax
errors encountered while the shell is parsing the code do not cause the
always-list to be executed. For example, an erroneously constructed
if block in try-list would cause the shell to abort during
parsing, so that always-list would not be executed, while an erroneous
substitution such as ${*foo*} would cause a run-time error, after which
always-list would be executed.
An error condition can be tested and reset with the special integer variable
TRY_BLOCK_ERROR. Outside an always-list the value is irrelevant,
but it is initialised to -1. Inside always-list, the value is 1
if an error occurred in the try-list, else 0. If TRY_BLOCK_ERROR
is set to 0 during the always-list, the error condition caused by the
try-list is reset, and shell execution continues normally after the end
of always-list. Altering the value during the try-list is not
useful (unless this forms part of an enclosing always block).
Regardless of TRY_BLOCK_ERROR, after the end of always-list the
normal shell status $? is the value returned from try-list. This
will be non-zero if there was an error, even if TRY_BLOCK_ERROR was set
to zero.
The following executes the given code, ignoring any errors it causes. This is an
alternative to the usual convention of protecting code by executing it in a
subshell.
When a try block occurs outside of any function, a return or a
exit encountered in try-list does not cause the execution
of always-list. Instead, the shell exits immediately after any
EXIT trap has been executed. Otherwise, a return command
encountered in try-list will cause the execution of always-list,
just like break and continue.
{ # code which may cause an error } always { # This code is executed regardless of the error. (( TRY_BLOCK_ERROR = 0 )) } # The error condition has been reset.
- function [ -T ] word ... [ () ] [ term ] { list }
- word ... () [ term ] { list }
- word ... () [ term ] command
- where term is one or more newline or ;. Define a function which is referenced by any one of word. Normally, only one word is provided; multiple words are usually only useful for setting traps. The body of the function is the list between the { and }. See the section `Functions'.
The options of function have the following meanings:
The redirection is stored with the function and applied whenever the function is
executed. Any variables in the redirection are expanded at the point the
function is executed, but outside the function scope.
- -T
- Enable tracing for this function, as though with functions -T. See the documentation of the -f option to the typeset builtin, in zshbuiltins(1).
func() { ... } 2>&1
- time [ pipeline ]
- The pipeline is executed, and timing statistics are reported on the standard error in the form specified by the TIMEFMT parameter. If pipeline is omitted, print statistics about the shell process and its children.
- [[ exp ]]
- Evaluates the conditional expression exp and return a zero exit status if it is true. See the section `Conditional Expressions' for a description of exp.
ALTERNATE FORMS FOR COMPLEX COMMANDS
Many of zsh's complex commands have alternate forms. These are non-standard and are likely not to be obvious even to seasoned shell programmers; they should not be used anywhere that portability of shell code is a concern. The short versions below only work if sublist is of the form `{ list }' or if the SHORT_LOOPS option is set. For the if, while and until commands, in both these cases the test part of the loop must also be suitably delimited, such as by ` [[ ... ]]' or ` (( ... ))', else the end of the test will not be recognized. For the for, repeat, case and select commands no such special form for the arguments is necessary, but the other condition (the special form of sublist or use of the SHORT_LOOPS option) still applies. The SHORT_REPEAT option is available to enable the short version only for the repeat command.- if list { list } [ elif list { list } ] ... [ else { list } ]
- An alternate form of if. The rules mean that
if [[ -o ignorebraces ]] { print yes }
if true { # Does not work! print yes }
- if list sublist
- A short form of the alternate if. The same limitations on the form of list apply as for the previous form.
- for name ... ( word ... ) sublist
- A short form of for.
- for name ... [ in word ... ] term sublist
- where term is at least one newline or ;. Another short form of for.
- for (( [expr1] ; [expr2] ; [ expr3] )) sublist
- A short form of the arithmetic for command.
- foreach name ... ( word ... ) list end
- Another form of for.
- while list { list }
- An alternative form of while. Note the limitations on the form of list mentioned above.
- until list { list }
- An alternative form of until. Note the limitations on the form of list mentioned above.
- repeat word sublist
- This is a short form of repeat.
- case word { [ [(] pattern [ | pattern ] ... ) list (;;| ;&|;|) ] ... }
- An alternative form of case.
- select name [ in word ... term ] sublist
- where term is at least one newline or ;. A short form of select.
- function word ... [ () ] [ term ] sublist
- This is a short form of function.
RESERVED WORDS
The following words are recognized as reserved words when used as the first word of a command unless quoted or disabled using disable -r: do done esac then elif else fi for case if while function repeat time until select coproc nocorrect foreach end ! [[ { } declare export float integer local readonly typeset Additionally, ` }' is recognized in any position if neither the IGNORE_BRACES option nor the IGNORE_CLOSE_BRACES option is set.ERRORS
Certain errors are treated as fatal by the shell: in an interactive shell, they cause control to return to the command line, and in a non-interactive shell they cause the shell to be aborted. In older versions of zsh, a non-interactive shell running a script would not abort completely, but would resume execution at the next command to be read from the script, skipping the remainder of any functions or shell constructs such as loops or conditions; this somewhat illogical behaviour can be recovered by setting the option CONTINUE_ON_ERROR. Fatal errors found in non-interactive shells include:- •
- Failure to parse shell options passed when invoking the shell
- •
- Failure to change options with the set builtin
- •
- Parse errors of all sorts, including failures to parse mathematical expressions
- •
- Failures to set or modify variable behaviour with typeset, local, declare, export, integer, float
- •
- Execution of incorrectly positioned loop control structures ( continue, break)
- •
- Attempts to use regular expression with no regular expression module available
- •
- Disallowed operations when the RESTRICTED options is set
- •
- Failure to create a pipe needed for a pipeline
- •
- Failure to create a multio
- •
- Failure to autoload a module needed for a declared shell feature
- •
- Errors creating command or process substitutions
- •
- Syntax errors in glob qualifiers
- •
- File generation errors where not caught by the option BAD_PATTERN
- •
- All bad patterns used for matching within case statements
- •
- File generation failures where not caused by NO_MATCH or similar options
- •
- All file generation errors where the pattern was used to create a multio
- •
- Memory errors where detected by the shell
- •
- Invalid subscripts to shell variables
- •
- Attempts to assign read-only variables
- •
- Logical errors with variables such as assignment to the wrong type
- •
- Use of invalid variable names
- •
- Errors in variable substitution syntax
- •
- Failure to convert characters in $'...' expressions
COMMENTS
In non-interactive shells, or in interactive shells with the INTERACTIVE_COMMENTS option set, a word beginning with the third character of the histchars parameter (` #' by default) causes that word and all the following characters up to a newline to be ignored.ALIASING
Every eligible word in the shell input is checked to see if there is an alias defined for it. If so, it is replaced by the text of the alias if it is in command position (if it could be the first word of a simple command), or if the alias is global. If the replacement text ends with a space, the next word in the shell input is always eligible for purposes of alias expansion. It is an error for the function name, word, in the sh-compatible function definition syntax ` word () ...' to be a word that resulted from alias expansion, unless the ALIAS_FUNC_DEF option is set. An alias is defined using the alias builtin; global aliases may be defined using the -g option to that builtin. A word is defined as:- •
- Any plain string or glob pattern
- •
- Any quoted string, using any quoting method (note that the quotes must be part of the alias definition for this to be eligible)
- •
- Any parameter reference or command substitution
- •
- Any series of the foregoing, concatenated without whitespace or other tokens between them
- •
- Any reserved word (case, do, else, etc.)
- •
- With global aliasing, any command separator, any redirection operator, and ` (' or `)' when not part of a glob pattern
% alias -g foo=bar % unalias foo unalias: no such hash table element: bar % unalias \foo %
Alias difficulties
Although aliases can be used in ways that bend normal shell syntax, not every string of non-white-space characters can be used as an alias. Any set of characters not listed as a word above is not a word, hence no attempt is made to expand it as an alias, no matter how it is defined (i.e. via the builtin or the special parameter aliases described in the section THE ZSH/PARAMETER MODULE in zshmodules(1)). However, as noted in the case of POSIX_ALIASES above, the shell does not attempt to deduce whether the string corresponds to a word at the time the alias is created. For example, an expression containing an = at the start of a command line is an assignment and cannot be expanded as an alias; a lone = is not an assignment but can only be set as an alias using the parameter, as otherwise the = is taken part of the syntax of the builtin command. It is not presently possible to alias the ` ((' token that introduces arithmetic expressions, because until a full statement has been parsed, it cannot be distinguished from two consecutive ` (' tokens introducing nested subshells. Also, if a separator such as && is aliased, \&& turns into the two tokens \& and &, each of which may have been aliased separately. Similarly for \<<, \>|, etc. There is a commonly encountered problem with aliases illustrated by the following code:alias echobar='echo bar'; echobar
QUOTING
A character may be quoted (that is, made to stand for itself) by preceding it with a ` \'. ` \' followed by a newline is ignored. A string enclosed between ` $'' and `'' is processed the same way as the string arguments of the print builtin, and the resulting string is considered to be entirely quoted. A literal ` '' character can be included in the string by using the ` \'' escape. All characters enclosed between a pair of single quotes ( '') that is not preceded by a ` $' are quoted. A single quote cannot appear within single quotes unless the option RC_QUOTES is set, in which case a pair of single quotes are turned into a single quote. For example,print ''''
REDIRECTION
If a command is followed by & and job control is not active, then the default standard input for the command is the empty file /dev/null. Otherwise, the environment for the execution of a command contains the file descriptors of the invoking shell as modified by input/output specifications. The following may appear anywhere in a simple command or may precede or follow a complex command. Expansion occurs before word or digit is used except as noted below. If the result of substitution on word produces more than one filename, redirection occurs for each separate filename in turn.- < word
- Open file word for reading as standard input. It is an error to open a file in this fashion if it does not exist.
- <> word
- Open file word for reading and writing as standard input. If the file does not exist then it is created.
- > word
- Open file word for writing as standard output. If the file does not exist then it is created. If the file exists, and the CLOBBER option is unset, this causes an error; otherwise, it is truncated to zero length.
- >| word
- >! word
- Same as >, except that the file is truncated to zero length if it exists, regardless of CLOBBER.
- >> word
- Open file word for writing in append mode as standard output. If the file does not exist, and the CLOBBER and APPEND_CREATE options are both unset, this causes an error; otherwise, the file is created.
- >>| word
- >>! word
- Same as >>, except that the file is created if it does not exist, regardless of CLOBBER and APPEND_CREATE.
- <<[-] word
- The shell input is read up to a line that is the same as word, or to an end-of-file. No parameter expansion, command substitution or filename generation is performed on word. The resulting document, called a here-document, becomes the standard input.
If any character of word is quoted with single or double quotes or a `
\', no interpretation is placed upon the characters of the document.
Otherwise, parameter and command substitution occurs, ` \' followed by
a newline is removed, and ` \' must be used to quote the characters `
\', `$', ``' and the first character of word.
Note that word itself does not undergo shell expansion. Backquotes in
word do not have their usual effect; instead they behave similarly to
double quotes, except that the backquotes themselves are passed through
unchanged. (This information is given for completeness and it is not
recommended that backquotes be used.) Quotes in the form
$'...' have their standard effect of expanding
backslashed references to special characters.
If <<- is used, then all leading tabs are stripped from word
and from the document.
- <<< word
- Perform shell expansion on word and pass the result to standard input. This is known as a here-string. Compare the use of word in here-documents above, where word does not undergo shell expansion. The result will have a trailing newline after it.
- <& number
- >& number
- The standard input/output is duplicated from file descriptor number (see dup2(2)).
- <& -
- >& -
- Close the standard input/output.
- <& p
- >& p
- The input/output from/to the coprocess is moved to the standard input/output.
- >& word
- &> word
- (Except where `>& word' matches one of the above syntaxes; ` &>' can always be used to avoid this ambiguity.) Redirects both standard output and standard error (file descriptor 2) in the manner of ` > word'. Note that this does not have the same effect as `> word 2>&1' in the presence of multios (see the section below).
- >&| word
- >&! word
- &>| word
- &>! word
- Redirects both standard output and standard error (file descriptor 2) in the manner of ` >| word'.
- >>& word
- &>> word
- Redirects both standard output and standard error (file descriptor 2) in the manner of ` >> word'.
- >>&| word
- >>&! word
- &>>| word
- &>>! word
- Redirects both standard output and standard error (file descriptor 2) in the manner of ` >>| word'.
... 1>fname 2>&1
OPENING FILE DESCRIPTORS USING PARAMETERS
When the shell is parsing arguments to a command, and the shell option IGNORE_BRACES is not set, a different form of redirection is allowed: instead of a digit before the operator there is a valid shell identifier enclosed in braces. The shell will open a new file descriptor that is guaranteed to be at least 10 and set the parameter named by the identifier to the file descriptor opened. No whitespace is allowed between the closing brace and the redirection character. For example:... {myfd}>&1
integer myfd exec {myfd}>~/logs/mylogfile.txt print This is a log message. >&$myfd exec {myfd}>&-
MULTIOS
If the user tries to open a file descriptor for writing more than once, the shell opens the file descriptor as a pipe to a process that copies its input to all the specified outputs, similar to tee, provided the MULTIOS option is set, as it is by default. Thus:date >foo >bar
date >foo | cat
date >&1 >output
date >output >&1
: > *
echo exit 0 >> *.sh
sort <foo <fubar
sort <f{oo,ubar}
cat bar | sort <foo
echo Hello > bar > baz
cat file >file1 >file2 cat file1 file2
{ cat file } >file >file2
REDIRECTIONS WITH NO COMMAND
When a simple command consists of one or more redirection operators and zero or more parameter assignments, but no command name, zsh can behave in several ways. If the parameter NULLCMD is not set or the option CSH_NULLCMD is set, an error is caused. This is the csh behavior and CSH_NULLCMD is set by default when emulating csh. If the option SH_NULLCMD is set, the builtin `:' is inserted as a command with the given redirections. This is the default when emulating sh or ksh. Otherwise, if the parameter NULLCMD is set, its value will be used as a command with the given redirections. If both NULLCMD and READNULLCMD are set, then the value of the latter will be used instead of that of the former when the redirection is an input. The default for NULLCMD is ` cat' and for READNULLCMD is `more'. Thus< file
COMMAND EXECUTION
If a command name contains no slashes, the shell attempts to locate it. If there exists a shell function by that name, the function is invoked as described in the section `Functions'. If there exists a shell builtin by that name, the builtin is invoked. Otherwise, the shell searches each element of $path for a directory containing an executable file by that name. If execution fails: an error message is printed, and one of the following values is returned.- 127
- The search was unsuccessful. The error message is ` command not found: cmd'.
- 126
- The executable file has insufficient permissions, is a directory or special file, or is not a script and is in a format unrecognized by the operating system. The exact conditions and error message are operating system-dependent; see execve(2).
FUNCTIONS
Shell functions are defined with the function reserved word or the special syntax ` funcname ()'. Shell functions are read in and stored internally. Alias names are resolved when the function is read. Functions are executed like commands with the arguments passed as positional parameters. (See the section `Command Execution'.) Functions execute in the same process as the caller and share all files and present working directory with the caller. A trap on EXIT set inside a function is executed after the function completes in the environment of the caller. The return builtin is used to return from function calls. Function identifiers can be listed with the functions builtin. Functions can be undefined with the unfunction builtin.AUTOLOADING FUNCTIONS
A function can be marked as undefined using the autoload builtin (or ` functions -u' or `typeset -fu'). Such a function has no body. When the function is first executed, the shell searches for its definition using the elements of the fpath variable. Thus to define functions for autoloading, a typical sequence is:fpath=(~/myfuncs $fpath) autoload myfunc1 myfunc2 ...
- element.zwc
- A file created with the zcompile builtin command, which is expected to contain the definitions for all functions in the directory named element. The file is treated in the same manner as a directory containing files for functions and is searched for the definition of the function. If the definition is not found, the search for a definition proceeds with the other two possibilities described below.
If element already includes a .zwc extension (i.e. the extension
was explicitly given by the user), element is searched for the
definition of the function without comparing its age to that of other files;
in fact, there does not need to be any directory named element without
the suffix. Thus including an element such as ` /usr/local/funcs.zwc'
in fpath will speed up the search for functions, with the disadvantage
that functions included must be explicitly recompiled by hand before the shell
notices any changes.
- element/function.zwc
- A file created with zcompile, which is expected to contain the definition for function. It may include other function definitions as well, but those are neither loaded nor executed; a file found in this way is searched only for the definition of function.
- element/function
- A file of zsh command text, taken to be the definition for function.
func() { print This is func; } print func is initialized
myfunc() { autoload -X } myfunc args...
unfunction myfunc # if myfunc was defined autoload myfunc myfunc args...
eval "$(functions)"
autoload +X myfunc
ANONYMOUS FUNCTIONS
If no name is given for a function, it is `anonymous' and is handled specially. Either form of function definition may be used: a ` ()' with no preceding name, or a ` function' with an immediately following open brace. The function is executed immediately at the point of definition and is not stored for future use. The function name is set to ` (anon)'. Arguments to the function may be specified as words following the closing brace defining the function, hence if there are none no arguments (other than $0) are set. This is a difference from the way other functions are parsed: normal function definitions may be followed by certain keywords such as ` else' or `fi', which will be treated as arguments to anonymous functions, so that a newline or semicolon is needed to force keyword interpretation. Note also that the argument list of any enclosing script or function is hidden (as would be the case for any other function called at this point). Redirections may be applied to the anonymous function in the same manner as to a current-shell structure enclosed in braces. The main use of anonymous functions is to provide a scope for local variables. This is particularly convenient in start-up files as these do not provide their own local variable scope. For example,variable=outside function { local variable=inside print "I am $variable with arguments $*" } this and that print "I am $variable"
I am inside with arguments this and that I am outside
SPECIAL FUNCTIONS
Certain functions, if defined, have special meaning to the shell.Hook Functions
For the functions below, it is possible to define an array that has the same name as the function with ` _functions' appended. Any element in such an array is taken as the name of a function to execute; it is executed in the same context and with the same arguments and same initial value of $? as the basic function. For example, if $chpwd_functions is an array containing the values ` mychpwd', `chpwd_save_dirstack', then the shell attempts to execute the functions ` chpwd', `mychpwd' and ` chpwd_save_dirstack', in that order. Any function that does not exist is silently ignored. A function found by this mechanism is referred to elsewhere as a hook function. An error in any function causes subsequent functions not to be run. Note further that an error in a precmd hook causes an immediately following periodic function not to run (though it may run at the next opportunity).- chpwd
- Executed whenever the current working directory is changed.
- periodic
- If the parameter PERIOD is set, this function is executed every $PERIOD seconds, just before a prompt. Note that if multiple functions are defined using the array periodic_functions only one period is applied to the complete set of functions, and the scheduled time is not reset if the list of functions is altered. Hence the set of functions is always called together.
- precmd
- Executed before each prompt. Note that precommand functions are not re-executed simply because the command line is redrawn, as happens, for example, when a notification about an exiting job is displayed.
- preexec
- Executed just after a command has been read and is about to be executed. If the history mechanism is active (regardless of whether the line was discarded from the history buffer), the string that the user typed is passed as the first argument, otherwise it is an empty string. The actual command that will be executed (including expanded aliases) is passed in two different forms: the second argument is a single-line, size-limited version of the command (with things like function bodies elided); the third argument contains the full text that is being executed.
- zshaddhistory
- Executed when a history line has been read interactively, but before it is executed. The sole argument is the complete history line (so that any terminating newline will still be present).
If any of the hook functions returns status 1 (or any non-zero value other than
2, though this is not guaranteed for future versions of the shell) the history
line will not be saved, although it lingers in the history until the next line
is executed, allowing you to reuse or edit it immediately.
If any of the hook functions returns status 2 the history line will be saved on
the internal history list, but not written to the history file. In case of a
conflict, the first non-zero status value is taken.
A hook function may call ` fc -p ...' to switch the history
context so that the history is saved in a different file from that in the
global HISTFILE parameter. This is handled specially: the history
context is automatically restored after the processing of the history line is
finished.
The following example function works with one of the options
INC_APPEND_HISTORY or SHARE_HISTORY set, in order that the line
is written out immediately after the history entry is added. It first adds the
history line to the normal history with the newline stripped, which is usually
the correct behaviour. Then it switches the history context so that the line
will be written to a history file in the current directory.
zshaddhistory() { print -sr -- ${1%%$'\n'} fc -p .zsh_local_history }
- zshexit
- Executed at the point where the main shell is about to exit normally. This is not called by exiting subshells, nor when the exec precommand modifier is used before an external command. Also, unlike TRAPEXIT, it is not called when functions exit.
Trap Functions
The functions below are treated specially but do not have corresponding hook arrays.- TRAPNAL
- If defined and non-null, this function will be executed whenever the shell catches a signal SIGNAL, where NAL is a signal name as specified for the kill builtin. The signal number will be passed as the first parameter to the function.
If a function of this form is defined and null, the shell and processes spawned
by it will ignore SIGNAL.
The return status from the function is handled specially. If it is zero, the
signal is assumed to have been handled, and execution continues normally.
Otherwise, the shell will behave as interrupted except that the return status
of the trap is retained.
Programs terminated by uncaught signals typically return the status 128 plus the
signal number. Hence the following causes the handler for SIGINT to
print a message, then mimic the usual effect of the signal.
The functions TRAPZERR, TRAPDEBUG and TRAPEXIT are never
executed inside other traps.
TRAPINT() { print "Caught SIGINT, aborting." return $(( 128 + $1 )) }
- TRAPDEBUG
- If the option DEBUG_BEFORE_CMD is set (as it is by default), executed before each command; otherwise executed after each command. See the description of the trap builtin in zshbuiltins(1) for details of additional features provided in debug traps.
- TRAPEXIT
- Executed when the shell exits, or when the current function exits if defined inside a function. The value of $? at the start of execution is the exit status of the shell or the return status of the function exiting.
- TRAPZERR
- Executed whenever a command has a non-zero exit status. However, the function is not executed if the command occurred in a sublist followed by ` &&' or `||'; only the final command in a sublist of this type causes the trap to be executed. The function TRAPERR acts the same as TRAPZERR on systems where there is no SIGERR (this is the usual case).
TRAPNAL() { # code }
trap ' # code ' NAL
- •
- Function traps have all the properties of normal functions, appearing in the list of functions and being called with their own function context rather than the context where the trap was triggered.
- •
- The return status from function traps is special, whereas a return from a list trap causes the surrounding context to return with the given status.
- •
- Function traps are not reset within subshells, in accordance with zsh behaviour; list traps are reset, in accordance with POSIX behaviour.
JOBS
If the MONITOR option is set, an interactive shell associates a job with each pipeline. It keeps a table of current jobs, printed by the jobs command, and assigns them small integer numbers. When a job is started asynchronously with ` &', the shell prints a line to standard error which looks like:[1] 1234
- %number
- The job with the given number.
- %string
- The last job whose command line begins with string.
- %?string
- The last job whose command line contains string.
- %%
- Current job.
- %+
- Equivalent to `%%'.
- %-
- Previous job.
SIGNALS
The INT and QUIT signals for an invoked command are ignored if the command is followed by ` &' and the MONITOR option is not active. The shell itself always ignores the QUIT signal. Otherwise, signals have the values inherited by the shell from its parent (but see the TRAPNAL special functions in the section `Functions'). Certain jobs are run asynchronously by the shell other than those explicitly put into the background; even in cases where the shell would usually wait for such jobs, an explicit exit command or exit due to the option ERR_EXIT will cause the shell to exit without waiting. Examples of such asynchronous jobs are process substitution, see the section PROCESS SUBSTITUTION in the zshexpn(1) manual page, and the handler processes for multios, see the section MULTIOS in the zshmisc(1) manual page.ARITHMETIC EVALUATION
The shell can perform integer and floating point arithmetic, either using the builtin let, or via a substitution of the form $((...)). For integers, the shell is usually compiled to use 8-byte precision where this is available, otherwise precision is 4 bytes. This can be tested, for example, by giving the command ` print - $(( 12345678901 ))'; if the number appears unchanged, the precision is at least 8 bytes. Floating point arithmetic always uses the `double' type with whatever corresponding precision is provided by the compiler and the library. The let builtin command takes arithmetic expressions as arguments; each is evaluated separately. Since many of the arithmetic operators, as well as spaces, require quoting, an alternative form is provided: for any command which begins with a ` ((', all the characters until a matching ` ))' are treated as a double-quoted expression and arithmetic expansion performed as for an argument of let. More precisely, ` ((... ))' is equivalent to ` let "..."'. The return status is 0 if the arithmetic value of the expression is non-zero, 1 if it is zero, and 2 if an error occurred. For example, the following statement(( val = 2 + 1 ))
let "val = 2 + 1"
typeset -i 16 y print $(( [#8] x = 32, y = 32 )) print $x $y
setopt cbases print $(( [#16_4] 65536 ** 2 ))
zmodload zsh/mathfunc print $(( [#_] sqrt(1e7) ))
- + - ! ~ ++ --
- unary plus/minus, logical NOT, complement, {pre,post}{in,de}crement
- << >>
- bitwise shift left, right
- &
- bitwise AND
- ^
- bitwise XOR
- |
- bitwise OR
- **
- exponentiation
- * / %
- multiplication, division, modulus (remainder)
- + -
- addition, subtraction
- < > <= >=
- comparison
- == !=
- equality and inequality
- &&
- logical AND
- || ^^
- logical OR, XOR
- ? :
- ternary operator
- = += -= *= /= %= &= ^= |= <<= >>= &&= ||= ^^= **=
- assignment
- ,
- comma operator
- + - ! ~ ++ --
- unary plus/minus, logical NOT, complement, {pre,post}{in,de}crement
- **
- exponentiation
- * / %
- multiplication, division, modulus (remainder)
- + -
- addition, subtraction
- << >>
- bitwise shift left, right
- < > <= >=
- comparison
- == !=
- equality and inequality
- &
- bitwise AND
- ^
- bitwise XOR
- |
- bitwise OR
- &&
- logical AND
- ^^
- logical XOR
- ||
- logical OR
- ? :
- ternary operator
- = += -= *= /= %= &= ^= |= <<= >>= &&= ||= ^^= **=
- assignment
- ,
- comma operator
((val2 = val1 * 2))
for (( f = 0; f < 1; f += 0.1 )); do # use $f done
CONDITIONAL EXPRESSIONS
A conditional expression is used with the [[ compound command to test attributes of files and to compare strings. Each expression can be constructed from one or more of the following unary or binary expressions:- -a file
- true if file exists.
- -b file
- true if file exists and is a block special file.
- -c file
- true if file exists and is a character special file.
- -d file
- true if file exists and is a directory.
- -e file
- true if file exists.
- -f file
- true if file exists and is a regular file.
- -g file
- true if file exists and has its setgid bit set.
- -h file
- true if file exists and is a symbolic link.
- -k file
- true if file exists and has its sticky bit set.
- -n string
- true if length of string is non-zero.
- -o option
- true if option named option is on. option may be a single character, in which case it is a single letter option name. (See the section `Specifying Options'.)
When no option named option exists, and the POSIX_BUILTINS option
hasn't been set, return 3 with a warning. If that option is set, return 1 with
no warning.
- -p file
- true if file exists and is a FIFO special file (named pipe).
- -r file
- true if file exists and is readable by current process.
- -s file
- true if file exists and has size greater than zero.
- -t fd
- true if file descriptor number fd is open and associated with a terminal device. (note: fd is not optional)
- -u file
- true if file exists and has its setuid bit set.
- -v varname
- true if shell variable varname is set.
- -w file
- true if file exists and is writable by current process.
- -x file
- true if file exists and is executable by current process. If file exists and is a directory, then the current process has permission to search in the directory.
- -z string
- true if length of string is zero.
- -L file
- true if file exists and is a symbolic link.
- -O file
- true if file exists and is owned by the effective user ID of this process.
- -G file
- true if file exists and its group matches the effective group ID of this process.
- -S file
- true if file exists and is a socket.
- -N file
- true if file exists and its access time is not newer than its modification time.
- file1 -nt file2
- true if file1 exists and is newer than file2.
- file1 -ot file2
- true if file1 exists and is older than file2.
- file1 -ef file2
- true if file1 and file2 exist and refer to the same file.
- string = pattern
- string == pattern
- true if string matches pattern. The two forms are exactly equivalent. The ` =' form is the traditional shell syntax (and hence the only one generally used with the test and [ builtins); the ` ==' form provides compatibility with other sorts of computer language.
- string != pattern
- true if string does not match pattern.
- string =~ regexp
- true if string matches the regular expression regexp. If the option RE_MATCH_PCRE is set regexp is tested as a PCRE regular expression using the zsh/pcre module, else it is tested as a POSIX extended regular expression using the zsh/regex module. Upon successful match, some variables will be updated; no variables are changed if the matching fails.
If the option BASH_REMATCH is not set the scalar parameter MATCH
is set to the substring that matched the pattern and the integer parameters
MBEGIN and MEND to the index of the start and end, respectively,
of the match in string, such that if string is contained in
variable var the expression ` ${var[$MBEGIN,$MEND]}' is
identical to ` $MATCH'. The setting of the option KSH_ARRAYS is
respected. Likewise, the array match is set to the substrings that
matched parenthesised subexpressions and the arrays mbegin and
mend to the indices of the start and end positions, respectively, of
the substrings within string. The arrays are not set if there were no
parenthesised subexpressions. For example, if the string ` a short
string' is matched against the regular expression ` s(...)t', then
(assuming the option KSH_ARRAYS is not set) MATCH, MBEGIN
and MEND are `short', 3 and 7, respectively, while
match, mbegin and mend are single entry arrays containing
the strings ` hor', `4' and `6', respectively.
If the option BASH_REMATCH is set the array BASH_REMATCH is set to
the substring that matched the pattern followed by the substrings that matched
parenthesised subexpressions within the pattern.
- string1 < string2
- true if string1 comes before string2 based on ASCII value of their characters.
- string1 > string2
- true if string1 comes after string2 based on ASCII value of their characters.
- exp1 -eq exp2
- true if exp1 is numerically equal to exp2. Note that for purely numeric comparisons use of the ((...)) builtin described in the section `ARITHMETIC EVALUATION' is more convenient than conditional expressions.
- exp1 -ne exp2
- true if exp1 is numerically not equal to exp2.
- exp1 -lt exp2
- true if exp1 is numerically less than exp2.
- exp1 -gt exp2
- true if exp1 is numerically greater than exp2.
- exp1 -le exp2
- true if exp1 is numerically less than or equal to exp2.
- exp1 -ge exp2
- true if exp1 is numerically greater than or equal to exp2.
- ( exp )
- true if exp is true.
- ! exp
- true if exp is false.
- exp1 && exp2
- true if exp1 and exp2 are both true.
- exp1 || exp2
- true if either exp1 or exp2 is true.
[[ -n file*(#qN) ]]
[[ ( -f foo || -f bar ) && $report = y* ]] && print File exists.
EXPANSION OF PROMPT SEQUENCES
Prompt sequences undergo a special form of expansion. This type of expansion is also available using the -P option to the print builtin. If the PROMPT_SUBST option is set, the prompt string is first subjected to parameter expansion, command substitution and arithmetic expansion. See zshexpn(1).SIMPLE PROMPT ESCAPES
Special characters
- %%
- A `%'.
- %)
- A `)'.
Login information
- %l
- The line (tty) the user is logged in on, without `/dev/' prefix. If the name starts with ` /dev/tty', that prefix is stripped.
- %M
- The full machine hostname.
- %m
- The hostname up to the first `.'. An integer may follow the ` %' to specify how many components of the hostname are desired. With a negative integer, trailing components of the hostname are shown.
- %n
- $USERNAME.
- %y
- The line (tty) the user is logged in on, without `/dev/' prefix. This does not treat ` /dev/tty' names specially.
Shell state
- %#
- A `#' if the shell is running with privileges, a `%' if not. Equivalent to ` %(!.#.%%)'. The definition of `privileged', for these purposes, is that either the effective user ID is zero, or, if POSIX.1e capabilities are supported, that at least one capability is raised in either the Effective or Inheritable capability vectors.
- %?
- The return status of the last command executed just before the prompt.
- %_
- The status of the parser, i.e. the shell constructs (like `if' and ` for') that have been started on the command line. If given an integer number that many strings will be printed; zero or negative or no integer means print as many as there are. This is most useful in prompts PS2 for continuation lines and PS4 for debugging with the XTRACE option; in the latter case it will also work non-interactively.
- %^
- The status of the parser in reverse. This is the same as `%_' other than the order of strings. It is often used in RPS2.
- %d
- %/
- Current working directory. If an integer follows the `%', it specifies a number of trailing components of the current working directory to show; zero means the whole path. A negative integer specifies leading components, i.e. %-1d specifies the first component.
- %~
- As %d and %/, but if the current working directory starts with $HOME, that part is replaced by a `~'. Furthermore, if it has a named directory as its prefix, that part is replaced by a ` ~' followed by the name of the directory, but only if the result is shorter than the full path; see Dynamic and Static named directories in zshexpn(1).
- %e
- Evaluation depth of the current sourced file, shell function, or eval. This is incremented or decremented every time the value of %N is set or reverted to a previous value, respectively. This is most useful for debugging as part of $PS4.
- %h
- %!
- Current history event number.
- %i
- The line number currently being executed in the script, sourced file, or shell function given by %N. This is most useful for debugging as part of $PS4.
- %I
- The line number currently being executed in the file %x. This is similar to %i, but the line number is always a line number in the file where the code was defined, even if the code is a shell function.
- %j
- The number of jobs.
- %L
- The current value of $SHLVL.
- %N
- The name of the script, sourced file, or shell function that zsh is currently executing, whichever was started most recently. If there is none, this is equivalent to the parameter $0. An integer may follow the ` %' to specify a number of trailing path components to show; zero means the full path. A negative integer specifies leading components.
- %x
- The name of the file containing the source code currently being executed. This behaves as %N except that function and eval command names are not shown, instead the file where they were defined.
- %c
- %.
- %C
- Trailing component of the current working directory. An integer may follow the ` %' to get more than one component. Unless ` %C' is used, tilde contraction is performed first. These are deprecated as %c and %C are equivalent to %1~ and %1/, respectively, while explicit positive integers have the same effect as for the latter two sequences.
Date and time
- %D
- The date in yy-mm-dd format.
- %T
- Current time of day, in 24-hour format.
- %t
- %@
- Current time of day, in 12-hour, am/pm format.
- %*
- Current time of day in 24-hour format, with seconds.
- %w
- The date in day-dd format.
- %W
- The date in mm/dd/yy format.
- %D{string}
- string is formatted using the strftime function. See strftime(3) for more details. Various zsh extensions provide numbers with no leading zero or space if the number is a single digit:
- %f
- a day of the month
- %K
- the hour of the day on the 24-hour clock
- %L
- the hour of the day on the 12-hour clock
Visual effects
- %B (%b)
- Start (stop) boldface mode.
- %E
- Clear to end of line.
- %U (%u)
- Start (stop) underline mode.
- %S (%s)
- Start (stop) standout mode.
- %F (%f)
- Start (stop) using a different foreground colour, if supported by the terminal. The colour may be specified two ways: either as a numeric argument, as normal, or by a sequence in braces following the %F, for example %F{red}. In the latter case the values allowed are as described for the fg zle_highlight attribute; see Character Highlighting in zshzle(1). This means that numeric colours are allowed in the second format also.
- %K (%k)
- Start (stop) using a different bacKground colour. The syntax is identical to that for %F and %f.
- %{...%}
- Include a string as a literal escape sequence. The string within the braces should not change the cursor position. Brace pairs can nest.
A positive numeric argument between the % and the { is treated as
described for %G below.
- %G
- Within a %{...%} sequence, include a `glitch': that is, assume that a single character width will be output. This is useful when outputting characters that otherwise cannot be correctly handled by the shell, such as the alternate character set on some terminals. The characters in question can be included within a %{... %} sequence together with the appropriate number of %G sequences to indicate the correct width. An integer between the ` %' and `G' indicates a character width other than one. Hence %{seq%2G%} outputs seq and assumes it takes up the width of two standard characters.
Multiple uses of %G accumulate in the obvious fashion; the position of
the %G is unimportant. Negative integers are not handled.
Note that when prompt truncation is in use it is advisable to divide up output
into single characters within each %{...%} group so that the
correct truncation point can be found.
CONDITIONAL SUBSTRINGS IN PROMPTS
- %v
- The value of the first element of the psvar array parameter. Following the ` %' with an integer gives that element of the array. Negative integers count from the end of the array.
- %(x.true-text.false-text)
- Specifies a ternary expression. The character following the x is arbitrary; the same character is used to separate the text for the `true' result from that for the `false' result. This separator may not appear in the true-text, except as part of a %-escape sequence. A ` )' may appear in the false-text as `%)'. true-text and false-text may both contain arbitrarily-nested escape sequences, including further ternary expressions.
The left parenthesis may be preceded or followed by a positive integer n,
which defaults to zero. A negative integer will be multiplied by -1, except as
noted below for ` l'. The test character x may be any of the
following:
- !
- True if the shell is running with privileges.
- #
- True if the effective uid of the current process is n.
- ?
- True if the exit status of the last command was n.
- _
- True if at least n shell constructs were started.
- C
- /
- True if the current absolute path has at least n elements relative to the root directory, hence / is counted as 0 elements.
- c
- .
- ~
- True if the current path, with prefix replacement, has at least n elements relative to the root directory, hence / is counted as 0 elements.
- D
- True if the month is equal to n (January = 0).
- d
- True if the day of the month is equal to n.
- e
- True if the evaluation depth is at least n.
- g
- True if the effective gid of the current process is n.
- j
- True if the number of jobs is at least n.
- L
- True if the SHLVL parameter is at least n.
- l
- True if at least n characters have already been printed on the current line. When n is negative, true if at least abs(n) characters remain before the opposite margin (thus the left margin for RPROMPT).
- S
- True if the SECONDS parameter is at least n.
- T
- True if the time in hours is equal to n.
- t
- True if the time in minutes is equal to n.
- v
- True if the array psvar has at least n elements.
- V
- True if element n of the array psvar is set and non-empty.
- w
- True if the day of the week is equal to n (Sunday = 0).
- %<string<
- %>string>
- %[xstring]
- Specifies truncation behaviour for the remainder of the prompt string. The third, deprecated, form is equivalent to ` %xstringx', i.e. x may be `<' or `>'. The string will be displayed in place of the truncated portion of any string; note this does not undergo prompt expansion.
The numeric argument, which in the third form may appear immediately after the `
[', specifies the maximum permitted length of the various strings that
can be displayed in the prompt. In the first two forms, this numeric argument
may be negative, in which case the truncation length is determined by
subtracting the absolute value of the numeric argument from the number of
character positions remaining on the current prompt line. If this results in a
zero or negative length, a length of 1 is used. In other words, a negative
argument arranges that after truncation at least n characters remain
before the right margin (left margin for RPROMPT).
The forms with ` <' truncate at the left of the string, and the forms
with ` >' truncate at the right of the string. For example, if the
current directory is ` /home/pike', the prompt ` %8<..<%/'
will expand to ` ..e/pike'. In this string, the terminating character
(` <', `>' or `]'), or in fact any character, may
be quoted by a preceding ` \'; note when using print -P,
however, that this must be doubled as the string is also subject to standard
print processing, in addition to any backslashes removed by a double
quoted string: the worst case is therefore ` print -P
"%<\\\\<<..."'.
If the string is longer than the specified truncation length, it will
appear in full, completely replacing the truncated string.
The part of the prompt string to be truncated runs to the end of the string, or
to the end of the next enclosing group of the ` %(' construct, or to
the next truncation encountered at the same grouping level (i.e. truncations
inside a ` %(' are separate), which ever comes first. In particular, a
truncation with argument zero (e.g., ` %<<') marks the end of the
range of the string to be truncated while turning off truncation from there
on. For example, the prompt ` %10<...<%~%<<%# ' will print
a truncated representation of the current directory, followed by a ` %'
or ` #', followed by a space. Without the ` %<<', those
two characters would be included in the string to be truncated. Note that `
%-0<<' is not equivalent to ` %<<' but specifies
that the prompt is truncated at the right margin.
Truncation applies only within each individual line of the prompt, as delimited
by embedded newlines (if any). If the total length of any line of the prompt
after truncation is greater than the terminal width, or if the part to be
truncated contains embedded newlines, truncation behavior is undefined and may
change in a future version of the shell. Use `
%-n(l.true-text .false-text)'
to remove parts of the prompt when the available space is less than
n.
NAME
zshexpn - zsh expansion and substitutionDESCRIPTION
The following types of expansions are performed in the indicated order in five steps:- History Expansion
- This is performed only in interactive shells.
- Alias Expansion
- Aliases are expanded immediately before the command line is parsed as explained under Aliasing in zshmisc(1).
- Process Substitution
- Parameter Expansion
- Command Substitution
- Arithmetic Expansion
- Brace Expansion
- These five are performed in left-to-right fashion. On each argument, any of the five steps that are needed are performed one after the other. Hence, for example, all the parts of parameter expansion are completed before command substitution is started. After these expansions, all unquoted occurrences of the characters ` \',`'' and `"' are removed.
- Filename Expansion
- If the SH_FILE_EXPANSION option is set, the order of expansion is modified for compatibility with sh and ksh. In that case filename expansion is performed immediately after alias expansion, preceding the set of five expansions mentioned above.
- Filename Generation
- This expansion, commonly referred to as globbing, is always done last.
HISTORY EXPANSION
History expansion allows you to use words from previous command lines in the command line you are typing. This simplifies spelling corrections and the repetition of complicated commands or arguments. Immediately before execution, each command is saved in the history list, the size of which is controlled by the HISTSIZE parameter. The one most recent command is always retained in any case. Each saved command in the history list is called a history event and is assigned a number, beginning with 1 (one) when the shell starts up. The history number that you may see in your prompt (see EXPANSION OF PROMPT SEQUENCES in zshmisc(1)) is the number that is to be assigned to the next command.Overview
A history expansion begins with the first character of the histchars parameter, which is ` !' by default, and may occur anywhere on the command line, including inside double quotes (but not inside single quotes '...' or C-style quotes $'...' nor when escaped with a backslash). The first character is followed by an optional event designator (see the section `Event Designators') and then an optional word designator (the section `Word Designators'); if neither of these designators is present, no history expansion occurs. Input lines containing history expansions are echoed after being expanded, but before any other expansions take place and before the command is executed. It is this expanded form that is recorded as the history event for later references. History expansions do not nest. By default, a history reference with no event designator refers to the same event as any preceding history reference on that command line; if it is the only history reference in a command, it refers to the previous command. However, if the option CSH_JUNKIE_HISTORY is set, then every history reference with no event specification always refers to the previous command. For example, ` !' is the event designator for the previous command, so ` !!:1' always refers to the first word of the previous command, and ` !!$' always refers to the last word of the previous command. With CSH_JUNKIE_HISTORY set, then ` !:1' and `!$' function in the same manner as ` !!:1' and `!!$', respectively. Conversely, if CSH_JUNKIE_HISTORY is unset, then `!:1' and `!$' refer to the first and last words, respectively, of the same event referenced by the nearest other history reference preceding them on the current command line, or to the previous command if there is no preceding reference. The character sequence ` ^foo^bar' (where `^' is actually the second character of the histchars parameter) repeats the last command, replacing the string foo with bar. More precisely, the sequence ` ^foo^bar^' is synonymous with ` !!:s^foo^bar^', hence other modifiers (see the section `Modifiers') may follow the final ` ^'. In particular, ` ^foo^bar^:G' performs a global substitution. If the shell encounters the character sequence ` !"' in the input, the history mechanism is temporarily disabled until the current list (see zshmisc(1)) is fully parsed. The ` !"' is removed from the input, and any subsequent ` !' characters have no special significance. A less convenient but more comprehensible form of command history support is provided by the fc builtin.Event Designators
An event designator is a reference to a command-line entry in the history list. In the list below, remember that the initial `!' in each item may be changed to another character by setting the histchars parameter.- !
- Start a history expansion, except when followed by a blank, newline, ` =' or `('. If followed immediately by a word designator (see the section `Word Designators'), this forms a history reference with no event designator (see the section `Overview').
- !!
- Refer to the previous command. By itself, this expansion repeats the previous command.
- !n
- Refer to command-line n.
- !-n
- Refer to the current command-line minus n.
- !str
- Refer to the most recent command starting with str.
- !?str[?]
- Refer to the most recent command containing str. The trailing ` ?' is necessary if this reference is to be followed by a modifier or followed by any text that is not to be considered part of str.
- !#
- Refer to the current command line typed in so far. The line is treated as if it were complete up to and including the word before the one with the ` !#' reference.
- !{...}
- Insulate a history reference from adjacent characters (if necessary).
Word Designators
A word designator indicates which word or words of a given command line are to be included in a history reference. A ` :' usually separates the event specification from the word designator. It may be omitted only if the word designator begins with a ` ^', `$', `*', `-' or `%'. Word designators include:- 0
- The first input word (command).
- n
- The nth argument.
- ^
- The first argument. That is, 1.
- $
- The last argument.
- %
- The word matched by (the most recent) ?str search.
- x-y
- A range of words; x defaults to 0.
- *
- All the arguments, or a null value if there are none.
- x*
- Abbreviates `x-$'.
- x-
- Like `x*' but omitting word $.
Modifiers
After the optional word designator, you can add a sequence of one or more of the following modifiers, each preceded by a ` :'. These modifiers also work on the result of filename generation and parameter expansion, except where noted.- a
- Turn a file name into an absolute path: prepends the current directory, if necessary; remove ` .' path segments; and remove ` ..' path segments and the segments that immediately precede them.
This transformation is agnostic about what is in the filesystem, i.e. is on the
logical, not the physical directory. It takes place in the same manner as when
changing directories when neither of the options CHASE_DOTS or
CHASE_LINKS is set. For example, ` /before/here/../after' is
always transformed to ` /before/after', regardless of whether
`/before/here' exists or what kind of object (dir, file, symlink, etc.)
it is.
- A
- Turn a file name into an absolute path as the `a' modifier does, and then pass the result through the realpath(3) library function to resolve symbolic links.
Note: on systems that do not have a realpath(3) library function,
symbolic links are not resolved, so on those systems ` a' and `
A' are equivalent.
Note: foo:A and realpath(foo) are different on some inputs. For
realpath(foo) semantics, see the `P` modifier.
- c
- Resolve a command name into an absolute path by searching the command path given by the PATH variable. This does not work for commands containing directory parts. Note also that this does not usually work as a glob qualifier unless a file of the same name is found in the current directory.
- e
- Remove all but the part of the filename extension following the ` .'; see the definition of the filename extension in the description of the r modifier below. Note that according to that definition the result will be empty if the string ends with a ` .'.
- h [ digits ]
- Remove a trailing pathname component, shortening the path by one directory level: this is the `head' of the pathname. This works like ` dirname'. If the h is followed immediately (with no spaces or other separator) by any number of decimal digits, and the value of the resulting number is non-zero, that number of leading components is preserved instead of the final component being removed. In an absolute path the leading ` /' is the first component, so, for example, if var=/my/path/to/something, then ${var:h3} substitutes /my/path. Consecutive `/'s are treated the same as a single `/'. In parameter substitution, digits may only be used if the expression is in braces, so for example the short form substitution $var:h2 is treated as ${var:h}2, not as ${var:h2}. No restriction applies to the use of digits in history substitution or globbing qualifiers. If more components are requested than are present, the entire path is substituted (so this does not trigger a `failed modifier' error in history expansion).
- l
- Convert the words to all lowercase.
- p
- Print the new command but do not execute it. Only works with history expansion.
- P
- Turn a file name into an absolute path, like realpath(3). The resulting path will be absolute, will refer to the same directory entry as the input filename, and none of its components will be symbolic links or equal to ` .' or `..'.
Unlike realpath(3), non-existent trailing components are permitted and
preserved.
- q
- Quote the substituted words, escaping further substitutions. Works with history expansion and parameter expansion, though for parameters it is only useful if the resulting text is to be re-evaluated such as by eval.
- Q
- Remove one level of quotes from the substituted words.
- r
- Remove a filename extension leaving the root name. Strings with no filename extension are not altered. A filename extension is a ` .' followed by any number of characters (including zero) that are neither ` .' nor `/' and that continue to the end of the string. For example, the extension of ` foo.orig.c' is `.c', and ` dir.c/foo' has no extension.
- s/l/r[/]
- Substitute r for l as described below. The substitution is done only for the first string that matches l. For arrays and for filename generation, this applies to each word of the expanded text. See below for further notes on substitutions.
The forms ` gs/l/r' and
`s/l/r/:G' perform global substitution,
i.e. substitute every occurrence of r for l. Note that the
g or :G must appear in exactly the position shown.
See further notes on this form of substitution below.
- &
- Repeat the previous s substitution. Like s, may be preceded immediately by a g. In parameter expansion the & must appear inside braces, and in filename generation it must be quoted with a backslash.
- t [ digits ]
- Remove all leading pathname components, leaving the final component (tail). This works like ` basename'. Any trailing slashes are first removed. Decimal digits are handled as described above for (h), but in this case that number of trailing components is preserved instead of the default 1; 0 is treated the same as 1.
- u
- Convert the words to all uppercase.
- x
- Like q, but break into words at whitespace. Does not work with parameter expansion.
print -r -- *.c(#q:s/#%(#b)s(*).c/'S${match[1]}.C'/)
- f
- Repeats the immediately (without a colon) following modifier until the resulting word doesn't change any more.
- F:expr:
- Like f, but repeats only n times if the expression expr evaluates to n. Any character can be used instead of the ` :'; if `(', `[', or `{' is used as the opening delimiter, the closing delimiter should be ' )', ` ]', or `}', respectively.
- w
- Makes the immediately following modifier work on each word in the string.
- W:sep:
- Like w but words are considered to be the parts of the string that are separated by sep. Any character can be used instead of the ` :'; opening parentheses are handled specially, see above.
PROCESS SUBSTITUTION
Each part of a command argument that takes the form ` <(list)', ` >(list)' or ` =( list)' is subject to process substitution. The expression may be preceded or followed by other strings except that, to prevent clashes with commonly occurring strings and patterns, the last form must occur at the start of a command argument, and the forms are only expanded when first parsing command or assignment arguments. Process substitutions may be used following redirection operators; in this case, the substitution must appear with no trailing string. Note that ` <<(list)' is not a special syntax; it is equivalent to ` < <(list)', redirecting standard input from the result of process substitution. Hence all the following documentation applies. The second form (with the space) is recommended for clarity. In the case of the < or > forms, the shell runs the commands in list as a subprocess of the job executing the shell command line. If the system supports the /dev/fd mechanism, the command argument is the name of the device file corresponding to a file descriptor; otherwise, if the system supports named pipes (FIFOs), the command argument will be a named pipe. If the form with > is selected then writing on this special file will provide input for list. If < is used, then the file passed as an argument will be connected to the output of the list process. For example,paste <(cut -f1 file1) <(cut -f3 file2) | tee >(process1) >(process2) >/dev/null
paste <(cut -f1 file1) <(cut -f3 file2) > >(process1) > >(process2)
paste <(cut -f1 file1) <(cut -f3 file2) > >(process)
{ paste <(cut -f1 file1) <(cut -f3 file2) } > >(process)
(mycmd =(myoutput)) &!
() { print File $1: cat $1 } =(print This be the verse)
File /tmp/zsh6nU0kS: This be the verse
PARAMETER EXPANSION
The character ` $' is used to introduce parameter expansions. See zshparam(1) for a description of parameters, including arrays, associative arrays, and subscript notation to access individual array elements. Note in particular the fact that words of unquoted parameters are not automatically split on whitespace unless the option SH_WORD_SPLIT is set; see references to this option below for more details. This is an important difference from other shells. However, as in other shells, null words are elided from unquoted parameters' expansions. With default options, after the assignments:array=("first word" "" "third word") scalar="only word"
- ${name}
- The value, if any, of the parameter name is substituted. The braces are required if the expansion is to be followed by a letter, digit, or underscore that is not to be interpreted as part of name. In addition, more complicated forms of substitution usually require the braces to be present; exceptions, which only apply if the option KSH_ARRAYS is not set, are a single subscript or any colon modifiers appearing after the name, or any of the characters ` ^', ` =', `~', `#' or `+' appearing before the name, all of which work with or without braces.
If name is an array parameter, and the KSH_ARRAYS option is not
set, then the value of each element of name is substituted, one element
per word. Otherwise, the expansion results in one word only; with
KSH_ARRAYS, this is the first element of an array. No field splitting
is done on the result unless the SH_WORD_SPLIT option is set. See also
the flags = and s:string:.
- ${+name}
- If name is the name of a set parameter `1' is substituted, otherwise ` 0' is substituted.
- ${name-word}
- ${name:-word}
- If name is set, or in the second form is non-null, then substitute its value; otherwise substitute word. In the second form name may be omitted, in which case word is always substituted.
- ${name+word}
- ${name:+word}
- If name is set, or in the second form is non-null, then substitute word; otherwise substitute nothing.
- ${name=word}
- ${name:=word}
- ${name::=word}
- In the first form, if name is unset then set it to word; in the second form, if name is unset or null then set it to word; and in the third form, unconditionally set name to word. In all forms, the value of the parameter is then substituted.
- ${name?word}
- ${name:?word}
- In the first form, if name is set, or in the second form if name is both set and non-null, then substitute its value; otherwise, print word and exit from the shell. Interactive shells instead return to the prompt. If word is omitted, then a standard message is printed.
- ${name#pattern}
- ${name##pattern}
- If the pattern matches the beginning of the value of name, then substitute the value of name with the matched portion deleted; otherwise, just substitute the value of name. In the first form, the smallest matching pattern is preferred; in the second form, the largest matching pattern is preferred.
- ${name%pattern}
- ${name%%pattern}
- If the pattern matches the end of the value of name, then substitute the value of name with the matched portion deleted; otherwise, just substitute the value of name. In the first form, the smallest matching pattern is preferred; in the second form, the largest matching pattern is preferred.
- ${name:#pattern}
- If the pattern matches the value of name, then substitute the empty string; otherwise, just substitute the value of name. If name is an array the matching array elements are removed (use the ` (M)' flag to remove the non-matched elements).
- ${name:|arrayname}
- If arrayname is the name (N.B., not contents) of an array variable, then any elements contained in arrayname are removed from the substitution of name. If the substitution is scalar, either because name is a scalar variable or the expression is quoted, the elements of arrayname are instead tested against the entire expression.
- ${name:*arrayname}
- Similar to the preceding substitution, but in the opposite sense, so that entries present in both the original substitution and as elements of arrayname are retained and others removed.
- ${name:^arrayname}
- ${name:^^arrayname}
- Zips two arrays, such that the output array is twice as long as the shortest (longest for ` :^^') of name and arrayname, with the elements alternatingly being picked from them. For ` :^', if one of the input arrays is longer, the output will stop when the end of the shorter array is reached. Thus,
a=(1 2 3 4); b=(a b); print ${a:^b}
a=(a b); b=(1 2); print -l "${a:^b}"; print -l "${${a:^b}}"
- ${name:offset}
- ${name:offset:length}
- This syntax gives effects similar to parameter subscripting in the form $name[start,end], but is compatible with other shells; note that both offset and length are interpreted differently from the components of a subscript.
If offset is non-negative, then if the variable name is a scalar
substitute the contents starting offset characters from the first
character of the string, and if name is an array substitute elements
starting offset elements from the first element. If length is
given, substitute that many characters or elements, otherwise the entire rest
of the scalar or array.
A positive offset is always treated as the offset of a character or
element in name from the first character or element of the array (this
is different from native zsh subscript notation). Hence 0 refers to the first
character or element regardless of the setting of the option
KSH_ARRAYS.
A negative offset counts backwards from the end of the scalar or array, so that
-1 corresponds to the last character or element, and so on.
When positive, length counts from the offset position toward the
end of the scalar or array. When negative, length counts back from the
end. If this results in a position smaller than offset, a diagnostic is
printed and nothing is substituted.
The option MULTIBYTE is obeyed, i.e. the offset and length count
multibyte characters where appropriate.
offset and length undergo the same set of shell substitutions as
for scalar assignment; in addition, they are then subject to arithmetic
evaluation. Hence, for example
all have the same effect, extracting the string starting at the fourth character
of $foo if the substitution would otherwise return a scalar, or the
array starting at the fourth element if $foo would return an array.
Note that with the option KSH_ARRAYS $foo always returns a
scalar (regardless of the use of the offset syntax) and a form such as
${foo[*]:3} is required to extract elements of an array named
foo.
If offset is negative, the - may not appear immediately after the
: as this indicates the
${name:-word} form of substitution.
Instead, a space may be inserted before the -. Furthermore, neither
offset nor length may begin with an alphabetic character or
& as these are used to indicate history-style modifiers. To
substitute a value from a variable, the recommended approach is to precede it
with a $ as this signifies the intention (parameter substitution can
easily be rendered unreadable); however, as arithmetic substitution is
performed, the expression ${var: offs} does work, retrieving the offset
from $offs.
For further compatibility with other shells there is a special case for array
offset 0. This usually accesses the first element of the array. However, if
the substitution refers to the positional parameter array, e.g. $@ or
$*, then offset 0 instead refers to $0, offset 1 refers to
$1, and so on. In other words, the positional parameter array is
effectively extended by prepending $0. Hence ${*:0:1}
substitutes $0 and ${*:1:1} substitutes $1.
print ${foo:3} print ${foo: 1 + 2} print ${foo:$(( 1 + 2))} print ${foo:$(echo 1 + 2)}
- ${name/pattern/repl}
- ${name//pattern/repl}
- ${name:/pattern/repl}
- Replace the longest possible match of pattern in the expansion of parameter name by string repl. The first form replaces just the first occurrence, the second form all occurrences, and the third form replaces only if pattern matches the entire string. Both pattern and repl are subject to double-quoted substitution, so that expressions like ${name/$opat/$npat} will work, but obey the usual rule that pattern characters in $opat are not treated specially unless either the option GLOB_SUBST is set, or $opat is instead substituted as ${~opat}.
The pattern may begin with a `#', in which case the pattern
must match at the start of the string, or ` %', in which case it must
match at the end of the string, or ` #%' in which case the
pattern must match the entire string. The repl may be an empty
string, in which case the final ` /' may also be omitted. To quote the
final ` /' in other cases it should be preceded by a single backslash;
this is not necessary if the ` /' occurs inside a substituted
parameter. Note also that the ` #', ` %' and `#% are not
active if they occur inside a substituted parameter, even at the start.
If, after quoting rules apply, ${name} expands to an array,
the replacements act on each element individually. Note also the effect of the
I and S parameter expansion flags below; however, the flags
M, R, B, E and N are not useful.
For example,
Here, the ` ~' ensures that the text of $sub is treated as a
pattern rather than a plain string. In the first case, the longest match for
t*e is substituted and the result is `spy star', while in the
second case, the shortest matches are taken and the result is ` spy spy
lispy star'.
foo="twinkle twinkle little star" sub="t*e" rep="spy" print ${foo//${~sub}/$rep} print ${(S)foo//${~sub}/$rep}
- ${#spec}
- If spec is one of the above substitutions, substitute the length in characters of the result instead of the result itself. If spec is an array expression, substitute the number of elements of the result. This has the side-effect that joining is skipped even in quoted forms, which may affect other sub-expressions in spec. Note that ` ^', `=', and `~', below, must appear to the left of ` #' when these forms are combined.
If the option POSIX_IDENTIFIERS is not set, and spec is a simple
name, then the braces are optional; this is true even for special parameters
so e.g. $#- and $#* take the length of the string $- and
the array $* respectively. If POSIX_IDENTIFIERS is set, then
braces are required for the # to be treated in this fashion.
- ${^spec}
- ${^^spec}
- Turn on the RC_EXPAND_PARAM option for the evaluation of spec; if the `^' is doubled, turn it off. When this option is set, array expansions of the form foo${xx }bar, where the parameter xx is set to (a b c), are substituted with ` fooabar foobbar foocbar' instead of the default ` fooa b cbar'. Note that an empty array will therefore cause all arguments to be removed.
Internally, each such expansion is converted into the equivalent list for brace
expansion. E.g., ${^var} becomes {$var[1],$var[2],...},
and is processed as described in the section `Brace Expansion' below: note,
however, the expansion happens immediately, with any explicit brace expansion
happening later. If word splitting is also in effect the
$var[N] may themselves be split into different list
elements.
- ${=spec}
- ${==spec}
- Perform word splitting using the rules for SH_WORD_SPLIT during the evaluation of spec, but regardless of whether the parameter appears in double quotes; if the ` =' is doubled, turn it off. This forces parameter expansions to be split into separate words before substitution, using IFS as a delimiter. This is done by default in most other shells.
Note that splitting is applied to word in the assignment forms of
spec before the assignment to name is performed. This
affects the result of array assignments with the A flag.
- ${~spec}
- ${~~spec}
- Turn on the GLOB_SUBST option for the evaluation of spec; if the `~' is doubled, turn it off. When this option is set, the string resulting from the expansion will be interpreted as a pattern anywhere that is possible, such as in filename expansion and filename generation and pattern-matching contexts like the right hand side of the ` =' and `!=' operators in conditions.
In nested substitutions, note that the effect of the ~ applies to the
result of the current level of substitution. A surrounding pattern operation
on the result may cancel it. Hence, for example, if the parameter foo
is set to *, ${~foo//\*/*.c} is substituted by the pattern
*.c, which may be expanded by filename generation, but
${${~foo}//\*/*.c} substitutes to the string *.c, which will not
be further expanded.
If a ${...} type parameter expression or a $(...)
type command substitution is used in place of name above, it is
expanded first and the result is used as if it were the value of name.
Thus it is possible to perform nested operations: ${${foo#head}%tail}
substitutes the value of $foo with both `head' and `tail'
deleted. The form with $(...) is often useful in combination
with the flags described next; see the examples below. Each name or
nested ${...} in a parameter expansion may also be followed by a
subscript expression as described in Array Parameters in
zshparam(1).
Note that double quotes may appear around nested expressions, in which case only
the part inside is treated as quoted; for example,
${(f)"$(foo)"} quotes the result of $(foo), but the
flag ` (f)' (see below) is applied using the rules for unquoted
expansions. Note further that quotes are themselves nested in this context;
for example, in "${(@f)"$(foo)"}", there are two
sets of quotes, one surrounding the whole expression, the other (redundant)
surrounding the $(foo) as before.
Parameter Expansion Flags
If the opening brace is directly followed by an opening parenthesis, the string up to the matching closing parenthesis will be taken as a list of flags. In cases where repeating a flag is meaningful, the repetitions need not be consecutive; for example, `( q%q%q)' means the same thing as the more readable `( %%qqq)'. The following flags are supported:- #
- Evaluate the resulting words as numeric expressions and interpret these as character codes. Output the corresponding characters. Note that this form is entirely distinct from use of the # without parentheses.
If the MULTIBYTE option is set and the number is greater than 127 (i.e.
not an ASCII character) it is treated as a Unicode character.
- %
- Expand all % escapes in the resulting words in the same way as in prompts (see EXPANSION OF PROMPT SEQUENCES in zshmisc(1)). If this flag is given twice, full prompt expansion is done on the resulting words, depending on the setting of the PROMPT_PERCENT, PROMPT_SUBST and PROMPT_BANG options.
- @
- In double quotes, array elements are put into separate words. E.g., ` "${(@)foo}"' is equivalent to `"${foo[@]}"' and ` "${(@)foo[1,2]}"' is the same as ` "$foo[1]" "$foo[2]"'. This is distinct from field splitting by the f, s or z flags, which still applies within each array element.
- A
- Convert the substitution into an array expression, even if it otherwise would be scalar. This has lower precedence than subscripting, so one level of nested expansion is required in order that subscripts apply to array elements. Thus ${${(A)name}[1]} yields the full value of name when name is scalar.
This assigns an array parameter with ` ${...=...}', `
${... :=...}' or `${...::=...}'. If
this flag is repeated (as in ` AA'), assigns an associative array
parameter. Assignment is made before sorting or padding; if field splitting is
active, the word part is split before assignment. The name part
may be a subscripted range for ordinary arrays; when assigning an associative
array, the word part must be converted to an array, for example
by using ` ${(AA)=name=...}' to activate field
splitting.
Surrounding context such as additional nesting or use of the value in a scalar
assignment may cause the array to be joined back into a single string
again.
- a
- Sort in array index order; when combined with `O' sort in reverse array index order. Note that ` a' is therefore equivalent to the default but ` Oa' is useful for obtaining an array's elements in reverse order.
- b
- Quote with backslashes only characters that are special to pattern matching. This is useful when the contents of the variable are to be tested using GLOB_SUBST, including the ${~...} switch.
Quoting using one of the q family of flags does not work for this purpose
since quotes are not stripped from non-pattern characters by
GLOB_SUBST. In other words,
works if $str is `a*b' but not if it is `a b', whereas
is always true for any possible value of $str.
pattern=${(q)str} [[ $str = ${~pattern} ]]
pattern=${(b)str} [[ $str = ${~pattern} ]]
- c
- With ${#name}, count the total number of characters in an array, as if the elements were concatenated with spaces between them. This is not a true join of the array, so other expressions used with this flag may have an effect on the elements of the array before it is counted.
- C
- Capitalize the resulting words. `Words' in this case refers to sequences of alphanumeric characters separated by non-alphanumerics, not to words that result from field splitting.
- D
- Assume the string or array elements contain directories and attempt to substitute the leading part of these by names. The remainder of the path (the whole of it if the leading part was not substituted) is then quoted so that the whole string can be used as a shell argument. This is the reverse of ` ~' substitution: see the section FILENAME EXPANSION below.
- e
- Perform single word shell expansions, namely parameter expansion, command substitution and arithmetic expansion, on the result. Such expansions can be nested but too deep recursion may have unpredictable effects.
- f
- Split the result of the expansion at newlines. This is a shorthand for ` ps:\n:'.
- F
- Join the words of arrays together using newline as a separator. This is a shorthand for ` pj:\n:'.
- g:opts:
- Process escape sequences like the echo builtin when no options are given ( g::). With the o option, octal escapes don't take a leading zero. With the c option, sequences like `^X' are also processed. With the e option, processes `\M-t' and similar sequences like the print builtin. With both of the o and e options, behaves like the print builtin except that in none of these modes is ` \c' interpreted.
- i
- Sort case-insensitively. May be combined with `n' or ` O'.
- k
- If name refers to an associative array, substitute the keys (element names) rather than the values of the elements. Used with subscripts (including ordinary arrays), force indices or keys to be substituted even if the subscript form refers to values. However, this flag may not be combined with subscript ranges. With the KSH_ARRAYS option a subscript ` [*]' or `[@]' is needed to operate on the whole array, as usual.
- L
- Convert all letters in the result to lower case.
- n
- Sort decimal integers numerically; if the first differing characters of two test strings are not digits, sorting is lexical. ` +' and ` -' are not treated specially; they are treated as any other non-digit. Integers with more initial zeroes are sorted before those with fewer or none. Hence the array ` foo+24 foo1 foo02 foo2 foo3 foo20 foo23' is sorted into the order shown. May be combined with ` i' or `O'.
- -
- As n, but a leading minus sign indicates a negative decimal integer. A leading minus sign not followed by an integer does not trigger numeric sorting. Note that ` +' signs are not handled specially (this may change in the future).
- o
- Sort the resulting words in ascending order; if this appears on its own the sorting is lexical and case-sensitive (unless the locale renders it case-insensitive). Sorting in ascending order is the default for other forms of sorting, so this is ignored if combined with ` a', `i', `n' or `-'.
- O
- Sort the resulting words in descending order; `O' without ` a', ` i', `n' or `-' sorts in reverse lexical order. May be combined with ` a', `i', `n' or ` -' to reverse the order of sorting.
- P
- This forces the value of the parameter name to be interpreted as a further parameter name, whose value will be used where appropriate. Note that flags set with one of the typeset family of commands (in particular case transformations) are not applied to the value of name used in this fashion.
If used with a nested parameter or command substitution, the result of that will
be taken as a parameter name in the same way. For example, if you have `
foo=bar' and ` bar=baz', the strings ${(P)foo},
${(P)${foo}}, and ${(P)$(echo bar)} will be expanded to `
baz'.
Likewise, if the reference is itself nested, the expression with the flag is
treated as if it were directly replaced by the parameter name. It is an error
if this nested substitution produces an array with more than one word. For
example, if ` name=assoc' where the parameter assoc is an
associative array, then ` ${${(P)name}[elt]}' refers to the element of
the associative subscripted ` elt'.
- q
- Quote characters that are special to the shell in the resulting words with backslashes; unprintable or invalid characters are quoted using the $'\NNN' form, with separate quotes for each octet.
If this flag is given twice, the resulting words are quoted in single quotes and
if it is given three times, the words are quoted in double quotes; in these
forms no special handling of unprintable or invalid characters is attempted.
If the flag is given four times, the words are quoted in single quotes
preceded by a $. Note that in all three of these forms quoting is done
unconditionally, even if this does not change the way the resulting string
would be interpreted by the shell.
If a q- is given (only a single q may appear), a minimal form of
single quoting is used that only quotes the string if needed to protect
special characters. Typically this form gives the most readable output.
If a q+ is given, an extended form of minimal quoting is used that causes
unprintable characters to be rendered using $'...'. This
quoting is similar to that used by the output of values by the typeset
family of commands.
- Q
- Remove one level of quotes from the resulting words.
- t
- Use a string describing the type of the parameter where the value of the parameter would usually appear. This string consists of keywords separated by hyphens (` -'). The first keyword in the string describes the main type, it can be one of ` scalar', `array', ` integer', ` float' or `association'. The other keywords describe the type in more detail:
- local
- for local parameters
- left
- for left justified parameters
- right_blanks
- for right justified parameters with leading blanks
- right_zeros
- for right justified parameters with leading zeros
- lower
- for parameters whose value is converted to all lower case when it is expanded
- upper
- for parameters whose value is converted to all upper case when it is expanded
- readonly
- for readonly parameters
- tag
- for tagged parameters
- tied
- for parameters tied to another parameter in the manner of PATH (colon-separated list) and path (array), whether these are special parameters or user-defined with ` typeset -T'
- export
- for exported parameters
- unique
- for arrays which keep only the first occurrence of duplicated values
- hide
- for parameters with the `hide' flag
- hideval
- for parameters with the `hideval' flag
- special
- for special parameters defined by the shell
- u
- Expand only the first occurrence of each unique word.
- U
- Convert all letters in the result to upper case.
- v
- Used with k, substitute (as two consecutive words) both the key and the value of each associative array element. Used with subscripts, force values to be substituted even if the subscript form refers to indices or keys.
- V
- Make any special characters in the resulting words visible.
- w
- With ${#name}, count words in arrays or strings; the s flag may be used to set a word delimiter.
- W
- Similar to w with the difference that empty words between repeated delimiters are also counted.
- X
- With this flag, parsing errors occurring with the Q, e and # flags or the pattern matching forms such as ` ${ name#pattern}' are reported. Without the flag, errors are silently ignored.
- z
- Split the result of the expansion into words using shell parsing to find the words, i.e. taking into account any quoting in the value. Comments are not treated specially but as ordinary strings, similar to interactive shells with the INTERACTIVE_COMMENTS option unset (however, see the Z flag below for related options)
Note that this is done very late, even later than the ` (s)' flag. So to
access single words in the result use nested expansions as in `
${${(z)foo}[2]}'. Likewise, to remove the quotes in the resulting words
use ` ${(Q)${(z)foo}}'.
- 0
- Split the result of the expansion on null bytes. This is a shorthand for ` ps:\0:'.
- p
- Recognize the same escape sequences as the print builtin in string arguments to any of the flags described below that follow this argument.
Alternatively, with this option string arguments may be in the form
$var in which case the value of the variable is substituted.
Note this form is strict; the string argument does not undergo general
parameter expansion.
For example,
splits the variable on a :.
sep=: val=a:b:c print ${(ps.$sep.)val}
- ~
- Strings inserted into the expansion by any of the flags below are to be treated as patterns. This applies to the string arguments of flags that follow ~ within the same set of parentheses. Compare with ~ outside parentheses, which forces the entire substituted string to be treated as a pattern. Hence, for example,
[[ "?" = ${(~j.|.)array} ]]
- j:string:
- Join the words of arrays together using string as a separator. Note that this occurs before field splitting by the s:string: flag or the SH_WORD_SPLIT option.
- l:expr::string1::string2:
- Pad the resulting words on the left. Each word will be truncated if required and placed in a field expr characters wide.
The arguments :string1: and :string2:
are optional; neither, the first, or both may be given. Note that the same
pairs of delimiters must be used for each of the three arguments. The space to
the left will be filled with string1 (concatenated as often as needed)
or spaces if string1 is not given. If both string1 and
string2 are given, string2 is inserted once directly to the left
of each word, truncated if necessary, before string1 is used to produce
any remaining padding.
If either of string1 or string2 is present but empty, i.e. there
are two delimiters together at that point, the first character of $IFS
is used instead.
If the MULTIBYTE option is in effect, the flag m may also be
given, in which case widths will be used for the calculation of padding;
otherwise individual multibyte characters are treated as occupying one unit of
width.
If the MULTIBYTE option is not in effect, each byte in the string is
treated as occupying one unit of width.
Control characters are always assumed to be one unit wide; this allows the
mechanism to be used for generating repetitions of control characters.
- m
- Only useful together with one of the flags l or r or with the # length operator when the MULTIBYTE option is in effect. Use the character width reported by the system in calculating how much of the string it occupies or the overall length of the string. Most printable characters have a width of one unit, however certain Asian character sets and certain special effects use wider characters; combining characters have zero width. Non-printable characters are arbitrarily counted as zero width; how they would actually be displayed will vary.
If the m is repeated, the character either counts zero (if it has zero
width), else one. For printable character strings this has the effect of
counting the number of glyphs (visibly separate characters), except for the
case where combining characters themselves have non-zero width (true in
certain alphabets).
- r:expr::string1::string2:
- As l, but pad the words on the right and insert string2 immediately to the right of the string to be padded.
Left and right padding may be used together. In this case the strategy is to
apply left padding to the first half width of each of the resulting words, and
right padding to the second half. If the string to be padded has odd width the
extra padding is applied on the left.
- s:string:
- Force field splitting at the separator string. Note that a string of two or more characters means that all of them must match in sequence; this differs from the treatment of two or more characters in the IFS parameter. See also the = flag and the SH_WORD_SPLIT option. An empty string may also be given in which case every character will be a separate element.
For historical reasons, the usual behaviour that empty array elements are
retained inside double quotes is disabled for arrays generated by splitting;
hence the following:
produces two lines of output for one and three and elides the
empty field. To override this behaviour, supply the ` (@)' flag as
well, i.e. "${(@s.:.)line}".
line="one::three" print -l "${(s.:.)line}"
- Z:opts:
- As z but takes a combination of option letters between a following pair of delimiter characters. With no options the effect is identical to z. The following options are available:
- (Z+c+)
- causes comments to be parsed as a string and retained; any field in the resulting array beginning with an unquoted comment character is a comment.
- (Z+C+)
- causes comments to be parsed and removed. The rule for comments is standard: anything between a word starting with the third character of $HISTCHARS, default #, up to the next newline is a comment.
- (Z+n+)
- causes unquoted newlines to be treated as ordinary whitespace, else they are treated as if they are shell code delimiters and converted to semicolons.
- _:flags:
- The underscore (_) flag is reserved for future use. As of this revision of zsh, there are no valid flags; anything following an underscore, other than an empty pair of delimiters, is treated as an error, and the flag itself has no effect.
- S
- With # or ##, search for the match that starts closest to the start of the string (a `substring match'). Of all matches at a particular position, # selects the shortest and ## the longest:
% str="aXbXc" % echo ${(S)str#X*} abXc % echo ${(S)str##X*} a %
% str="aXbXc" % echo ${(S)str%X*} aXbc % echo ${(S)str%%X*} aXb %
% str="abab" % echo ${str/*b/_} _ % echo ${(S)str/*b/_} _ab %
- I:expr:
- Search the exprth match (where expr evaluates to a number). This only applies when searching for substrings, either with the S flag, or with ${.../...} (only the exprth match is substituted) or ${...//...} (all matches from the exprth on are substituted). The default is to take the first match.
The exprth match is counted such that there is either one or zero matches
from each starting position in the string, although for global substitution
matches overlapping previous replacements are ignored. With the
${...%...} and ${...%%...} forms,
the starting position for the match moves backwards from the end as the index
increases, while with the other forms it moves forward from the start.
Hence with the string
substitutions of the form
${(SI:N:)string#w*ch} as N increases
from 1 will match and remove ` which', `witch', `witch'
and ` wich'; the form using `##' will match and remove `which
switch is the right switch for Ipswich', `witch is the right
switch for Ipswich', `witch for Ipswich' and `wich'.
The form using ` %' will remove the same matches as for ` #',
but in reverse order, and the form using ` %%' will remove the same
matches as for ` ##' in reverse order.
which switch is the right switch for Ipswich?
- *
- Enable EXTENDED_GLOB for substitution via ${... /...} or ${...//...}. Note that ` **' does not disable extendedglob.
- B
- Include the index of the beginning of the match in the result.
- E
- Include the index one character past the end of the match in the result (note this is inconsistent with other uses of parameter index).
- M
- Include the matched portion in the result.
- N
- Include the length of the match in the result.
- R
- Include the unmatched portion in the result (the Rest).
Rules
Here is a summary of the rules for substitution; this assumes that braces are present around the substitution, i.e. ${...}. Some particular examples are given below. Note that the Zsh Development Group accepts no responsibility for any brain damage which may occur during the reading of the following rules.- 1. Nested substitution
- If multiple nested ${...} forms are present, substitution is performed from the inside outwards. At each level, the substitution takes account of whether the current value is a scalar or an array, whether the whole substitution is in double quotes, and what flags are supplied to the current level of substitution, just as if the nested substitution were the outermost. The flags are not propagated up to enclosing substitutions; the nested substitution will return either a scalar or an array as determined by the flags, possibly adjusted for quoting. All the following steps take place where applicable at all levels of substitution.
Note that, unless the ` (P)' flag is present, the flags and any
subscripts apply directly to the value of the nested substitution; for
example, the expansion ${${foo}} behaves exactly the same as
${foo}. When the ` (P)' flag is present in a nested
substitution, the other substitution rules are applied to the value
before it is interpreted as a name, so ${${(P)foo}} may differ
from ${(P)foo}.
At each nested level of substitution, the substituted words undergo all forms of
single-word substitution (i.e. not filename generation), including command
substitution, arithmetic expansion and filename expansion (i.e. leading
~ and =). Thus, for example, ${${:-=cat}:h} expands to
the directory where the cat program resides. (Explanation: the internal
substitution has no parameter but a default value =cat, which is
expanded by filename expansion to a full path; the outer substitution then
applies the modifier :h and takes the directory part of the
path.)
- 2. Internal parameter flags
- Any parameter flags set by one of the typeset family of commands, in particular the -L, -R, -Z, -u and -l options for padding and capitalization, are applied directly to the parameter value. Note these flags are options to the command, e.g. ` typeset -Z'; they are not the same as the flags used within parameter substitutions.
At the outermost level of substitution, the ` (P)' flag (rule 4.)
ignores these transformations and uses the unmodified value of the parameter
as the name to be replaced. This is usually the desired behavior because
padding may make the value syntactically illegal as a parameter name, but if
capitalization changes are desired, use the ${${(P)foo}} form (rule
25.).
- 3. Parameter subscripting
- If the value is a raw parameter reference with a subscript, such as ${var[3]}, the effect of subscripting is applied directly to the parameter. Subscripts are evaluated left to right; subsequent subscripts apply to the scalar or array value yielded by the previous subscript. Thus if var is an array, ${var[1][2]} is the second character of the first word, but ${var[2,4][2]} is the entire third word (the second word of the range of words two through four of the original array). Any number of subscripts may appear. Flags such as ` (k)' and `(v)' which alter the result of subscripting are applied.
- 4. Parameter name replacement
- At the outermost level of nesting only, the `(P)' flag is applied. This treats the value so far as a parameter name (which may include a subscript expression) and replaces that with the corresponding value. This replacement occurs later if the ` (P)' flag appears in a nested substitution.
If the value so far names a parameter that has internal flags (rule 2.),
those internal flags are applied to the new value after replacement.
- 5. Double-quoted joining
- If the value after this process is an array, and the substitution appears in double quotes, and neither an ` (@)' flag nor a ` #' length operator is present at the current level, then words of the value are joined with the first character of the parameter $IFS, by default a space, between each word (single word arrays are not modified). If the ` (j)' flag is present, that is used for joining instead of $IFS.
- 6. Nested subscripting
- Any remaining subscripts (i.e. of a nested substitution) are evaluated at this point, based on whether the value is an array or a scalar. As with 3., multiple subscripts can appear. Note that ${foo[2,4][2]} is thus equivalent to ${${foo[2,4]}[2]} and also to "${${(@)foo[2,4]}[2]}" (the nested substitution returns an array in both cases), but not to "${${foo[2,4]}[2]}" (the nested substitution returns a scalar because of the quotes).
- 7. Modifiers
- Any modifiers, as specified by a trailing `#', `%', ` /' (possibly doubled) or by a set of modifiers of the form ` :...' (see the section `Modifiers' in the section `History Expansion'), are applied to the words of the value at this level.
- 8. Character evaluation
- Any `(#)' flag is applied, evaluating the result so far numerically as a character.
- 9. Length
- Any initial `#' modifier, i.e. in the form ${# var}, is used to evaluate the length of the expression so far.
- 10. Forced joining
- If the `(j)' flag is present, or no `(j)' flag is present but the string is to be split as given by rule 11., and joining did not take place at rule 5., any words in the value are joined together using the given string or the first character of $IFS if none. Note that the ` (F)' flag implicitly supplies a string for joining in this manner.
- 11. Simple word splitting
- If one of the `(s)' or `(f)' flags are present, or the ` =' specifier was present (e.g. ${=var }), the word is split on occurrences of the specified string, or (for = with neither of the two flags present) any of the characters in $IFS.
If no ` (s)', `(f)' or `=' was given, but the word is not
quoted and the option SH_WORD_SPLIT is set, the word is split on
occurrences of any of the characters in $IFS. Note this step, too,
takes place at all levels of a nested substitution.
- 12. Case modification
- Any case modification from one of the flags `(L)', `(U)' or `(C)' is applied.
- 13. Escape sequence replacement
- First any replacements from the `(g)' flag are performed, then any prompt-style formatting from the ` (%)' family of flags is applied.
- 14. Quote application
- Any quoting or unquoting using `(q)' and `(Q)' and related flags is applied.
- 15. Directory naming
- Any directory name substitution using `(D)' flag is applied.
- 16. Visibility enhancement
- Any modifications to make characters visible using the `(V)' flag are applied.
- 17. Lexical word splitting
- If the '(z)' flag or one of the forms of the '(Z)' flag is present, the word is split as if it were a shell command line, so that quotation marks and other metacharacters are used to decide what constitutes a word. Note this form of splitting is entirely distinct from that described by rule 11.: it does not use $IFS, and does not cause forced joining.
- 18. Uniqueness
- If the result is an array and the `(u)' flag was present, duplicate elements are removed from the array.
- 19. Ordering
- If the result is still an array and one of the `(o)' or ` (O)' flags was present, the array is reordered.
- 20. RC_EXPAND_PARAM
- At this point the decision is made whether any resulting array elements are to be combined element by element with surrounding text, as given by either the RC_EXPAND_PARAM option or the `^' flag.
- 21. Re-evaluation
- Any `(e)' flag is applied to the value, forcing it to be re-examined for new parameter substitutions, but also for command and arithmetic substitutions.
- 22. Padding
- Any padding of the value by the `(l.fill.)' or ` (r.fill.)' flags is applied.
- 23. Semantic joining
- In contexts where expansion semantics requires a single word to result, all words are rejoined with the first character of IFS between. So in ` ${(P)${(f)lines}}' the value of ${lines} is split at newlines, but then must be joined again before the ` (P)' flag can be applied.
If a single word is not required, this rule is skipped.
- 24. Empty argument removal
- If the substitution does not appear in double quotes, any resulting zero-length argument, whether from a scalar or an element of an array, is elided from the list of arguments inserted into the command line.
Strictly speaking, the removal happens later as the same happens with other
forms of substitution; the point to note here is simply that it occurs after
any of the above parameter operations.
- 25. Nested parameter name replacement
- If the `(P)' flag is present and rule 4. has not applied, the value so far is treated as a parameter name (which may include a subscript expression) and replaced with the corresponding value, with internal flags (rule 2.) applied to the new value.
Examples
The flag f is useful to split a double-quoted substitution line by line. For example, ${(f)"$(<file)"} substitutes the contents of file divided so that each line is an element of the resulting array. Compare this with the effect of $(<file ) alone, which divides the file up by words, or the same inside double quotes, which makes the entire content of the file a single string. The following illustrates the rules for nested parameter expansions. Suppose that $foo contains the array (bar baz):- "${(@)${foo}[1]}"
- This produces the result b. First, the inner substitution "${foo}", which has no array (@) flag, produces a single word result "bar baz". The outer substitution "${(@)...[1]}" detects that this is a scalar, so that (despite the ` (@)' flag) the subscript picks the first character.
- "${${(@)foo}[1]}"
- This produces the result `bar'. In this case, the inner substitution "${(@)foo}" produces the array `(bar baz )'. The outer substitution "${...[1]}" detects that this is an array and picks the first word. This is similar to the simple case "${foo[1]}".
- ${(s/x/)foo}
- produces the words `a', `1 b' and `1'.
- ${(j/x/s/x/)foo}
- produces `a', `1', `b' and `1'.
- ${(s/x/)foo%%1*}
- produces `a' and ` b' (note the extra space). As substitution occurs before either joining or splitting, the operation first generates the modified array (ax bx), which is joined to give "ax bx", and then split to give `a', ` b' and `'. The final empty string will then be elided, as it is not in double quotes.
COMMAND SUBSTITUTION
A command enclosed in parentheses preceded by a dollar sign, like ` $(...)', or quoted with grave accents, like ` `...`', is replaced with its standard output, with any trailing newlines deleted. If the substitution is not enclosed in double quotes, the output is broken into words using the IFS parameter. The substitution ` $(cat foo)' may be replaced by the faster ` $(<foo)'. In this case foo undergoes single word shell expansions ( parameter expansion, command substitution and arithmetic expansion), but not filename generation. If the option GLOB_SUBST is set, the result of any unquoted command substitution, including the special form just mentioned, is eligible for filename generation.ARITHMETIC EXPANSION
A string of the form ` $[exp]' or ` $((exp))' is substituted with the value of the arithmetic expression exp. exp is subjected to parameter expansion, command substitution and arithmetic expansion before it is evaluated. See the section `Arithmetic Evaluation'.BRACE EXPANSION
A string of the form ` foo{xx,yy,zz }bar' is expanded to the individual words ` fooxxbar', `fooyybar' and `foozzbar'. Left-to-right order is preserved. This construct may be nested. Commas may be quoted in order to include them literally in a word. An expression of the form ` {n1..n2}', where n1 and n2 are integers, is expanded to every number between n1 and n2 inclusive. If either number begins with a zero, all the resulting numbers will be padded with leading zeroes to that minimum width, but for negative numbers the - character is also included in the width. If the numbers are in decreasing order the resulting sequence will also be in decreasing order. An expression of the form ` {n1..n2..n3 }', where n1, n2, and n3 are integers, is expanded as above, but only every n3th number starting from n1 is output. If n3 is negative the numbers are output in reverse order, this is slightly different from simply swapping n1 and n2 in the case that the step n3 doesn't evenly divide the range. Zero padding can be specified in any of the three numbers, specifying it in the third can be useful to pad for example ` {-99..100..01}' which is not possible to specify by putting a 0 on either of the first two numbers (i.e. pad to two characters). An expression of the form ` {c1..c2}', where c1 and c2 are single characters (which may be multibyte characters), is expanded to every character in the range from c1 to c2 in whatever character sequence is used internally. For characters with code points below 128 this is US ASCII (this is the only case most users will need). If any intervening character is not printable, appropriate quotation is used to render it printable. If the character sequence is reversed, the output is in reverse order, e.g. ` {d..a}' is substituted as ` d c b a'. If a brace expression matches none of the above forms, it is left unchanged, unless the option BRACE_CCL (an abbreviation for `brace character class') is set. In that case, it is expanded to a list of the individual characters between the braces sorted into the order of the characters in the ASCII character set (multibyte characters are not currently handled). The syntax is similar to a [...] expression in filename generation: ` -' is treated specially to denote a range of characters, but `^' or ` !' as the first character is treated normally. For example, ` {abcdef0-9}' expands to 16 words 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 a b c d e f. Note that brace expansion is not part of filename generation (globbing); an expression such as */{foo,bar} is split into two separate words */foo and */bar before filename generation takes place. In particular, note that this is liable to produce a `no match' error if either of the two expressions does not match; this is to be contrasted with */(foo|bar), which is treated as a single pattern but otherwise has similar effects. To combine brace expansion with array expansion, see the ${^spec} form described in the section `Parameter Expansion' above.FILENAME EXPANSION
Each word is checked to see if it begins with an unquoted ` ~'. If it does, then the word up to a ` /', or the end of the word if there is no ` /', is checked to see if it can be substituted in one of the ways described here. If so, then the ` ~' and the checked portion are replaced with the appropriate substitute value. A ` ~' by itself is replaced by the value of $HOME. A ` ~' followed by a ` +' or a `-' is replaced by current or previous working directory, respectively. A ` ~' followed by a number is replaced by the directory at that position in the directory stack. ` ~0' is equivalent to `~+', and ` ~1' is the top of the stack. ` ~+' followed by a number is replaced by the directory at that position in the directory stack. ` ~+0' is equivalent to ` ~+', and ` ~+1' is the top of the stack. ` ~-' followed by a number is replaced by the directory that many positions from the bottom of the stack. ` ~-0' is the bottom of the stack. The PUSHD_MINUS option exchanges the effects of ` ~+' and ` ~-' where they are followed by a number.Dynamic named directories
If the function zsh_directory_name exists, or the shell variable zsh_directory_name_functions exists and contains an array of function names, then the functions are used to implement dynamic directory naming. The functions are tried in order until one returns status zero, so it is important that functions test whether they can handle the case in question and return an appropriate status. A ` ~' followed by a string namstr in unquoted square brackets is treated specially as a dynamic directory name. Note that the first unquoted closing square bracket always terminates namstr. The shell function is passed two arguments: the string n (for name) and namstr. It should either set the array reply to a single element which is the directory corresponding to the name and return status zero (executing an assignment as the last statement is usually sufficient), or it should return status non-zero. In the former case the element of reply is used as the directory; in the latter case the substitution is deemed to have failed. If all functions fail and the option NOMATCH is set, an error results. The functions defined as above are also used to see if a directory can be turned into a name, for example when printing the directory stack or when expanding %~ in prompts. In this case each function is passed two arguments: the string d (for directory) and the candidate for dynamic naming. The function should either return non-zero status, if the directory cannot be named by the function, or it should set the array reply to consist of two elements: the first is the dynamic name for the directory (as would appear within ` ~[...]'), and the second is the prefix length of the directory to be replaced. For example, if the trial directory is /home/myname/src/zsh and the dynamic name for /home/myname/src (which has 16 characters) is s, then the function setsreply=(s 16)
zsh_directory_name() { emulate -L zsh setopt extendedglob local -a match mbegin mend if [[ $1 = d ]]; then # turn the directory into a name if [[ $2 = (#b)(/home/pws/perforce/)([^/]##)* ]]; then typeset -ga reply reply=(p:$match[2] $(( ${#match[1]} + ${#match[2]} )) ) else return 1 fi elif [[ $1 = n ]]; then # turn the name into a directory [[ $2 != (#b)p:(?*) ]] && return 1 typeset -ga reply reply=(/home/pws/perforce/$match[1]) elif [[ $1 = c ]]; then # complete names local expl local -a dirs dirs=(/home/pws/perforce/*(/:t)) dirs=(p:${^dirs}) _wanted dynamic-dirs expl 'dynamic directory' compadd -S\] -a dirs return else return 1 fi return 0 }
Static named directories
A ` ~' followed by anything not already covered consisting of any number of alphanumeric characters or underscore (` _'), hyphen (` -'), or dot (` .') is looked up as a named directory, and replaced by the value of that named directory if found. Named directories are typically home directories for users on the system. They may also be defined if the text after the ` ~' is the name of a string shell parameter whose value begins with a ` /'. Note that trailing slashes will be removed from the path to the directory (though the original parameter is not modified). It is also possible to define directory names using the -d option to the hash builtin. When the shell prints a path (e.g. when expanding %~ in prompts or when printing the directory stack), the path is checked to see if it has a named directory as its prefix. If so, then the prefix portion is replaced with a ` ~' followed by the name of the directory. The shorter of the two ways of referring to the directory is used, i.e. either the directory name or the full path; the name is used if they are the same length. The parameters $PWD and $OLDPWD are never abbreviated in this fashion.`=' expansion
If a word begins with an unquoted ` =' and the EQUALS option is set, the remainder of the word is taken as the name of a command. If a command exists by that name, the word is replaced by the full pathname of the command.Notes
Filename expansion is performed on the right hand side of a parameter assignment, including those appearing after commands of the typeset family. In this case, the right hand side will be treated as a colon-separated list in the manner of the PATH parameter, so that a ` ~' or an `=' following a `:' is eligible for expansion. All such behaviour can be disabled by quoting the ` ~', the `=', or the whole expression (but not simply the colon); the EQUALS option is also respected. If the option MAGIC_EQUAL_SUBST is set, any unquoted shell argument in the form ` identifier=expression' becomes eligible for file expansion as described in the previous paragraph. Quoting the first ` =' also inhibits this.FILENAME GENERATION
If a word contains an unquoted instance of one of the characters ` *', `(', `|', `<', `[', or `?', it is regarded as a pattern for filename generation, unless the GLOB option is unset. If the EXTENDED_GLOB option is set, the ` ^' and `#' characters also denote a pattern; otherwise they are not treated specially by the shell. The word is replaced with a list of sorted filenames that match the pattern. If no matching pattern is found, the shell gives an error message, unless the NULL_GLOB option is set, in which case the word is deleted; or unless the NOMATCH option is unset, in which case the word is left unchanged. In filename generation, the character ` /' must be matched explicitly; also, a ` .' must be matched explicitly at the beginning of a pattern or after a ` /', unless the GLOB_DOTS option is set. No filename generation pattern matches the files ` .' or `..'. In other instances of pattern matching, the ` /' and `.' are not treated specially.Glob Operators
- *
- Matches any string, including the null string.
- ?
- Matches any character.
- [...]
- Matches any of the enclosed characters. Ranges of characters can be specified by separating two characters by a ` -'. A ` -' or `]' may be matched by including it as the first character in the list. There are also several named classes of characters, in the form ` [:name:]' with the following meanings. The first set use the macros provided by the operating system to test for the given character combinations, including any modifications due to local language settings, see ctype(3):
- [:alnum:]
- The character is alphanumeric
- [:alpha:]
- The character is alphabetic
- [:ascii:]
- The character is 7-bit, i.e. is a single-byte character without the top bit set.
- [:blank:]
- The character is a blank character
- [:cntrl:]
- The character is a control character
- [:digit:]
- The character is a decimal digit
- [:graph:]
- The character is a printable character other than whitespace
- [:lower:]
- The character is a lowercase letter
- [:print:]
- The character is printable
- [:punct:]
- The character is printable but neither alphanumeric nor whitespace
- [:space:]
- The character is whitespace
- [:upper:]
- The character is an uppercase letter
- [:xdigit:]
- The character is a hexadecimal digit
- [:IDENT:]
- The character is allowed to form part of a shell identifier, such as a parameter name; this test respects the POSIX_IDENTIFIERS option
- [:IFS:]
- The character is used as an input field separator, i.e. is contained in the IFS parameter
- [:IFSSPACE:]
- The character is an IFS white space character; see the documentation for IFS in the zshparam(1) manual page.
- [:INCOMPLETE:]
- Matches a byte that starts an incomplete multibyte character. Note that there may be a sequence of more than one bytes that taken together form the prefix of a multibyte character. To test for a potentially incomplete byte sequence, use the pattern ` [[:INCOMPLETE:]]*'. This will never match a sequence starting with a valid multibyte character.
- [:INVALID:]
- Matches a byte that does not start a valid multibyte character. Note this may be a continuation byte of an incomplete multibyte character as any part of a multibyte string consisting of invalid and incomplete multibyte characters is treated as single bytes.
- [:WORD:]
- The character is treated as part of a word; this test is sensitive to the value of the WORDCHARS parameter
- [^...]
- [!...]
- Like [...], except that it matches any character which is not in the given set.
- <[x]-[y]>
- Matches any number in the range x to y, inclusive. Either of the numbers may be omitted to make the range open-ended; hence ` <->' matches any number. To match individual digits, the [...] form is more efficient.
Be careful when using other wildcards adjacent to patterns of this form; for
example, <0-9>* will actually match any number whatsoever at the
start of the string, since the ` <0-9>' will match the first
digit, and the ` *' will match any others. This is a trap for the
unwary, but is in fact an inevitable consequence of the rule that the longest
possible match always succeeds. Expressions such as `
<0-9>[^[:digit:]]*' can be used instead.
- (...)
- Matches the enclosed pattern. This is used for grouping. If the KSH_GLOB option is set, then a ` @', `*', `+', ` ?' or `!' immediately preceding the ` (' is treated specially, as detailed below. The option SH_GLOB prevents bare parentheses from being used in this way, though the KSH_GLOB option is still available.
Note that grouping cannot extend over multiple directories: it is an error to
have a ` /' within a group (this only applies for patterns used in
filename generation). There is one exception: a group of the form
(pat /)# appearing as a complete path segment can match a
sequence of directories. For example, foo/(a*/)#bar matches
foo/bar, foo/any/bar, foo/any/anyother/bar, and so
on.
- x|y
- Matches either x or y. This operator has lower precedence than any other. The ` |' character must be within parentheses, to avoid interpretation as a pipeline. The alternatives are tried in order from left to right.
- ^x
- (Requires EXTENDED_GLOB to be set.) Matches anything except the pattern x. This has a higher precedence than ` /', so ` ^foo/bar' will search directories in ` .' except ` ./foo' for a file named ` bar'.
- x~y
- (Requires EXTENDED_GLOB to be set.) Match anything that matches the pattern x but does not match y. This has lower precedence than any operator except ` |', so ` */*~foo/bar' will search for all files in all directories in ` .' and then exclude ` foo/bar' if there was such a match. Multiple patterns can be excluded by ` foo~bar~ baz'. In the exclusion pattern ( y), `/' and `.' are not treated specially the way they usually are in globbing.
- x#
- (Requires EXTENDED_GLOB to be set.) Matches zero or more occurrences of the pattern x. This operator has high precedence; ` 12#' is equivalent to `1(2#)', rather than ` (12)#'. It is an error for an unquoted `#' to follow something which cannot be repeated; this includes an empty string, a pattern already followed by ` ##', or parentheses when part of a KSH_GLOB pattern (for example, `!(foo)#' is invalid and must be replaced by ` *(!(foo))').
- x##
- (Requires EXTENDED_GLOB to be set.) Matches one or more occurrences of the pattern x. This operator has high precedence; ` 12##' is equivalent to `1(2##)', rather than ` (12)##'. No more than two active `#' characters may appear together. (Note the potential clash with glob qualifiers in the form ` 1(2##)' which should therefore be avoided.)
ksh-like Glob Operators
If the KSH_GLOB option is set, the effects of parentheses can be modified by a preceding ` @', `*', `+', `?' or `!'. This character need not be unquoted to have special effects, but the ` (' must be.- @(...)
- Match the pattern in the parentheses. (Like `(...)'.)
- *(...)
- Match any number of occurrences. (Like `(...)#', except that recursive directory searching is not supported.)
- +(...)
- Match at least one occurrence. (Like `(...)##', except that recursive directory searching is not supported.)
- ?(...)
- Match zero or one occurrence. (Like `(|...)'.)
- !(...)
- Match anything but the expression in parentheses. (Like ` (^(...))'.)
Precedence
The precedence of the operators given above is (highest) ` ^', `/', ` ~', `|' (lowest); the remaining operators are simply treated from left to right as part of a string, with ` #' and `##' applying to the shortest possible preceding unit (i.e. a character, ` ?', `[...]', ` <...>', or a parenthesised expression). As mentioned above, a ` /' used as a directory separator may not appear inside parentheses, while a ` |' must do so; in patterns used in other contexts than filename generation (for example, in case statements and tests within ` [[...]]'), a ` /' is not special; and `/' is also not special after a ` ~' appearing outside parentheses in a filename pattern.Globbing Flags
There are various flags which affect any text to their right up to the end of the enclosing group or to the end of the pattern; they require the EXTENDED_GLOB option. All take the form (#X) where X may have one of the following forms:- i
- Case insensitive: upper or lower case characters in the pattern match upper or lower case characters.
- l
- Lower case characters in the pattern match upper or lower case characters; upper case characters in the pattern still only match upper case characters.
- I
- Case sensitive: locally negates the effect of i or l from that point on.
- b
- Activate backreferences for parenthesised groups in the pattern; this does not work in filename generation. When a pattern with a set of active parentheses is matched, the strings matched by the groups are stored in the array $match, the indices of the beginning of the matched parentheses in the array $mbegin, and the indices of the end in the array $mend, with the first element of each array corresponding to the first parenthesised group, and so on. These arrays are not otherwise special to the shell. The indices use the same convention as does parameter substitution, so that elements of $mend and $mbegin may be used in subscripts; the KSH_ARRAYS option is respected. Sets of globbing flags are not considered parenthesised groups; only the first nine active parentheses can be referenced.
For example,
prints ` string_with_a_message'. Note that the first set of parentheses
is before the (#b) and does not create a backreference.
Backreferences work with all forms of pattern matching other than filename
generation, but note that when performing matches on an entire array, such as
${array#pattern}, or a global substitution,
such as ${param//pat/repl},
only the data for the last match remains available. In the case of global
replacements this may still be useful. See the example for the m flag
below.
The numbering of backreferences strictly follows the order of the opening
parentheses from left to right in the pattern string, although sets of
parentheses may be nested. There are special rules for parentheses followed by
` #' or `##'. Only the last match of the parenthesis is
remembered: for example, in ` [[ abab = (#b)([ab])# ]]', only the final
` b' is stored in match[1]. Thus extra parentheses may be
necessary to match the complete segment: for example, use `
X((ab|cd)#)Y' to match a whole string of either ` ab' or
`cd' between ` X' and `Y', using the value of
$match[1] rather than $match[2].
If the match fails none of the parameters is altered, so in some cases it may be
necessary to initialise them beforehand. If some of the backreferences fail to
match -- which happens if they are in an alternate branch which fails to
match, or if they are followed by # and matched zero times -- then the
matched string is set to the empty string, and the start and end indices are
set to -1.
Pattern matching with backreferences is slightly slower than without.
foo="a_string_with_a_message" if [[ $foo = (a|an)_(#b)(*) ]]; then print ${foo[$mbegin[1],$mend[1]]} fi
- B
- Deactivate backreferences, negating the effect of the b flag from that point on.
- cN,M
- The flag (#cN,M) can be used anywhere that the # or ## operators can be used except in the expressions ` (*/)#' and `(*/)##' in filename generation, where ` /' has special meaning; it cannot be combined with other globbing flags and a bad pattern error occurs if it is misplaced. It is equivalent to the form {N,M} in regular expressions. The previous character or group is required to match between N and M times, inclusive. The form (#cN) requires exactly N matches; (#c,M) is equivalent to specifying N as 0; (#cN,) specifies that there is no maximum limit on the number of matches.
- m
- Set references to the match data for the entire string matched; this is similar to backreferencing and does not work in filename generation. The flag must be in effect at the end of the pattern, i.e. not local to a group. The parameters $MATCH, $MBEGIN and $MEND will be set to the string matched and to the indices of the beginning and end of the string, respectively. This is most useful in parameter substitutions, as otherwise the string matched is obvious.
For example,
forces all the matches (i.e. all vowels) into uppercase, printing ` vEldt
jynx grImps wAqf zhO bUck'.
Unlike backreferences, there is no speed penalty for using match references,
other than the extra substitutions required for the replacement strings in
cases such as the example shown.
arr=(veldt jynx grimps waqf zho buck) print ${arr//(#m)[aeiou]/${(U)MATCH}}
- M
- Deactivate the m flag, hence no references to match data will be created.
- anum
- Approximate matching: num errors are allowed in the string matched by the pattern. The rules for this are described in the next subsection.
- s, e
- Unlike the other flags, these have only a local effect, and each must appear on its own: ` (#s)' and `(#e)' are the only valid forms. The ` (#s)' flag succeeds only at the start of the test string, and the ` (#e)' flag succeeds only at the end of the test string; they correspond to ` ^' and `$' in standard regular expressions. They are useful for matching path segments in patterns other than those in filename generation (where path segments are in any case treated separately). For example, ` *((#s)|/)test((#e)|/)*' matches a path segment ` test' in any of the following strings: test, test/at/start, at/end/test, in/test/middle.
Another use is in parameter substitution; for example `
${array/(#s)A*Z(#e)}' will remove only elements of an array which match
the complete pattern ` A*Z'. There are other ways of performing many
operations of this type, however the combination of the substitution
operations ` /' and `//' with the `(#s)' and
`(#e)' flags provides a single simple and memorable method.
Note that assertions of the form ` (^(#s))' also work, i.e. match
anywhere except at the start of the string, although this actually means
`anything except a zero-length portion at the start of the string'; you need
to use ` (""~(#s))' to match a zero-length portion of the
string not at the start.
- q
- A `q' and everything up to the closing parenthesis of the globbing flags are ignored by the pattern matching code. This is intended to support the use of glob qualifiers, see below. The result is that the pattern ` (#b)(*).c(#q.)' can be used both for globbing and for matching against a string. In the former case, the ` (#q.)' will be treated as a glob qualifier and the ` (#b)' will not be useful, while in the latter case the ` (#b)' is useful for backreferences and the ` (#q.)' will be ignored. Note that colon modifiers in the glob qualifiers are also not applied in ordinary pattern matching.
- u
- Respect the current locale in determining the presence of multibyte characters in a pattern, provided the shell was compiled with MULTIBYTE_SUPPORT. This overrides the MULTIBYTE option; the default behaviour is taken from the option. Compare U. (Mnemonic: typically multibyte characters are from Unicode in the UTF-8 encoding, although any extension of ASCII supported by the system library may be used.)
- U
- All characters are considered to be a single byte long. The opposite of u. This overrides the MULTIBYTE option.
Approximate Matching
When matching approximately, the shell keeps a count of the errors found, which cannot exceed the number specified in the (#anum) flags. Four types of error are recognised:- 1.
- Different characters, as in fooxbar and fooybar.
- 2.
- Transposition of characters, as in banana and abnana.
- 3.
- A character missing in the target string, as with the pattern road and target string rod.
- 4.
- An extra character appearing in the target string, as with stove and strove.
Recursive Globbing
A pathname component of the form ` (foo/)#' matches a path consisting of zero or more directories matching the pattern foo. As a shorthand, ` **/' is equivalent to `(*/)#'; note that this therefore matches files in the current directory as well as subdirectories. Thus:ls -ld -- (*/)#bar
ls -ld -- **/bar
setopt GLOBSTARSHORT ls -ld -- **.c
ls -ld -- **/*.c
Glob Qualifiers
Patterns used for filename generation may end in a list of qualifiers enclosed in parentheses. The qualifiers specify which filenames that otherwise match the given pattern will be inserted in the argument list. If the option BARE_GLOB_QUAL is set, then a trailing set of parentheses containing no ` |' or `(' characters (or `~' if it is special) is taken as a set of glob qualifiers. A glob subexpression that would normally be taken as glob qualifiers, for example ` (^x)', can be forced to be treated as part of the glob pattern by doubling the parentheses, in this case producing ` ((^x))'. If the option EXTENDED_GLOB is set, a different syntax for glob qualifiers is available, namely ` (#qx)' where x is any of the same glob qualifiers used in the other format. The qualifiers must still appear at the end of the pattern. However, with this syntax multiple glob qualifiers may be chained together. They are treated as a logical AND of the individual sets of flags. Also, as the syntax is unambiguous, the expression will be treated as glob qualifiers just as long any parentheses contained within it are balanced; appearance of ` |', `(' or ` ~' does not negate the effect. Note that qualifiers will be recognised in this form even if a bare glob qualifier exists at the end of the pattern, for example ` *(#q*)(.)' will recognise executable regular files if both options are set; however, mixed syntax should probably be avoided for the sake of clarity. Note that within conditions using the ` [[' form the presence of a parenthesised expression (#q... ) at the end of a string indicates that globbing should be performed; the expression may include glob qualifiers, but it is also valid if it is simply (#q). This does not apply to the right hand side of pattern match operators as the syntax already has special significance. A qualifier may be any one of the following:- /
- directories
- F
- `full' (i.e. non-empty) directories. Note that the opposite sense (^F) expands to empty directories and all non-directories. Use (/^F) for empty directories.
- .
- plain files
- @
- symbolic links
- =
- sockets
- p
- named pipes (FIFOs)
- *
- executable plain files (0100 or 0010 or 0001)
- %
- device files (character or block special)
- %b
- block special files
- %c
- character special files
- r
- owner-readable files (0400)
- w
- owner-writable files (0200)
- x
- owner-executable files (0100)
- A
- group-readable files (0040)
- I
- group-writable files (0020)
- E
- group-executable files (0010)
- R
- world-readable files (0004)
- W
- world-writable files (0002)
- X
- world-executable files (0001)
- s
- setuid files (04000)
- S
- setgid files (02000)
- t
- files with the sticky bit (01000)
- fspec
- files with access rights matching spec. This spec may be a octal number optionally preceded by a ` =', a ` +', or a ` -'. If none of these characters is given, the behavior is the same as for ` ='. The octal number describes the mode bits to be expected, if combined with a ` =', the value given must match the file-modes exactly, with a ` +', at least the bits in the given number must be set in the file-modes, and with a ` -', the bits in the number must not be set. Giving a ` ?' instead of a octal digit anywhere in the number ensures that the corresponding bits in the file-modes are not checked, this is only useful in combination with ` ='.
If the qualifier ` f' is followed by any other character anything up to
the next matching character (` [', `{', and `<' match
` ]', `}', and `>' respectively, any other character
matches itself) is taken as a list of comma-separated sub-specs. Each
sub-spec may be either an octal number as described above or a list of
any of the characters ` u', `g', ` o', and `a',
followed by a ` =', a `+', or a ` -', followed by a list
of any of the characters ` r', `w', ` x', `s', and
` t', or an octal digit. The first list of characters specify which
access rights are to be checked. If a ` u' is given, those for the
owner of the file are used, if a ` g' is given, those of the group are
checked, a ` o' means to test those of other users, and the ` a'
says to test all three groups. The ` =', `+', and `-'
again says how the modes are to be checked and have the same meaning as
described for the first form above. The second list of characters finally says
which access rights are to be expected: ` r' for read access,
`w' for write access, ` x' for the right to execute the file (or
to search a directory), ` s' for the setuid and setgid bits, and
`t' for the sticky bit.
Thus, ` *(f70?)' gives the files for which the owner has read, write, and
execute permission, and for which other group members have no rights,
independent of the permissions for other users. The pattern ` *(f-100)'
gives all files for which the owner does not have execute permission, and `
*(f:gu+w,o-rx:)' gives the files for which the owner and the other
members of the group have at least write permission, and for which other users
don't have read or execute permission.
- estring
- +cmd
- The string will be executed as shell code. The filename will be included in the list if and only if the code returns a zero status (usually the status of the last command).
In the first form, the first character after the ` e' will be used as a
separator and anything up to the next matching separator will be taken as the
string; `[', `{', and `<' match ` ]',
`}', and `>', respectively, while any other character matches
itself. Note that expansions must be quoted in the string to prevent
them from being expanded before globbing is done. string is then
executed as shell code. The string globqual is appended to the array
zsh_eval_context the duration of execution.
During the execution of string the filename currently being tested is
available in the parameter REPLY; the parameter may be altered to a
string to be inserted into the list instead of the original filename. In
addition, the parameter reply may be set to an array or a string, which
overrides the value of REPLY. If set to an array, the latter is
inserted into the command line word by word.
For example, suppose a directory contains a single file ` lonely'. Then
the expression ` *(e:'reply=(${REPLY}{1,2})':)' will cause the words `
lonely1' and `lonely2' to be inserted into the command line.
Note the quoting of string.
The form +cmd has the same effect, but no delimiters appear around
cmd. Instead, cmd is taken as the longest sequence of characters
following the + that are alphanumeric or underscore. Typically
cmd will be the name of a shell function that contains the appropriate
test. For example,
lists all files in the directory that have been modified more recently than
reffile.
nt() { [[ $REPLY -nt $NTREF ]] } NTREF=reffile ls -ld -- *(+nt)
- ddev
- files on the device dev
- l[-|+]ct
- files having a link count less than ct (-), greater than ct (+), or equal to ct
- U
- files owned by the effective user ID
- G
- files owned by the effective group ID
- uid
- files owned by user ID id if that is a number. Otherwise, id specifies a user name: the character after the ` u' will be taken as a separator and the string between it and the next matching separator will be taken as a user name. The starting separators ` [', `{', and `<' match the final separators ` ]', `}', and `>', respectively; any other character matches itself. The selected files are those owned by this user. For example, ` u:foo:' or `u[foo]' selects files owned by user ` foo'.
- gid
- like uid but with group IDs or names
- a[Mwhms][-|+]n
- files accessed exactly n days ago. Files accessed within the last n days are selected using a negative value for n ( -n). Files accessed more than n days ago are selected by a positive n value ( +n). Optional unit specifiers ` M', `w', ` h', `m' or `s' (e.g. ` ah5') cause the check to be performed with months (of 30 days), weeks, hours, minutes or seconds instead of days, respectively. An explicit ` d' for days is also allowed.
Any fractional part of the difference between the access time and the current
part in the appropriate units is ignored in the comparison. For instance, `
echo *(ah-5)' would echo files accessed within the last five hours,
while ` echo *(ah+5)' would echo files accessed at least six hours ago,
as times strictly between five and six hours are treated as five hours.
- m[Mwhms][-|+]n
- like the file access qualifier, except that it uses the file modification time.
- c[Mwhms][-|+]n
- like the file access qualifier, except that it uses the file inode change time.
- L[+|-]n
- files less than n bytes (-), more than n bytes ( +), or exactly n bytes in length.
If this flag is directly followed by a size specifier `k'
(`K'), ` m' (`M'), or `p' (`P') (e.g.
`Lk-50') the check is performed with kilobytes, megabytes, or blocks
(of 512 bytes) instead. (On some systems additional specifiers are available
for gigabytes, ` g' or `G', and terabytes, `t' or
`T'.) If a size specifier is used a file is regarded as
"exactly" the size if the file size rounded up to the next unit is
equal to the test size. Hence ` *(Lm1)' matches files from 1 byte up to
1 Megabyte inclusive. Note also that the set of files "less than"
the test size only includes files that would not match the equality test;
hence ` *(Lm-1)' only matches files of zero size.
- ^
- negates all qualifiers following it
- -
- toggles between making the qualifiers work on symbolic links (the default) and the files they point to, if any; any symbolic link for whose target the ` stat' system call fails (whatever the cause of the failure) is treated as a file in its own right
- M
- sets the MARK_DIRS option for the current pattern
- T
- appends a trailing qualifier mark to the filenames, analogous to the LIST_TYPES option, for the current pattern (overrides M)
- N
- sets the NULL_GLOB option for the current pattern
- D
- sets the GLOB_DOTS option for the current pattern
- n
- sets the NUMERIC_GLOB_SORT option for the current pattern
- Yn
- enables short-circuit mode: the pattern will expand to at most n filenames. If more than n matches exist, only the first n matches in directory traversal order will be considered.
Implies oN when no oc qualifier is used.
- oc
- specifies how the names of the files should be sorted. The following values of c sort in the following ways:
- n
- By name.
- L
- By the size (length) of the files.
- l
- By number of links.
- a
- By time of last access, youngest first.
- m
- By time of last modification, youngest first.
- c
- By time of last inode change, youngest first.
- d
- By directories: files in subdirectories appear before those in the current directory at each level of the search -- this is best combined with other criteria, for example ` odon' to sort on names for files within the same directory.
- N
- No sorting is performed.
- estring
- +cmd
- Sort by shell code (see below).
- Oc
- like `o', but sorts in descending order; i.e. `*(^o c)' is the same as ` *(Oc)' and ` *(^Oc)' is the same as ` *(oc)'; `Od' puts files in the current directory before those in subdirectories at each level of the search.
- [beg[,end]]
- specifies which of the matched filenames should be included in the returned list. The syntax is the same as for array subscripts. beg and the optional end may be mathematical expressions. As in parameter subscripting they may be negative to make them count from the last match backward. E.g.: ` *(-OL[1,3])' gives a list of the names of the three largest files.
- Pstring
- The string will be prepended to each glob match as a separate word. string is delimited in the same way as arguments to the e glob qualifier described above. The qualifier can be repeated; the words are prepended separately so that the resulting command line contains the words in the same order they were given in the list of glob qualifiers.
A typical use for this is to prepend an option before all occurrences of a file
name; for example, the pattern ` *(P:-f:)' produces the command line
arguments ` -f file1 -f file2 ...'
If the modifier ^ is active, then string will be appended instead
of prepended. Prepending and appending is done independently so both can be
used on the same glob expression; for example by writing `
*(P:foo:^P:bar:^P:baz:)' which produces the command line arguments `
foo baz file1 bar ...'
More than one of these lists can be combined, separated by commas. The whole
list matches if at least one of the sublists matches (they are `or'ed, the
qualifiers in the sublists are `and'ed). Some qualifiers, however, affect all
matches generated, independent of the sublist in which they are given. These
are the qualifiers ` M', `T', ` N', `D',
`n', ` o', `O' and the subscripts given in brackets (`
[...]').
If a ` :' appears in a qualifier list, the remainder of the expression in
parenthesis is interpreted as a modifier (see the section `Modifiers' in the
section `History Expansion'). Each modifier must be introduced by a separate `
:'. Note also that the result after modification does not have to be an
existing file. The name of any existing file can be followed by a modifier of
the form ` (:...)' even if no actual filename generation
is performed, although note that the presence of the parentheses causes the
entire expression to be subjected to any global pattern matching options such
as NULL_GLOB. Thus:
ls -ld -- *(-/)
ls -ld -- *(-@)
ls -ld -- *(%W)
ls -ld -- *(W,X)
print -rC1 /tmp/foo*(u0^@:t)
ls -ld -- *.*~(lex|parse).[ch](^D^l1)
print -rC1 b*.pro(#q:s/pro/shmo/)(#q.:s/builtin/shmiltin/)
NAME
zshparam - zsh parametersDESCRIPTION
A parameter has a name, a value, and a number of attributes. A name may be any sequence of alphanumeric characters and underscores, or the single characters ` *', `@', `#', `?', `-', `$', or `!'. A parameter whose name begins with an alphanumeric or underscore is also referred to as a variable. The attributes of a parameter determine the type of its value, often referred to as the parameter type or variable type, and also control other processing that may be applied to the value when it is referenced. The value type may be a scalar (a string, an integer, or a floating point number), an array (indexed numerically), or an associative array (an unordered set of name-value pairs, indexed by name, also referred to as a hash). Named scalar parameters may have the exported, -x, attribute, to copy them into the process environment, which is then passed from the shell to any new processes that it starts. Exported parameters are called environment variables. The shell also imports environment variables at startup time and automatically marks the corresponding parameters as exported. Some environment variables are not imported for reasons of security or because they would interfere with the correct operation of other shell features. Parameters may also be special, that is, they have a predetermined meaning to the shell. Special parameters cannot have their type changed or their readonly attribute turned off, and if a special parameter is unset, then later recreated, the special properties will be retained. To declare the type of a parameter, or to assign a string or numeric value to a scalar parameter, use the typeset builtin. The value of a scalar parameter may also be assigned by writing:name=value
ARRAY PARAMETERS
To assign an array value, write one of:set -A name value ...
name=(value ...)
name=([key]=value ...)
array=(one [3]=three four)
name=([a-z]'='*)
name+=(value ...)
name+=([key]=value ...)
typeset -a name
typeset -A name
set -A name key value ...
name=(key value ...)
name=([key]=value ...)
name+=(key value ...)
name+=([key]=value ...)
set -A name
name=()
Array Subscripts
Individual elements of an array may be selected using a subscript. A subscript of the form ` [exp]' selects the single element exp, where exp is an arithmetic expression which will be subject to arithmetic expansion as if it were surrounded by ` $((...))'. The elements are numbered beginning with 1, unless the KSH_ARRAYS option is set in which case they are numbered from zero. Subscripts may be used inside braces used to delimit a parameter name, thus ` ${foo[2]}' is equivalent to `$foo[2]'. If the KSH_ARRAYS option is set, the braced form is the only one that works, as bracketed expressions otherwise are not treated as subscripts. If the KSH_ARRAYS option is not set, then by default accesses to an array element with a subscript that evaluates to zero return an empty string, while an attempt to write such an element is treated as an error. For backward compatibility the KSH_ZERO_SUBSCRIPT option can be set to cause subscript values 0 and 1 to be equivalent; see the description of the option in zshoptions(1). The same subscripting syntax is used for associative arrays, except that no arithmetic expansion is applied to exp. However, the parsing rules for arithmetic expressions still apply, which affects the way that certain special characters must be protected from interpretation. See Subscript Parsing below for details. A subscript of the form ` [*]' or `[@]' evaluates to all elements of an array; there is no difference between the two except when they appear within double quotes. ` "$foo[*]"' evaluates to `"$foo[1] $foo[2] ... "', whereas ` "$foo[@]"' evaluates to ` "$foo[1]" "$foo[2]" ...'. For associative arrays, ` [*]' or `[@]' evaluate to all the values, in no particular order. Note that this does not substitute the keys; see the documentation for the ` k' flag under Parameter Expansion Flags in zshexpn(1) for complete details. When an array parameter is referenced as ` $name' (with no subscript) it evaluates to ` $name[*]', unless the KSH_ARRAYS option is set in which case it evaluates to ` ${name [0]}' (for an associative array, this means the value of the key ` 0', which may not exist even if there are values for other keys). A subscript of the form ` [exp1,exp2]' selects all elements in the range exp1 to exp2, inclusive. (Associative arrays are unordered, and so do not support ranges.) If one of the subscripts evaluates to a negative number, say -n, then the nth element from the end of the array is used. Thus ` $foo[-3]' is the third element from the end of the array foo, and ` $foo[1,-1]' is the same as ` $foo[*]'. Subscripting may also be performed on non-array values, in which case the subscripts specify a substring to be extracted. For example, if FOO is set to ` foobar', then ` echo $FOO[2,5]' prints `ooba'. Note that some forms of subscripting described below perform pattern matching, and in that case the substring extends from the start of the match of the first subscript to the end of the match of the second subscript. For example,string="abcdefghijklm" print ${string[(r)d?,(r)h?]}
Array Element Assignment
A subscript may be used on the left side of an assignment like so:name[exp]=value
typeset "name[exp]"=value
unset "name[exp]"
Subscript Flags
If the opening bracket, or the comma in a range, in any subscript expression is directly followed by an opening parenthesis, the string up to the matching closing one is considered to be a list of flags, as in ` name[(flags)exp]'. The flags s, n and b take an argument; the delimiter is shown below as ` :', but any character, or the matching pairs ` (... )', `{...}', `[...]', or ` <... >', may be used, but note that `<...>' can only be used if the subscript is inside a double quoted expression or a parameter substitution enclosed in braces as otherwise the expression is interpreted as a redirection. The flags currently understood are:- w
- If the parameter subscripted is a scalar then this flag makes subscripting work on words instead of characters. The default word separator is whitespace. When combined with the i or I flag, the effect is to produce the index of the first character of the first/last word which matches the given pattern; note that a failed match in this case always yields 0.
- s:string:
- This gives the string that separates words (for use with the w flag). The delimiter character : is arbitrary; see above.
- p
- Recognize the same escape sequences as the print builtin in the string argument of a subsequent ` s' flag.
- f
- If the parameter subscripted is a scalar then this flag makes subscripting work on lines instead of characters, i.e. with elements separated by newlines. This is a shorthand for ` pws:\n:'.
- r
- Reverse subscripting: if this flag is given, the exp is taken as a pattern and the result is the first matching array element, substring or word (if the parameter is an array, if it is a scalar, or if it is a scalar and the ` w' flag is given, respectively). The subscript used is the number of the matching element, so that pairs of subscripts such as ` $foo[(r)??,3]' and `$foo[(r)??,(r)f*]' are possible if the parameter is not an associative array. If the parameter is an associative array, only the value part of each pair is compared to the pattern, and the result is that value.
If a search through an ordinary array failed, the search sets the subscript to
one past the end of the array, and hence
${array[(r)pattern]} will substitute the empty string.
Thus the success of a search can be tested by using the (i) flag, for
example (assuming the option KSH_ARRAYS is not in effect):
If KSH_ARRAYS is in effect, the -le should be replaced by
-lt.
[[ ${array[(i)pattern]} -le ${#array} ]]
- R
- Like `r', but gives the last match. For associative arrays, gives all possible matches. May be used for assigning to ordinary array elements, but not for assigning to associative arrays. On failure, for normal arrays this has the effect of returning the element corresponding to subscript 0; this is empty unless one of the options KSH_ARRAYS or KSH_ZERO_SUBSCRIPT is in effect.
Note that in subscripts with both ` r' and `R' pattern characters
are active even if they were substituted for a parameter (regardless of the
setting of GLOB_SUBST which controls this feature in normal pattern
matching). The flag ` e' can be added to inhibit pattern matching. As
this flag does not inhibit other forms of substitution, care is still
required; using a parameter to hold the key has the desired effect:
key2='original key' print ${array[(Re)$key2]}
- i
- Like `r', but gives the index of the match instead; this may not be combined with a second argument. On the left side of an assignment, behaves like ` r'. For associative arrays, the key part of each pair is compared to the pattern, and the first matching key found is the result. On failure substitutes the length of the array plus one, as discussed under the description of ` r', or the empty string for an associative array.
Note: Although ` i' may be applied to a scalar substitution to find the
offset of a substring, the results are likely to be misleading when searching
within substitutions that yield an empty string, or when searching for the
empty substring.
- I
- Like `i', but gives the index of the last match, or all possible matching keys in an associative array. On failure substitutes 0, or the empty string for an associative array. This flag is best when testing for values or keys that do not exist.
Note: If the option KSH_ARRAYS is in effect and no match is found, the
result is indistinguishable from the case when the first element of the array
matches.
- k
- If used in a subscript on an associative array, this flag causes the keys to be interpreted as patterns, and returns the value for the first key found where exp is matched by the key. Note this could be any such key as no ordering of associative arrays is defined. This flag does not work on the left side of an assignment to an associative array element. If used on another type of parameter, this behaves like ` r'.
- K
- On an associative array this is like `k' but returns all values where exp is matched by the keys. On other types of parameters this has the same effect as ` R'.
- n:expr:
- If combined with `r', `R', `i' or `I', makes them give the nth or nth last match (if expr evaluates to n). This flag is ignored when the array is associative. The delimiter character : is arbitrary; see above.
- b:expr:
- If combined with `r', `R', `i' or `I', makes them begin at the nth or nth last element, word, or character (if expr evaluates to n). This flag is ignored when the array is associative. The delimiter character : is arbitrary; see above.
- e
- This flag causes any pattern matching that would be performed on the subscript to use plain string matching instead. Hence ` ${array[(re)*]}' matches only the array element whose value is *. Note that other forms of substitution such as parameter substitution are not inhibited.
This flag can also be used to force * or @ to be interpreted as a
single key rather than as a reference to all values. It may be used for either
purpose on the left side of an assignment.
See Parameter Expansion Flags (zshexpn(1)) for additional ways to
manipulate the results of array subscripting.
Subscript Parsing
This discussion applies mainly to associative array key strings and to patterns used for reverse subscripting (the ` r', `R', `i', etc. flags), but it may also affect parameter substitutions that appear as part of an arithmetic expression in an ordinary subscript. To avoid subscript parsing limitations in assignments to associative array elements, use the append syntax:aa+=('key with "*strange*" characters' 'value string')
typeset -A aa typeset "aa[one\"two\"three\"quotes]"=QQQ print "$aa[one\"two\"three\"quotes]"
typeset -A aa aa[(e)*]=star print $aa[(e)*]
POSITIONAL PARAMETERS
The positional parameters provide access to the command-line arguments of a shell function, shell script, or the shell itself; see the section `Invocation', and also the section `Functions'. The parameter n, where n is a number, is the nth positional parameter. The parameter ` $0' is a special case, see the section `Parameters Set By The Shell'. The parameters *, @ and argv are arrays containing all the positional parameters; thus ` $argv[n]', etc., is equivalent to simply ` $n'. Note that the options KSH_ARRAYS or KSH_ZERO_SUBSCRIPT apply to these arrays as well, so with either of those options set, ` ${argv[0]}' is equivalent to `$1' and so on. Positional parameters may be changed after the shell or function starts by using the set builtin, by assigning to the argv array, or by direct assignment of the form ` n=value' where n is the number of the positional parameter to be changed. This also creates (with empty values) any of the positions from 1 to n that do not already have values. Note that, because the positional parameters form an array, an array assignment of the form ` n=(value ...)' is allowed, and has the effect of shifting all the values at positions greater than n by as many positions as necessary to accommodate the new values.LOCAL PARAMETERS
Shell function executions delimit scopes for shell parameters. (Parameters are dynamically scoped.) The typeset builtin, and its alternative forms declare, integer, local and readonly (but not export), can be used to declare a parameter as being local to the innermost scope. When a parameter is read or assigned to, the innermost existing parameter of that name is used. (That is, the local parameter hides any less-local parameter.) However, assigning to a non-existent parameter, or declaring a new parameter with export, causes it to be created in the outermost scope. Local parameters disappear when their scope ends. unset can be used to delete a parameter while it is still in scope; any outer parameter of the same name remains hidden. Special parameters may also be made local; they retain their special attributes unless either the existing or the newly-created parameter has the -h (hide) attribute. This may have unexpected effects: there is no default value, so if there is no assignment at the point the variable is made local, it will be set to an empty value (or zero in the case of integers). The following:typeset PATH=/new/directory:$PATH
PARAMETERS SET BY THE SHELL
In the parameter lists that follow, the mark `<S>' indicates that the parameter is special. `<Z>' indicates that the parameter does not exist when the shell initializes in sh or ksh emulation mode. The parameters ` !', `#', `*', `-', `?', `@', ` $', `ARGC', `HISTCMD', `LINENO', `PPID', ` status', `TTYIDLE', `zsh_eval_context', ` ZSH_EVAL_CONTEXT', and `ZSH_SUBSHELL' are read-only and thus cannot be restored by the user, so they are not output by ` typeset -p'. This also applies to many read-only parameters loaded from modules. The following parameters are automatically set by the shell:- ! <S>
- The process ID of the last command started in the background with &, put into the background with the bg builtin, or spawned with coproc.
- # <S>
- The number of positional parameters in decimal. Note that some confusion may occur with the syntax $#param which substitutes the length of param. Use ${#} to resolve ambiguities. In particular, the sequence ` $#-...' in an arithmetic expression is interpreted as the length of the parameter -, q.v.
- ARGC <S> <Z>
- Same as #.
- $ <S>
- The process ID of this shell, set when the shell initializes. Processes forked from the shell without executing a new program, such as command substitutions and commands grouped with (...), are subshells that duplicate the current shell, and thus substitute the same value for $$ as their parent shell.
- - <S>
- Flags supplied to the shell on invocation or by the set or setopt commands.
- * <S>
- An array containing the positional parameters.
- argv <S> <Z>
- Same as *. Assigning to argv changes the local positional parameters, but argv is not itself a local parameter. Deleting argv with unset in any function deletes it everywhere, although only the innermost positional parameter array is deleted (so * and @ in other scopes are not affected).
- @ <S>
- Same as argv[@], even when argv is not set.
- ? <S>
- The exit status returned by the last command.
- 0 <S>
- The name used to invoke the current shell, or as set by the -c command line option upon invocation. If the FUNCTION_ARGZERO option is set, $0 is set upon entry to a shell function to the name of the function, and upon entry to a sourced script to the name of the script, and reset to its previous value when the function or script returns.
- status <S> <Z>
- Same as ?.
- pipestatus <S> <Z>
- An array containing the exit statuses returned by all commands in the last pipeline.
- _ <S>
- The last argument of the previous command. Also, this parameter is set in the environment of every command executed to the full pathname of the command.
- CPUTYPE
- The machine type (microprocessor class or machine model), as determined at run time.
- EGID <S>
- The effective group ID of the shell process. If you have sufficient privileges, you may change the effective group ID of the shell process by assigning to this parameter. Also (assuming sufficient privileges), you may start a single command with a different effective group ID by ` (EGID=gid; command)'
If this is made local, it is not implicitly set to 0, but may be explicitly set
locally.
- EUID <S>
- The effective user ID of the shell process. If you have sufficient privileges, you may change the effective user ID of the shell process by assigning to this parameter. Also (assuming sufficient privileges), you may start a single command with a different effective user ID by ` (EUID=uid; command)'
If this is made local, it is not implicitly set to 0, but may be explicitly set
locally.
- ERRNO <S>
- The value of errno (see errno(3)) as set by the most recently failed system call. This value is system dependent and is intended for debugging purposes. It is also useful with the zsh/system module which allows the number to be turned into a name or message.
To use this parameter, it must first be assigned a value (typically 0 (zero)).
It is initially unset for scripting compatibility.
- FUNCNEST <S>
- Integer. If greater than or equal to zero, the maximum nesting depth of shell functions. When it is exceeded, an error is raised at the point where a function is called. The default value is determined when the shell is configured, but is typically 500. Increasing the value increases the danger of a runaway function recursion causing the shell to crash. Setting a negative value turns off the check.
- GID <S>
- The real group ID of the shell process. If you have sufficient privileges, you may change the group ID of the shell process by assigning to this parameter. Also (assuming sufficient privileges), you may start a single command under a different group ID by ` (GID=gid ; command)'
If this is made local, it is not implicitly set to 0, but may be explicitly set
locally.
- HISTCMD
- The current history event number in an interactive shell, in other words the event number for the command that caused $HISTCMD to be read. If the current history event modifies the history, HISTCMD changes to the new maximum history event number.
- HOST
- The current hostname.
- LINENO <S>
- The line number of the current line within the current script, sourced file, or shell function being executed, whichever was started most recently. Note that in the case of shell functions the line number refers to the function as it appeared in the original definition, not necessarily as displayed by the functions builtin.
- LOGNAME
- If the corresponding variable is not set in the environment of the shell, it is initialized to the login name corresponding to the current login session. This parameter is exported by default but this can be disabled using the typeset builtin. The value is set to the string returned by the getlogin(3) system call if that is available.
- MACHTYPE
- The machine type (microprocessor class or machine model), as determined at compile time.
- OLDPWD
- The previous working directory. This is set when the shell initializes and whenever the directory changes.
- OPTARG <S>
- The value of the last option argument processed by the getopts command.
- OPTIND <S>
- The index of the last option argument processed by the getopts command.
- OSTYPE
- The operating system, as determined at compile time.
- PPID <S>
- The process ID of the parent of the shell, set when the shell initializes. As with $$, the value does not change in subshells created as a duplicate of the current shell.
- PWD
- The present working directory. This is set when the shell initializes and whenever the directory changes.
- RANDOM <S>
- A pseudo-random integer from 0 to 32767, newly generated each time this parameter is referenced. The random number generator can be seeded by assigning a numeric value to RANDOM.
The values of RANDOM form an intentionally-repeatable pseudo-random
sequence; subshells that reference RANDOM will result in identical
pseudo-random values unless the value of RANDOM is referenced or seeded
in the parent shell in between subshell invocations.
- SECONDS <S>
- The number of seconds since shell invocation. If this parameter is assigned a value, then the value returned upon reference will be the value that was assigned plus the number of seconds since the assignment.
Unlike other special parameters, the type of the SECONDS parameter can be
changed using the typeset command. The type may be changed only to one
of the floating point types or back to integer. For example, ` typeset -F
SECONDS' causes the value to be reported as a floating point number. The
value is available to microsecond accuracy, although the shell may show more
or fewer digits depending on the use of typeset. See the documentation
for the builtin typeset in zshbuiltins(1) for more
details.
- SHLVL <S>
- Incremented by one each time a new shell is started.
- signals
- An array containing the names of the signals. Note that with the standard zsh numbering of array indices, where the first element has index 1, the signals are offset by 1 from the signal number used by the operating system. For example, on typical Unix-like systems HUP is signal number 1, but is referred to as $signals[2]. This is because of EXIT at position 1 in the array, which is used internally by zsh but is not known to the operating system.
- TRY_BLOCK_ERROR <S>
- In an always block, indicates whether the preceding list of code caused an error. The value is 1 to indicate an error, 0 otherwise. It may be reset, clearing the error condition. See Complex Commands in zshmisc(1)
- TRY_BLOCK_INTERRUPT <S>
- This variable works in a similar way to TRY_BLOCK_ERROR, but represents the status of an interrupt from the signal SIGINT, which typically comes from the keyboard when the user types ^C. If set to 0, any such interrupt will be reset; otherwise, the interrupt is propagated after the always block.
Note that it is possible that an interrupt arrives during the execution of the
always block; this interrupt is also propagated.
- TTY
- The name of the tty associated with the shell, if any.
- TTYIDLE <S>
- The idle time of the tty associated with the shell in seconds or -1 if there is no such tty.
- UID <S>
- The real user ID of the shell process. If you have sufficient privileges, you may change the user ID of the shell by assigning to this parameter. Also (assuming sufficient privileges), you may start a single command under a different user ID by ` (UID=uid ; command)'
If this is made local, it is not implicitly set to 0, but may be explicitly set
locally.
- USERNAME <S>
- The username corresponding to the real user ID of the shell process. If you have sufficient privileges, you may change the username (and also the user ID and group ID) of the shell by assigning to this parameter. Also (assuming sufficient privileges), you may start a single command under a different username (and user ID and group ID) by ` (USERNAME= username; command)'
- VENDOR
- The vendor, as determined at compile time.
- zsh_eval_context <S> <Z> (ZSH_EVAL_CONTEXT <S>)
- An array (colon-separated list) indicating the context of shell code that is being run. Each time a piece of shell code that is stored within the shell is executed a string is temporarily appended to the array to indicate the type of operation that is being performed. Read in order the array gives an indication of the stack of operations being performed with the most immediate context last.
Note that the variable does not give information on syntactic context such as
pipelines or subshells. Use $ZSH_SUBSHELL to detect subshells.
The context is one of the following:
- cmdarg
- Code specified by the -c option to the command line that invoked the shell.
- cmdsubst
- Command substitution using the `...` or $(...) construct.
- equalsubst
- File substitution using the =(...) construct.
- eval
- Code executed by the eval builtin.
- evalautofunc
- Code executed with the KSH_AUTOLOAD mechanism in order to define an autoloaded function.
- fc
- Code from the shell history executed by the -e option to the fc builtin.
- file
- Lines of code being read directly from a file, for example by the source builtin.
- filecode
- Lines of code being read from a .zwc file instead of directly from the source file.
- globqual
- Code executed by the e or + glob qualifier.
- globsort
- Code executed to order files by the o glob qualifier.
- insubst
- File substitution using the <(...) construct.
- loadautofunc
- Code read directly from a file to define an autoloaded function.
- outsubst
- File substitution using the >(...) construct.
- sched
- Code executed by the sched builtin.
- shfunc
- A shell function.
- stty
- Code passed to stty by the STTY environment variable. Normally this is passed directly to the system's stty command, so this value is unlikely to be seen in practice.
- style
- Code executed as part of a style retrieved by the zstyle builtin from the zsh/zutil module.
- toplevel
- The highest execution level of a script or interactive shell.
- trap
- Code executed as a trap defined by the trap builtin. Traps defined as functions have the context shfunc. As traps are asynchronous they may have a different hierarchy from other code.
- zpty
- Code executed by the zpty builtin from the zsh/zpty module.
- zregexparse-guard
- Code executed as a guard by the zregexparse command from the zsh/zutil module.
- zregexparse-action
- Code executed as an action by the zregexparse command from the zsh/zutil module.
- ZSH_ARGZERO
- If zsh was invoked to run a script, this is the name of the script. Otherwise, it is the name used to invoke the current shell. This is the same as the value of $0 when the POSIX_ARGZERO option is set, but is always available.
- ZSH_EXECUTION_STRING
- If the shell was started with the option -c, this contains the argument passed to the option. Otherwise it is not set.
- ZSH_NAME
- Expands to the basename of the command used to invoke this instance of zsh.
- ZSH_PATCHLEVEL
- The output of `git describe --tags --long' for the zsh repository used to build the shell. This is most useful in order to keep track of versions of the shell during development between releases; hence most users should not use it and should instead rely on $ZSH_VERSION.
- zsh_scheduled_events
- See the section `The zsh/sched Module' in zshmodules(1).
- ZSH_SCRIPT
- If zsh was invoked to run a script, this is the name of the script, otherwise it is unset.
- ZSH_SUBSHELL
- Readonly integer. Initially zero, incremented each time the shell forks to create a subshell for executing code. Hence ` (print $ZSH_SUBSHELL)' and ` print $(print $ZSH_SUBSHELL)' output 1, while ` ( (print $ZSH_SUBSHELL) )' outputs 2.
- ZSH_VERSION
- The version number of the release of zsh.
PARAMETERS USED BY THE SHELL
The following parameters are used by the shell. Again, `<S>' indicates that the parameter is special and `<Z>' indicates that the parameter does not exist when the shell initializes in sh or ksh emulation mode. In cases where there are two parameters with an upper- and lowercase form of the same name, such as path and PATH, the lowercase form is an array and the uppercase form is a scalar with the elements of the array joined together by colons. These are similar to tied parameters created via ` typeset -T'. The normal use for the colon-separated form is for exporting to the environment, while the array form is easier to manipulate within the shell. Note that unsetting either of the pair will unset the other; they retain their special properties when recreated, and recreating one of the pair will recreate the other.- ARGV0
- If exported, its value is used as the argv[0] of external commands. Usually used in constructs like ` ARGV0=emacs nethack'.
- BAUD
- The rate in bits per second at which data reaches the terminal. The line editor will use this value in order to compensate for a slow terminal by delaying updates to the display until necessary. If the parameter is unset or the value is zero the compensation mechanism is turned off. The parameter is not set by default.
This parameter may be profitably set in some circumstances, e.g. for slow modems
dialing into a communications server, or on a slow wide area network. It
should be set to the baud rate of the slowest part of the link for best
performance.
- cdpath <S> <Z> (CDPATH <S>)
- An array (colon-separated list) of directories specifying the search path for the cd command.
- COLUMNS <S>
- The number of columns for this terminal session. Used for printing select lists and for the line editor.
- CORRECT_IGNORE
- If set, is treated as a pattern during spelling correction. Any potential correction that matches the pattern is ignored. For example, if the value is ` _*' then completion functions (which, by convention, have names beginning with ` _') will never be offered as spelling corrections. The pattern does not apply to the correction of file names, as applied by the CORRECT_ALL option (so with the example just given files beginning with ` _' in the current directory would still be completed).
- CORRECT_IGNORE_FILE
- If set, is treated as a pattern during spelling correction of file names. Any file name that matches the pattern is never offered as a correction. For example, if the value is ` .*' then dot file names will never be offered as spelling corrections. This is useful with the CORRECT_ALL option.
- DIRSTACKSIZE
- The maximum size of the directory stack, by default there is no limit. If the stack gets larger than this, it will be truncated automatically. This is useful with the AUTO_PUSHD option.
- ENV
- If the ENV environment variable is set when zsh is invoked as sh or ksh, $ENV is sourced after the profile scripts. The value of ENV is subjected to parameter expansion, command substitution, and arithmetic expansion before being interpreted as a pathname. Note that ENV is not used unless the shell is interactive and zsh is emulating sh or ksh.
- FCEDIT
- The default editor for the fc builtin. If FCEDIT is not set, the parameter EDITOR is used; if that is not set either, a builtin default, usually vi, is used.
- fignore <S> <Z> (FIGNORE <S>)
- An array (colon separated list) containing the suffixes of files to be ignored during filename completion. However, if completion only generates files with suffixes in this list, then these files are completed anyway.
- fpath <S> <Z> (FPATH <S>)
- An array (colon separated list) of directories specifying the search path for function definitions. This path is searched when a function with the -u attribute is referenced. If an executable file is found, then it is read and executed in the current environment.
- histchars <S>
- Three characters used by the shell's history and lexical analysis mechanism. The first character signals the start of a history expansion (default ` !'). The second character signals the start of a quick history substitution (default ` ^'). The third character is the comment character (default ` #').
The characters must be in the ASCII character set; any attempt to set
histchars to characters with a locale-dependent meaning will be
rejected with an error message.
- HISTCHARS <S> <Z>
- Same as histchars. (Deprecated.)
- HISTFILE
- The file to save the history in when an interactive shell exits. If unset, the history is not saved.
- HISTORY_IGNORE
- If set, is treated as a pattern at the time history files are written. Any potential history entry that matches the pattern is skipped. For example, if the value is ` fc *' then commands that invoke the interactive history editor are never written to the history file.
Note that HISTORY_IGNORE defines a single pattern: to specify
alternatives use the `
(first|second|... )' syntax.
Compare the HIST_NO_STORE option or the zshaddhistory hook, either
of which would prevent such commands from being added to the interactive
history at all. If you wish to use HISTORY_IGNORE to stop history being
added in the first place, you can define the following hook:
zshaddhistory() { emulate -L zsh ## uncomment if HISTORY_IGNORE ## should use EXTENDED_GLOB syntax # setopt extendedglob [[ $1 != ${~HISTORY_IGNORE} ]] }
- HISTSIZE <S>
- The maximum number of events stored in the internal history list. If you use the HIST_EXPIRE_DUPS_FIRST option, setting this value larger than the SAVEHIST size will give you the difference as a cushion for saving duplicated history events.
If this is made local, it is not implicitly set to 0, but may be explicitly set
locally.
- HOME <S>
- The default argument for the cd command. This is not set automatically by the shell in sh, ksh or csh emulation, but it is typically present in the environment anyway, and if it becomes set it has its usual special behaviour.
- IFS <S>
- Internal field separators (by default space, tab, newline and NUL), that are used to separate words which result from command or parameter expansion and words read by the read builtin. Any characters from the set space, tab and newline that appear in the IFS are called IFS white space. One or more IFS white space characters or one non-IFS white space character together with any adjacent IFS white space character delimit a field. If an IFS white space character appears twice consecutively in the IFS, this character is treated as if it were not an IFS white space character.
If the parameter is unset, the default is used. Note this has a different effect
from setting the parameter to an empty string.
- KEYBOARD_HACK
- This variable defines a character to be removed from the end of the command line before interpreting it (interactive shells only). It is intended to fix the problem with keys placed annoyingly close to return and replaces the SUNKEYBOARDHACK option which did this for backquotes only. Should the chosen character be one of singlequote, doublequote or backquote, there must also be an odd number of them on the command line for the last one to be removed.
For backward compatibility, if the SUNKEYBOARDHACK option is explicitly
set, the value of KEYBOARD_HACK reverts to backquote. If the option is
explicitly unset, this variable is set to empty.
- KEYTIMEOUT
- The time the shell waits, in hundredths of seconds, for another key to be pressed when reading bound multi-character sequences.
- LANG <S>
- This variable determines the locale category for any category not specifically selected via a variable starting with ` LC_'.
- LC_ALL <S>
- This variable overrides the value of the `LANG' variable and the value of any of the other variables starting with ` LC_'.
- LC_COLLATE <S>
- This variable determines the locale category for character collation information within ranges in glob brackets and for sorting.
- LC_CTYPE <S>
- This variable determines the locale category for character handling functions. If the MULTIBYTE option is in effect this variable or LANG should contain a value that reflects the character set in use, even if it is a single-byte character set, unless only the 7-bit subset (ASCII) is used. For example, if the character set is ISO-8859-1, a suitable value might be en_US.iso88591 (certain Linux distributions) or en_US.ISO8859-1 (MacOS).
- LC_MESSAGES <S>
- This variable determines the language in which messages should be written. Note that zsh does not use message catalogs.
- LC_NUMERIC <S>
- This variable affects the decimal point character and thousands separator character for the formatted input/output functions and string conversion functions. Note that zsh ignores this setting when parsing floating point mathematical expressions.
- LC_TIME <S>
- This variable determines the locale category for date and time formatting in prompt escape sequences.
- LINES <S>
- The number of lines for this terminal session. Used for printing select lists and for the line editor.
- LISTMAX
- In the line editor, the number of matches to list without asking first. If the value is negative, the list will be shown if it spans at most as many lines as given by the absolute value. If set to zero, the shell asks only if the top of the listing would scroll off the screen.
- If this parameter is set and mailpath is not set, the shell looks for mail in the specified file.
- MAILCHECK
- The interval in seconds between checks for new mail.
- mailpath <S> <Z> (MAILPATH <S>)
- An array (colon-separated list) of filenames to check for new mail. Each filename can be followed by a ` ?' and a message that will be printed. The message will undergo parameter expansion, command substitution and arithmetic expansion with the variable $_ defined as the name of the file that has changed. The default message is ` You have new mail'. If an element is a directory instead of a file the shell will recursively check every file in every subdirectory of the element.
- manpath <S> <Z> (MANPATH <S> <Z>)
- An array (colon-separated list) whose value is not used by the shell. The manpath array can be useful, however, since setting it also sets MANPATH, and vice versa.
- match
- mbegin
- mend
- Arrays set by the shell when the b globbing flag is used in pattern matches. See the subsection Globbing flags in the documentation for Filename Generation in zshexpn(1).
- MATCH
- MBEGIN
- MEND
- Set by the shell when the m globbing flag is used in pattern matches. See the subsection Globbing flags in the documentation for Filename Generation in zshexpn(1).
- module_path <S> <Z> (MODULE_PATH <S>)
- An array (colon-separated list) of directories that zmodload searches for dynamically loadable modules. This is initialized to a standard pathname, usually ` /usr/local/lib/zsh/$ZSH_VERSION'. (The ` /usr/local/lib' part varies from installation to installation.) For security reasons, any value set in the environment when the shell is started will be ignored.
These parameters only exist if the installation supports dynamic module
loading.
- NULLCMD <S>
- The command name to assume if a redirection is specified with no command. Defaults to cat. For sh/ksh behavior, change this to :. For csh-like behavior, unset this parameter; the shell will print an error message if null commands are entered.
- path <S> <Z> (PATH <S>)
- An array (colon-separated list) of directories to search for commands. When this parameter is set, each directory is scanned and all files found are put in a hash table.
- POSTEDIT <S>
- This string is output whenever the line editor exits. It usually contains termcap strings to reset the terminal.
- PROMPT <S> <Z>
- PROMPT2 <S> <Z>
- PROMPT3 <S> <Z>
- PROMPT4 <S> <Z>
- Same as PS1, PS2, PS3 and PS4, respectively.
- prompt <S> <Z>
- Same as PS1.
- PROMPT_EOL_MARK
- When the PROMPT_CR and PROMPT_SP options are set, the PROMPT_EOL_MARK parameter can be used to customize how the end of partial lines are shown. This parameter undergoes prompt expansion, with the PROMPT_PERCENT option set. If not set, the default behavior is equivalent to the value ` %B%S%#%s%b'.
- PS1 <S>
- The primary prompt string, printed before a command is read. It undergoes a special form of expansion before being displayed; see EXPANSION OF PROMPT SEQUENCES in zshmisc(1). The default is `%m%# '.
- PS2 <S>
- The secondary prompt, printed when the shell needs more information to complete a command. It is expanded in the same way as PS1. The default is ` %_> ', which displays any shell constructs or quotation marks which are currently being processed.
- PS3 <S>
- Selection prompt used within a select loop. It is expanded in the same way as PS1. The default is ` ?# '.
- PS4 <S>
- The execution trace prompt. Default is `+%N:%i> ', which displays the name of the current shell structure and the line number within it. In sh or ksh emulation, the default is ` + '.
- psvar <S> <Z> (PSVAR <S>)
- An array (colon-separated list) whose elements can be used in PROMPT strings. Setting psvar also sets PSVAR, and vice versa.
- READNULLCMD <S>
- The command name to assume if a single input redirection is specified with no command. Defaults to more.
- REPORTMEMORY
- If nonnegative, commands whose maximum resident set size (roughly speaking, main memory usage) in kilobytes is greater than this value have timing statistics reported. The format used to output statistics is the value of the TIMEFMT parameter, which is the same as for the REPORTTIME variable and the time builtin; note that by default this does not output memory usage. Appending " max RSS %M" to the value of TIMEFMT causes it to output the value that triggered the report. If REPORTTIME is also in use, at most a single report is printed for both triggers. This feature requires the getrusage() system call, commonly supported by modern Unix-like systems.
- REPORTTIME
- If nonnegative, commands whose combined user and system execution times (measured in seconds) are greater than this value have timing statistics printed for them. Output is suppressed for commands executed within the line editor, including completion; commands explicitly marked with the time keyword still cause the summary to be printed in this case.
- REPLY
- This parameter is reserved by convention to pass string values between shell scripts and shell builtins in situations where a function call or redirection are impossible or undesirable. The read builtin and the select complex command may set REPLY, and filename generation both sets and examines its value when evaluating certain expressions. Some modules also employ REPLY for similar purposes.
- reply
- As REPLY, but for array values rather than strings.
- RPROMPT <S>
- RPS1 <S>
- This prompt is displayed on the right-hand side of the screen when the primary prompt is being displayed on the left. This does not work if the SINGLE_LINE_ZLE option is set. It is expanded in the same way as PS1.
- RPROMPT2 <S>
- RPS2 <S>
- This prompt is displayed on the right-hand side of the screen when the secondary prompt is being displayed on the left. This does not work if the SINGLE_LINE_ZLE option is set. It is expanded in the same way as PS2.
- SAVEHIST
- The maximum number of history events to save in the history file.
If this is made local, it is not implicitly set to 0, but may be explicitly set
locally.
- SPROMPT <S>
- The prompt used for spelling correction. The sequence ` %R' expands to the string which presumably needs spelling correction, and ` %r' expands to the proposed correction. All other prompt escapes are also allowed.
The actions available at the prompt are [nyae]:
- n (`no') (default)
- Discard the correction and run the command.
- y (`yes')
- Make the correction and run the command.
- a (`abort')
- Discard the entire command line without running it.
- e (`edit')
- Resume editing the command line.
- STTY
- If this parameter is set in a command's environment, the shell runs the stty command with the value of this parameter as arguments in order to set up the terminal before executing the command. The modes apply only to the command, and are reset when it finishes or is suspended. If the command is suspended and continued later with the fg or wait builtins it will see the modes specified by STTY, as if it were not suspended. This (intentionally) does not apply if the command is continued via ` kill -CONT'. STTY is ignored if the command is run in the background, or if it is in the environment of the shell but not explicitly assigned to in the input line. This avoids running stty at every external command by accidentally exporting it. Also note that STTY should not be used for window size specifications; these will not be local to the command.
If the parameter is set and empty, all of the above applies except that
stty is not run. This can be useful as a way to freeze the tty around a
single command, blocking its changes to tty settings, similar to the
ttyctl builtin.
- TERM <S>
- The type of terminal in use. This is used when looking up termcap sequences. An assignment to TERM causes zsh to re-initialize the terminal, even if the value does not change (e.g., ` TERM=$TERM'). It is necessary to make such an assignment upon any change to the terminal definition database or terminal type in order for the new settings to take effect.
- TERMINFO <S>
- A reference to your terminfo database, used by the `terminfo' library when the system has it; see terminfo(5). If set, this causes the shell to reinitialise the terminal, making the workaround ` TERM=$TERM' unnecessary.
- TERMINFO_DIRS <S>
- A colon-seprarated list of terminfo databases, used by the `terminfo' library when the system has it; see terminfo(5). This variable is only used by certain terminal libraries, in particular ncurses; see terminfo(5) to check support on your system. If set, this causes the shell to reinitialise the terminal, making the workaround ` TERM=$TERM' unnecessary. Note that unlike other colon-separated arrays this is not tied to a zsh array.
- TIMEFMT
- The format of process time reports with the time keyword. The default is ` %J %U user %S system %P cpu %*E total'. Recognizes the following escape sequences, although not all may be available on all systems, and some that are available may not be useful:
- %%
- A `%'.
- %U
- CPU seconds spent in user mode.
- %S
- CPU seconds spent in kernel mode.
- %E
- Elapsed time in seconds.
- %P
- The CPU percentage, computed as 100*( %U+%S)/%E.
- %W
- Number of times the process was swapped.
- %X
- The average amount in (shared) text space used in kilobytes.
- %D
- The average amount in (unshared) data/stack space used in kilobytes.
- %K
- The total space used (%X+%D) in kilobytes.
- %M
- The maximum memory the process had in use at any time in kilobytes.
- %F
- The number of major page faults (page needed to be brought from disk).
- %R
- The number of minor page faults.
- %I
- The number of input operations.
- %O
- The number of output operations.
- %r
- The number of socket messages received.
- %s
- The number of socket messages sent.
- %k
- The number of signals received.
- %w
- Number of voluntary context switches (waits).
- %c
- Number of involuntary context switches.
- %J
- The name of this job.
- TMOUT
- If this parameter is nonzero, the shell will receive an ALRM signal if a command is not entered within the specified number of seconds after issuing a prompt. If there is a trap on SIGALRM, it will be executed and a new alarm is scheduled using the value of the TMOUT parameter after executing the trap. If no trap is set, and the idle time of the terminal is not less than the value of the TMOUT parameter, zsh terminates. Otherwise a new alarm is scheduled to TMOUT seconds after the last keypress.
- TMPPREFIX
- A pathname prefix which the shell will use for all temporary files. Note that this should include an initial part for the file name as well as any directory names. The default is ` /tmp/zsh'.
- TMPSUFFIX
- A filename suffix which the shell will use for temporary files created by process substitutions (e.g., ` =(list) '). Note that the value should include a leading dot ` .' if intended to be interpreted as a file extension. The default is not to append any suffix, thus this parameter should be assigned only when needed and then unset again.
- WORDCHARS <S>
- A list of non-alphanumeric characters considered part of a word by the line editor.
- ZBEEP
- If set, this gives a string of characters, which can use all the same codes as the bindkey command as described in the zsh/zle module entry in zshmodules(1), that will be output to the terminal instead of beeping. This may have a visible instead of an audible effect; for example, the string ` \e[?5h\e[?5l' on a vt100 or xterm will have the effect of flashing reverse video on and off (if you usually use reverse video, you should use the string ` \e[?5l\e[?5h' instead). This takes precedence over the NOBEEP option.
- ZDOTDIR
- The directory to search for shell startup files (.zshrc, etc), if not $HOME.
- zle_bracketed_paste
- Many terminal emulators have a feature that allows applications to identify when text is pasted into the terminal rather than being typed normally. For ZLE, this means that special characters such as tabs and newlines can be inserted instead of invoking editor commands. Furthermore, pasted text forms a single undo event and if the region is active, pasted text will replace the region.
This two-element array contains the terminal escape sequences for enabling and
disabling the feature. These escape sequences are used to enable bracketed
paste when ZLE is active and disable it at other times. Unsetting the
parameter has the effect of ensuring that bracketed paste remains
disabled.
- zle_highlight
- An array describing contexts in which ZLE should highlight the input text. See Character Highlighting in zshzle(1).
- ZLE_LINE_ABORTED
- This parameter is set by the line editor when an error occurs. It contains the line that was being edited at the point of the error. ` print -zr -- $ZLE_LINE_ABORTED' can be used to recover the line. Only the most recent line of this kind is remembered.
- ZLE_REMOVE_SUFFIX_CHARS
- ZLE_SPACE_SUFFIX_CHARS
- These parameters are used by the line editor. In certain circumstances suffixes (typically space or slash) added by the completion system will be removed automatically, either because the next editing command was not an insertable character, or because the character was marked as requiring the suffix to be removed.
These variables can contain the sets of characters that will cause the suffix to
be removed. If ZLE_REMOVE_SUFFIX_CHARS is set, those characters will
cause the suffix to be removed; if ZLE_SPACE_SUFFIX_CHARS is set, those
characters will cause the suffix to be removed and replaced by a space.
If ZLE_REMOVE_SUFFIX_CHARS is not set, the default behaviour is
equivalent to:
If ZLE_REMOVE_SUFFIX_CHARS is set but is empty, no characters have this
behaviour. ZLE_SPACE_SUFFIX_CHARS takes precedence, so that the
following:
causes the characters ` &' and `|' to remove the suffix but to
replace it with a space.
To illustrate the difference, suppose that the option AUTO_REMOVE_SLASH
is in effect and the directory DIR has just been completed, with an
appended /, following which the user types `&'. The default
result is ` DIR&'. With ZLE_REMOVE_SUFFIX_CHARS set but
without including ` &' the result is `DIR/&'. With
ZLE_SPACE_SUFFIX_CHARS set to include ` &' the result is
`DIR &'.
Note that certain completions may provide their own suffix removal or
replacement behaviour which overrides the values described here. See the
completion system documentation in zshcompsys(1).
ZLE_REMOVE_SUFFIX_CHARS=$' \t\n;&|'
ZLE_SPACE_SUFFIX_CHARS=$'&|'
- ZLE_RPROMPT_INDENT <S>
- If set, used to give the indentation between the right hand side of the right prompt in the line editor as given by RPS1 or RPROMPT and the right hand side of the screen. If not set, the value 1 is used.
Typically this will be used to set the value to 0 so that the prompt appears
flush with the right hand side of the screen. This is not the default as many
terminals do not handle this correctly, in particular when the prompt appears
at the extreme bottom right of the screen. Recent virtual terminals are more
likely to handle this case correctly. Some experimentation is necessary.
NAME
zshoptions - zsh optionsSPECIFYING OPTIONS
Options are primarily referred to by name. These names are case insensitive and underscores are ignored. For example, ` allexport' is equivalent to `A__lleXP_ort'. The sense of an option name may be inverted by preceding it with ` no', so ` setopt No_Beep' is equivalent to `unsetopt beep'. This inversion can only be done once, so ` nonobeep' is not a synonym for ` beep'. Similarly, `tify' is not a synonym for ` nonotify' (the inversion of ` notify'). Some options also have one or more single letter names. There are two sets of single letter options: one used by default, and another used to emulate sh/ ksh (used when the SH_OPTION_LETTERS option is set). The single letter options can be used on the shell command line, or with the set, setopt and unsetopt builtins, as normal Unix options preceded by ` -'. The sense of the single letter options may be inverted by using ` +' instead of ` -'. Some of the single letter option names refer to an option being off, in which case the inversion of that name refers to the option being on. For example, ` +n' is the short name of `exec', and ` -n' is the short name of its inversion, `noexec'. In strings of single letter options supplied to the shell at startup, trailing whitespace will be ignored; for example the string ` -f ' will be treated just as ` -f', but the string `-f i' is an error. This is because many systems which implement the ` #!' mechanism for calling scripts do not strip trailing whitespace. It is possible for options to be set within a function scope. See the description of the option LOCAL_OPTIONS below.DESCRIPTION OF OPTIONS
In the following list, options set by default in all emulations are marked <D>; those set by default only in csh, ksh, sh, or zsh emulations are marked <C>, <K>, <S>, <Z> as appropriate. When listing options (by ` setopt', ` unsetopt', `set -o' or `set +o'), those turned on by default appear in the list prefixed with ` no'. Hence (unless KSH_OPTION_PRINT is set), `setopt' shows all options whose settings are changed from the default.Changing Directories
- AUTO_CD (-J)
- If a command is issued that can't be executed as a normal command, and the command is the name of a directory, perform the cd command to that directory. This option is only applicable if the option SHIN_STDIN is set, i.e. if commands are being read from standard input. The option is designed for interactive use; it is recommended that cd be used explicitly in scripts to avoid ambiguity.
- AUTO_PUSHD (-N)
- Make cd push the old directory onto the directory stack.
- CDABLE_VARS (-T)
- If the argument to a cd command (or an implied cd with the AUTO_CD option set) is not a directory, and does not begin with a slash, try to expand the expression as if it were preceded by a ` ~' (see the section `Filename Expansion').
- CD_SILENT
- Never print the working directory after a cd (whether explicit or implied with the AUTO_CD option set). cd normally prints the working directory when the argument given to it was -, a stack entry, or the name of a directory found under CDPATH. Note that this is distinct from pushd's stack-printing behaviour, which is controlled by PUSHD_SILENT. This option overrides the printing-related effects of POSIX_CD.
- CHASE_DOTS
- When changing to a directory containing a path segment `..' which would otherwise be treated as canceling the previous segment in the path (in other words, ` foo/..' would be removed from the path, or if ` ..' is the first part of the path, the last part of the current working directory would be removed), instead resolve the path to the physical directory. This option is overridden by CHASE_LINKS.
For example, suppose /foo/bar is a link to the directory /alt/rod.
Without this option set, ` cd /foo/bar/..' changes to /foo; with
it set, it changes to /alt. The same applies if the current directory
is /foo/bar and `cd ..' is used. Note that all other symbolic
links in the path will also be resolved.
- CHASE_LINKS (-w)
- Resolve symbolic links to their true values when changing directory. This also has the effect of CHASE_DOTS, i.e. a `..' path segment will be treated as referring to the physical parent, even if the preceding path segment is a symbolic link.
- POSIX_CD <K> <S>
- Modifies the behaviour of cd, chdir and pushd commands to make them more compatible with the POSIX standard. The behaviour with the option unset is described in the documentation for the cd builtin in zshbuiltins(1). If the option is set, the shell does not test for directories beneath the local directory (` .') until after all directories in cdpath have been tested, and the cd and chdir commands do not recognise arguments of the form `{ +|-}n' as directory stack entries.
Also, if the option is set, the conditions under which the shell prints the new
directory after changing to it are modified. It is no longer restricted to
interactive shells (although printing of the directory stack with pushd
is still limited to interactive shells); and any use of a component of
CDPATH, including a ` .' but excluding an empty component that
is otherwise treated as ` .', causes the directory to be printed.
- PUSHD_IGNORE_DUPS
- Don't push multiple copies of the same directory onto the directory stack.
- PUSHD_MINUS
- Exchanges the meanings of `+' and `-' when used with a number to specify a directory in the stack.
- PUSHD_SILENT (-E)
- Do not print the directory stack after pushd or popd.
- PUSHD_TO_HOME (-D)
- Have pushd with no arguments act like `pushd $HOME'.
Completion
- ALWAYS_LAST_PROMPT <D>
- If unset, key functions that list completions try to return to the last prompt if given a numeric argument. If set these functions try to return to the last prompt if given no numeric argument.
- ALWAYS_TO_END
- If a completion is performed with the cursor within a word, and a full completion is inserted, the cursor is moved to the end of the word. That is, the cursor is moved to the end of the word if either a single match is inserted or menu completion is performed.
- AUTO_LIST (-9) <D>
- Automatically list choices on an ambiguous completion.
- AUTO_MENU <D>
- Automatically use menu completion after the second consecutive request for completion, for example by pressing the tab key repeatedly. This option is overridden by MENU_COMPLETE.
- AUTO_NAME_DIRS
- Any parameter that is set to the absolute name of a directory immediately becomes a name for that directory, that will be used by the ` %~' and related prompt sequences, and will be available when completion is performed on a word starting with ` ~'. (Otherwise, the parameter must be used in the form ` ~param' first.)
- AUTO_PARAM_KEYS <D>
- If a parameter name was completed and a following character (normally a space) automatically inserted, and the next character typed is one of those that have to come directly after the name (like ` }', ` :', etc.), the automatically added character is deleted, so that the character typed comes immediately after the parameter name. Completion in a brace expansion is affected similarly: the added character is a ` ,', which will be removed if ` }' is typed next.
- AUTO_PARAM_SLASH <D>
- If a parameter is completed whose content is the name of a directory, then add a trailing slash instead of a space.
- AUTO_REMOVE_SLASH <D>
- When the last character resulting from a completion is a slash and the next character typed is a word delimiter, a slash, or a character that ends a command (such as a semicolon or an ampersand), remove the slash.
- BASH_AUTO_LIST
- On an ambiguous completion, automatically list choices when the completion function is called twice in succession. This takes precedence over AUTO_LIST. The setting of LIST_AMBIGUOUS is respected. If AUTO_MENU is set, the menu behaviour will then start with the third press. Note that this will not work with MENU_COMPLETE, since repeated completion calls immediately cycle through the list in that case.
- COMPLETE_ALIASES
- Prevents aliases on the command line from being internally substituted before completion is attempted. The effect is to make the alias a distinct command for completion purposes.
- COMPLETE_IN_WORD
- If unset, the cursor is set to the end of the word if completion is started. Otherwise it stays there and completion is done from both ends.
- GLOB_COMPLETE
- When the current word has a glob pattern, do not insert all the words resulting from the expansion but generate matches as for completion and cycle through them like MENU_COMPLETE. The matches are generated as if a ` *' was added to the end of the word, or inserted at the cursor when COMPLETE_IN_WORD is set. This actually uses pattern matching, not globbing, so it works not only for files but for any completion, such as options, user names, etc.
Note that when the pattern matcher is used, matching control (for example,
case-insensitive or anchored matching) cannot be used. This limitation only
applies when the current word contains a pattern; simply turning on the
GLOB_COMPLETE option does not have this effect.
- HASH_LIST_ALL <D>
- Whenever a command completion or spelling correction is attempted, make sure the entire command path is hashed first. This makes the first completion slower but avoids false reports of spelling errors.
- LIST_AMBIGUOUS <D>
- This option works when AUTO_LIST or BASH_AUTO_LIST is also set. If there is an unambiguous prefix to insert on the command line, that is done without a completion list being displayed; in other words, auto-listing behaviour only takes place when nothing would be inserted. In the case of BASH_AUTO_LIST, this means that the list will be delayed to the third call of the function.
- LIST_BEEP <D>
- Beep on an ambiguous completion. More accurately, this forces the completion widgets to return status 1 on an ambiguous completion, which causes the shell to beep if the option BEEP is also set; this may be modified if completion is called from a user-defined widget.
- LIST_PACKED
- Try to make the completion list smaller (occupying less lines) by printing the matches in columns with different widths.
- LIST_ROWS_FIRST
- Lay out the matches in completion lists sorted horizontally, that is, the second match is to the right of the first one, not under it as usual.
- LIST_TYPES (-X) <D>
- When listing files that are possible completions, show the type of each file with a trailing identifying mark.
- MENU_COMPLETE (-Y)
- On an ambiguous completion, instead of listing possibilities or beeping, insert the first match immediately. Then when completion is requested again, remove the first match and insert the second match, etc. When there are no more matches, go back to the first one again. reverse-menu-complete may be used to loop through the list in the other direction. This option overrides AUTO_MENU.
- REC_EXACT (-S)
- If the string on the command line exactly matches one of the possible completions, it is accepted, even if there is another completion (i.e. that string with something else added) that also matches.
Expansion and Globbing
- BAD_PATTERN (+2) <C> <Z>
- If a pattern for filename generation is badly formed, print an error message. (If this option is unset, the pattern will be left unchanged.)
- BARE_GLOB_QUAL <Z>
- In a glob pattern, treat a trailing set of parentheses as a qualifier list, if it contains no ` |', `(' or (if special) ` ~' characters. See the section `Filename Generation'.
- BRACE_CCL
- Expand expressions in braces which would not otherwise undergo brace expansion to a lexically ordered list of all the characters. See the section `Brace Expansion'.
- CASE_GLOB <D>
- Make globbing (filename generation) sensitive to case. Note that other uses of patterns are always sensitive to case. If the option is unset, the presence of any character which is special to filename generation will cause case-insensitive matching. For example, cvs(/) can match the directory CVS owing to the presence of the globbing flag (unless the option BARE_GLOB_QUAL is unset).
- CASE_MATCH <D>
- Make regular expressions using the zsh/regex module (including matches with =~) sensitive to case.
- CASE_PATHS
- If CASE_PATHS is not set (the default), CASE_GLOB affects the interpretation of every path component, whenever a special character appears in any component. When CASE_PATHS is set, file path components that do not contain special filename generation characters are always sensitive to case, thus restricting NO_CASE_GLOB to components that contain globbing characters.
Note that if the filesystem itself is not sensitive to case, then
CASE_PATHS has no effect.
- CSH_NULL_GLOB <C>
- If a pattern for filename generation has no matches, delete the pattern from the argument list; do not report an error unless all the patterns in a command have no matches. Overrides NOMATCH.
- EQUALS <Z>
- Perform = filename expansion. (See the section `Filename Expansion'.)
- EXTENDED_GLOB
- Treat the `#', `~' and `^' characters as part of patterns for filename generation, etc. (An initial unquoted ` ~' always produces named directory expansion.)
- FORCE_FLOAT
- Constants in arithmetic evaluation will be treated as floating point even without the use of a decimal point; the values of integer variables will be converted to floating point when used in arithmetic expressions. Integers in any base will be converted.
- GLOB (+F, ksh: +f) <D>
- Perform filename generation (globbing). (See the section `Filename Generation'.)
- GLOB_ASSIGN <C>
- If this option is set, filename generation (globbing) is performed on the right hand side of scalar parameter assignments of the form ` name=pattern (e.g. `foo=*'). If the result has more than one word the parameter will become an array with those words as arguments. This option is provided for backwards compatibility only: globbing is always performed on the right hand side of array assignments of the form ` name=(value)' (e.g. ` foo=(*)') and this form is recommended for clarity; with this option set, it is not possible to predict whether the result will be an array or a scalar.
- GLOB_DOTS (-4)
- Do not require a leading `.' in a filename to be matched explicitly.
- GLOB_STAR_SHORT
- When this option is set and the default zsh-style globbing is in effect, the pattern ` **/*' can be abbreviated to `**' and the pattern ` ***/*' can be abbreviated to ***. Hence `**.c' finds a file ending in .c in any subdirectory, and `***.c' does the same while also following symbolic links. A / immediately after the ` **' or `***' forces the pattern to be treated as the unabbreviated form.
- GLOB_SUBST <C> <K> <S>
- Treat any characters resulting from parameter expansion as being eligible for filename expansion and filename generation, and any characters resulting from command substitution as being eligible for filename generation. Braces (and commas in between) do not become eligible for expansion.
- HIST_SUBST_PATTERN
- Substitutions using the :s and :& history modifiers are performed with pattern matching instead of string matching. This occurs wherever history modifiers are valid, including glob qualifiers and parameters. See the section `Modifiers' in zshexpn(1).
- IGNORE_BRACES (-I) <S>
- Do not perform brace expansion. For historical reasons this also includes the effect of the IGNORE_CLOSE_BRACES option.
- IGNORE_CLOSE_BRACES
- When neither this option nor IGNORE_BRACES is set, a sole close brace character ` }' is syntactically significant at any point on a command line. This has the effect that no semicolon or newline is necessary before the brace terminating a function or current shell construct. When either option is set, a closing brace is syntactically significant only in command position. Unlike IGNORE_BRACES, this option does not disable brace expansion.
For example, with both options unset a function may be defined in the following
fashion:
while if either option is set, this does not work and something equivalent to
the following is required:
args() { echo $# }
args() { echo $#; }
- KSH_GLOB <K>
- In pattern matching, the interpretation of parentheses is affected by a preceding ` @', `*', `+', `?' or ` !'. See the section `Filename Generation'.
- MAGIC_EQUAL_SUBST
- All unquoted arguments of the form `anything=expression' appearing after the command name have filename expansion (that is, where expression has a leading ` ~' or `=') performed on expression as if it were a parameter assignment. The argument is not otherwise treated specially; it is passed to the command as a single argument, and not used as an actual parameter assignment. For example, in echo foo=~/bar:~/rod, both occurrences of ~ would be replaced. Note that this happens anyway with typeset and similar statements.
This option respects the setting of the KSH_TYPESET option. In other
words, if both options are in effect, arguments looking like assignments will
not undergo word splitting.
- MARK_DIRS (-8, ksh: -X)
- Append a trailing `/' to all directory names resulting from filename generation (globbing).
- MULTIBYTE <D>
- Respect multibyte characters when found in strings. When this option is set, strings are examined using the system library to determine how many bytes form a character, depending on the current locale. This affects the way characters are counted in pattern matching, parameter values and various delimiters.
The option is on by default if the shell was compiled with
MULTIBYTE_SUPPORT; otherwise it is off by default and has no effect if
turned on.
If the option is off a single byte is always treated as a single character. This
setting is designed purely for examining strings known to contain raw bytes or
other values that may not be characters in the current locale. It is not
necessary to unset the option merely because the character set for the current
locale does not contain multibyte characters.
The option does not affect the shell's editor, which always uses the locale to
determine multibyte characters. This is because the character set displayed by
the terminal emulator is independent of shell settings.
- NOMATCH (+3) <C> <Z>
- If a pattern for filename generation has no matches, print an error, instead of leaving it unchanged in the argument list. This also applies to file expansion of an initial ` ~' or `='.
- NULL_GLOB (-G)
- If a pattern for filename generation has no matches, delete the pattern from the argument list instead of reporting an error. Overrides NOMATCH.
- NUMERIC_GLOB_SORT
- If numeric filenames are matched by a filename generation pattern, sort the filenames numerically rather than lexicographically.
- RC_EXPAND_PARAM (-P)
- Array expansions of the form ` foo${xx}bar', where the parameter xx is set to (a b c), are substituted with ` fooabar foobbar foocbar' instead of the default ` fooa b cbar'. Note that an empty array will therefore cause all arguments to be removed.
- REMATCH_PCRE
- If set, regular expression matching with the =~ operator will use Perl-Compatible Regular Expressions from the PCRE library. (The zsh/pcre module must be available.) If not set, regular expressions will use the extended regexp syntax provided by the system libraries.
- SH_GLOB <K> <S>
- Disables the special meaning of `(', `|', `)' and ' <' for globbing the result of parameter and command substitutions, and in some other places where the shell accepts patterns. If SH_GLOB is set but KSH_GLOB is not, the shell allows the interpretation of subshell expressions enclosed in parentheses in some cases where there is no space before the opening parenthesis, e.g. !(true) is interpreted as if there were a space after the !. This option is set by default if zsh is invoked as sh or ksh.
- UNSET (+u, ksh: +u) <K> <S> <Z>
- Treat unset parameters as if they were empty when substituting, and as if they were zero when reading their values in arithmetic expansion and arithmetic commands. Otherwise they are treated as an error.
- WARN_CREATE_GLOBAL
- Print a warning message when a global parameter is created in a function by an assignment or in math context. This often indicates that a parameter has not been declared local when it should have been. Parameters explicitly declared global from within a function using typeset -g do not cause a warning. Note that there is no warning when a local parameter is assigned to in a nested function, which may also indicate an error.
- WARN_NESTED_VAR
- Print a warning message when an existing parameter from an enclosing function scope, or global, is set in a function by an assignment or in math context. Assignment to shell special parameters does not cause a warning. This is the companion to WARN_CREATE_GLOBAL as in this case the warning is only printed when a parameter is not created. Where possible, use of typeset -g to set the parameter suppresses the error, but note that this needs to be used every time the parameter is set. To restrict the effect of this option to a single function scope, use ` functions -W'.
For example, the following code produces a warning for the assignment inside the
function nested as that overrides the value within toplevel
toplevel() { local foo="in fn" nested } nested() { foo="in nested" } setopt warn_nested_var toplevel
History
- APPEND_HISTORY <D>
- If this is set, zsh sessions will append their history list to the history file, rather than replace it. Thus, multiple parallel zsh sessions will all have the new entries from their history lists added to the history file, in the order that they exit. The file will still be periodically re-written to trim it when the number of lines grows 20% beyond the value specified by $SAVEHIST (see also the HIST_SAVE_BY_COPY option).
- BANG_HIST (+K) <C> <Z>
- Perform textual history expansion, csh-style, treating the character ` !' specially.
- EXTENDED_HISTORY <C>
- Save each command's beginning timestamp (in seconds since the epoch) and the duration (in seconds) to the history file. The format of this prefixed data is:
` : <beginning time>:<elapsed
seconds>;<command>'.
- HIST_ALLOW_CLOBBER
- Add `|' to output redirections in the history. This allows history references to clobber files even when CLOBBER is unset.
- HIST_BEEP <D>
- Beep in ZLE when a widget attempts to access a history entry which isn't there.
- HIST_EXPIRE_DUPS_FIRST
- If the internal history needs to be trimmed to add the current command line, setting this option will cause the oldest history event that has a duplicate to be lost before losing a unique event from the list. You should be sure to set the value of HISTSIZE to a larger number than SAVEHIST in order to give you some room for the duplicated events, otherwise this option will behave just like HIST_IGNORE_ALL_DUPS once the history fills up with unique events.
- HIST_FCNTL_LOCK
- When writing out the history file, by default zsh uses ad-hoc file locking to avoid known problems with locking on some operating systems. With this option locking is done by means of the system's fcntl call, where this method is available. On recent operating systems this may provide better performance, in particular avoiding history corruption when files are stored on NFS.
- HIST_FIND_NO_DUPS
- When searching for history entries in the line editor, do not display duplicates of a line previously found, even if the duplicates are not contiguous.
- HIST_IGNORE_ALL_DUPS
- If a new command line being added to the history list duplicates an older one, the older command is removed from the list (even if it is not the previous event).
- HIST_IGNORE_DUPS (-h)
- Do not enter command lines into the history list if they are duplicates of the previous event.
- HIST_IGNORE_SPACE (-g)
- Remove command lines from the history list when the first character on the line is a space, or when one of the expanded aliases contains a leading space. Only normal aliases (not global or suffix aliases) have this behaviour. Note that the command lingers in the internal history until the next command is entered before it vanishes, allowing you to briefly reuse or edit the line. If you want to make it vanish right away without entering another command, type a space and press return.
- HIST_LEX_WORDS
- By default, shell history that is read in from files is split into words on all white space. This means that arguments with quoted whitespace are not correctly handled, with the consequence that references to words in history lines that have been read from a file may be inaccurate. When this option is set, words read in from a history file are divided up in a similar fashion to normal shell command line handling. Although this produces more accurately delimited words, if the size of the history file is large this can be slow. Trial and error is necessary to decide.
- HIST_NO_FUNCTIONS
- Remove function definitions from the history list. Note that the function lingers in the internal history until the next command is entered before it vanishes, allowing you to briefly reuse or edit the definition.
- HIST_NO_STORE
- Remove the history (fc -l) command from the history list when invoked. Note that the command lingers in the internal history until the next command is entered before it vanishes, allowing you to briefly reuse or edit the line.
- HIST_REDUCE_BLANKS
- Remove superfluous blanks from each command line being added to the history list.
- HIST_SAVE_BY_COPY <D>
- When the history file is re-written, we normally write out a copy of the file named $HISTFILE.new and then rename it over the old one. However, if this option is unset, we instead truncate the old history file and write out the new version in-place. If one of the history-appending options is enabled, this option only has an effect when the enlarged history file needs to be re-written to trim it down to size. Disable this only if you have special needs, as doing so makes it possible to lose history entries if zsh gets interrupted during the save.
When writing out a copy of the history file, zsh preserves the old file's
permissions and group information, but will refuse to write out a new file if
it would change the history file's owner.
- HIST_SAVE_NO_DUPS
- When writing out the history file, older commands that duplicate newer ones are omitted.
- HIST_VERIFY
- Whenever the user enters a line with history expansion, don't execute the line directly; instead, perform history expansion and reload the line into the editing buffer.
- INC_APPEND_HISTORY
- This option works like APPEND_HISTORY except that new history lines are added to the $HISTFILE incrementally (as soon as they are entered), rather than waiting until the shell exits. The file will still be periodically re-written to trim it when the number of lines grows 20% beyond the value specified by $SAVEHIST (see also the HIST_SAVE_BY_COPY option).
- INC_APPEND_HISTORY_TIME
- This option is a variant of INC_APPEND_HISTORY in which, where possible, the history entry is written out to the file after the command is finished, so that the time taken by the command is recorded correctly in the history file in EXTENDED_HISTORY format. This means that the history entry will not be available immediately from other instances of the shell that are using the same history file.
This option is only useful if INC_APPEND_HISTORY and SHARE_HISTORY
are turned off. The three options should be considered mutually
exclusive.
- SHARE_HISTORY <K>
This option both imports new commands from the history file, and also causes
your typed commands to be appended to the history file (the latter is like
specifying INC_APPEND_HISTORY, which should be turned off if this
option is in effect). The history lines are also output with timestamps ala
EXTENDED_HISTORY (which makes it easier to find the spot where we left
off reading the file after it gets re-written).
By default, history movement commands visit the imported lines as well as the
local lines, but you can toggle this on and off with the set-local-history zle
binding. It is also possible to create a zle widget that will make some
commands ignore imported commands, and some include them.
If you find that you want more control over when commands get imported, you may
wish to turn SHARE_HISTORY off, INC_APPEND_HISTORY or
INC_APPEND_HISTORY_TIME (see above) on, and then manually import
commands whenever you need them using ` fc -RI'.
Initialisation
- ALL_EXPORT (-a, ksh: -a)
- All parameters subsequently defined are automatically exported.
- GLOBAL_EXPORT <Z>
- If this option is set, passing the -x flag to the builtins declare, float, integer, readonly and typeset (but not local) will also set the -g flag; hence parameters exported to the environment will not be made local to the enclosing function, unless they were already or the flag +g is given explicitly. If the option is unset, exported parameters will be made local in just the same way as any other parameter.
This option is set by default for backward compatibility; it is not recommended
that its behaviour be relied upon. Note that the builtin export always
sets both the -x and -g flags, and hence its effect extends
beyond the scope of the enclosing function; this is the most portable way to
achieve this behaviour.
- GLOBAL_RCS (+d) <D>
- If this option is unset, the startup files /etc/zsh/zprofile, /etc/zsh/zshrc, /etc/zsh/zlogin and /etc/zsh/zlogout will not be run. It can be disabled and re-enabled at any time, including inside local startup files ( .zshrc, etc.).
- RCS (+f) <D>
- After /etc/zsh/zshenv is sourced on startup, source the .zshenv, /etc/zsh/zprofile, .zprofile, /etc/zsh/zshrc, .zshrc, /etc/zsh/zlogin, .zlogin, and .zlogout files, as described in the section `Files'. If this option is unset, the /etc/zsh/zshenv file is still sourced, but any of the others will not be; it can be set at any time to prevent the remaining startup files after the currently executing one from being sourced.
Input/Output
- ALIASES <D>
- Expand aliases.
- CLOBBER (+C, ksh: +C) <D>
- Allows `>' redirection to truncate existing files. Otherwise ` >!' or `>|' must be used to truncate a file.
If the option is not set, and the option APPEND_CREATE is also not set, `
>>!' or `>>|' must be used to create a file. If
either option is set, ` >>' may be used.
- CLOBBER_EMPTY
- This option is only used if the option CLOBBER is not set: note that it is set by default.
If this option is set, then regular files of zero length may be ovewritten
(`clobbered'). Note that it is possible another process has written to the
file between this test and use of the file by the current process. This option
should therefore not be used in cases where files to be clobbered may be
written to asynchronously.
- CORRECT (-0)
- Try to correct the spelling of commands. Note that, when the HASH_LIST_ALL option is not set or when some directories in the path are not readable, this may falsely report spelling errors the first time some commands are used.
The shell variable CORRECT_IGNORE may be set to a pattern to match words
that will never be offered as corrections.
- CORRECT_ALL (-O)
- Try to correct the spelling of all arguments in a line.
The shell variable CORRECT_IGNORE_FILE may be set to a pattern to match
file names that will never be offered as corrections.
- DVORAK
- Use the Dvorak keyboard instead of the standard qwerty keyboard as a basis for examining spelling mistakes for the CORRECT and CORRECT_ALL options and the spell-word editor command.
- FLOW_CONTROL <D>
- If this option is unset, output flow control via start/stop characters (usually assigned to ^S/^Q) is disabled in the shell's editor.
- IGNORE_EOF (-7)
- Do not exit on end-of-file. Require the use of exit or logout instead. However, ten consecutive EOFs will cause the shell to exit anyway, to avoid the shell hanging if its tty goes away.
Also, if this option is set and the Zsh Line Editor is used, widgets implemented
by shell functions can be bound to EOF (normally Control-D) without printing
the normal warning message. This works only for normal widgets, not for
completion widgets.
- INTERACTIVE_COMMENTS (-k) <K> <S>
- Allow comments even in interactive shells.
- HASH_CMDS <D>
- Note the location of each command the first time it is executed. Subsequent invocations of the same command will use the saved location, avoiding a path search. If this option is unset, no path hashing is done at all. However, when CORRECT is set, commands whose names do not appear in the functions or aliases hash tables are hashed in order to avoid reporting them as spelling errors.
- HASH_DIRS <D>
- Whenever a command name is hashed, hash the directory containing it, as well as all directories that occur earlier in the path. Has no effect if neither HASH_CMDS nor CORRECT is set.
- HASH_EXECUTABLES_ONLY
- When hashing commands because of HASH_CMDS, check that the file to be hashed is actually an executable. This option is unset by default as if the path contains a large number of commands, or consists of many remote files, the additional tests can take a long time. Trial and error is needed to show if this option is beneficial.
- MAIL_WARNING (-U)
- Print a warning message if a mail file has been accessed since the shell last checked.
- PATH_DIRS (-Q)
- Perform a path search even on command names with slashes in them. Thus if ` /usr/local/bin' is in the user's path, and he or she types ` X11/xinit', the command `/usr/local/bin/X11/xinit' will be executed (assuming it exists). Commands explicitly beginning with ` /', `./' or `../' are not subject to the path search. This also applies to the ` .' and source builtins.
Note that subdirectories of the current directory are always searched for
executables specified in this form. This takes place before any search
indicated by this option, and regardless of whether ` .' or the current
directory appear in the command search path.
- PATH_SCRIPT <K> <S>
- If this option is not set, a script passed as the first non-option argument to the shell must contain the name of the file to open. If this option is set, and the script does not specify a directory path, the script is looked for first in the current directory, then in the command path. See the section INVOCATION in zsh(1).
- PRINT_EIGHT_BIT
- Print eight bit characters literally in completion lists, etc. This option is not necessary if your system correctly returns the printability of eight bit characters (see ctype(3)).
- PRINT_EXIT_VALUE (-1)
- Print the exit value of programs with non-zero exit status. This is only available at the command line in interactive shells.
- RC_QUOTES
- Allow the character sequence `''' to signify a single quote within singly quoted strings. Note this does not apply in quoted strings using the format $'...', where a backslashed single quote can be used.
- RM_STAR_SILENT (-H) <K> <S>
- Do not query the user before executing `rm *' or `rm path/*'.
- RM_STAR_WAIT
- If querying the user before executing `rm *' or `rm path/*', first wait ten seconds and ignore anything typed in that time. This avoids the problem of reflexively answering `yes' to the query when one didn't really mean it. The wait and query can always be avoided by expanding the ` *' in ZLE (with tab).
- SHORT_LOOPS <C> <Z>
- Allow the short forms of for, repeat, select, if, and function constructs.
- SHORT_REPEAT
- Allow the short form repeat as SHORT_LOOPS but without enabling it for the other constructs.
- SUN_KEYBOARD_HACK (-L)
- If a line ends with a backquote, and there are an odd number of backquotes on the line, ignore the trailing backquote. This is useful on some keyboards where the return key is too small, and the backquote key lies annoyingly close to it. As an alternative the variable KEYBOARD_HACK lets you choose the character to be removed.
Job Control
- AUTO_CONTINUE
- With this option set, stopped jobs that are removed from the job table with the disown builtin command are automatically sent a CONT signal to make them running.
- AUTO_RESUME (-W)
- Treat single word simple commands without redirection as candidates for resumption of an existing job.
- BG_NICE (-6) <C> <Z>
- Run all background jobs at a lower priority. This option is set by default.
- CHECK_JOBS <Z>
- Report the status of background and suspended jobs before exiting a shell with job control; a second attempt to exit the shell will succeed. NO_CHECK_JOBS is best used only in combination with NO_HUP, else such jobs will be killed automatically.
The check is omitted if the commands run from the previous command line included
a ` jobs' command, since it is assumed the user is aware that there are
background or suspended jobs. A ` jobs' command run from one of the
hook functions defined in the section SPECIAL FUNCTIONS in zshmisc(1)
is not counted for this purpose.
- CHECK_RUNNING_JOBS <Z>
- Check for both running and suspended jobs when CHECK_JOBS is enabled. When this option is disabled, zsh checks only for suspended jobs, which matches the default behavior of bash.
This option has no effect unless CHECK_JOBS is set.
- HUP <Z>
- Send the HUP signal to running jobs when the shell exits.
- LONG_LIST_JOBS (-R)
- Print job notifications in the long format by default.
- MONITOR (-m, ksh: -m)
- Allow job control. Set by default in interactive shells.
- NOTIFY (-5, ksh: -b) <Z>
- Report the status of background jobs immediately, rather than waiting until just before printing a prompt.
- POSIX_JOBS <K> <S>
- This option makes job control more compliant with the POSIX standard.
When the option is not set, the MONITOR option is unset on entry to
subshells, so that job control is no longer active. When the option is set,
the MONITOR option and job control remain active in the subshell, but
note that the subshell has no access to jobs in the parent shell.
When the option is not set, jobs put in the background or foreground with
bg or fg are displayed with the same information that would be
reported by jobs. When the option is set, only the text is printed. The
output from jobs itself is not affected by the option.
When the option is not set, job information from the parent shell is saved for
output within a subshell (for example, within a pipeline). When the option is
set, the output of jobs is empty until a job is started within the
subshell.
In previous versions of the shell, it was necessary to enable POSIX_JOBS
in order for the builtin command wait to return the status of
background jobs that had already exited. This is no longer the case.
Prompting
- PROMPT_BANG <K>
- If set, `!' is treated specially in prompt expansion. See EXPANSION OF PROMPT SEQUENCES in zshmisc(1).
- PROMPT_CR (+V) <D>
- Print a carriage return just before printing a prompt in the line editor. This is on by default as multi-line editing is only possible if the editor knows where the start of the line appears.
- PROMPT_SP <D>
- Attempt to preserve a partial line (i.e. a line that did not end with a newline) that would otherwise be covered up by the command prompt due to the PROMPT_CR option. This works by outputting some cursor-control characters, including a series of spaces, that should make the terminal wrap to the next line when a partial line is present (note that this is only successful if your terminal has automatic margins, which is typical).
When a partial line is preserved, by default you will see an inverse+bold
character at the end of the partial line: a ` %' for a normal user or a
` #' for root. If set, the shell parameter PROMPT_EOL_MARK can
be used to customize how the end of partial lines are shown.
NOTE: if the PROMPT_CR option is not set, enabling this option will have
no effect. This option is on by default.
- PROMPT_PERCENT <C> <Z>
- If set, `%' is treated specially in prompt expansion. See EXPANSION OF PROMPT SEQUENCES in zshmisc(1).
- PROMPT_SUBST <K> <S>
- If set, parameter expansion, command substitution and arithmetic expansion are performed in prompts. Substitutions within prompts do not affect the command status.
- TRANSIENT_RPROMPT
- Remove any right prompt from display when accepting a command line. This may be useful with terminals with other cut/paste methods.
Scripts and Functions
- ALIAS_FUNC_DEF <S>
- By default, zsh does not allow the definition of functions using the ` name ()' syntax if name was expanded as an alias: this causes an error. This is usually the desired behaviour, as otherwise the combination of an alias and a function based on the same definition can easily cause problems.
When this option is set, aliases can be used for defining functions.
For example, consider the following definitions as they might occur in a startup
file.
Here, foo is expanded as an alias to bar before the () is
encountered, so the function defined would be named bar. By default
this is instead an error in native mode. Note that quoting any part of the
function name, or using the keyword function, avoids the problem, so is
recommended when the function name can also be an alias.
alias foo=bar foo() { print This probably does not do what you expect. }
- C_BASES
- Output hexadecimal numbers in the standard C format, for example ` 0xFF' instead of the usual ` 16#FF'. If the option OCTAL_ZEROES is also set (it is not by default), octal numbers will be treated similarly and hence appear as ` 077' instead of `8#77'. This option has no effect on the choice of the output base, nor on the output of bases other than hexadecimal and octal. Note that these formats will be understood on input irrespective of the setting of C_BASES.
- C_PRECEDENCES
- This alters the precedence of arithmetic operators to be more like C and other programming languages; the section ARITHMETIC EVALUATION in zshmisc(1) has an explicit list.
- DEBUG_BEFORE_CMD <D>
- Run the DEBUG trap before each command; otherwise it is run after each command. Setting this option mimics the behaviour of ksh 93; with the option unset the behaviour is that of ksh 88.
- ERR_EXIT (-e, ksh: -e)
- If a command has a non-zero exit status, execute the ZERR trap, if set, and exit. This is disabled while running initialization scripts.
The behaviour is also disabled inside DEBUG traps. In this case the
option is handled specially: it is unset on entry to the trap. If the option
DEBUG_BEFORE_CMD is set, as it is by default, and the option
ERR_EXIT is found to have been set on exit, then the command for which
the DEBUG trap is being executed is skipped. The option is restored
after the trap exits.
Non-zero status in a command list containing && or || is
ignored for commands not at the end of the list. Hence
does not trigger exit.
Exiting due to ERR_EXIT has certain interactions with asynchronous jobs
noted in the section JOBS in zshmisc(1).
false && true
- ERR_RETURN
- If a command has a non-zero exit status, return immediately from the enclosing function. The logic is similar to that for ERR_EXIT, except that an implicit return statement is executed instead of an exit. This will trigger an exit at the outermost level of a non-interactive script.
Normally this option inherits the behaviour of ERR_EXIT that code
followed by ` &&' `||' does not trigger a return. Hence
in the following:
no return is forced as the combined effect always has a zero return status.
Note. however, that if summit in the above example is itself a function,
code inside it is considered separately: it may force a return from
summit (assuming the option remains set within summit), but not
from the enclosing context. This behaviour is different from ERR_EXIT
which is unaffected by function scope.
summit || true
- EVAL_LINENO <Z>
- If set, line numbers of expressions evaluated using the builtin eval are tracked separately of the enclosing environment. This applies both to the parameter LINENO and the line number output by the prompt escape %i. If the option is set, the prompt escape %N will output the string ` (eval)' instead of the script or function name as an indication. (The two prompt escapes are typically used in the parameter PS4 to be output when the option XTRACE is set.) If EVAL_LINENO is unset, the line number of the surrounding script or function is retained during the evaluation.
- EXEC (+n, ksh: +n) <D>
- Do execute commands. Without this option, commands are read and checked for syntax errors, but not executed. This option cannot be turned off in an interactive shell, except when ` -n' is supplied to the shell at startup.
- FUNCTION_ARGZERO <C> <Z>
- When executing a shell function or sourcing a script, set $0 temporarily to the name of the function/script. Note that toggling FUNCTION_ARGZERO from on to off (or off to on) does not change the current value of $0. Only the state upon entry to the function or script has an effect. Compare POSIX_ARGZERO.
- LOCAL_LOOPS
- When this option is not set, the effect of break and continue commands may propagate outside function scope, affecting loops in calling functions. When the option is set in a calling function, a break or a continue that is not caught within a called function (regardless of the setting of the option within that function) produces a warning and the effect is cancelled.
- LOCAL_OPTIONS <K>
- If this option is set at the point of return from a shell function, most options (including this one) which were in force upon entry to the function are restored; options that are not restored are PRIVILEGED and RESTRICTED. Otherwise, only this option, and the LOCAL_LOOPS, XTRACE and PRINT_EXIT_VALUE options are restored. Hence if this is explicitly unset by a shell function the other options in force at the point of return will remain so. A shell function can also guarantee itself a known shell configuration with a formulation like ` emulate -L zsh'; the -L activates LOCAL_OPTIONS.
- LOCAL_PATTERNS
- If this option is set at the point of return from a shell function, the state of pattern disables, as set with the builtin command ` disable -p', is restored to what it was when the function was entered. The behaviour of this option is similar to the effect of LOCAL_OPTIONS on options; hence ` emulate -L sh' (or indeed any other emulation with the -L option) activates LOCAL_PATTERNS.
- LOCAL_TRAPS <K>
- If this option is set when a signal trap is set inside a function, then the previous status of the trap for that signal will be restored when the function exits. Note that this option must be set prior to altering the trap behaviour in a function; unlike LOCAL_OPTIONS, the value on exit from the function is irrelevant. However, it does not need to be set before any global trap for that to be correctly restored by a function. For example,
unsetopt localtraps trap - INT fn() { setopt localtraps; trap '' INT; sleep 3; }
- MULTI_FUNC_DEF <Z>
- Allow definitions of multiple functions at once in the form ` fn1 fn2...()'; if the option is not set, this causes a parse error. Definition of multiple functions with the function keyword is always allowed. Multiple function definitions are not often used and can cause obscure errors.
- MULTIOS <Z>
- Perform implicit tees or cats when multiple redirections are attempted (see the section `Redirection').
- OCTAL_ZEROES <S>
- Interpret any integer constant beginning with a 0 as octal, per IEEE Std 1003.2-1992 (ISO 9945-2:1993). This is not enabled by default as it causes problems with parsing of, for example, date and time strings with leading zeroes.
Sequences of digits indicating a numeric base such as the ` 08' component
in ` 08#77' are always interpreted as decimal, regardless of leading
zeroes.
- PIPE_FAIL
- By default, when a pipeline exits the exit status recorded by the shell and returned by the shell variable $? reflects that of the rightmost element of a pipeline. If this option is set, the exit status instead reflects the status of the rightmost element of the pipeline that was non-zero, or zero if all elements exited with zero status.
- SOURCE_TRACE
- If set, zsh will print an informational message announcing the name of each file it loads. The format of the output is similar to that for the XTRACE option, with the message <sourcetrace>. A file may be loaded by the shell itself when it starts up and shuts down ( Startup/Shutdown Files) or by the use of the ` source' and `dot' builtin commands.
- TYPESET_SILENT
- If this is unset, executing any of the `typeset' family of commands with no options and a list of parameters that have no values to be assigned but already exist will display the value of the parameter. If the option is set, they will only be shown when parameters are selected with the ` -m' option. The option `-p' is available whether or not the option is set.
- TYPESET_TO_UNSET <K> <S>
- When declaring a new parameter with any of the `typeset' family of related commands, the parameter remains unset unless and until a value is explicitly assigned to it, either in the ` typeset' command itself or as a later assignment statement.
- VERBOSE (-v, ksh: -v)
- Print shell input lines as they are read.
- XTRACE (-x, ksh: -x)
- Print commands and their arguments as they are executed. The output is preceded by the value of $PS4, formatted as described in the section EXPANSION OF PROMPT SEQUENCES in zshmisc(1).
Shell Emulation
- APPEND_CREATE <K> <S>
- This option only applies when NO_CLOBBER (-C) is in effect.
If this option is not set, the shell will report an error when a append
redirection ( >>) is used on a file that does not already exists
(the traditional zsh behaviour of NO_CLOBBER). If the option is set, no
error is reported (POSIX behaviour).
- BASH_REMATCH
- When set, matches performed with the =~ operator will set the BASH_REMATCH array variable, instead of the default MATCH and match variables. The first element of the BASH_REMATCH array will contain the entire matched text and subsequent elements will contain extracted substrings. This option makes more sense when KSH_ARRAYS is also set, so that the entire matched portion is stored at index 0 and the first substring is at index 1. Without this option, the MATCH variable contains the entire matched text and the match array variable contains substrings.
- BSD_ECHO <S>
- Make the echo builtin compatible with the BSD echo(1) command. This disables backslashed escape sequences in echo strings unless the -e option is specified.
- CONTINUE_ON_ERROR
- If a fatal error is encountered (see the section ERRORS in zshmisc(1)), and the code is running in a script, the shell will resume execution at the next statement in the script at the top level, in other words outside all functions or shell constructs such as loops and conditions. This mimics the behaviour of interactive shells, where the shell returns to the line editor to read a new command; it was the normal behaviour in versions of zsh before 5.0.1.
- CSH_JUNKIE_HISTORY <C>
- A history reference without an event specifier will always refer to the previous command. Without this option, such a history reference refers to the same event as the previous history reference on the current command line, defaulting to the previous command.
- CSH_JUNKIE_LOOPS <C>
- Allow loop bodies to take the form `list; end' instead of ` do list; done'.
- CSH_JUNKIE_QUOTES <C>
- Changes the rules for single- and double-quoted text to match that of csh. These require that embedded newlines be preceded by a backslash; unescaped newlines will cause an error message. In double-quoted strings, it is made impossible to escape ` $', ``' or ` "' (and `\' itself no longer needs escaping). Command substitutions are only expanded once, and cannot be nested.
- CSH_NULLCMD <C>
- Do not use the values of NULLCMD and READNULLCMD when running redirections with no command. This make such redirections fail (see the section `Redirection').
- KSH_ARRAYS <K> <S>
- Emulate ksh array handling as closely as possible. If this option is set, array elements are numbered from zero, an array parameter without subscript refers to the first element instead of the whole array, and braces are required to delimit a subscript (` ${path[2]}' rather than just ` $path[2]') or to apply modifiers to any parameter (` ${PWD:h}' rather than `$PWD:h').
- KSH_AUTOLOAD <K> <S>
- Emulate ksh function autoloading. This means that when a function is autoloaded, the corresponding file is merely executed, and must define the function itself. (By default, the function is defined to the contents of the file. However, the most common ksh-style case - of the file containing only a simple definition of the function - is always handled in the ksh-compatible manner.)
- KSH_OPTION_PRINT <K>
- Alters the way options settings are printed: instead of separate lists of set and unset options, all options are shown, marked `on' if they are in the non-default state, `off' otherwise.
- KSH_TYPESET
- This option is now obsolete: a better appropximation to the behaviour of other shells is obtained with the reserved word interface to declare, export, float, integer, local, readonly and typeset. Note that the option is only applied when the reserved word interface is not in use.
Alters the way arguments to the typeset family of commands, including
declare, export, float, integer, local and
readonly, are processed. Without this option, zsh will perform normal
word splitting after command and parameter expansion in arguments of an
assignment; with it, word splitting does not take place in those cases.
- KSH_ZERO_SUBSCRIPT
- Treat use of a subscript of value zero in array or string expressions as a reference to the first element, i.e. the element that usually has the subscript 1. Ignored if KSH_ARRAYS is also set.
If neither this option nor KSH_ARRAYS is set, accesses to an element of
an array or string with subscript zero return an empty element or string,
while attempts to set element zero of an array or string are treated as an
error. However, attempts to set an otherwise valid subscript range that
includes zero will succeed. For example, if KSH_ZERO_SUBSCRIPT is not
set,
is an error, while
is not and will replace the first element of the array.
This option is for compatibility with older versions of the shell and is not
recommended in new code.
array[0]=(element)
array[0,1]=(element)
- POSIX_ALIASES <K> <S>
- When this option is set, reserved words are not candidates for alias expansion: it is still possible to declare any of them as an alias, but the alias will never be expanded. Reserved words are described in the section RESERVED WORDS in zshmisc(1).
Alias expansion takes place while text is being read; hence when this option is
set it does not take effect until the end of any function or other piece of
shell code parsed as one unit. Note this may cause differences from other
shells even when the option is in effect. For example, when running a command
with ` zsh -c', or even ` zsh -o posixaliases -c', the entire
command argument is parsed as one unit, so aliases defined within the argument
are not available even in later lines. If in doubt, avoid use of aliases in
non-interactive code.
- POSIX_ARGZERO
- This option may be used to temporarily disable FUNCTION_ARGZERO and thereby restore the value of $0 to the name used to invoke the shell (or as set by the -c command line option). For compatibility with previous versions of the shell, emulations use NO_FUNCTION_ARGZERO instead of POSIX_ARGZERO, which may result in unexpected scoping of $0 if the emulation mode is changed inside a function or script. To avoid this, explicitly enable POSIX_ARGZERO in the emulate command:
emulate sh -o POSIX_ARGZERO
- POSIX_BUILTINS <K> <S>
- When this option is set the command builtin can be used to execute shell builtin commands. Parameter assignments specified before shell functions and special builtins are kept after the command completes unless the special builtin is prefixed with the command builtin. Special builtins are ., :, break, continue, declare, eval, exit, export, integer, local, readonly, return, set, shift, source, times, trap and unset.
In addition, various error conditions associated with the above builtins or
exec cause a non-interactive shell to exit and an interactive shell to
return to its top-level processing.
Furthermore, functions and shell builtins are not executed after an exec
prefix; the command to be executed must be an external command found in the
path.
Furthermore, the getopts builtin behaves in a POSIX-compatible fashion in
that the associated variable OPTIND is not made local to functions, and
its value is calculated differently to match other shells.
Moreover, the warning and special exit code from [[ -o
non_existent_option ]] are suppressed.
- POSIX_IDENTIFIERS <K> <S>
- When this option is set, only the ASCII characters a to z, A to Z, 0 to 9 and _ may be used in identifiers (names of shell parameters and modules).
In addition, setting this option limits the effect of parameter substitution
with no braces, so that the expression $# is treated as the parameter
$# even if followed by a valid parameter name. When it is unset, zsh
allows expressions of the form $#name to refer to the length of
$name, even for special variables, for example in expressions
such as $#- and $#*.
Another difference is that with the option set assignment to an unset variable
in arithmetic context causes the variable to be created as a scalar rather
than a numeric type. So after ` unset t; (( t = 3 ))'. without
POSIX_IDENTIFIERS set t has integer type, while with it set it
has scalar type.
When the option is unset and multibyte character support is enabled (i.e. it is
compiled in and the option MULTIBYTE is set), then additionally any
alphanumeric characters in the local character set may be used in identifiers.
Note that scripts and functions written with this feature are not portable,
and also that both options must be set before the script or function is
parsed; setting them during execution is not sufficient as the syntax
variable =value has already been parsed as a command
rather than an assignment.
If multibyte character support is not compiled into the shell this option is
ignored; all octets with the top bit set may be used in identifiers. This is
non-standard but is the traditional zsh behaviour.
- POSIX_STRINGS <K> <S>
- This option affects processing of quoted strings. Currently it only affects the behaviour of null characters, i.e. character 0 in the portable character set corresponding to US ASCII.
When this option is not set, null characters embedded within strings of the form
$'...' are treated as ordinary characters. The entire
string is maintained within the shell and output to files where necessary,
although owing to restrictions of the library interface the string is
truncated at the null character in file names, environment variables, or in
arguments to external programs.
When this option is set, the $'...' expression is truncated
at the null character. Note that remaining parts of the same string beyond the
termination of the quotes are not truncated.
For example, the command line argument a$'b\0c'd is treated with the
option off as the characters a, b, null, c, d, and
with the option on as the characters a, b, d.
- POSIX_TRAPS <K> <S>
- When this option is set, the usual zsh behaviour of executing traps for EXIT on exit from shell functions is suppressed. In that case, manipulating EXIT traps always alters the global trap for exiting the shell; the LOCAL_TRAPS option is ignored for the EXIT trap.
Also, a return statement executed in a trap with no argument passes back
from the function the value from the surrounding context, not from code
executed within the trap.
Furthermore, if a trap is set to be ignored, this state persists when a subshell
is entered. Without the option, the trap would be reset to its default state
at this point.
- SH_FILE_EXPANSION <K> <S>
- Perform filename expansion (e.g., ~ expansion) before parameter expansion, command substitution, arithmetic expansion and brace expansion. If this option is unset, it is performed after brace expansion, so things like ` ~$USERNAME' and ` ~{pfalstad,rc}' will work.
- SH_NULLCMD <K> <S>
- Do not use the values of NULLCMD and READNULLCMD when doing redirections, use ` :' instead (see the section `Redirection').
- SH_OPTION_LETTERS <K> <S>
- If this option is set the shell tries to interpret single letter options (which are used with set and setopt) like ksh does. This also affects the value of the - special parameter.
- SH_WORD_SPLIT (-y) <K> <S>
- Causes field splitting to be performed on unquoted parameter expansions. Note that this option has nothing to do with word splitting. (See zshexpn(1).)
- TRAPS_ASYNC
- While waiting for a program to exit, handle signals and run traps immediately. Otherwise the trap is run after a child process has exited. Note this does not affect the point at which traps are run for any case other than when the shell is waiting for a child process.
Shell State
- INTERACTIVE (-i, ksh: -i)
- This is an interactive shell. This option is set upon initialisation if the standard input is a tty and commands are being read from standard input. (See the discussion of SHIN_STDIN.) This heuristic may be overridden by specifying a state for this option on the command line. The value of this option can only be changed via flags supplied at invocation of the shell. It cannot be changed once zsh is running.
- LOGIN (-l, ksh: -l)
- This is a login shell. If this option is not explicitly set, the shell becomes a login shell if the first character of the argv[0] passed to the shell is a ` -'.
- PRIVILEGED (-p, ksh: -p)
- Turn on privileged mode. Typically this is used when script is to be run with elevated privileges. This should be done as follows directly with the -p option to zsh so that it takes effect during startup.
#!/bin/zsh -p
unsetopt privileged || exit
- RESTRICTED (-r)
- Enables restricted mode. This option cannot be changed using unsetopt, and setting it inside a function always changes it globally regardless of the LOCAL_OPTIONS option. See the section `Restricted Shell'.
- SHIN_STDIN (-s, ksh: -s)
- Commands are being read from the standard input. Commands are read from standard input if no command is specified with -c and no file of commands is specified. If SHIN_STDIN is set explicitly on the command line, any argument that would otherwise have been taken as a file to run will instead be treated as a normal positional parameter. Note that setting or unsetting this option on the command line does not necessarily affect the state the option will have while the shell is running - that is purely an indicator of whether or not commands are actually being read from standard input. The value of this option can only be changed via flags supplied at invocation of the shell. It cannot be changed once zsh is running.
- SINGLE_COMMAND (-t, ksh: -t)
- If the shell is reading from standard input, it exits after a single command has been executed. This also makes the shell non-interactive, unless the INTERACTIVE option is explicitly set on the command line. The value of this option can only be changed via flags supplied at invocation of the shell. It cannot be changed once zsh is running.
Zle
- BEEP (+B) <D>
- Beep on error in ZLE.
- COMBINING_CHARS
- Assume that the terminal displays combining characters correctly. Specifically, if a base alphanumeric character is followed by one or more zero-width punctuation characters, assume that the zero-width characters will be displayed as modifications to the base character within the same width. Not all terminals handle this. If this option is not set, zero-width characters are displayed separately with special mark-up.
If this option is set, the pattern test [[:WORD:]] matches a zero-width
punctuation character on the assumption that it will be used as part of a word
in combination with a word character. Otherwise the base shell does not handle
combining characters specially.
- EMACS
- If ZLE is loaded, turning on this option has the equivalent effect of ` bindkey -e'. In addition, the VI option is unset. Turning it off has no effect. The option setting is not guaranteed to reflect the current keymap. This option is provided for compatibility; bindkey is the recommended interface.
- OVERSTRIKE
- Start up the line editor in overstrike mode.
- SINGLE_LINE_ZLE (-M) <K>
- Use single-line command line editing instead of multi-line.
Note that although this is on by default in ksh emulation it only provides
superficial compatibility with the ksh line editor and reduces the
effectiveness of the zsh line editor. As it has no effect on shell syntax,
many users may wish to disable this option when using ksh emulation
interactively.
- VI
- If ZLE is loaded, turning on this option has the equivalent effect of ` bindkey -v'. In addition, the EMACS option is unset. Turning it off has no effect. The option setting is not guaranteed to reflect the current keymap. This option is provided for compatibility; bindkey is the recommended interface.
- ZLE (-Z)
- Use the zsh line editor. Set by default in interactive shells connected to a terminal.
OPTION ALIASES
Some options have alternative names. These aliases are never used for output, but can be used just like normal option names when specifying options to the shell.- BRACE_EXPAND
- NO_IGNORE_BRACES (ksh and bash compatibility)
- DOT_GLOB
- GLOB_DOTS (bash compatibility)
- HASH_ALL
- HASH_CMDS (bash compatibility)
- HIST_APPEND
- APPEND_HISTORY (bash compatibility)
- HIST_EXPAND
- BANG_HIST (bash compatibility)
- LOG
- NO_HIST_NO_FUNCTIONS (ksh compatibility)
- MAIL_WARN
- MAIL_WARNING (bash compatibility)
- ONE_CMD
- SINGLE_COMMAND (bash compatibility)
- PHYSICAL
- CHASE_LINKS (ksh and bash compatibility)
- PROMPT_VARS
- PROMPT_SUBST (bash compatibility)
- STDIN
- SHIN_STDIN (ksh compatibility)
- TRACK_ALL
- HASH_CMDS (ksh compatibility)
SINGLE LETTER OPTIONS
Default set
- -0
- CORRECT
- -1
- PRINT_EXIT_VALUE
- -2
- NO_BAD_PATTERN
- -3
- NO_NOMATCH
- -4
- GLOB_DOTS
- -5
- NOTIFY
- -6
- BG_NICE
- -7
- IGNORE_EOF
- -8
- MARK_DIRS
- -9
- AUTO_LIST
- -B
- NO_BEEP
- -C
- NO_CLOBBER
- -D
- PUSHD_TO_HOME
- -E
- PUSHD_SILENT
- -F
- NO_GLOB
- -G
- NULL_GLOB
- -H
- RM_STAR_SILENT
- -I
- IGNORE_BRACES
- -J
- AUTO_CD
- -K
- NO_BANG_HIST
- -L
- SUN_KEYBOARD_HACK
- -M
- SINGLE_LINE_ZLE
- -N
- AUTO_PUSHD
- -O
- CORRECT_ALL
- -P
- RC_EXPAND_PARAM
- -Q
- PATH_DIRS
- -R
- LONG_LIST_JOBS
- -S
- REC_EXACT
- -T
- CDABLE_VARS
- -U
- MAIL_WARNING
- -V
- NO_PROMPT_CR
- -W
- AUTO_RESUME
- -X
- LIST_TYPES
- -Y
- MENU_COMPLETE
- -Z
- ZLE
- -a
- ALL_EXPORT
- -e
- ERR_EXIT
- -f
- NO_RCS
- -g
- HIST_IGNORE_SPACE
- -h
- HIST_IGNORE_DUPS
- -i
- INTERACTIVE
- -k
- INTERACTIVE_COMMENTS
- -l
- LOGIN
- -m
- MONITOR
- -n
- NO_EXEC
- -p
- PRIVILEGED
- -r
- RESTRICTED
- -s
- SHIN_STDIN
- -t
- SINGLE_COMMAND
- -u
- NO_UNSET
- -v
- VERBOSE
- -w
- CHASE_LINKS
- -x
- XTRACE
- -y
- SH_WORD_SPLIT
sh/ksh emulation set
- -C
- NO_CLOBBER
- -T
- TRAPS_ASYNC
- -X
- MARK_DIRS
- -a
- ALL_EXPORT
- -b
- NOTIFY
- -e
- ERR_EXIT
- -f
- NO_GLOB
- -i
- INTERACTIVE
- -l
- LOGIN
- -m
- MONITOR
- -n
- NO_EXEC
- -p
- PRIVILEGED
- -r
- RESTRICTED
- -s
- SHIN_STDIN
- -t
- SINGLE_COMMAND
- -u
- NO_UNSET
- -v
- VERBOSE
- -x
- XTRACE
Also note
- -A
- Used by set for setting arrays
- -b
- Used on the command line to specify end of option processing
- -c
- Used on the command line to specify a single command
- -m
- Used by setopt for pattern-matching option setting
- -o
- Used in all places to allow use of long option names
- -s
- Used by set to sort positional parameters
NAME
zshbuiltins - zsh built-in commandsSHELL BUILTIN COMMANDS
Some shell builtin commands take options as described in individual entries; these are often referred to in the list below as ` flags' to avoid confusion with shell options, which may also have an effect on the behaviour of builtin commands. In this introductory section, ` option' always has the meaning of an option to a command that should be familiar to most command line users. Typically, options are single letters preceded by a hyphen ( -). Options that take an argument accept it either immediately following the option letter or after white space, for example ` print -C3 {1..9}' or ` print -C 3 {1..9}' are equivalent. Arguments to options are not the same as arguments to the command; the documentation indicates which is which. Options that do not take an argument may be combined in a single word, for example ` print -rca -- *' and `print -r -c -a -- *' are equivalent. Some shell builtin commands also take options that begin with ` +' instead of ` -'. The list below makes clear which commands these are. Options (together with their individual arguments, if any) must appear in a group before any non-option arguments; once the first non-option argument has been found, option processing is terminated. All builtin commands other than ` echo' and precommand modifiers, even those that have no options, can be given the argument ` --' to terminate option processing. This indicates that the following words are non-option arguments, but is otherwise ignored. This is useful in cases where arguments to the command may begin with ` -'. For historical reasons, most builtin commands (including ` echo') also recognize a single ` -' in a separate word for this purpose; note that this is less standard and use of ` --' is recommended.- - simple command
- See the section `Precommand Modifiers' in zshmisc(1).
- . file [ arg ... ]
- Read commands from file and execute them in the current shell environment.
If file does not contain a slash, or if PATH_DIRS is set, the
shell looks in the components of $path to find the directory containing
file. Files in the current directory are not read unless ` .'
appears somewhere in $path. If a file named ` file.zwc'
is found, is newer than file, and is the compiled form (created with
the zcompile builtin) of file, then commands are read from that
file instead of file.
If any arguments arg are given, they become the positional parameters;
the old positional parameters are restored when the file is done
executing. However, if no arguments are given, the positional parameters
remain those of the calling context, and no restoring is done.
If file was not found the return status is 127; if file was found
but contained a syntax error the return status is 126; else the return status
is the exit status of the last command executed.
- : [ arg ... ]
- This command does nothing, although normal argument expansions is performed which may have effects on shell parameters. A zero exit status is returned.
- alias [ {+|-}gmrsL ] [ name[ =value] ... ]
- For each name with a corresponding value, define an alias with that value. A trailing space in value causes the next word to be checked for alias expansion. If the -g flag is present, define a global alias; global aliases are expanded even if they do not occur in command position:
% perldoc --help 2>&1 | grep 'built-in functions' -f Search Perl built-in functions % alias -g HG='--help 2>&1 | grep' % perldoc HG 'built-in functions' -f Search Perl built-in functions
alias -s ps='gv --'
- autoload [ {+|-}RTUXdkmrtWz ] [ -w ] [ name ... ]
- See the section `Autoloading Functions' in zshmisc(1) for full details. The fpath parameter will be searched to find the function definition when the function is first referenced.
If name consists of an absolute path, the function is defined to load
from the file given (searching as usual for dump files in the given location).
The name of the function is the basename (non-directory part) of the file. It
is normally an error if the function is not found in the given location;
however, if the option -d is given, searching for the function defaults
to $fpath. If a function is loaded by absolute path, any functions
loaded from it that are marked for autoload without an absolute path
have the load path of the parent function temporarily prepended to
$fpath.
If the option -r or -R is given, the function is searched for
immediately and the location is recorded internally for use when the function
is executed; a relative path is expanded using the value of $PWD. This
protects against a change to $fpath after the call to autoload.
With -r, if the function is not found, it is silently left unresolved
until execution; with -R, an error message is printed and command
processing aborted immediately the search fails, i.e. at the autoload
command rather than at function execution..
The flag -X may be used only inside a shell function. It causes the
calling function to be marked for autoloading and then immediately loaded and
executed, with the current array of positional parameters as arguments. This
replaces the previous definition of the function. If no function definition is
found, an error is printed and the function remains undefined and marked for
autoloading. If an argument is given, it is used as a directory (i.e. it does
not include the name of the function) in which the function is to be found;
this may be combined with the -d option to allow the function search to
default to $fpath if it is not in the given location.
The flag +X attempts to load each name as an autoloaded function,
but does not execute it. The exit status is zero (success) if the
function was not previously defined and a definition for it was found.
This does not replace any existing definition of the function. The exit
status is nonzero (failure) if the function was already defined or when no
definition was found. In the latter case the function remains undefined and
marked for autoloading. If ksh-style autoloading is enabled, the function
created will contain the contents of the file plus a call to the function
itself appended to it, thus giving normal ksh autoloading behaviour on the
first call to the function. If the -m flag is also given each
name is treated as a pattern and all functions already marked for
autoload that match the pattern are loaded.
With the -t flag, turn on execution tracing; with -T, turn on
execution tracing only for the current function, turning it off on entry to
any called functions that do not also have tracing enabled.
With the -U flag, alias expansion is suppressed when the function is
loaded.
With the -w flag, the names are taken as names of files compiled
with the zcompile builtin, and all functions defined in them are marked
for autoloading.
The flags -z and -k mark the function to be autoloaded using the
zsh or ksh style, as if the option KSH_AUTOLOAD were unset or were set,
respectively. The flags override the setting of the option at the time the
function is loaded.
Note that the autoload command makes no attempt to ensure the shell
options set during the loading or execution of the file have any particular
value. For this, the emulate command can be used:
arranges that when func is loaded the shell is in native zsh
emulation, and this emulation is also applied when func is run.
Some of the functions of autoload are also provided by functions
-u or functions -U, but autoload is a more comprehensive
interface.
emulate zsh -c 'autoload -Uz func'
- bg [ job ... ]
- job ... &
- Put each specified job in the background, or the current job if none is specified.
- bindkey
- See the section `Zle Builtins' in zshzle(1).
- break [ n ]
- Exit from an enclosing for, while, until, select or repeat loop. If an arithmetic expression n is specified, then break n levels instead of just one.
- builtin name [ args ... ]
- Executes the builtin name, with the given args.
- bye
- Same as exit.
- cap
- See the section `The zsh/cap Module' in zshmodules(1).
- cd [ -qsLP ] [ arg ]
- cd [ -qsLP ] old new
- cd [ -qsLP ] {+|-}n
- Change the current directory. In the first form, change the current directory to arg, or to the value of $HOME if arg is not specified. If arg is `-', change to the previous directory.
Otherwise, if arg begins with a slash, attempt to change to the directory
given by arg.
If arg does not begin with a slash, the behaviour depends on whether the
current directory ` .' occurs in the list of directories contained in
the shell parameter cdpath. If it does not, first attempt to change to
the directory arg under the current directory, and if that fails but
cdpath is set and contains at least one element attempt to change to
the directory arg under each component of cdpath in turn until
successful. If ` .' occurs in cdpath, then cdpath is
searched strictly in order so that ` .' is only tried at the
appropriate point.
The order of testing cdpath is modified if the option POSIX_CD is
set, as described in the documentation for the option.
If no directory is found, the option CDABLE_VARS is set, and a parameter
named arg exists whose value begins with a slash, treat its value as
the directory. In that case, the parameter is added to the named directory
hash table.
The second form of cd substitutes the string new for the string
old in the name of the current directory, and tries to change to this
new directory.
The third form of cd extracts an entry from the directory stack, and
changes to that directory. An argument of the form ` +n'
identifies a stack entry by counting from the left of the list shown by the
dirs command, starting with zero. An argument of the form `
-n' counts from the right. If the PUSHD_MINUS option is
set, the meanings of ` +' and ` -' in this context are swapped.
If the POSIX_CD option is set, this form of cd is not recognised
and will be interpreted as the first form.
If the -q (quiet) option is specified, the hook function chpwd and
the functions in the array chpwd_functions are not called. This is
useful for calls to cd that do not change the environment seen by an
interactive user.
If the -s option is specified, cd refuses to change the current
directory if the given pathname contains symlinks. If the -P option is
given or the CHASE_LINKS option is set, symbolic links are resolved to
their true values. If the -L option is given symbolic links are
retained in the directory (and not resolved) regardless of the state of the
CHASE_LINKS option.
- chdir
- Same as cd.
- clone
- See the section `The zsh/clone Module' in zshmodules(1).
- command [ -pvV ] simple command
- The simple command argument is taken as an external command instead of a function or builtin and is executed. If the POSIX_BUILTINS option is set, builtins will also be executed but certain special properties of them are suppressed. The -p flag causes a default path to be searched instead of that in $path. With the -v flag, command is similar to whence and with -V, it is equivalent to whence -v.
See also the section `Precommand Modifiers' in zshmisc(1).
- comparguments
- See the section `The zsh/computil Module' in zshmodules(1).
- compcall
- See the section `The zsh/compctl Module' in zshmodules(1).
- compctl
- See the section `The zsh/compctl Module' in zshmodules(1).
- compdescribe
- See the section `The zsh/computil Module' in zshmodules(1).
- compfiles
- See the section `The zsh/computil Module' in zshmodules(1).
- compgroups
- See the section `The zsh/computil Module' in zshmodules(1).
- compquote
- See the section `The zsh/computil Module' in zshmodules(1).
- comptags
- See the section `The zsh/computil Module' in zshmodules(1).
- comptry
- See the section `The zsh/computil Module' in zshmodules(1).
- compvalues
- See the section `The zsh/computil Module' in zshmodules(1).
- continue [ n ]
- Resume the next iteration of the enclosing for, while, until, select or repeat loop. If an arithmetic expression n is specified, break out of n-1 loops and resume at the nth enclosing loop.
- declare
- Same as typeset.
- dirs [ -c ] [ arg ... ]
- dirs [ -lpv ]
- With no arguments, print the contents of the directory stack. Directories are added to this stack with the pushd command, and removed with the cd or popd commands. If arguments are specified, load them onto the directory stack, replacing anything that was there, and push the current directory onto the stack.
- -c
- clear the directory stack.
- -l
- print directory names in full instead of using of using ~ expressions (see Dynamic and Static named directories in zshexpn(1)).
- -p
- print directory entries one per line.
- -v
- number the directories in the stack when printing.
- disable [ -afmprs ] name ...
- Temporarily disable the named hash table elements or patterns. The default is to disable builtin commands. This allows you to use an external command with the same name as a builtin command. The -a option causes disable to act on regular or global aliases. The -s option causes disable to act on suffix aliases. The -f option causes disable to act on shell functions. The -r options causes disable to act on reserved words. Without arguments all disabled hash table elements from the corresponding hash table are printed. With the -m flag the arguments are taken as patterns (which should be quoted to prevent them from undergoing filename expansion), and all hash table elements from the corresponding hash table matching these patterns are disabled. Disabled objects can be enabled with the enable command.
With the option -p, name ... refer to elements of the shell's
pattern syntax as described in the section `Filename Generation'. Certain
elements can be disabled separately, as given below.
Note that patterns not allowed by the current settings for the options
EXTENDED_GLOB, KSH_GLOB and SH_GLOB are never enabled,
regardless of the setting here. For example, if EXTENDED_GLOB is not
active, the pattern ^ is ineffective even if `disable -p
"^"' has not been issued. The list below indicates any option
settings that restrict the use of the pattern. It should be noted that setting
SH_GLOB has a wider effect than merely disabling patterns as certain
expressions, in particular those involving parentheses, are parsed
differently.
The following patterns may be disabled; all the strings need quoting on the
command line to prevent them from being interpreted immediately as patterns
and the patterns are shown below in single quotes as a reminder.
- '?'
- The pattern character ? wherever it occurs, including when preceding a parenthesis with KSH_GLOB.
- '*'
- The pattern character * wherever it occurs, including recursive globbing and when preceding a parenthesis with KSH_GLOB.
- '['
- Character classes.
- '<' (NO_SH_GLOB)
- Numeric ranges.
- '|' (NO_SH_GLOB)
- Alternation in grouped patterns, case statements, or KSH_GLOB parenthesised expressions.
- '(' (NO_SH_GLOB)
- Grouping using single parentheses. Disabling this does not disable the use of parentheses for KSH_GLOB where they are introduced by a special character, nor for glob qualifiers (use ` setopt NO_BARE_GLOB_QUAL' to disable glob qualifiers that use parentheses only).
- '~' (EXTENDED_GLOB)
- Exclusion in the form A~B.
- '^' (EXTENDED_GLOB)
- Exclusion in the form A^B.
- '#' (EXTENDED_GLOB)
- The pattern character # wherever it occurs, both for repetition of a previous pattern and for indicating globbing flags.
- '?(' (KSH_GLOB)
- The grouping form ?(...). Note this is also disabled if '?' is disabled.
- '*(' (KSH_GLOB)
- The grouping form *(...). Note this is also disabled if '*' is disabled.
- '+(' (KSH_GLOB)
- The grouping form +(...).
- '!(' (KSH_GLOB)
- The grouping form !(...).
- '@(' (KSH_GLOB)
- The grouping form @(...).
- disown [ job ... ]
- job ... &|
- job ... &!
- Remove the specified jobs from the job table; the shell will no longer report their status, and will not complain if you try to exit an interactive shell with them running or stopped. If no job is specified, disown the current job.
If the jobs are currently stopped and the AUTO_CONTINUE option is
not set, a warning is printed containing information about how to make them
running after they have been disowned. If one of the latter two forms is used,
the jobs will automatically be made running, independent of the setting
of the AUTO_CONTINUE option.
- echo [ -neE ] [ arg ... ]
- Write each arg on the standard output, with a space separating each one. If the -n flag is not present, print a newline at the end. echo recognizes the following escape sequences:
- \a
- bell character
- \b
- backspace
- \c
- suppress subsequent characters and final newline
- \e
- escape
- \f
- form feed
- \n
- linefeed (newline)
- \r
- carriage return
- \t
- horizontal tab
- \v
- vertical tab
- \\
- backslash
- \0NNN
- character code in octal
- \xNN
- character code in hexadecimal
- \uNNNN
- unicode character code in hexadecimal
- \UNNNNNNNN
- unicode character code in hexadecimal
- echotc
- See the section `The zsh/termcap Module' in zshmodules(1).
- echoti
- See the section `The zsh/terminfo Module' in zshmodules(1).
- emulate [ -lLR ] [ {zsh|sh|ksh| csh} [ flags ... ] ]
- Without any argument print current emulation mode.
With single argument set up zsh options to emulate the specified shell as much
as possible. csh will never be fully emulated. If the argument is not
one of the shells listed above, zsh will be used as a default; more
precisely, the tests performed on the argument are the same as those used to
determine the emulation at startup based on the shell name, see the section
COMPATIBILITY in zsh(1) . In addition to setting shell options, the
command also restores the pristine state of pattern enables, as if all
patterns had been enabled using enable -p.
If the emulate command occurs inside a function that has been marked for
execution tracing with functions -t then the xtrace option will
be turned on regardless of emulation mode or other options. Note that code
executed inside the function by the ., source, or eval
commands is not considered to be running directly from the function, hence
does not provoke this behaviour.
If the -R switch is given, all settable options are reset to their
default value corresponding to the specified emulation mode, except for
certain options describing the interactive environment; otherwise, only those
options likely to cause portability problems in scripts and functions are
altered. If the -L switch is given, the options LOCAL_OPTIONS,
LOCAL_PATTERNS and LOCAL_TRAPS will be set as well, causing the
effects of the emulate command and any setopt, disable -p
or enable -p, and trap commands to be local to the immediately
surrounding shell function, if any; normally these options are turned off in
all emulation modes except ksh. The -L switch is mutually
exclusive with the use of -c in flags.
If there is a single argument and the -l switch is given, the options
that would be set or unset (the latter indicated with the prefix ` no')
are listed. -l can be combined with -L or -R and the list
will be modified in the appropriate way. Note the list does not depend on the
current setting of options, i.e. it includes all options that may in principle
change, not just those that would actually change.
The flags may be any of the invocation-time flags described in the
section INVOCATION in zsh(1), except that ` -o EMACS' and `-o
VI' may not be used. Flags such as ` +r'/`+o RESTRICTED' may
be prohibited in some circumstances.
If -c arg appears in flags, arg is evaluated while
the requested emulation is temporarily in effect. In this case the emulation
mode and all options are restored to their previous values before
emulate returns. The -R switch may precede the name of the shell
to emulate; note this has a meaning distinct from including -R in
flags.
Use of -c enables `sticky' emulation mode for functions defined within
the evaluated expression: the emulation mode is associated thereafter with the
function so that whenever the function is executed the emulation (respecting
the -R switch, if present) and all options are set (and pattern
disables cleared) before entry to the function, and the state is restored
after exit. If the function is called when the sticky emulation is already in
effect, either within an ` emulate shell -c' expression
or within another function with the same sticky emulation, entry and exit from
the function do not cause options to be altered (except due to standard
processing such as the LOCAL_OPTIONS option). This also applies to
functions marked for autoload within the sticky emulation; the appropriate set
of options will be applied at the point the function is loaded as well as when
it is run.
For example:
The two functions fni and fno are defined with sticky sh
emulation. fno is then executed, causing options associated with
emulations to be set to their values in sh. fno then calls
fni; because fni is also marked for sticky sh emulation,
no option changes take place on entry to or exit from it. Hence the option
cshnullglob, turned off by sh emulation, will be turned on
within fni and remain on return to fno. On exit from fno,
the emulation mode and all options will be restored to the state they were in
before entry to the temporary emulation.
The documentation above is typically sufficient for the intended purpose of
executing code designed for other shells in a suitable environment. More
detailed rules follow.
emulate sh -c 'fni() { setopt cshnullglob; } fno() { fni; }' fno
- 1.
- The sticky emulation environment provided by `emulate shell -c' is identical to that provided by entry to a function marked for sticky emulation as a consequence of being defined in such an environment. Hence, for example, the sticky emulation is inherited by subfunctions defined within functions with sticky emulation.
- 2.
- No change of options takes place on entry to or exit from functions that are not marked for sticky emulation, other than those that would normally take place, even if those functions are called within sticky emulation.
- 3.
- No special handling is provided for functions marked for autoload nor for functions present in wordcode created by the zcompile command.
- 4.
- The presence or absence of the -R switch to emulate corresponds to different sticky emulation modes, so for example ` emulate sh -c', `emulate -R sh -c' and `emulate csh -c' are treated as three distinct sticky emulations.
- 5.
- Difference in shell options supplied in addition to the basic emulation also mean the sticky emulations are different, so for example ` emulate zsh -c' and `emulate zsh -o cbases -c' are treated as distinct sticky emulations.
- enable [ -afmprs ] name ...
- Enable the named hash table elements, presumably disabled earlier with disable. The default is to enable builtin commands. The -a option causes enable to act on regular or global aliases. The -s option causes enable to act on suffix aliases. The -f option causes enable to act on shell functions. The -r option causes enable to act on reserved words. Without arguments all enabled hash table elements from the corresponding hash table are printed. With the -m flag the arguments are taken as patterns (should be quoted) and all hash table elements from the corresponding hash table matching these patterns are enabled. Enabled objects can be disabled with the disable builtin command.
enable -p reenables patterns disabled with disable -p. Note that
it does not override globbing options; for example, ` enable -p
"~"' does not cause the pattern character ~ to be
active unless the EXTENDED_GLOB option is also set. To enable all
possible patterns (so that they may be individually disabled with disable
-p), use ` setopt EXTENDED_GLOB KSH_GLOB NO_SH_GLOB'.
- eval [ arg ... ]
- Read the arguments as input to the shell and execute the resulting command(s) in the current shell process. The return status is the same as if the commands had been executed directly by the shell; if there are no args or they contain no commands (i.e. are an empty string or whitespace) the return status is zero.
- exec [ -cl ] [ -a argv0 ] [ command [ arg ... ] ]
- Replace the current shell with command rather than forking. If command is a shell builtin command or a shell function, the shell executes it, and exits when the command is complete.
With -c clear the environment; with -l prepend - to the
argv[0] string of the command executed (to simulate a login shell);
with -a argv0 set the argv[0] string of the command
executed. See the section `Precommand Modifiers' in zshmisc(1).
If the option POSIX_BUILTINS is set, command is never interpreted
as a shell builtin command or shell function. This means further precommand
modifiers such as builtin and noglob are also not interpreted
within the shell. Hence command is always found by searching the
command path.
If command is omitted but any redirections are specified, then the
redirections will take effect in the current shell.
- exit [ n ]
- Exit the shell with the exit status specified by an arithmetic expression n; if none is specified, use the exit status from the last command executed. An EOF condition will also cause the shell to exit, unless the IGNORE_EOF option is set.
See notes at the end of the section JOBS in zshmisc(1) for some possibly
unexpected interactions of the exit command with jobs.
- export [ name[=value] ... ]
- The specified names are marked for automatic export to the environment of subsequently executed commands. Equivalent to typeset -gx. If a parameter specified does not already exist, it is created in the global scope.
- false [ arg ... ]
- Do nothing and return an exit status of 1.
- fc [ -e ename ] [ -s ] [ -LI ] [ -m match ] [ old=new ... ] [ first [ last ] ]
- fc -l [ -LI ] [ -nrdfEiD ] [ -t timefmt ] [ -m match ]
- [ old=new ... ] [ first [ last ] ]
- fc -p [ -a ] [ filename [ histsize [ savehistsize ] ] ]
- fc -P
- fc -ARWI [ filename ]
- The fc command controls the interactive history mechanism. Note that reading and writing of history options is only performed if the shell is interactive. Usually this is detected automatically, but it can be forced by setting the interactive option when starting the shell.
The first two forms of this command select a range of events from first
to last from the history list. The arguments first and
last may be specified as a number or as a string. A negative number is
used as an offset to the current history event number. A string specifies the
most recent event beginning with the given string. All substitutions
old =new, if any, are then performed on the text of the
events.
The range of events selected by numbers can be narrowed further by the following
flags.
- -I
- restricts to only internal events (not from $HISTFILE)
- -L
- restricts to only local events (not from other shells, see SHARE_HISTORY in zshoptions(1) -- note that $HISTFILE is considered local when read at startup)
- -m
- takes the first argument as a pattern (which should be quoted) and only the history events matching this pattern are considered
- -d
- prints timestamps for each event
- -f
- prints full time-date stamps in the US ` MM/DD/YY hh:mm' format
- -E
- prints full time-date stamps in the European ` dd. mm.yyyy hh:mm' format
- -i
- prints full time-date stamps in ISO8601 ` yyyy- mm-dd hh:mm' format
- -t fmt
- prints time and date stamps in the given format; fmt is formatted with the strftime function with the zsh extensions described for the %D{string} prompt format in the section EXPANSION OF PROMPT SEQUENCES in zshmisc(1). The resulting formatted string must be no more than 256 characters or will not be printed
- -D
- prints elapsed times; may be combined with one of the options above
- fg [ job ... ]
- job ...
- Bring each specified job in turn to the foreground. If no job is specified, resume the current job.
- float [ {+|-}Hghlprtux ] [ {+| -}EFLRZ [ n ] ] [ name[=value] ... ]
- Equivalent to typeset -E, except that options irrelevant to floating point numbers are not permitted.
- functions [ {+|-}UkmtTuWz ] [ -x num ] [ name ... ]
- functions -c oldfn newfn
- functions -M [-s] mathfn [ min [ max [ shellfn ] ] ]
- functions -M [ -m pattern ... ]
- functions +M [ -m ] mathfn ...
- Equivalent to typeset -f, with the exception of the -c, -x, -M and -W options. For functions -u and functions -U, see autoload, which provides additional options. For functions -t and functions -T, see typeset -f.
The -x option indicates that any functions output will have each leading
tab for indentation, added by the shell to show syntactic structure, expanded
to the given number num of spaces. num can also be 0 to suppress
all indentation.
The -W option turns on the option WARN_NESTED_VAR for the named
function or functions only. The option is turned off at the start of nested
functions (apart from anonoymous functions) unless the called function also
has the -W attribute.
The -c option causes oldfn to be copied to newfn. The copy
is efficiently handled internally by reference counting. If oldfn was
marked for autoload it is first loaded and if this fails the copy fails.
Either function may subsequently be redefined without affecting the other. A
typical idiom is that oldfn is the name of a library shell function
which is then redefined to call newfn, thereby installing a modified
version of the function.
The -M and +M flags
Use of the -M option may not be combined with any of the options handled
by typeset -f.
functions -M mathfn defines mathfn as the name of a
mathematical function recognised in all forms of arithmetical expressions; see
the section `Arithmetic Evaluation' in zshmisc(1). By default
mathfn may take any number of comma-separated arguments. If min
is given, it must have exactly min args; if min and max
are both given, it must have at least min and at most max args.
max may be -1 to indicate that there is no upper limit.
By default the function is implemented by a shell function of the same name; if
shellfn is specified it gives the name of the corresponding shell
function while mathfn remains the name used in arithmetical
expressions. The name of the function in $0 is mathfn (not
shellfn as would usually be the case), provided the option
FUNCTION_ARGZERO is in effect. The positional parameters in the shell
function correspond to the arguments of the mathematical function call.
The result of the last arithmetical expression evaluated inside the shell
function gives the result of the mathematical function. This is not limited to
arithmetic substitutions of the form $((...)), but also
includes arithmetical expressions evaluated in any other way, including by the
let builtin, by ((...)) statements, and even by
the return builtin and by array subscripts. Therefore, care must be
taken not to use syntactical constructs that perform arithmetic evaluation
after evaluating what is to be the result of the function. For example:
This will print ` 0' because of the return.
Commenting the return out would lead to a different problem: the
(( ...)) statement would become the last statement in the
function, so the return status ($?) of the function would be
non-zero (indicating failure) whenever the arithmetic result of
the function would happen to be zero (numerically):
Instead, the true builtin can be used:
If the additional option -s is given to functions -M, the argument
to the function is a single string: anything between the opening and matching
closing parenthesis is passed to the function as a single argument, even if it
includes commas or white space. The minimum and maximum argument specifiers
must therefore be 1 if given. An empty argument list is passed as a
zero-length string. Thus, the following string function takes a single
argument, including the commas, and prints 11:
functions -M with no arguments lists all such user-defined functions in
the same form as a definition. With the additional option -m and a list
of arguments, all functions whose mathfn matches one of the pattern
arguments are listed.
function +M removes the list of mathematical functions; with the
additional option -m the arguments are treated as patterns and all
functions whose mathfn matches the pattern are removed. Note that the
shell function implementing the behaviour is not removed (regardless of
whether its name coincides with mathfn).
# WRONG zmath_cube() { (( $1 * $1 * $1 )) return 0 } functions -M cube 1 1 zmath_cube print $(( cube(3) ))
# WRONG zmath_cube() { (( $1 * $1 * $1 )) } functions -M cube 1 1 zmath_cube print $(( cube(0) ))
# RIGHT zmath_cube() { (( $1 * $1 * $1 )) true } functions -M cube 1 1 zmath_cube print $(( cube(3) ))
stringfn() { (( $#1 )); true } functions -Ms stringfn print $(( stringfn(foo,bar,rod) ))
- getcap
- See the section `The zsh/cap Module' in zshmodules(1).
- getln [ -AclneE ] name ...
- Read the top value from the buffer stack and put it in the shell parameter name. Equivalent to read -zr.
- getopts optstring name [ arg ... ]
- Checks the args for legal options. If the args are omitted, use the positional parameters. A valid option argument begins with a ` +' or a `-'. An argument not beginning with a ` +' or a `-', or the argument `--', ends the options. Note that a single ` -' is not considered a valid option argument. optstring contains the letters that getopts recognizes. If a letter is followed by a ` :', that option requires an argument. The options can be separated from the argument by blanks.
Each time it is invoked, getopts places the option letter it finds in the
shell parameter name, prepended with a `+' when arg
begins with a ` +'. The index of the next arg is stored in
OPTIND. The option argument, if any, is stored in OPTARG.
The first option to be examined may be changed by explicitly assigning to
OPTIND. OPTIND has an initial value of 1, and is normally
set to 1 upon entry to a shell function and restored upon exit. (The
POSIX_BUILTINS option disables this, and also changes the way the value
is calculated to match other shells.) OPTARG is not reset and retains
its value from the most recent call to getopts. If either of
OPTIND or OPTARG is explicitly unset, it remains unset, and the
index or option argument is not stored. The option itself is still stored in
name in this case.
A leading ` :' in optstring causes getopts to store the
letter of any invalid option in OPTARG, and to set name to `
?' for an unknown option and to ` :' when a required argument is
missing. Otherwise, getopts sets name to `?' and prints
an error message when an option is invalid. The exit status is nonzero when
there are no more options.
- hash [ -Ldfmrv ] [ name[=value] ] ...
- hash can be used to directly modify the contents of the command hash table, and the named directory hash table. Normally one would modify these tables by modifying one's PATH (for the command hash table) or by creating appropriate shell parameters (for the named directory hash table). The choice of hash table to work on is determined by the -d option; without the option the command hash table is used, and with the option the named directory hash table is used.
A command name starting with a / is never hashed, whether by
explicit use of the hash command or otherwise. Such a command is always
found by direct look up in the file system.
Given no arguments, and neither the -r or -f options, the selected
hash table will be listed in full.
The -r option causes the selected hash table to be emptied. It will be
subsequently rebuilt in the normal fashion. The -f option causes the
selected hash table to be fully rebuilt immediately. For the command hash
table this hashes all the absolute directories in the PATH, and for the
named directory hash table this adds all users' home directories. These two
options cannot be used with any arguments.
The -m option causes the arguments to be taken as patterns (which should
be quoted) and the elements of the hash table matching those patterns are
printed. This is the only way to display a limited selection of hash table
elements.
For each name with a corresponding value, put `name' in the
selected hash table, associating it with the pathname ` value'. In the
command hash table, this means that whenever ` name' is used as a
command argument, the shell will try to execute the file given by `
value'. In the named directory hash table, this means that `
value' may be referred to as ` ~name'.
For each name with no corresponding value, attempt to add
name to the hash table, checking what the appropriate value is
in the normal manner for that hash table. If an appropriate value can't
be found, then the hash table will be unchanged.
The -v option causes hash table entries to be listed as they are added by
explicit specification. If has no effect if used with -f.
If the -L flag is present, then each hash table entry is printed in the
form of a call to hash.
- history
- Same as fc -l.
- integer [ {+|-}Hghlprtux ] [ {+|-}LRZi [ n ] ] [ name[=value] ... ]
- Equivalent to typeset -i, except that options irrelevant to integers are not permitted.
- jobs [ -dlprs ] [ job ... ]
- jobs -Z string
- Lists information about each given job, or all jobs if job is omitted. The -l flag lists process IDs, and the -p flag lists process groups. If the -r flag is specified only running jobs will be listed and if the -s flag is given only stopped jobs are shown. If the -d flag is given, the directory from which the job was started (which may not be the current directory of the job) will also be shown.
The -Z option replaces the shell's argument and environment space with
the given string, truncated if necessary to fit. This will normally be visible
in ps (ps(1)) listings. This feature is typically used by
daemons, to indicate their state.
Full job control is only available in the top-level interactive shell, not in
commands run in the left hand side of pipelines or within the
(... ) construct. However, a snapshot of the job state at
that point is taken, so it is still possible to use the jobs builtin,
or any parameter providing job information. This gives information about the
state of jobs at the point the subshell was created. If background processes
are created within the subshell, then instead information about those
processes is provided.
For example,
sleep 10 & # Job in background ( # Shell forks jobs # Shows information about "sleep 10 &" sleep 5 & # Process in background (no job control) jobs # Shows information about "sleep 5 &" )
- kill [ -s signal_name | -n signal_number | -sig ] job ...
- kill -l [ sig ... ]
- Sends either SIGTERM or the specified signal to the given jobs or processes. Signals are given by number or by names, with or without the ` SIG' prefix. If the signal being sent is not ` KILL' or ` CONT', then the job will be sent a ` CONT' signal if it is stopped. The argument job can be the process ID of a job not in the job list. In the second form, kill -l, if sig is not specified the signal names are listed. Otherwise, for each sig that is a name, the corresponding signal number is listed. For each sig that is a signal number or a number representing the exit status of a process which was terminated or stopped by a signal the name of the signal is printed.
On some systems, alternative signal names are allowed for a few signals. Typical
examples are SIGCHLD and SIGCLD or SIGPOLL and
SIGIO, assuming they correspond to the same signal number. kill
-l will only list the preferred form, however kill -l alt
will show if the alternative form corresponds to a signal number. For example,
under Linux kill -l IO and kill -l POLL both output 29, hence
kill -IO and kill -POLL have the same effect.
Many systems will allow process IDs to be negative to kill a process group or
zero to kill the current process group.
- let arg ...
- Evaluate each arg as an arithmetic expression. See the section `Arithmetic Evaluation' in zshmisc(1) for a description of arithmetic expressions. The exit status is 0 if the value of the last expression is nonzero, 1 if it is zero, and 2 if an error occurred.
- limit [ -hs ] [ resource [ limit ] ] ...
- Set or display resource limits. Unless the -s flag is given, the limit applies only the children of the shell. If -s is given without other arguments, the resource limits of the current shell is set to the previously set resource limits of the children.
If limit is not specified, print the current limit placed on
resource, otherwise set the limit to the specified value. If the
-h flag is given, use hard limits instead of soft limits. If no
resource is given, print all limits.
When looping over multiple resources, the shell will abort immediately if it
detects a badly formed argument. However, if it fails to set a limit for some
other reason it will continue trying to set the remaining limits.
resource can be one of:
- addressspace
- Maximum amount of address space used.
- aiomemorylocked
- Maximum amount of memory locked in RAM for AIO operations.
- aiooperations
- Maximum number of AIO operations.
- cachedthreads
- Maximum number of cached threads.
- coredumpsize
- Maximum size of a core dump.
- cputime
- Maximum CPU seconds per process.
- datasize
- Maximum data size (including stack) for each process.
- descriptors
- Maximum value for a file descriptor.
- filesize
- Largest single file allowed.
- kqueues
- Maximum number of kqueues allocated.
- maxproc
- Maximum number of processes.
- maxpthreads
- Maximum number of threads per process.
- memorylocked
- Maximum amount of memory locked in RAM.
- memoryuse
- Maximum resident set size.
- msgqueue
- Maximum number of bytes in POSIX message queues.
- posixlocks
- Maximum number of POSIX locks per user.
- pseudoterminals
- Maximum number of pseudo-terminals.
- resident
- Maximum resident set size.
- sigpending
- Maximum number of pending signals.
- sockbufsize
- Maximum size of all socket buffers.
- stacksize
- Maximum stack size for each process.
- swapsize
- Maximum amount of swap used.
- vmemorysize
- Maximum amount of virtual memory.
- nh
- hours
- nk
- kilobytes (default)
- nm
- megabytes or minutes
- ng
- gigabytes
- [mm:]ss
- minutes and seconds
- local [ {+|-}AHUahlprtux ] [ {+|-}EFLRZi [ n ] ] [ name[=value] ... ]
- Same as typeset, except that the options -g, and -f are not permitted. In this case the -x option does not force the use of -g, i.e. exported variables will be local to functions.
- logout [ n ]
- Same as exit, except that it only works in a login shell.
- noglob simple command
- See the section `Precommand Modifiers' in zshmisc(1).
- popd [ -q ] [ {+|-}n ]
- Remove an entry from the directory stack, and perform a cd to the new top directory. With no argument, the current top entry is removed. An argument of the form ` +n' identifies a stack entry by counting from the left of the list shown by the dirs command, starting with zero. An argument of the form -n counts from the right. If the PUSHD_MINUS option is set, the meanings of ` +' and ` -' in this context are swapped.
If the -q (quiet) option is specified, the hook function chpwd and
the functions in the array $chpwd_functions are not called, and the new
directory stack is not printed. This is useful for calls to popd that
do not change the environment seen by an interactive user.
- print [ -abcDilmnNoOpPrsSz ] [ -u n ] [ -f format ] [ -C cols ]
- [ -v name ] [ -xX tabstop ] [ -R [ -en ]] [ arg ... ]
- With the `-f' option the arguments are printed as described by printf. With no flags or with the flag ` -', the arguments are printed on the standard output as described by echo, with the following differences: the escape sequence ` \M- x' (or `\Mx') metafies the character x (sets the highest bit), ` \C-x' (or `\Cx') produces a control character (` \C-@' and `\C-?' give the characters NULL and delete), a character code in octal is represented by ` \NNN' (instead of ` \0NNN'), and ` \E' is a synonym for `\e'. Finally, if not in an escape sequence, ` \' escapes the following character and is not printed.
- -a
- Print arguments with the column incrementing first. Only useful with the -c and -C options.
- -b
- Recognize all the escape sequences defined for the bindkey command, see the section `Zle Builtins' in zshzle(1).
- -c
- Print the arguments in columns. Unless -a is also given, arguments are printed with the row incrementing first.
- -C cols
- Print the arguments in cols columns. Unless -a is also given, arguments are printed with the row incrementing first.
- -D
- Treat the arguments as paths, replacing directory prefixes with ~ expressions corresponding to directory names, as appropriate.
- -i
- If given together with -o or -O, sorting is performed case-independently.
- -l
- Print the arguments separated by newlines instead of spaces. Note: if the list of arguments is empty, print -l will still output one empty line. To print a possibly-empty list of arguments one per line, use print -C1, as in `print -rC1 -- "$list[@]"'.
- -m
- Take the first argument as a pattern (should be quoted), and remove it from the argument list together with subsequent arguments that do not match this pattern.
- -n
- Do not add a newline to the output.
- -N
- Print the arguments separated and terminated by nulls. Again, print -rNC1 -- "$list[@]" is a canonical way to print an arbitrary list as null-delimited records.
- -o
- Print the arguments sorted in ascending order.
- -O
- Print the arguments sorted in descending order.
- -p
- Print the arguments to the input of the coprocess.
- -P
- Perform prompt expansion (see EXPANSION OF PROMPT SEQUENCES in zshmisc(1)). In combination with ` -f', prompt escape sequences are parsed only within interpolated arguments, not within the format string.
- -r
- Ignore the escape conventions of echo.
- -R
- Emulate the BSD echo command, which does not process escape sequences unless the -e flag is given. The -n flag suppresses the trailing newline. Only the -e and -n flags are recognized after -R; all other arguments and options are printed.
- -s
- Place the results in the history list instead of on the standard output. Each argument to the print command is treated as a single word in the history, regardless of its content.
- -S
- Place the results in the history list instead of on the standard output. In this case only a single argument is allowed; it will be split into words as if it were a full shell command line. The effect is similar to reading the line from a history file with the HIST_LEX_WORDS option active.
- -u n
- Print the arguments to file descriptor n.
- -v name
- Store the printed arguments as the value of the parameter name.
- -x tab-stop
- Expand leading tabs on each line of output in the printed string assuming a tab stop every tab-stop characters. This is appropriate for formatting code that may be indented with tabs. Note that leading tabs of any argument to print, not just the first, are expanded, even if print is using spaces to separate arguments (the column count is maintained across arguments but may be incorrect on output owing to previous unexpanded tabs).
The start of the output of each print command is assumed to be aligned with a
tab stop. Widths of multibyte characters are handled if the option
MULTIBYTE is in effect. This option is ignored if other formatting
options are in effect, namely column alignment or printf style, or if
output is to a special location such as shell history or the command line
editor.
- -X tab-stop
- This is similar to -x, except that all tabs in the printed string are expanded. This is appropriate if tabs in the arguments are being used to produce a table format.
- -z
- Push the arguments onto the editing buffer stack, separated by spaces.
- printf [ -v name ] format [ arg ... ]
- Print the arguments according to the format specification. Formatting rules are the same as used in C. The same escape sequences as for echo are recognised in the format. All C conversion specifications ending in one of csdiouxXeEfgGn are handled. In addition to this, ` %b' can be used instead of ` %s' to cause escape sequences in the argument to be recognised and ` %q' can be used to quote the argument in such a way that allows it to be reused as shell input. With the numeric format specifiers, if the corresponding argument starts with a quote character, the numeric value of the following character is used as the number to print; otherwise the argument is evaluated as an arithmetic expression. See the section `Arithmetic Evaluation' in zshmisc(1) for a description of arithmetic expressions. With ` %n', the corresponding argument is taken as an identifier which is created as an integer parameter.
Normally, conversion specifications are applied to each argument in order but
they can explicitly specify the nth argument is to be used by replacing
` %' by `%n$' and `*' by
`*n$'. It is recommended that you do not mix references
of this explicit style with the normal style and the handling of such mixed
styles may be subject to future change.
If arguments remain unused after formatting, the format string is reused until
all arguments have been consumed. With the print builtin, this can be
suppressed by using the -r option. If more arguments are required by
the format than have been specified, the behaviour is as if zero or an empty
string had been specified as the argument.
The -v option causes the output to be stored as the value of the
parameter name, instead of printed. If name is an array and the
format string is reused when consuming arguments then one array element will
be used for each use of the format string.
- pushd [ -qsLP ] [ arg ]
- pushd [ -qsLP ] old new
- pushd [ -qsLP ] {+|-}n
- Change the current directory, and push the old current directory onto the directory stack. In the first form, change the current directory to arg. If arg is not specified, change to the second directory on the stack (that is, exchange the top two entries), or change to $HOME if the PUSHD_TO_HOME option is set or if there is only one entry on the stack. Otherwise, arg is interpreted as it would be by cd. The meaning of old and new in the second form is also the same as for cd.
The third form of pushd changes directory by rotating the directory list.
An argument of the form ` +n' identifies a stack entry by
counting from the left of the list shown by the dirs command, starting
with zero. An argument of the form ` -n' counts from the right.
If the PUSHD_MINUS option is set, the meanings of ` +' and
`-' in this context are swapped.
If the -q (quiet) option is specified, the hook function chpwd and
the functions in the array $chpwd_functions are not called, and the new
directory stack is not printed. This is useful for calls to pushd that
do not change the environment seen by an interactive user.
If the option -q is not specified and the shell option
PUSHD_SILENT is not set, the directory stack will be printed after a
pushd is performed.
The options -s, -L and -P have the same meanings as for the
cd builtin.
- pushln [ arg ... ]
- Equivalent to print -nz.
- pwd [ -rLP ]
- Print the absolute pathname of the current working directory. If the -r or the -P flag is specified, or the CHASE_LINKS option is set and the -L flag is not given, the printed path will not contain symbolic links.
- r
- Same as fc -e -.
- read [ -rszpqAclneE ] [ -t [ num ] ] [ -k [ num ] ] [ -d delim ]
- [ -u n ] [ [name][?prompt] ] [ name ... ]
- Read one line and break it into fields using the characters in $IFS as separators, except as noted below. The first field is assigned to the first name, the second field to the second name, etc., with leftover fields assigned to the last name. If name is omitted then REPLY is used for scalars and reply for arrays.
- -r
- Raw mode: a `\' at the end of a line does not signify line continuation and backslashes in the line don't quote the following character and are not removed.
- -s
- Don't echo back characters if reading from the terminal.
- -q
- Read only one character from the terminal and set name to ` y' if this character was `y' or `Y' and to ` n' otherwise. With this flag set the return status is zero only if the character was ` y' or `Y'. This option may be used with a timeout (see -t); if the read times out, or encounters end of file, status 2 is returned. Input is read from the terminal unless one of -u or -p is present. This option may also be used within zle widgets.
- -k [ num ]
- Read only one (or num) characters. All are assigned to the first name, without word splitting. This flag is ignored when -q is present. Input is read from the terminal unless one of -u or -p is present. This option may also be used within zle widgets.
Note that despite the mnemonic `key' this option does read full characters,
which may consist of multiple bytes if the option MULTIBYTE is
set.
- -z
- Read one entry from the editor buffer stack and assign it to the first name, without word splitting. Text is pushed onto the stack with ` print -z' or with push-line from the line editor (see zshzle(1)). This flag is ignored when the -k or -q flags are present.
- -e
- -E
- The input read is printed (echoed) to the standard output. If the -e flag is used, no input is assigned to the parameters.
- -A
- The first name is taken as the name of an array and all words are assigned to it.
- -c
- -l
- These flags are allowed only if called inside a function used for completion (specified with the -K flag to compctl). If the -c flag is given, the words of the current command are read. If the -l flag is given, the whole line is assigned as a scalar. If both flags are present, -l is used and -c is ignored.
- -n
- Together with -c, the number of the word the cursor is on is read. With -l, the index of the character the cursor is on is read. Note that the command name is word number 1, not word 0, and that when the cursor is at the end of the line, its character index is the length of the line plus one.
- -u n
- Input is read from file descriptor n.
- -p
- Input is read from the coprocess.
- -d delim
- Input is terminated by the first character of delim instead of by newline.
- -t [ num ]
- Test if input is available before attempting to read. If num is present, it must begin with a digit and will be evaluated to give a number of seconds, which may be a floating point number; in this case the read times out if input is not available within this time. If num is not present, it is taken to be zero, so that read returns immediately if no input is available. If no input is available, return status 1 and do not set any variables. This option is not available when reading from the editor buffer with -z, when called from within completion with -c or -l, with -q which clears the input queue before reading, or within zle where other mechanisms should be used to test for input. Note that read does not attempt to alter the input processing mode. The default mode is canonical input, in which an entire line is read at a time, so usually ` read -t' will not read anything until an entire line has been typed. However, when reading from the terminal with -k input is processed one key at a time; in this case, only availability of the first character is tested, so that e.g. ` read -t -k 2' can still block on the second character. Use two instances of ` read -t -k' if this is not what is wanted.
- readonly
- Same as typeset -r. With the POSIX_BUILTINS option set, same as typeset -gr.
- rehash
- Same as hash -r.
- return [ n ]
- Causes a shell function or `.' script to return to the invoking script with the return status specified by an arithmetic expression n. For example, the following prints ` 42':
() { integer foo=40; return "foo + 2" } echo $?
- sched
- See the section `The zsh/sched Module' in zshmodules(1).
- set [ {+|-}options | {+|-}o [ option_name ] ] ... [ {+|-} A [ name ] ]
- [ arg ... ]
- Set the options for the shell and/or set the positional parameters, or declare and set an array. If the -s option is given, it causes the specified arguments to be sorted before assigning them to the positional parameters (or to the array name if -A is used). With +s sort arguments in descending order. For the meaning of the other flags, see zshoptions(1). Flags may be specified by name using the -o option. If no option name is supplied with -o, the current option states are printed: see the description of setopt below for more information on the format. With +o they are printed in a form that can be used as input to the shell.
If the -A flag is specified, name is set to an array containing
the given args; if no name is specified, all arrays are printed
together with their values.
If +A is used and name is an array, the given arguments will
replace the initial elements of that array; if no name is specified,
all arrays are printed without their values.
The behaviour of arguments after -A name or +A name
depends on whether the option KSH_ARRAYS is set. If it is not set, all
arguments following name are treated as values for the array,
regardless of their form. If the option is set, normal option processing
continues at that point; only regular arguments are treated as values for the
array. This means that
sets array to `-x -- foo' if KSH_ARRAYS is not set,
but sets the array to foo and turns on the option `-x' if it is
set.
If the -A flag is not present, but there are arguments beyond the
options, the positional parameters are set. If the option list (if any) is
terminated by ` --', and there are no further arguments, the
positional parameters will be unset.
If no arguments and no ` --' are given, then the names and values
of all parameters are printed on the standard output. If the only argument is
` +', the names of all parameters are printed.
For historical reasons, ` set -' is treated as `set +xv' and `
set - args' as `set +xv -- args' when in any other
emulation mode than zsh's native mode.
set -A array -x -- foo
- setcap
- See the section `The zsh/cap Module' in zshmodules(1).
- setopt [ {+|-}options | {+| -}o option_name ] [ -m ] [ name ... ]
- Set the options for the shell. All options specified either with flags or by name are set.
If no arguments are supplied, the names of all options currently set are
printed. The form is chosen so as to minimize the differences from the default
options for the current emulation (the default emulation being native
zsh, shown as <Z> in zshoptions(1)). Options that
are on by default for the emulation are shown with the prefix no only
if they are off, while other options are shown without the prefix no
and only if they are on. In addition to options changed from the default state
by the user, any options activated automatically by the shell (for example,
SHIN_STDIN or INTERACTIVE) will be shown in the list. The format
is further modified by the option KSH_OPTION_PRINT, however the
rationale for choosing options with or without the no prefix remains
the same in this case.
If the -m flag is given the arguments are taken as patterns (which should
be quoted to protect them from filename expansion), and all options with names
matching these patterns are set.
Note that a bad option name does not cause execution of subsequent shell code to
be aborted; this is behaviour is different from that of ` set
-o'. This is because set is regarded as a special builtin by the
POSIX standard, but setopt is not.
- shift [ -p ] [ n ] [ name ... ]
- The positional parameters ${n+1} ... are renamed to $1 ..., where n is an arithmetic expression that defaults to 1. If any names are given then the arrays with these names are shifted instead of the positional parameters.
If the option -p is given arguments are instead removed (popped) from the
end rather than the start of the array.
- source file [ arg ... ]
- Same as `.', except that the current directory is always searched and is always searched first, before directories in $path.
- stat
- See the section `The zsh/stat Module' in zshmodules(1).
- suspend [ -f ]
- Suspend the execution of the shell (send it a SIGTSTP) until it receives a SIGCONT. Unless the -f option is given, this will refuse to suspend a login shell.
- test [ arg ... ]
- [ [ arg ... ] ]
- Like the system version of test. Added for compatibility; use conditional expressions instead (see the section `Conditional Expressions'). The main differences between the conditional expression syntax and the test and [ builtins are: these commands are not handled syntactically, so for example an empty variable expansion may cause an argument to be omitted; syntax errors cause status 2 to be returned instead of a shell error; and arithmetic operators expect integer arguments rather than arithmetic expressions.
The command attempts to implement POSIX and its extensions where these are
specified. Unfortunately there are intrinsic ambiguities in the syntax; in
particular there is no distinction between test operators and strings that
resemble them. The standard attempts to resolve these for small numbers of
arguments (up to four); for five or more arguments compatibility cannot be
relied on. Users are urged wherever possible to use the ` [[' test
syntax which does not have these ambiguities.
- times
- Print the accumulated user and system times for the shell and for processes run from the shell.
- trap [ arg ] [ sig ... ]
- arg is a series of commands (usually quoted to protect it from immediate evaluation by the shell) to be read and executed when the shell receives any of the signals specified by one or more sig args. Each sig can be given as a number, or as the name of a signal either with or without the string SIG in front (e.g. 1, HUP, and SIGHUP are all the same signal).
If arg is `-', then the specified signals are reset to their
defaults, or, if no sig args are present, all traps are reset.
If arg is an empty string, then the specified signals are ignored by the
shell (and by the commands it invokes).
If arg is omitted but one or more sig args are provided (i.e. the
first argument is a valid signal number or name), the effect is the same as if
arg had been specified as `-'.
The trap command with no arguments prints a list of commands associated
with each signal.
If sig is ZERR then arg will be executed after each command
with a nonzero exit status. ERR is an alias for ZERR on systems
that have no SIGERR signal (this is the usual case).
If sig is DEBUG then arg will be executed before each
command if the option DEBUG_BEFORE_CMD is set (as it is by default),
else after each command. Here, a `command' is what is described as a `sublist'
in the shell grammar, see the section SIMPLE COMMANDS & PIPELINES in
zshmisc(1). If DEBUG_BEFORE_CMD is set various additional
features are available. First, it is possible to skip the next command by
setting the option ERR_EXIT; see the description of the ERR_EXIT
option in zshoptions(1). Also, the shell parameter ZSH_DEBUG_CMD
is set to the string corresponding to the command to be executed following the
trap. Note that this string is reconstructed from the internal format and may
not be formatted the same way as the original text. The parameter is unset
after the trap is executed.
If sig is 0 or EXIT and the trap statement is
executed inside the body of a function, then the command arg is
executed after the function completes. The value of $? at the start of
execution is the exit status of the shell or the return status of the function
exiting. If sig is 0 or EXIT and the trap
statement is not executed inside the body of a function, then the command
arg is executed when the shell terminates; the trap runs before any
zshexit hook functions.
ZERR, DEBUG, and EXIT traps are not executed inside other
traps. ZERR and DEBUG traps are kept within subshells, while
other traps are reset.
Note that traps defined with the trap builtin are slightly different from
those defined as ` TRAPNAL () { ... }', as the latter have their
own function environment (line numbers, local variables, etc.) while the
former use the environment of the command in which they were called. For
example,
will print the line number of a command executed after it has run, while
will always print the number zero.
Alternative signal names are allowed as described under kill above.
Defining a trap under either name causes any trap under an alternative name to
be removed. However, it is recommended that for consistency users stick
exclusively to one name or another.
trap 'print $LINENO' DEBUG
TRAPDEBUG() { print $LINENO; }
- true [ arg ... ]
- Do nothing and return an exit status of 0.
- ttyctl [ -fu ]
- The -f option freezes the tty (i.e. terminal or terminal emulator), and -u unfreezes it. When the tty is frozen, no changes made to the tty settings by external programs will be honored by the shell, except for changes in the size of the screen; the shell will simply reset the settings to their previous values as soon as each command exits or is suspended. Thus, stty and similar programs have no effect when the tty is frozen. Freezing the tty does not cause the current state to be remembered: instead, it causes future changes to the state to be blocked.
Without options it reports whether the terminal is frozen or not.
Note that, regardless of whether the tty is frozen or not, the shell needs to
change the settings when the line editor starts, so unfreezing the tty does
not guarantee settings made on the command line are preserved. Strings of
commands run between editing the command line will see a consistent tty state.
See also the shell variable STTY for a means of initialising the tty
before running external commands and/or freezing the tty around a single
command.
- type [ -wfpamsS ] name ...
- Equivalent to whence -v.
- typeset [ {+|-}AHUaghlmrtux ] [ { +|-}EFLRZip [ n ] ]
- [ + ] [ name[=value] ... ]
- typeset -T [ {+|-}Uglrux ] [ { +|-}LRZp [ n ] ]
- [ + | SCALAR[=value] array[=(value ...)] [ sep ] ]
- typeset -f [ {+|-}TUkmtuz ] [ + ] [ name ... ]
- Set or display attributes and values for shell parameters.
Except as noted below for control flags that change the behavior, a parameter is
created for each name that does not already refer to one. When inside a
function, a new parameter is created for every name (even those that
already exist), and is unset again when the function completes. See `Local
Parameters' in zshparam(1). The same rules apply to special shell
parameters, which retain their special attributes when made local.
For each name=value assignment, the parameter name
is set to value. If the assignment is omitted and name does
not refer to an existing parameter, a new parameter is initialized to
empty string, zero, or empty array (as appropriate), unless the shell
option TYPESET_TO_UNSET is set. When that option is set, the parameter
attributes are recorded but the parameter remains unset.
If the shell option TYPESET_SILENT is not set, for each remaining
name that refers to a parameter that is already set, the name and value
of the parameter are printed in the form of an assignment. Nothing is printed
for newly-created parameters, or when any attribute flags listed below are
given along with the name. Using ` +' instead of minus to
introduce an attribute turns it off.
If no name is present, the names and values of all parameters are
printed. In this case the attribute flags restrict the display to only those
parameters that have the specified attributes, and using ` +' rather
than ` -' to introduce the flag suppresses printing of the values of
parameters when there is no parameter name.
All forms of the command handle scalar assignment. Array assignment is possible
if any of the reserved words declare, export, float,
integer, local, readonly or typeset is matched
when the line is parsed (N.B. not when it is executed). In this case the
arguments are parsed as assignments, except that the ` +=' syntax and
the GLOB_ASSIGN option are not supported, and scalar values after
= are not split further into words, even if expanded (regardless
of the setting of the KSH_TYPESET option; this option is obsolete).
Examples of the differences between command and reserved word parsing:
The above creates a scalar parameter svar and an array parameter
avar as if the assignments had been
On the other hand:
The builtin keyword causes the above to use the standard builtin
interface to typeset in which argument parsing is performed in the same
way as for other commands. This example creates a scalar svar
containing the value two and another scalar parameter words with
no value. An array value in this case would either cause an error or be
treated as an obscure set of glob qualifiers.
Arbitrary arguments are allowed if they take the form of assignments after
command line expansion; however, these only perform scalar assignment:
The above sets the scalar parameter svar to the value val.
Parentheses around the value within var would not cause array
assignment as they will be treated as ordinary characters when $var is
substituted. Any non-trivial expansion in the name part of the assignment
causes the argument to be treated in this fashion:
The above syntax is valid, and has the expected effect of setting the three
parameters to the same value, but the command line is parsed as a set of three
normal command line arguments to typeset after expansion. Hence it is
not possible to assign to multiple arrays by this means.
Note that each interface to any of the commands may be disabled separately. For
example, ` disable -r typeset' disables the reserved word interface to
typeset, exposing the builtin interface, while ` disable
typeset' disables the builtin. Note that disabling the reserved word
interface for typeset may cause problems with the output of `
typeset -p', which assumes the reserved word interface is available in
order to restore array and associative array values.
Unlike parameter assignment statements, typeset's exit status on an
assignment that involves a command substitution does not reflect the exit
status of the command substitution. Therefore, to test for an error in a
command substitution, separate the declaration of the parameter from its
initialization:
To initialize a parameter param to a command output and mark it readonly,
use typeset -r param or readonly param after the
parameter assignment statement.
If no attribute flags are given, and either no name arguments are present
or the flag +m is used, then each parameter name printed is preceded by
a list of the attributes of that parameter ( array, association,
exported, float, integer, readonly, or
undefined for autoloaded parameters not yet loaded). If +m is
used with attribute flags, and all those flags are introduced with +,
the matching parameter names are printed but their values are not.
The following control flags change the behavior of typeset:
# Reserved word parsing typeset svar=$(echo one word) avar=(several words)
svar="one word" avar=(several words)
# Normal builtin interface builtin typeset svar=$(echo two words)
var='svar=val' typeset $var
typeset {var1,var2,var3}=name
# WRONG typeset var1=$(exit 1) || echo "Trouble with var1" # RIGHT typeset var1 && var1=$(exit 1) || echo "Trouble with var1"
- +
- If `+' appears by itself in a separate word as the last option, then the names of all parameters (functions with -f) are printed, but the values (function bodies) are not. No name arguments may appear, and it is an error for any other options to follow ` +'. The effect of ` +' is as if all attribute flags which precede it were given with a ` +' prefix. For example, `typeset -U +' is equivalent to ` typeset +U' and displays the names of all arrays having the uniqueness attribute, whereas ` typeset -f -U +' displays the names of all autoloadable functions. If + is the only option, then type information (array, readonly, etc.) is also printed for each parameter, in the same manner as ` typeset +m "*"'.
- -g
- The -g (global) means that any resulting parameter will not be restricted to local scope. Note that this does not necessarily mean that the parameter will be global, as the flag will apply to any existing parameter (even if unset) from an enclosing function. This flag does not affect the parameter after creation, hence it has no effect when listing existing parameters, nor does the flag +g have any effect except in combination with -m (see below).
- -m
- If the -m flag is given the name arguments are taken as patterns (use quoting to prevent these from being interpreted as file patterns). With no attribute flags, all parameters (or functions with the -f flag) with matching names are printed (the shell option TYPESET_SILENT is not used in this case).
If the +g flag is combined with -m, a new local parameter is
created for every matching parameter that is not already local. Otherwise
-m applies all other flags or assignments to the existing parameters.
Except when assignments are made with name=value, using
+m forces the matching parameters and their attributes to be printed,
even inside a function. Note that -m is ignored if no patterns are
given, so ` typeset -m' displays attributes but `typeset -a +m'
does not.
- -p [ n ]
- If the -p option is given, parameters and values are printed in the form of a typeset command with an assignment, regardless of other flags and options. Note that the -H flag on parameters is respected; no value will be shown for these parameters.
-p may be followed by an optional integer argument. Currently only the
value 1 is supported. In this case arrays and associative arrays are
printed with newlines between indented elements for readability.
- -T [ scalar[=value] array[ =(value ...)] [ sep ] ]
- This flag has a different meaning when used with -f; see below. Otherwise the -T option requires zero, two, or three arguments to be present. With no arguments, the list of parameters created in this fashion is shown. With two or three arguments, the first two are the name of a scalar and of an array parameter (in that order) that will be tied together in the manner of $PATH and $path. The optional third argument is a single-character separator which will be used to join the elements of the array to form the scalar; if absent, a colon is used, as with $PATH. Only the first character of the separator is significant; any remaining characters are ignored. Multibyte characters are not yet supported.
Only one of the scalar and array parameters may be assigned an initial value
(the restrictions on assignment forms described above also apply).
Both the scalar and the array may be manipulated as normal. If one is unset, the
other will automatically be unset too. There is no way of untying the
variables without unsetting them, nor of converting the type of one of them
with another typeset command; +T does not work, assigning an
array to scalar is an error, and assigning a scalar to array
sets it to be a single-element array.
Note that both ` typeset -xT ...' and `export -T ...' work, but
only the scalar will be marked for export. Setting the value using the scalar
version causes a split on all separators (which cannot be quoted). It is
possible to apply -T to two previously tied variables but with a
different separator character, in which case the variables remain joined as
before but the separator is changed.
When an existing scalar is tied to a new array, the value of the scalar is
preserved but no attribute other than export will be preserved.
Attribute flags that transform the final value ( -L, -R,
-Z, -l, -u) are only applied to the expanded value at the
point of a parameter expansion expression using ` $'. They are not
applied when a parameter is retrieved internally by the shell for any purpose.
The following attribute flags may be specified:
- -A
- The names refer to associative array parameters; see `Array Parameters' in zshparam(1).
- -L [ n ]
- Left justify and remove leading blanks from the value when the parameter is expanded. If n is nonzero, it defines the width of the field. If n is zero, the width is determined by the width of the value of the first assignment. In the case of numeric parameters, the length of the complete value assigned to the parameter is used to determine the width, not the value that would be output.
The width is the count of characters, which may be multibyte characters if the
MULTIBYTE option is in effect. Note that the screen width of the
character is not taken into account; if this is required, use padding with
parameter expansion flags ${(ml...)...} as
described in `Parameter Expansion Flags' in zshexpn(1).
When the parameter is expanded, it is filled on the right with blanks or
truncated if necessary to fit the field. Note truncation can lead to
unexpected results with numeric parameters. Leading zeros are removed if the
-Z flag is also set.
- -R [ n ]
- Similar to -L, except that right justification is used; when the parameter is expanded, the field is left filled with blanks or truncated from the end. May not be combined with the -Z flag.
- -U
- For arrays (but not for associative arrays), keep only the first occurrence of each duplicated value. This may also be set for tied parameters (see -T) or colon-separated special parameters like PATH or FIGNORE, etc. Note the flag takes effect on assignment, and the type of the variable being assigned to is determinative; for variables with shared values it is therefore recommended to set the flag for all interfaces, e.g. ` typeset -U PATH path'.
This flag has a different meaning when used with -f; see below.
- -Z [ n ]
- Specially handled if set along with the -L flag. Otherwise, similar to -R, except that leading zeros are used for padding instead of blanks if the first non-blank character is a digit. Numeric parameters are specially handled: they are always eligible for padding with zeroes, and the zeroes are inserted at an appropriate place in the output.
- -a
- The names refer to array parameters. An array parameter may be created this way, but it may be assigned to in the typeset statement only if the reserved word form of typeset is enabled (as it is by default). When displaying, both normal and associative arrays are shown.
- -f
- The names refer to functions rather than parameters. No assignments can be made, and the only other valid flags are -t, -T, -k, -u, -U and -z. The flag -t turns on execution tracing for this function; the flag -T does the same, but turns off tracing for any named (not anonymous) function called from the present one, unless that function also has the -t or -T flag. The -u and -U flags cause the function to be marked for autoloading; -U also causes alias expansion to be suppressed when the function is loaded. See the description of the ` autoload' builtin for details.
Note that the builtin functions provides the same basic capabilities as
typeset -f but gives access to a few extra options; autoload
gives further additional options for the case typeset -fu and
typeset -fU.
- -h
- Hide: only useful for special parameters (those marked `<S>' in the table in zshparam(1)), and for local parameters with the same name as a special parameter, though harmless for others. A special parameter with this attribute will not retain its special effect when made local. Thus after ` typeset -h PATH', a function containing ` typeset PATH' will create an ordinary local parameter without the usual behaviour of PATH. Alternatively, the local parameter may itself be given this attribute; hence inside a function ` typeset -h PATH' creates an ordinary local parameter and the special PATH parameter is not altered in any way. It is also possible to create a local parameter using ` typeset +h special', where the local copy of special will retain its special properties regardless of having the -h attribute. Global special parameters loaded from shell modules (currently those in zsh/mapfile and zsh/parameter) are automatically given the -h attribute to avoid name clashes.
- -H
- Hide value: specifies that typeset will not display the value of the parameter when listing parameters; the display for such parameters is always as if the ` +' flag had been given. Use of the parameter is in other respects normal, and the option does not apply if the parameter is specified by name, or by pattern with the -m option. This is on by default for the parameters in the zsh/parameter and zsh/mapfile modules. Note, however, that unlike the -h flag this is also useful for non-special parameters.
- -i [ n ]
- Use an internal integer representation. If n is nonzero it defines the output arithmetic base, otherwise it is determined by the first assignment. Bases from 2 to 36 inclusive are allowed.
- -E [ n ]
- Use an internal double-precision floating point representation. On output the variable will be converted to scientific notation. If n is nonzero it defines the number of significant figures to display; the default is ten.
- -F [ n ]
- Use an internal double-precision floating point representation. On output the variable will be converted to fixed-point decimal notation. If n is nonzero it defines the number of digits to display after the decimal point; the default is ten.
- -l
- Convert the result to lower case whenever the parameter is expanded. The value is not converted when assigned.
- -r
- The given names are marked readonly. Note that if name is a special parameter, the readonly attribute can be turned on, but cannot then be turned off.
If the POSIX_BUILTINS option is set, the readonly attribute is more
restrictive: unset variables can be marked readonly and cannot then be set;
furthermore, the readonly attribute cannot be removed from any variable.
It is still possible to change other attributes of the variable though, some of
which like -U or -Z would affect the value. More generally, the
readonly attribute should not be relied on as a security mechanism.
Note that in zsh (like in pdksh but unlike most other shells) it is still
possible to create a local variable of the same name as this is considered a
different variable (though this variable, too, can be marked readonly).
Special variables that have been made readonly retain their value and readonly
attribute when made local.
- -t
- Tags the named parameters. Tags have no special meaning to the shell. This flag has a different meaning when used with -f; see above.
- -u
- Convert the result to upper case whenever the parameter is expanded. The value is not converted when assigned. This flag has a different meaning when used with -f; see above.
- -x
- Mark for automatic export to the environment of subsequently executed commands. If the option GLOBAL_EXPORT is set, this implies the option -g, unless +g is also explicitly given; in other words the parameter is not made local to the enclosing function. This is for compatibility with previous versions of zsh.
- ulimit [ -HSa ] [ { -bcdfiklmnpqrsTtvwx | -N resource } [ limit ] ... ]
- Set or display resource limits of the shell and the processes started by the shell. The value of limit can be a number in the unit specified below or one of the values ` unlimited', which removes the limit on the resource, or ` hard', which uses the current value of the hard limit on the resource.
By default, only soft limits are manipulated. If the -H flag is given use
hard limits instead of soft limits. If the -S flag is given together
with the -H flag set both hard and soft limits.
If no options are used, the file size limit ( -f) is assumed.
If limit is omitted the current value of the specified resources are
printed. When more than one resource value is printed, the limit name and unit
is printed before each value.
When looping over multiple resources, the shell will abort immediately if it
detects a badly formed argument. However, if it fails to set a limit for some
other reason it will continue trying to set the remaining limits.
Not all the following resources are supported on all systems. Running ulimit
-a will show which are supported.
- -a
- Lists all of the current resource limits.
- -b
- Socket buffer size in bytes (N.B. not kilobytes)
- -c
- 512-byte blocks on the size of core dumps.
- -d
- Kilobytes on the size of the data segment.
- -f
- 512-byte blocks on the size of files written.
- -i
- The number of pending signals.
- -k
- The number of kqueues allocated.
- -l
- Kilobytes on the size of locked-in memory.
- -m
- Kilobytes on the size of physical memory.
- -n
- open file descriptors.
- -p
- The number of pseudo-terminals.
- -q
- Bytes in POSIX message queues.
- -r
- Maximum real time priority. On some systems where this is not available, such as NetBSD, this has the same effect as -T for compatibility with sh.
- -s
- Kilobytes on the size of the stack.
- -T
- The number of simultaneous threads available to the user.
- -t
- CPU seconds to be used.
- -u
- The number of processes available to the user.
- -v
- Kilobytes on the size of virtual memory. On some systems this refers to the limit called `address space'.
- -w
- Kilobytes on the size of swapped out memory.
- -x
- The number of locks on files.
- umask [ -S ] [ mask ]
- The umask is set to mask. mask can be either an octal number or a symbolic value as described in the chmod(1) man page. If mask is omitted, the current value is printed. The -S option causes the mask to be printed as a symbolic value. Otherwise, the mask is printed as an octal number. Note that in the symbolic form the permissions you specify are those which are to be allowed (not denied) to the users specified.
- unalias [ -ams ] name ...
- Removes aliases. This command works the same as unhash -a, except that the -a option removes all regular or global aliases, or with -s all suffix aliases: in this case no name arguments may appear. The options -m (remove by pattern) and -s without -a (remove listed suffix aliases) behave as for unhash -a. Note that the meaning of -a is different between unalias and unhash.
- unfunction
- Same as unhash -f.
- unhash [ -adfms ] name ...
- Remove the element named name from an internal hash table. The default is remove elements from the command hash table. The -a option causes unhash to remove regular or global aliases; note when removing a global aliases that the argument must be quoted to prevent it from being expanded before being passed to the command. The -s option causes unhash to remove suffix aliases. The -f option causes unhash to remove shell functions. The -d options causes unhash to remove named directories. If the -m flag is given the arguments are taken as patterns (should be quoted) and all elements of the corresponding hash table with matching names will be removed.
- unlimit [ -hs ] resource ...
- The resource limit for each resource is set to the hard limit. If the -h flag is given and the shell has appropriate privileges, the hard resource limit for each resource is removed. The resources of the shell process are only changed if the -s flag is given.
The unlimit command is not made available by default when the shell
starts in a mode emulating another shell. It can be made available with the
command ` zmodload -F zsh/rlimits b:unlimit'.
- unset [ -fmv ] name ...
- Each named parameter is unset. Local parameters remain local even if unset; they appear unset within scope, but the previous value will still reappear when the scope ends.
Individual elements of associative array parameters may be unset by using
subscript syntax on name, which should be quoted (or the entire command
prefixed with noglob) to protect the subscript from filename
generation.
If the -m flag is specified the arguments are taken as patterns (should
be quoted) and all parameters with matching names are unset. Note that this
cannot be used when unsetting associative array elements, as the subscript
will be treated as part of the pattern.
The -v flag specifies that name refers to parameters. This is the
default behaviour.
unset -f is equivalent to unfunction.
- unsetopt [ {+|-}options | {+| -}o option_name ] [ name ... ]
- Unset the options for the shell. All options specified either with flags or by name are unset. If no arguments are supplied, the names of all options currently unset are printed. If the -m flag is given the arguments are taken as patterns (which should be quoted to preserve them from being interpreted as glob patterns), and all options with names matching these patterns are unset.
- vared
- See the section `Zle Builtins' in zshzle(1).
- wait [ job ... ]
- Wait for the specified jobs or processes. If job is not given then all currently active child processes are waited for. Each job can be either a job specification or the process ID of a job in the job table. The exit status from this command is that of the job waited for. If job represents an unknown job or process ID, a warning is printed (unless the POSIX_BUILTINS option is set) and the exit status is 127.
It is possible to wait for recent processes (specified by process ID, not by
job) that were running in the background even if the process has exited.
Typically the process ID will be recorded by capturing the value of the
variable $! immediately after the process has been started. There is a
limit on the number of process IDs remembered by the shell; this is given by
the value of the system configuration parameter CHILD_MAX. When this
limit is reached, older process IDs are discarded, least recently started
processes first.
Note there is no protection against the process ID wrapping, i.e. if the wait is
not executed soon enough there is a chance the process waited for is the wrong
one. A conflict implies both process IDs have been generated by the shell, as
other processes are not recorded, and that the user is potentially interested
in both, so this problem is intrinsic to process IDs.
- whence [ -vcwfpamsS ] [ -x num ] name ...
- For each name, indicate how it would be interpreted if used as a command name.
If name is not an alias, built-in command, external command, shell
function, hashed command, or a reserved word, the exit status shall be
non-zero, and -- if -v, -c, or -w was passed -- a message
will be written to standard output. (This is different from other shells that
write that message to standard error.)
whence is most useful when name is only the last path component of
a command, i.e. does not include a ` /'; in particular, pattern
matching only succeeds if just the non-directory component of the command is
passed.
- -v
- Produce a more verbose report.
- -c
- Print the results in a csh-like format. This takes precedence over -v.
- -w
- For each name, print `name: word' where word is one of alias, builtin, command, function, hashed, reserved or none, according as name corresponds to an alias, a built-in command, an external command, a shell function, a command defined with the hash builtin, a reserved word, or is not recognised. This takes precedence over -v and -c.
- -f
- Causes the contents of a shell function to be displayed, which would otherwise not happen unless the -c flag were used.
- -p
- Do a path search for name even if it is an alias, reserved word, shell function or builtin.
- -a
- Do a search for all occurrences of name throughout the command path. Normally only the first occurrence is printed.
- -m
- The arguments are taken as patterns (pattern characters should be quoted), and the information is displayed for each command matching one of these patterns.
- -s
- If a pathname contains symlinks, print the symlink-free pathname as well.
- -S
- As -s, but if the pathname had to be resolved by following multiple symlinks, the intermediate steps are printed, too. The symlink resolved at each step might be anywhere in the path.
- -x num
- Expand tabs when outputting shell functions using the -c option. This has the same effect as the -x option to the functions builtin.
- where [ -wpmsS ] [ -x num ] name ...
- Equivalent to whence -ca.
- which [ -wpamsS ] [ -x num ] name ...
- Equivalent to whence -c.
- zcompile [ -U ] [ -z | -k ] [ -R | -M ] file [ name ... ]
- zcompile -ca [ -m ] [ -R | -M ] file [ name ... ]
- zcompile -t file [ name ... ]
- This builtin command can be used to compile functions or scripts, storing the compiled form in a file, and to examine files containing the compiled form. This allows faster autoloading of functions and sourcing of scripts by avoiding parsing of the text when the files are read.
The first form (without the -c, -a or -t options) creates a
compiled file. If only the file argument is given, the output file has
the name ` file.zwc' and will be placed in the same directory as
the file. The shell will load the compiled file instead of the normal
function file when the function is autoloaded; see the section `Autoloading
Functions' in zshmisc(1) for a description of how autoloaded functions
are searched. The extension .zwc stands for `zsh word code'.
If there is at least one name argument, all the named files are compiled
into the output file given as the first argument. If file does
not end in .zwc, this extension is automatically appended. Files
containing multiple compiled functions are called `digest' files, and are
intended to be used as elements of the FPATH/fpath special
array.
The second form, with the -c or -a options, writes the compiled
definitions for all the named functions into file. For -c, the
names must be functions currently defined in the shell, not those marked for
autoloading. Undefined functions that are marked for autoloading may be
written by using the -a option, in which case the fpath is
searched and the contents of the definition files for those functions, if
found, are compiled into file. If both -c and -a are
given, names of both defined functions and functions marked for autoloading
may be given. In either case, the functions in files written with the
-c or -a option will be autoloaded as if the KSH_AUTOLOAD
option were unset.
The reason for handling loaded and not-yet-loaded functions with different
options is that some definition files for autoloading define multiple
functions, including the function with the same name as the file, and, at the
end, call that function. In such cases the output of ` zcompile -c'
does not include the additional functions defined in the file, and any other
initialization code in the file is lost. Using ` zcompile -a' captures
all this extra information.
If the -m option is combined with -c or -a, the
names are used as patterns and all functions whose names match one of
these patterns will be written. If no name is given, the definitions of
all functions currently defined or marked as autoloaded will be written.
Note the second form cannot be used for compiling functions that include
redirections as part of the definition rather than within the body of the
function; for example
can be compiled but
cannot. It is possible to use the first form of zcompile to compile
autoloadable functions that include the full function definition instead of
just the body of the function.
The third form, with the -t option, examines an existing compiled file.
Without further arguments, the names of the original files compiled into it
are listed. The first line of output shows the version of the shell which
compiled the file and how the file will be used (i.e. by reading it directly
or by mapping it into memory). With arguments, nothing is output and the
return status is set to zero if definitions for all names were
found in the compiled file, and non-zero if the definition for at least one
name was not found.
Other options:
fn1() { { ... } >~/logfile }
fn1() { ... } >~/logfile
- -U
- Aliases are not expanded when compiling the named files.
- -R
- When the compiled file is read, its contents are copied into the shell's memory, rather than memory-mapped (see -M). This happens automatically on systems that do not support memory mapping.
When compiling scripts instead of autoloadable functions, it is often desirable
to use this option; otherwise the whole file, including the code to define
functions which have already been defined, will remain mapped, consequently
wasting memory.
- -M
- The compiled file is mapped into the shell's memory when read. This is done in such a way that multiple instances of the shell running on the same host will share this mapped file. If neither -R nor -M is given, the zcompile builtin decides what to do based on the size of the compiled file.
- -k
- -z
- These options are used when the compiled file contains functions which are to be autoloaded. If -z is given, the function will be autoloaded as if the KSH_AUTOLOAD option is not set, even if it is set at the time the compiled file is read, while if the -k is given, the function will be loaded as if KSH_AUTOLOAD is set. These options also take precedence over any -k or -z options specified to the autoload builtin. If neither of these options is given, the function will be loaded as determined by the setting of the KSH_AUTOLOAD option at the time the compiled file is read. These options may also appear as many times as necessary between the listed names to specify the loading style of all following functions, up to the next -k or -z. The created file always contains two versions of the compiled format, one for big-endian machines and one for small-endian machines. The upshot of this is that the compiled file is machine independent and if it is read or mapped, only one half of the file is actually used (and mapped).
- zformat
- See the section `The zsh/zutil Module' in zshmodules(1).
- zftp
- See the section `The zsh/zftp Module' in zshmodules(1).
- zle
- See the section `Zle Builtins' in zshzle(1).
- zmodload [ -dL ] [ -s ] [ ... ]
- zmodload -F [ -alLme -P param ] module [ [+-]feature ... ]
- zmodload -e [ -A ] [ ... ]
- zmodload [ -a [ -bcpf [ -I ] ] ] [ -iL ] ...
- zmodload -u [ -abcdpf [ -I ] ] [ -iL ] ...
- zmodload -A [ -L ] [ modalias[=module] ... ]
- zmodload -R modalias ...
- Performs operations relating to zsh's loadable modules. Loading of modules while the shell is running (`dynamical loading') is not available on all operating systems, or on all installations on a particular operating system, although the zmodload command itself is always available and can be used to manipulate modules built into versions of the shell executable without dynamical loading.
Without arguments the names of all currently loaded binary modules are printed.
The -L option causes this list to be in the form of a series of
zmodload commands. Forms with arguments are:
- zmodload [ -is ] name ...
- zmodload -u [ -i ] name ...
- In the simplest case, zmodload loads a binary module. The module must be in a file with a name consisting of the specified name followed by a standard suffix, usually ` .so' (` .sl' on HPUX). If the module to be loaded is already loaded the duplicate module is ignored. If zmodload detects an inconsistency, such as an invalid module name or circular dependency list, the current code block is aborted. If it is available, the module is loaded if necessary, while if it is not available, non-zero status is silently returned. The option -i is accepted for compatibility but has no effect.
The named module is searched for in the same way a command is, using
$module_path instead of $path. However, the path search is
performed even when the module name contains a ` /', which it usually
does. There is no way to prevent the path search.
If the module supports features (see below), zmodload tries to enable all
features when loading a module. If the module was successfully loaded but not
all features could be enabled, zmodload returns status 2.
If the option -s is given, no error is printed if the module was not
available (though other errors indicating a problem with the module are
printed). The return status indicates if the module was loaded. This is
appropriate if the caller considers the module optional.
With -u, zmodload unloads modules. The same name must be
given that was given when the module was loaded, but it is not necessary for
the module to exist in the file system. The -i option suppresses the
error if the module is already unloaded (or was never loaded).
Each module has a boot and a cleanup function. The module will not be loaded if
its boot function fails. Similarly a module can only be unloaded if its
cleanup function runs successfully.
- zmodload -F [ -almLe -P param ] module [ [+-]feature ... ]
- zmodload -F allows more selective control over the features provided by modules. With no options apart from -F, the module named module is loaded, if it was not already loaded, and the list of features is set to the required state. If no features are specified, the module is loaded, if it was not already loaded, but the state of features is unchanged. Each feature may be preceded by a + to turn the feature on, or - to turn it off; the + is assumed if neither character is present. Any feature not explicitly mentioned is left in its current state; if the module was not previously loaded this means any such features will remain disabled. The return status is zero if all features were set, 1 if the module failed to load, and 2 if some features could not be set (for example, a parameter couldn't be added because there was a different parameter of the same name) but the module was loaded.
The standard features are builtins, conditions, parameters and math functions;
these are indicated by the prefix ` b:', `c:' (` C:' for
an infix condition), ` p:' and `f:', respectively, followed by
the name that the corresponding feature would have in the shell. For example,
` b:strftime' indicates a builtin named strftime and
p:EPOCHSECONDS indicates a parameter named EPOCHSECONDS. The
module may provide other (`abstract') features of its own as indicated by its
documentation; these have no prefix.
With -l or -L, features provided by the module are listed. With
-l alone, a list of features together with their states is shown, one
feature per line. With -L alone, a zmodload -F command that
would cause enabled features of the module to be turned on is shown. With
-lL, a zmodload -F command that would cause all the features to
be set to their current state is shown. If one of these combinations is given
with the option -P param then the parameter param is set
to an array of features, either features together with their state or (if
-L alone is given) enabled features.
With the option -L the module name may be omitted; then a list of all
enabled features for all modules providing features is printed in the form of
zmodload -F commands. If -l is also given, the state of both
enabled and disabled features is output in that form.
A set of features may be provided together with -l or -L and a
module name; in that case only the state of those features is considered. Each
feature may be preceded by + or - but the character has no
effect. If no set of features is provided, all features are considered.
With -e, the command first tests that the module is loaded; if it is not,
status 1 is returned. If the module is loaded, the list of features given as
an argument is examined. Any feature given with no prefix is simply tested to
see if the module provides it; any feature given with a prefix + or
- is tested to see if is provided and in the given state. If the tests
on all features in the list succeed, status 0 is returned, else status 1.
With -m, each entry in the given list of features is taken as a pattern
to be matched against the list of features provided by the module. An initial
+ or - must be given explicitly. This may not be combined with
the -a option as autoloads must be specified explicitly.
With -a, the given list of features is marked for autoload from the
specified module, which may not yet be loaded. An optional + may appear
before the feature name. If the feature is prefixed with -, any
existing autoload is removed. The options -l and -L may be used
to list autoloads. Autoloading is specific to individual features; when the
module is loaded only the requested feature is enabled. Autoload requests are
preserved if the module is subsequently unloaded until an explicit `
zmodload -Fa module -feature' is issued. It is not
an error to request an autoload for a feature of a module that is already
loaded.
When the module is loaded each autoload is checked against the features actually
provided by the module; if the feature is not provided the autoload request is
deleted. A warning message is output; if the module is being loaded to provide
a different feature, and that autoload is successful, there is no effect on
the status of the current command. If the module is already loaded at the time
when zmodload -Fa is run, an error message is printed and status 1
returned.
zmodload -Fa can be used with the -l, -L, -e and
-P options for listing and testing the existence of autoloadable
features. In this case -l is ignored if -L is specified.
zmodload -FaL with no module name lists autoloads for all modules.
Note that only standard features as described above can be autoloaded; other
features require the module to be loaded before enabling.
- zmodload -d [ -L ] [ name ]
- zmodload -d name dep ...
- zmodload -ud name [ dep ... ]
- The -d option can be used to specify module dependencies. The modules named in the second and subsequent arguments will be loaded before the module named in the first argument.
With -d and one argument, all dependencies for that module are listed.
With -d and no arguments, all module dependencies are listed. This
listing is by default in a Makefile-like format. The -L option changes
this format to a list of zmodload -d commands.
If -d and -u are both used, dependencies are removed. If only one
argument is given, all dependencies for that module are removed.
- zmodload -ab [ -L ]
- zmodload -ab [ -i ] name [ builtin ... ]
- zmodload -ub [ -i ] builtin ...
- The -ab option defines autoloaded builtins. It defines the specified builtins. When any of those builtins is called, the module specified in the first argument is loaded and all its features are enabled (for selective control of features use ` zmodload -F -a' as described above). If only the name is given, one builtin is defined, with the same name as the module. -i suppresses the error if the builtin is already defined or autoloaded, but not if another builtin of the same name is already defined.
With -ab and no arguments, all autoloaded builtins are listed, with the
module name (if different) shown in parentheses after the builtin name. The
-L option changes this format to a list of zmodload -a commands.
If -b is used together with the -u option, it removes builtins
previously defined with -ab. This is only possible if the builtin is
not yet loaded. -i suppresses the error if the builtin is already
removed (or never existed).
Autoload requests are retained if the module is subsequently unloaded until an
explicit ` zmodload -ub builtin' is issued.
- zmodload -ac [ -IL ]
- zmodload -ac [ -iI ] name [ cond ... ]
- zmodload -uc [ -iI ] cond ...
- The -ac option is used to define autoloaded condition codes. The cond strings give the names of the conditions defined by the module. The optional -I option is used to define infix condition names. Without this option prefix condition names are defined.
If given no condition names, all defined names are listed (as a series of
zmodload commands if the -L option is given).
The -uc option removes definitions for autoloaded conditions.
- zmodload -ap [ -L ]
- zmodload -ap [ -i ] name [ parameter ... ]
- zmodload -up [ -i ] parameter ...
- The -p option is like the -b and -c options, but makes zmodload work on autoloaded parameters instead.
- zmodload -af [ -L ]
- zmodload -af [ -i ] name [ function ... ]
- zmodload -uf [ -i ] function ...
- The -f option is like the -b, -p, and -c options, but makes zmodload work on autoloaded math functions instead.
- zmodload -a [ -L ]
- zmodload -a [ -i ] name [ builtin ... ]
- zmodload -ua [ -i ] builtin ...
- Equivalent to -ab and -ub.
- zmodload -e [ -A ] [ string ... ]
- The -e option without arguments lists all loaded modules; if the -A option is also given, module aliases corresponding to loaded modules are also shown. If arguments are provided, nothing is printed; the return status is set to zero if all strings given as arguments are names of loaded modules and to one if at least on string is not the name of a loaded module. This can be used to test for the availability of things implemented by modules. In this case, any aliases are automatically resolved and the -A flag is not used.
- zmodload -A [ -L ] [ modalias[=module] ... ]
- For each argument, if both modalias and module are given, define modalias to be an alias for the module module. If the module modalias is ever subsequently requested, either via a call to zmodload or implicitly, the shell will attempt to load module instead. If module is not given, show the definition of modalias. If no arguments are given, list all defined module aliases. When listing, if the -L flag was also given, list the definition as a zmodload command to recreate the alias.
The existence of aliases for modules is completely independent of whether the
name resolved is actually loaded as a module: while the alias exists, loading
and unloading the module under any alias has exactly the same effect as using
the resolved name, and does not affect the connection between the alias and
the resolved name which can be removed either by zmodload -R or by
redefining the alias. Chains of aliases (i.e. where the first resolved name is
itself an alias) are valid so long as these are not circular. As the aliases
take the same format as module names, they may include path separators: in
this case, there is no requirement for any part of the path named to exist as
the alias will be resolved first. For example, ` any/old/alias' is
always a valid alias.
Dependencies added to aliased modules are actually added to the resolved module;
these remain if the alias is removed. It is valid to create an alias whose
name is one of the standard shell modules and which resolves to a different
module. However, if a module has dependencies, it will not be possible to use
the module name as an alias as the module will already be marked as a loadable
module in its own right.
Apart from the above, aliases can be used in the zmodload command
anywhere module names are required. However, aliases will not be shown in
lists of loaded modules with a bare ` zmodload'.
- zmodload -R modalias ...
- For each modalias argument that was previously defined as a module alias via zmodload -A, delete the alias. If any was not defined, an error is caused and the remainder of the line is ignored.
- zparseopts
- See the section `The zsh/zutil Module' in zshmodules(1).
- zprof
- See the section `The zsh/zprof Module' in zshmodules(1).
- zpty
- See the section `The zsh/zpty Module' in zshmodules(1).
- zregexparse
- See the section `The zsh/zutil Module' in zshmodules(1).
- zsocket
- See the section `The zsh/net/socket Module' in zshmodules(1).
- zstyle
- See the section `The zsh/zutil Module' in zshmodules(1).
- ztcp
- See the section `The zsh/net/tcp Module' in zshmodules(1).
NAME
zshzle - zsh command line editorDESCRIPTION
If the ZLE option is set (which it is by default in interactive shells) and the shell input is attached to the terminal, the user is able to edit command lines. There are two display modes. The first, multiline mode, is the default. It only works if the TERM parameter is set to a valid terminal type that can move the cursor up. The second, single line mode, is used if TERM is invalid or incapable of moving the cursor up, or if the SINGLE_LINE_ZLE option is set. This mode is similar to ksh, and uses no termcap sequences. If TERM is "emacs", the ZLE option will be unset by default. The parameters BAUD, COLUMNS, and LINES are also used by the line editor. See Parameters Used By The Shell in zshparam(1). The parameter zle_highlight is also used by the line editor; see Character Highlighting below. Highlighting of special characters and the region between the cursor and the mark (as set with set-mark-command in Emacs mode, or by visual-mode in Vi mode) is enabled by default; consult this reference for more information. Irascible conservatives will wish to know that all highlighting may be disabled by the following setting:zle_highlight=(none)
KEYMAPS
A keymap in ZLE contains a set of bindings between key sequences and ZLE commands. The empty key sequence cannot be bound. There can be any number of keymaps at any time, and each keymap has one or more names. If all of a keymap's names are deleted, it disappears. bindkey can be used to manipulate keymap names. Initially, there are eight keymaps:- emacs
- EMACS emulation
- viins
- vi emulation - insert mode
- vicmd
- vi emulation - command mode
- viopp
- vi emulation - operator pending
- visual
- vi emulation - selection active
- isearch
- incremental search mode
- command
- read a command name
- .safe
- fallback keymap
Reading Commands
When ZLE is reading a command from the terminal, it may read a sequence that is bound to some command and is also a prefix of a longer bound string. In this case ZLE will wait a certain time to see if more characters are typed, and if not (or they don't match any longer string) it will execute the binding. This timeout is defined by the KEYTIMEOUT parameter; its default is 0.4 sec. There is no timeout if the prefix string is not itself bound to a command. The key timeout is also applied when ZLE is reading the bytes from a multibyte character string when it is in the appropriate mode. (This requires that the shell was compiled with multibyte mode enabled; typically also the locale has characters with the UTF-8 encoding, although any multibyte encoding known to the operating system is supported.) If the second or a subsequent byte is not read within the timeout period, the shell acts as if ? were typed and resets the input state. As well as ZLE commands, key sequences can be bound to other strings, by using ` bindkey -s'. When such a sequence is read, the replacement string is pushed back as input, and the command reading process starts again using these fake keystrokes. This input can itself invoke further replacement strings, but in order to detect loops the process will be stopped if there are twenty such replacements without a real command being read. A key sequence typed by the user can be turned into a command name for use in user-defined widgets with the read-command widget, described in the subsection `Miscellaneous' of the section `Standard Widgets' below.Local Keymaps
While for normal editing a single keymap is used exclusively, in many modes a local keymap allows for some keys to be customised. For example, in an incremental search mode, a binding in the isearch keymap will override a binding in the main keymap but all keys that are not overridden can still be used. If a key sequence is defined in a local keymap, it will hide a key sequence in the global keymap that is a prefix of that sequence. An example of this occurs with the binding of iw in viopp as this hides the binding of i in vicmd. However, a longer sequence in the global keymap that shares the same prefix can still apply so for example the binding of ^Xa in the global keymap will be unaffected by the binding of ^Xb in the local keymap.ZLE BUILTINS
The ZLE module contains three related builtin commands. The bindkey command manipulates keymaps and key bindings; the vared command invokes ZLE on the value of a shell parameter; and the zle command manipulates editing widgets and allows command line access to ZLE commands from within shell functions.- bindkey [ options ] -l [ -L ] [ keymap ... ]
- bindkey [ options ] -d
- bindkey [ options ] -D keymap ...
- bindkey [ options ] -A old-keymap new-keymap
- bindkey [ options ] -N new-keymap [ old-keymap ]
- bindkey [ options ] -m
- bindkey [ options ] -r in-string ...
- bindkey [ options ] -s in-string out-string ...
- bindkey [ options ] in-string command ...
- bindkey [ options ] [ in-string ]
- bindkey's options can be divided into three categories: keymap selection for the current command, operation selection, and others. The keymap selection options are:
- -e
- Selects keymap `emacs' for any operations by the current command, and also links ` emacs' to `main' so that it is selected by default the next time the editor starts.
- -v
- Selects keymap `viins' for any operations by the current command, and also links ` viins' to `main' so that it is selected by default the next time the editor starts.
- -a
- Selects keymap `vicmd' for any operations by the current command.
- -M keymap
- The keymap specifies a keymap name that is selected for any operations by the current command.
- -l
- List all existing keymap names; if any arguments are given, list just those keymaps.
If the -L option is also used, list in the form of bindkey
commands to create or link the keymaps. ` bindkey -lL main'
shows which keymap is linked to ` main', if any, and hence if the
standard emacs or vi emulation is in effect. This option does not show the
.safe keymap because it cannot be created in that fashion; however,
neither is ` bindkey -lL .safe' reported as an error, it simply outputs
nothing.
- -d
- Delete all existing keymaps and reset to the default state.
- -D keymap ...
- Delete the named keymaps.
- -A old-keymap new-keymap
- Make the new-keymap name an alias for old-keymap, so that both names refer to the same keymap. The names have equal standing; if either is deleted, the other remains. If there is already a keymap with the new-keymap name, it is deleted.
- -N new-keymap [ old-keymap ]
- Create a new keymap, named new-keymap. If a keymap already has that name, it is deleted. If an old-keymap name is given, the new keymap is initialized to be a duplicate of it, otherwise the new keymap will be empty.
bindkey -N mymap emacs bindkey -A mymap main
- -m
- Add the built-in set of meta-key bindings to the selected keymap. Only keys that are unbound or bound to self-insert are affected.
- -r in-string ...
- Unbind the specified in-strings in the selected keymap. This is exactly equivalent to binding the strings to undefined-key.
When -R is also used, interpret the in-strings as ranges.
When -p is also used, the in-strings specify prefixes. Any binding
that has the given in-string as a prefix, not including the binding for
the in-string itself, if any, will be removed. For example,
will remove all bindings in the vi-insert keymap beginning with an escape
character (probably cursor keys), but leave the binding for the escape
character itself (probably vi-cmd-mode). This is incompatible with the
option -R.
bindkey -rpM viins '^['
- -s in-string out-string ...
- Bind each in-string to each out-string. When in-string is typed, out-string will be pushed back and treated as input to the line editor. When -R is also used, interpret the in-strings as ranges.
Note that both in-string and out-string are subject to the same
form of interpretation, as described below.
- in-string command ...
- Bind each in-string to each command. When -R is used, interpret the in-strings as ranges.
- [ in-string ]
- List key bindings. If an in-string is specified, the binding of that string in the selected keymap is displayed. Otherwise, all key bindings in the selected keymap are displayed. (As a special case, if the -e or -v option is used alone, the keymap is not displayed - the implicit linking of keymaps is the only thing that happens.)
When the option -p is used, the in-string must be present. The
listing shows all bindings which have the given key sequence as a prefix, not
including any bindings for the key sequence itself.
When the -L option is used, the list is in the form of bindkey
commands to create the key bindings.
When the -R option is used as noted above, a valid range consists of two
characters, with an optional ` -' between them. All characters between
the two specified, inclusive, are bound as specified.
For either in-string or out-string, the following escape sequences
are recognised:
- \a
- bell character
- \b
- backspace
- \e, \E
- escape
- \f
- form feed
- \n
- linefeed (newline)
- \r
- carriage return
- \t
- horizontal tab
- \v
- vertical tab
- \NNN
- character code in octal
- \xNN
- character code in hexadecimal
- \uNNNN
- unicode character code in hexadecimal
- \UNNNNNNNN
- unicode character code in hexadecimal
- \M[-]X
- character with meta bit set
- \C[-]X
- control character
- ^X
- control character
- vared [ -Aacghe ] [ -p prompt ] [ -r rprompt ]
- [ -M main-keymap ] [ -m vicmd-keymap ]
- [ -i init-widget ] [ -f finish-widget ]
- [ -t tty ] name
- The value of the parameter name is loaded into the edit buffer, and the line editor is invoked. When the editor exits, name is set to the string value returned by the editor. When the -c flag is given, the parameter is created if it doesn't already exist. The -a flag may be given with -c to create an array parameter, or the -A flag to create an associative array. If the type of an existing parameter does not match the type to be created, the parameter is unset and recreated. The -g flag may be given to suppress warnings from the WARN_CREATE_GLOBAL and WARN_NESTED_VAR options.
If an array or array slice is being edited, separator characters as defined in
$IFS will be shown quoted with a backslash, as will backslashes
themselves. Conversely, when the edited text is split into an array, a
backslash quotes an immediately following separator character or backslash; no
other special handling of backslashes, or any handling of quotes, is
performed.
Individual elements of existing array or associative array parameters may be
edited by using subscript syntax on name. New elements are created
automatically, even without -c.
If the -p flag is given, the following string will be taken as the prompt
to display at the left. If the -r flag is given, the following string
gives the prompt to display at the right. If the -h flag is specified,
the history can be accessed from ZLE. If the -e flag is given, typing
^D (Control-D) on an empty line causes vared to exit immediately
with a non-zero return value.
The -M option gives a keymap to link to the main keymap during
editing, and the -m option gives a keymap to link to the vicmd
keymap during editing. For vi-style editing, this allows a pair of keymaps to
override viins and vicmd. For emacs-style editing, only
-M is normally needed but the -m option may still be used. On
exit, the previous keymaps will be restored.
Vared calls the usual `zle-line-init' and `zle-line-finish'
hooks before and after it takes control. Using the -i and -f
options, it is possible to replace these with other custom widgets.
If ` -t tty' is given, tty is the name of a terminal device
to be used instead of the default /dev/tty. If tty does not
refer to a terminal an error is reported.
- zle
- zle -l [ -L | -a ] [ string ... ]
- zle -D widget ...
- zle -A old-widget new-widget
- zle -N widget [ function ]
- zle -f flag [ flag... ]
- zle -C widget completion-widget function
- zle -R [ -c ] [ display-string ] [ string ... ]
- zle -M string
- zle -U string
- zle -K keymap
- zle -F [ -L | -w ] [ fd [ handler ] ]
- zle -I
- zle -T [ tc function | -r tc | -L ]
- zle widget [ -n num ] [ -f flag ] [ -Nw ] [ -K keymap ] args ...
- The zle builtin performs a number of different actions concerning ZLE.
With no options and no arguments, only the return status will be set. It is zero
if ZLE is currently active and widgets could be invoked using this builtin
command and non-zero otherwise. Note that even if non-zero status is returned,
zle may still be active as part of the completion system; this does not allow
direct calls to ZLE widgets.
Otherwise, which operation it performs depends on its options:
In general, the trap function may need to test whether zle is active before
using this method (as shown in the example), since the zsh/zle module
may not even be loaded; if it is not, the command can be skipped.
It is possible to call ` zle -I' several times before control is returned
to the editor; the display will only be invalidated the first time to minimise
disruption.
Note that there are normally better ways of manipulating the display from within
zle widgets; see, for example, ` zle -R' above.
The returned status is zero if zle was invalidated, even though this may have
been by a previous call to ` zle -I' or by a system notification. To
test if a zle widget may be called at this point, execute zle with no
arguments and examine the return status.
- -l [ -L | -a ] [ string ]
- List all existing user-defined widgets. If the -L option is used, list in the form of zle commands to create the widgets.
When combined with the -a option, all widget names are listed, including
the builtin ones. In this case the -L option is ignored.
If at least one string is given, and -a is present or -L is
not used, nothing will be printed. The return status will be zero if all
strings are names of existing widgets and non-zero if at least one
string is not a name of a defined widget. If -a is also present,
all widget names are used for the comparison including builtin widgets, else
only user-defined widgets are used.
If at least one string is present and the -L option is used,
user-defined widgets matching any string are listed in the form of
zle commands to create the widgets.
- -D widget ...
- Delete the named widgets.
- -A old-widget new-widget
- Make the new-widget name an alias for old-widget, so that both names refer to the same widget. The names have equal standing; if either is deleted, the other remains. If there is already a widget with the new-widget name, it is deleted.
- -N widget [ function ]
- Create a user-defined widget. If there is already a widget with the specified name, it is overwritten. When the new widget is invoked from within the editor, the specified shell function is called. If no function name is specified, it defaults to the same name as the widget. For further information, see the section `Widgets' below.
- -f flag [ flag... ]
- Set various flags on the running widget. Possible values for flag are:
yank for indicating that the widget has yanked text into the buffer. If
the widget is wrapping an existing internal widget, no further action is
necessary, but if it has inserted the text manually, then it should also take
care to set YANK_START and YANK_END correctly. yankbefore
does the same but is used when the yanked text appears after the cursor.
kill for indicating that text has been killed into the cutbuffer. When
repeatedly invoking a kill widget, text is appended to the cutbuffer instead
of replacing it, but when wrapping such widgets, it is necessary to call `
zle -f kill' to retain this effect.
vichange for indicating that the widget represents a vi change that can
be repeated as a whole with ` vi-repeat-change'. The flag should be set
early in the function before inspecting the value of NUMERIC or
invoking other widgets. This has no effect for a widget invoked from insert
mode. If insert mode is active when the widget finishes, the change extends
until next returning to command mode.
- -C widget completion-widget function
- Create a user-defined completion widget named widget. The completion widget will behave like the built-in completion-widget whose name is given as completion-widget. To generate the completions, the shell function function will be called. For further information, see zshcompwid(1).
- -R [ -c ] [ display-string ] [ string ... ]
- Redisplay the command line. If a display-string is given and not empty, this is shown in the status line (immediately below the line being edited).
If the optional strings are given they are listed below the prompt in the
same way as completion lists are printed. If no strings are given but
the -c option is used such a list is cleared.
Note that immediately after returning from running widgets, the command line
will be redisplayed and the strings displayed will be erased. Therefore, this
option is only useful for widgets that do not exit immediately after using it.
This command can safely be called outside user defined widgets; if zle is
active, the display will be refreshed, while if zle is not active, the command
has no effect. In this case there will usually be no other arguments.
The status is zero if zle was active, else one.
- -M string
- As with the -R option, the string will be displayed below the command line; unlike the -R option, the string will not be put into the status line but will instead be printed normally below the prompt. This means that the string will still be displayed after the widget returns (until it is overwritten by subsequent commands).
- -U string
- This pushes the characters in the string onto the input stack of ZLE. After the widget currently executed finishes ZLE will behave as if the characters in the string were typed by the user.
As ZLE uses a stack, if this option is used repeatedly the last string pushed
onto the stack will be processed first. However, the characters in each
string will be processed in the order in which they appear in the
string.
- -K keymap
- Selects the keymap named keymap. An error message will be displayed if there is no such keymap.
This keymap selection affects the interpretation of following keystrokes within
this invocation of ZLE. Any following invocation (e.g., the next command line)
will start as usual with the ` main' keymap selected.
- -F [ -L | -w ] [ fd [ handler ] ]
- Only available if your system supports one of the `poll' or `select' system calls; most modern systems do.
Installs handler (the name of a shell function) to handle input from file
descriptor fd. Installing a handler for an fd which is already
handled causes the existing handler to be replaced. Any number of handlers for
any number of readable file descriptors may be installed. Note that zle makes
no attempt to check whether this fd is actually readable when
installing the handler. The user must make their own arrangements for handling
the file descriptor when zle is not active.
When zle is attempting to read data, it will examine both the terminal and the
list of handled fd's. If data becomes available on a handled fd,
zle calls handler with the fd which is ready for reading as the first
argument. Under normal circumstances this is the only argument, but if an
error was detected, a second argument provides details: ` hup' for a
disconnect, ` nval' for a closed or otherwise invalid descriptor, or `
err' for any other condition. Systems that support only the `select'
system call always use ` err'.
If the option -w is also given, the handler is instead a line
editor widget, typically a shell function made into a widget using ` zle
-N'. In that case handler can use all the facilities of zle to
update the current editing line. Note, however, that as handling fd
takes place at a low level changes to the display will not automatically
appear; the widget should call ` zle -R' to force redisplay. As of this
writing, widget handlers only support a single argument and thus are never
passed a string for error state, so widgets must be prepared to test the
descriptor themselves.
If either type of handler produces output to the terminal, it should call `
zle -I' before doing so (see below). Handlers should not attempt to
read from the terminal.
If no handler is given, but an fd is present, any handler for that
fd is removed. If there is none, an error message is printed and status
1 is returned.
If no arguments are given, or the -L option is supplied, a list of
handlers is printed in a form which can be stored for later execution.
An fd (but not a handler) may optionally be given with the
-L option; in this case, the function will list the handler if any,
else silently return status 1.
Note that this feature should be used with care. Activity on one of the
fd's which is not properly handled can cause the terminal to become
unusable. Removing an fd handler from within a signal trap may cause
unpredictable behavior.
Here is a simple example of using this feature. A connection to a remote TCP
port is created using the ztcp command; see the description of the
zsh/net/tcp module in zshmodules(1). Then a handler is installed
which simply prints out any data which arrives on this connection. Note that
`select' will indicate that the file descriptor needs handling if the remote
side has closed the connection; we handle that by testing for a failed read.
if ztcp pwspc 2811; then tcpfd=$REPLY handler() { zle -I local line if ! read -r line <&$1; then # select marks this fd if we reach EOF, # so handle this specially. print "[Read on fd $1 failed, removing.]" >&2 zle -F $1 return 1 fi print -r - $line } zle -F $tcpfd handler fi
- -I
- Unusually, this option is most useful outside ordinary widget functions, though it may be used within if normal output to the terminal is required. It invalidates the current zle display in preparation for output; typically this will be from a trap function. It has no effect if zle is not active. When a trap exits, the shell checks to see if the display needs restoring, hence the following will print output in such a way as not to disturb the line being edited:
TRAPUSR1() { # Invalidate zle display [[ -o zle ]] && zle -I # Show output print Hello }
- -T
- This is used to add, list or remove internal transformations on the processing performed by the line editor. It is typically used only for debugging or testing and is therefore of little interest to the general user.
` zle -T transformation func' specifies that the given
transformation (see below) is effected by shell function func.
` zle -Tr transformation' removes the given transformation
if it was present (it is not an error if none was).
` zle -TL' can be used to list all transformations currently in
operation.
Currently the only transformation is tc. This is used instead of
outputting termcap codes to the terminal. When the transformation is in
operation the shell function is passed the termcap code that would be output
as its first argument; if the operation required a numeric argument, that is
passed as a second argument. The function should set the shell variable
REPLY to the transformed termcap code. Typically this is used to
produce some simply formatted version of the code and optional argument for
debugging or testing. Note that this transformation is not applied to other
non-printing characters such as carriage returns and newlines.
- widget [ -n num ] [ -f flag ] [ -Nw ] [ -K keymap ] args ...
- Invoke the specified widget. This can only be done when ZLE is active; normally this will be within a user-defined widget.
With the options -n and -N, the current numeric argument will be
saved and then restored after the call to widget; `-n
num' sets the numeric argument temporarily to num, while
`-N' sets it to the default, i.e. as if there were none.
With the option -K, keymap will be used as the current keymap
during the execution of the widget. The previous keymap will be restored when
the widget exits.
Normally, calling a widget in this way does not set the special parameter
WIDGET and related parameters, so that the environment appears as if
the top-level widget called by the user were still active. With the option
-w, WIDGET and related parameters are set to reflect the widget
being executed by the zle call.
Normally, when widget returns the special parameter LASTWIDGET
will point to it. This can be inhibited by passing the option -f
nolast.
Any further arguments will be passed to the widget; note that as standard
argument handling is performed, any general argument list should be preceded
by --. If it is a shell function, these are passed down as
positional parameters; for builtin widgets it is up to the widget in question
what it does with them. Currently arguments are only handled by the
incremental-search commands, the history-search-forward and
-backward and the corresponding functions prefixed by vi-, and
by universal-argument. No error is flagged if the command does not use
the arguments, or only uses some of them.
The return status reflects the success or failure of the operation carried out
by the widget, or if it is a user-defined widget the return status of the
shell function.
A non-zero return status causes the shell to beep when the widget exits, unless
the BEEP options was unset or the widget was called via the zle
command. Thus if a user defined widget requires an immediate beep, it should
call the beep widget directly.
ZLE WIDGETS
All actions in the editor are performed by `widgets'. A widget's job is simply to perform some small action. The ZLE commands that key sequences in keymaps are bound to are in fact widgets. Widgets can be user-defined or built in. The standard widgets built into ZLE are listed in the section `Standard Widgets' below. Other built-in widgets can be defined by other modules (see zshmodules(1)). Each built-in widget has two names: its normal canonical name, and the same name preceded by a ` .'. The `.' name is special: it can't be rebound to a different widget. This makes the widget available even when its usual name has been redefined. User-defined widgets are defined using ` zle -N', and implemented as shell functions. When the widget is executed, the corresponding shell function is executed, and can perform editing (or other) actions. It is recommended that user-defined widgets should not have names starting with ` .'.USER-DEFINED WIDGETS
User-defined widgets, being implemented as shell functions, can execute any normal shell command. They can also run other widgets (whether built-in or user-defined) using the zle builtin command. The standard input of the function is redirected from /dev/null to prevent external commands from unintentionally blocking ZLE by reading from the terminal, but read -k or read -q can be used to read characters. Finally, they can examine and edit the ZLE buffer being edited by reading and setting the special parameters described below. These special parameters are always available in widget functions, but are not in any way special outside ZLE. If they have some normal value outside ZLE, that value is temporarily inaccessible, but will return when the widget function exits. These special parameters in fact have local scope, like parameters created in a function using local. Inside completion widgets and traps called while ZLE is active, these parameters are available read-only. Note that the parameters appear as local to any ZLE widget in which they appear. Hence if it is desired to override them this needs to be done within a nested function:widget-function() { # $WIDGET here refers to the special variable # that is local inside widget-function () { # This anonymous nested function allows WIDGET # to be used as a local variable. The -h # removes the special status of the variable. local -h WIDGET } }
- BUFFER (scalar)
- The entire contents of the edit buffer. If it is written to, the cursor remains at the same offset, unless that would put it outside the buffer.
- BUFFERLINES (integer)
- The number of screen lines needed for the edit buffer currently displayed on screen (i.e. without any changes to the preceding parameters done after the last redisplay); read-only.
- CONTEXT (scalar)
- The context in which zle was called to read a line; read-only. One of the values:
- start
- The start of a command line (at prompt PS1).
- cont
- A continuation to a command line (at prompt PS2).
- select
- In a select loop (at prompt PS3).
- vared
- Editing a variable in vared.
- CURSOR (integer)
- The offset of the cursor, within the edit buffer. This is in the range 0 to $#BUFFER, and is by definition equal to $#LBUFFER. Attempts to move the cursor outside the buffer will result in the cursor being moved to the appropriate end of the buffer.
- CUTBUFFER (scalar)
- The last item cut using one of the `kill-' commands; the string which the next yank would insert in the line. Later entries in the kill ring are in the array killring. Note that the command ` zle copy-region-as-kill string' can be used to set the text of the cut buffer from a shell function and cycle the kill ring in the same way as interactively killing text.
- HISTNO (integer)
- The current history number. Setting this has the same effect as moving up or down in the history to the corresponding history line. An attempt to set it is ignored if the line is not stored in the history. Note this is not the same as the parameter HISTCMD, which always gives the number of the history line being added to the main shell's history. HISTNO refers to the line being retrieved within zle.
- ISEARCHMATCH_ACTIVE (integer)
- ISEARCHMATCH_START (integer)
- ISEARCHMATCH_END (integer)
- ISEARCHMATCH_ACTIVE indicates whether a part of the BUFFER is currently matched by an incremental search pattern. ISEARCHMATCH_START and ISEARCHMATCH_END give the location of the matched part and are in the same units as CURSOR. They are only valid for reading when ISEARCHMATCH_ACTIVE is non-zero.
All parameters are read-only.
- KEYMAP (scalar)
- The name of the currently selected keymap; read-only.
- KEYS (scalar)
- The keys typed to invoke this widget, as a literal string; read-only.
- KEYS_QUEUED_COUNT (integer)
- The number of bytes pushed back to the input queue and therefore available for reading immediately before any I/O is done; read-only. See also PENDING; the two values are distinct.
- killring (array)
- The array of previously killed items, with the most recently killed first. This gives the items that would be retrieved by a yank-pop in the same order. Note, however, that the most recently killed item is in $CUTBUFFER; $killring shows the array of previous entries.
The default size for the kill ring is eight, however the length may be changed
by normal array operations. Any empty string in the kill ring is ignored by
the yank-pop command, hence the size of the array effectively sets the
maximum length of the kill ring, while the number of non-zero strings gives
the current length, both as seen by the user at the command line.
- LASTABORTEDSEARCH (scalar)
- The last search string used by an interactive search that was aborted by the user (status 3 returned by the search widget).
- LASTSEARCH (scalar)
- The last search string used by an interactive search; read-only. This is set even if the search failed (status 0, 1 or 2 returned by the search widget), but not if it was aborted by the user.
- LASTWIDGET (scalar)
- The name of the last widget that was executed; read-only.
- LBUFFER (scalar)
- The part of the buffer that lies to the left of the cursor position. If it is assigned to, only that part of the buffer is replaced, and the cursor remains between the new $LBUFFER and the old $RBUFFER.
- MARK (integer)
- Like CURSOR, but for the mark. With vi-mode operators that wait for a movement command to select a region of text, setting MARK allows the selection to extend in both directions from the initial cursor position.
- NUMERIC (integer)
- The numeric argument. If no numeric argument was given, this parameter is unset. When this is set inside a widget function, builtin widgets called with the zle builtin command will use the value assigned. If it is unset inside a widget function, builtin widgets called behave as if no numeric argument was given.
- PENDING (integer)
- The number of bytes pending for input, i.e. the number of bytes which have already been typed and can immediately be read. On systems where the shell is not able to get this information, this parameter will always have a value of zero. Read-only. See also KEYS_QUEUED_COUNT; the two values are distinct.
- PREBUFFER (scalar)
- In a multi-line input at the secondary prompt, this read-only parameter contains the contents of the lines before the one the cursor is currently in.
- PREDISPLAY (scalar)
- Text to be displayed before the start of the editable text buffer. This does not have to be a complete line; to display a complete line, a newline must be appended explicitly. The text is reset on each new invocation (but not recursive invocation) of zle.
- POSTDISPLAY (scalar)
- Text to be displayed after the end of the editable text buffer. This does not have to be a complete line; to display a complete line, a newline must be prepended explicitly. The text is reset on each new invocation (but not recursive invocation) of zle.
- RBUFFER (scalar)
- The part of the buffer that lies to the right of the cursor position. If it is assigned to, only that part of the buffer is replaced, and the cursor remains between the old $LBUFFER and the new $RBUFFER.
- REGION_ACTIVE (integer)
- Indicates if the region is currently active. It can be assigned 0 or 1 to deactivate and activate the region respectively. A value of 2 activates the region in line-wise mode with the highlighted text extending for whole lines only; see Character Highlighting below.
- region_highlight (array)
- Each element of this array may be set to a string that describes highlighting for an arbitrary region of the command line that will take effect the next time the command line is redisplayed. Highlighting of the non-editable parts of the command line in PREDISPLAY and POSTDISPLAY are possible, but note that the P flag is needed for character indexing to include PREDISPLAY.
Each string consists of the following whitespace-separated parts:
specifies that the first twenty characters of the text including any predisplay
string should be highlighted in bold.
Note that the effect of region_highlight is not saved and disappears as
soon as the line is accepted.
Note that zsh 5.8 and older do not support the ` memo=token' field
and may misparse the third (highlight specification) field when a memo is
given.
The final highlighting on the command line depends on both
region_highlight and zle_highlight; see the section CHARACTER
HIGHLIGHTING below for details.
- •
- Optionally, a `P' to signify that the start and end offset that follow include any string set by the PREDISPLAY special parameter; this is needed if the predisplay string itself is to be highlighted. Whitespace between the ` P' and the start offset is optional.
- •
- A start offset in the same units as CURSOR.
- •
- An end offset in the same units as CURSOR.
- •
- A highlight specification in the same format as used for contexts in the parameter zle_highlight, see the section `Character Highlighting' below; for example, standout or fg=red,bold.
- •
- Optionally, a string of the form `memo=token'. The token consists of everything between the ` =' and the next whitespace, comma, NUL, or the end of the string. The token is preserved verbatim but not parsed in any way.
Plugins may use this to identify array elements they have added: for example, a
plugin might set token to its (the plugin's) name and then use `
region_highlight=( ${region_highlight:#*memo= token} )'
in order to remove array elements it have added.
(This example uses the ` ${name:#pattern}'
array-grepping syntax described in the section `Parameter Expansion' in
zshexpn(1).)
For example,
region_highlight=("P0 20 bold memo=foobar")
- registers (associative array)
- The contents of each of the vi register buffers. These are typically set using vi-set-buffer followed by a delete, change or yank command.
- SUFFIX_ACTIVE (integer)
- SUFFIX_START (integer)
- SUFFIX_END (integer)
- SUFFIX_ACTIVE indicates whether an auto-removable completion suffix is currently active. SUFFIX_START and SUFFIX_END give the location of the suffix and are in the same units as CURSOR. They are only valid for reading when SUFFIX_ACTIVE is non-zero.
All parameters are read-only.
- UNDO_CHANGE_NO (integer)
- A number representing the state of the undo history. The only use of this is passing as an argument to the undo widget in order to undo back to the recorded point. Read-only.
- UNDO_LIMIT_NO (integer)
- A number corresponding to an existing change in the undo history; compare UNDO_CHANGE_NO. If this is set to a value greater than zero, the undo command will not allow the line to be undone beyond the given change number. It is still possible to use ` zle undo change' in a widget to undo beyond that point; in that case, it will not be possible to undo at all until UNDO_LIMIT_NO is reduced. Set to 0 to disable the limit.
A typical use of this variable in a widget function is as follows (note the
additional function scope is required):
() { local UNDO_LIMIT_NO=$UNDO_CHANGE_NO # Perform some form of recursive edit. }
- WIDGET (scalar)
- The name of the widget currently being executed; read-only.
- WIDGETFUNC (scalar)
- The name of the shell function that implements a widget defined with either zle -N or zle -C. In the former case, this is the second argument to the zle -N command that defined the widget, or the first argument if there was no second argument. In the latter case this is the third argument to the zle -C command that defined the widget. Read-only.
- WIDGETSTYLE (scalar)
- Describes the implementation behind the completion widget currently being executed; the second argument that followed zle -C when the widget was defined. This is the name of a builtin completion widget. For widgets defined with zle -N this is set to the empty string. Read-only.
- YANK_ACTIVE (integer)
- YANK_START (integer)
- YANK_END (integer)
- YANK_ACTIVE indicates whether text has just been yanked (pasted) into the buffer. YANK_START and YANK_END give the location of the pasted text and are in the same units as CURSOR. They are only valid for reading when YANK_ACTIVE is non-zero. They can also be assigned by widgets that insert text in a yank-like fashion, for example wrappers of bracketed-paste. See also zle -f.
YANK_ACTIVE is read-only.
- ZLE_RECURSIVE (integer)
- Usually zero, but incremented inside any instance of recursive-edit. Hence indicates the current recursion level.
ZLE_RECURSIVE is read-only.
- ZLE_STATE (scalar)
- Contains a set of space-separated words that describe the current zle state.
Currently, the states shown are the insert mode as set by the
overwrite-mode or vi-replace widgets and whether history
commands will visit imported entries as controlled by the set-local-history
widget. The string contains ` insert' if characters to be inserted on
the command line move existing characters to the right or ` overwrite'
if characters to be inserted overwrite existing characters. It contains `
localhistory' if only local history commands will be visited or `
globalhistory' if imported history commands will also be visited.
The substrings are sorted in alphabetical order so that if you want to test for
two specific substrings in a future-proof way, you can do match by doing:
if [[ $ZLE_STATE == *globalhistory*insert* ]]; then ...; fi
Special Widgets
There are a few user-defined widgets which are special to the shell. If they do not exist, no special action is taken. The environment provided is identical to that for any other editing widget.- zle-isearch-exit
- Executed at the end of incremental search at the point where the isearch prompt is removed from the display. See zle-isearch-update for an example.
- zle-isearch-update
- Executed within incremental search when the display is about to be redrawn. Additional output below the incremental search prompt can be generated by using ` zle -M' within the widget. For example,
zle-isearch-update() { zle -M "Line $HISTNO"; } zle -N zle-isearch-update
zle-isearch-exit() { zle -M ""; } zle -N zle-isearch-exit
- zle-line-pre-redraw
- Executed whenever the input line is about to be redrawn, providing an opportunity to update the region_highlight array.
- zle-line-init
- Executed every time the line editor is started to read a new line of input. The following example puts the line editor into vi command mode when it starts up.
zle-line-init() { zle -K vicmd; } zle -N zle-line-init
- zle-line-finish
- This is similar to zle-line-init but is executed every time the line editor has finished reading a line of input.
- zle-history-line-set
- Executed when the history line changes.
- zle-keymap-select
- Executed every time the keymap changes, i.e. the special parameter KEYMAP is set to a different value, while the line editor is active. Initialising the keymap when the line editor starts does not cause the widget to be called.
The value $KEYMAP within the function reflects the new keymap. The old
keymap is passed as the sole argument.
This can be used for detecting switches between the vi command ( vicmd)
and insert (usually main) keymaps.
STANDARD WIDGETS
The following is a list of all the standard widgets, and their default bindings in emacs mode, vi command mode and vi insert mode (the ` emacs', `vicmd' and ` viins' keymaps, respectively). Note that cursor keys are bound to movement keys in all three keymaps; the shell assumes that the cursor keys send the key sequences reported by the terminal-handling library (termcap or terminfo). The key sequences shown in the list are those based on the VT100, common on many modern terminals, but in fact these are not necessarily bound. In the case of the viins keymap, the initial escape character of the sequences serves also to return to the vicmd keymap: whether this happens is determined by the KEYTIMEOUT parameter, see zshparam(1).Movement
- vi-backward-blank-word (unbound) (B) (unbound)
- Move backward one word, where a word is defined as a series of non-blank characters.
- vi-backward-blank-word-end (unbound) (gE) (unbound)
- Move to the end of the previous word, where a word is defined as a series of non-blank characters.
- backward-char (^B ESC-[D) (unbound) (unbound)
- Move backward one character.
- vi-backward-char (unbound) (^H h ^?) (ESC-[D)
- Move backward one character, without changing lines.
- backward-word (ESC-B ESC-b) (unbound) (unbound)
- Move to the beginning of the previous word.
- emacs-backward-word
- Move to the beginning of the previous word.
- vi-backward-word (unbound) (b) (unbound)
- Move to the beginning of the previous word, vi-style.
- vi-backward-word-end (unbound) (ge) (unbound)
- Move to the end of the previous word, vi-style.
- beginning-of-line (^A) (unbound) (unbound)
- Move to the beginning of the line. If already at the beginning of the line, move to the beginning of the previous line, if any.
- vi-beginning-of-line
- Move to the beginning of the line, without changing lines.
- down-line (unbound) (unbound) (unbound)
- Move down a line in the buffer.
- end-of-line (^E) (unbound) (unbound)
- Move to the end of the line. If already at the end of the line, move to the end of the next line, if any.
- vi-end-of-line (unbound) ($) (unbound)
- Move to the end of the line. If an argument is given to this command, the cursor will be moved to the end of the line (argument - 1) lines down.
- vi-forward-blank-word (unbound) (W) (unbound)
- Move forward one word, where a word is defined as a series of non-blank characters.
- vi-forward-blank-word-end (unbound) (E) (unbound)
- Move to the end of the current word, or, if at the end of the current word, to the end of the next word, where a word is defined as a series of non-blank characters.
- forward-char (^F ESC-[C) (unbound) (unbound)
- Move forward one character.
- vi-forward-char (unbound) (space l) (ESC-[C)
- Move forward one character.
- vi-find-next-char (^X^F) (f) (unbound)
- Read a character from the keyboard, and move to the next occurrence of it in the line.
- vi-find-next-char-skip (unbound) (t) (unbound)
- Read a character from the keyboard, and move to the position just before the next occurrence of it in the line.
- vi-find-prev-char (unbound) (F) (unbound)
- Read a character from the keyboard, and move to the previous occurrence of it in the line.
- vi-find-prev-char-skip (unbound) (T) (unbound)
- Read a character from the keyboard, and move to the position just after the previous occurrence of it in the line.
- vi-first-non-blank (unbound) (^) (unbound)
- Move to the first non-blank character in the line.
- vi-forward-word (unbound) (w) (unbound)
- Move forward one word, vi-style.
- forward-word (ESC-F ESC-f) (unbound) (unbound)
- Move to the beginning of the next word. The editor's idea of a word is specified with the WORDCHARS parameter.
- emacs-forward-word
- Move to the end of the next word.
- vi-forward-word-end (unbound) (e) (unbound)
- Move to the end of the next word.
- vi-goto-column (ESC-|) (|) (unbound)
- Move to the column specified by the numeric argument.
- vi-goto-mark (unbound) (`) (unbound)
- Move to the specified mark.
- vi-goto-mark-line (unbound) (') (unbound)
- Move to beginning of the line containing the specified mark.
- vi-repeat-find (unbound) (;) (unbound)
- Repeat the last vi-find command.
- vi-rev-repeat-find (unbound) (,) (unbound)
- Repeat the last vi-find command in the opposite direction.
- up-line (unbound) (unbound) (unbound)
- Move up a line in the buffer.
History Control
- beginning-of-buffer-or-history (ESC-<) (gg) (unbound)
- Move to the beginning of the buffer, or if already there, move to the first event in the history list.
- beginning-of-line-hist
- Move to the beginning of the line. If already at the beginning of the buffer, move to the previous history line.
- beginning-of-history
- Move to the first event in the history list.
- down-line-or-history (^N ESC-[B) (j) (ESC-[B)
- Move down a line in the buffer, or if already at the bottom line, move to the next event in the history list.
- vi-down-line-or-history (unbound) (+) (unbound)
- Move down a line in the buffer, or if already at the bottom line, move to the next event in the history list. Then move to the first non-blank character on the line.
- down-line-or-search
- Move down a line in the buffer, or if already at the bottom line, search forward in the history for a line beginning with the first word in the buffer.
If called from a function by the zle command with arguments, the first
argument is taken as the string for which to search, rather than the first
word in the buffer.
- down-history (unbound) (^N) (unbound)
- Move to the next event in the history list.
- history-beginning-search-backward
- Search backward in the history for a line beginning with the current line up to the cursor. This leaves the cursor in its original position.
- end-of-buffer-or-history (ESC->) (unbound) (unbound)
- Move to the end of the buffer, or if already there, move to the last event in the history list.
- end-of-line-hist
- Move to the end of the line. If already at the end of the buffer, move to the next history line.
- end-of-history
- Move to the last event in the history list.
- vi-fetch-history (unbound) (G) (unbound)
- Fetch the history line specified by the numeric argument. This defaults to the current history line (i.e. the one that isn't history yet).
- history-incremental-search-backward (^R ^Xr) (unbound) (unbound)
- Search backward incrementally for a specified string. The search is case-insensitive if the search string does not have uppercase letters and no numeric argument was given. The string may begin with ` ^' to anchor the search to the beginning of the line. When called from a user-defined function returns the following statuses: 0, if the search succeeded; 1, if the search failed; 2, if the search term was a bad pattern; 3, if the search was aborted by the send-break command.
A restricted set of editing functions is available in the mini-buffer. Keys are
looked up in the special isearch keymap, and if not found there in the
main keymap (note that by default the isearch keymap is empty). An
interrupt signal, as defined by the stty setting, will stop the search and go
back to the original line. An undefined key will have the same effect. Note
that the following always perform the same task within incremental searches
and cannot be replaced by user defined widgets, nor can the set of functions
be extended. The supported functions are:
will search backwards for forceps, leaving the minibuffer containing the
string ` forceps'.
- accept-and-hold
- accept-and-infer-next-history
- accept-line
- accept-line-and-down-history
- Perform the usual function after exiting incremental search. The command line displayed is executed.
- backward-delete-char
- vi-backward-delete-char
- Back up one place in the search history. If the search has been repeated this does not immediately erase a character in the minibuffer.
- accept-search
- Exit incremental search, retaining the command line but performing no further action. Note that this function is not bound by default and has no effect outside incremental search.
- backward-delete-word
- backward-kill-word
- vi-backward-kill-word
- Back up one character in the minibuffer; if multiple searches have been performed since the character was inserted the search history is rewound to the point just before the character was entered. Hence this has the effect of repeating backward-delete-char.
- clear-screen
- Clear the screen, remaining in incremental search mode.
- history-incremental-search-backward
- Find the next occurrence of the contents of the mini-buffer. If the mini-buffer is empty, the most recent previously used search string is reinstated.
- history-incremental-search-forward
- Invert the sense of the search.
- magic-space
- Inserts a non-magical space.
- quoted-insert
- vi-quoted-insert
- Quote the character to insert into the minibuffer.
- redisplay
- Redisplay the command line, remaining in incremental search mode.
- vi-cmd-mode
- Select the `vicmd' keymap; the ` main' keymap (insert mode) will be selected initially.
In addition, the modifications that were made while in vi insert mode are merged
to form a single undo event.
- vi-repeat-search
- vi-rev-repeat-search
- Repeat the search. The direction of the search is indicated in the mini-buffer.
zle history-incremental-search-backward forceps
- history-incremental-search-forward (^S ^Xs) (unbound) (unbound)
- Search forward incrementally for a specified string. The search is case-insensitive if the search string does not have uppercase letters and no numeric argument was given. The string may begin with ` ^' to anchor the search to the beginning of the line. The functions available in the mini-buffer are the same as for history-incremental-search-backward.
- history-incremental-pattern-search-backward
- history-incremental-pattern-search-forward
- These widgets behave similarly to the corresponding widgets with no -pattern, but the search string typed by the user is treated as a pattern, respecting the current settings of the various options affecting pattern matching. See FILENAME GENERATION in zshexpn(1) for a description of patterns. If no numeric argument was given lowercase letters in the search string may match uppercase letters in the history. The string may begin with ` ^' to anchor the search to the beginning of the line.
The prompt changes to indicate an invalid pattern; this may simply indicate the
pattern is not yet complete.
Note that only non-overlapping matches are reported, so an expression with
wildcards may return fewer matches on a line than are visible by
inspection.
- history-search-backward (ESC-P ESC-p) (unbound) (unbound)
- Search backward in the history for a line beginning with the first word in the buffer.
If called from a function by the zle command with arguments, the first
argument is taken as the string for which to search, rather than the first
word in the buffer.
- vi-history-search-backward (unbound) (/) (unbound)
- Search backward in the history for a specified string. The string may begin with ` ^' to anchor the search to the beginning of the line.
A restricted set of editing functions is available in the mini-buffer. An
interrupt signal, as defined by the stty setting, will stop the search. The
functions available in the mini-buffer are: accept-line,
backward-delete-char, vi-backward-delete-char,
backward-kill-word, vi-backward-kill-word, clear-screen,
redisplay, quoted-insert and vi-quoted-insert.
vi-cmd-mode is treated the same as accept-line, and magic-space is
treated as a space. Any other character that is not bound to self-insert or
self-insert-unmeta will beep and be ignored. If the function is called from vi
command mode, the bindings of the current insert mode will be used.
If called from a function by the zle command with arguments, the first
argument is taken as the string for which to search, rather than the first
word in the buffer.
- history-search-forward (ESC-N ESC-n) (unbound) (unbound)
- Search forward in the history for a line beginning with the first word in the buffer.
If called from a function by the zle command with arguments, the first
argument is taken as the string for which to search, rather than the first
word in the buffer.
- vi-history-search-forward (unbound) (?) (unbound)
- Search forward in the history for a specified string. The string may begin with ` ^' to anchor the search to the beginning of the line. The functions available in the mini-buffer are the same as for vi-history-search-backward. Argument handling is also the same as for that command.
- infer-next-history (^X^N) (unbound) (unbound)
- Search in the history list for a line matching the current one and fetch the event following it.
- insert-last-word (ESC-_ ESC-.) (unbound) (unbound)
- Insert the last word from the previous history event at the cursor position. If a positive numeric argument is given, insert that word from the end of the previous history event. If the argument is zero or negative insert that word from the left (zero inserts the previous command word). Repeating this command replaces the word just inserted with the last word from the history event prior to the one just used; numeric arguments can be used in the same way to pick a word from that event.
When called from a shell function invoked from a user-defined widget, the
command can take one to three arguments. The first argument specifies a
history offset which applies to successive calls to this widget: if it is -1,
the default behaviour is used, while if it is 1, successive calls will move
forwards through the history. The value 0 can be used to indicate that the
history line examined by the previous execution of the command will be
reexamined. Note that negative numbers should be preceded by a `
--' argument to avoid confusing them with options.
If two arguments are given, the second specifies the word on the command line in
normal array index notation (as a more natural alternative to the numeric
argument). Hence 1 is the first word, and -1 (the default) is the last word.
If a third argument is given, its value is ignored, but it is used to signify
that the history offset is relative to the current history line, rather than
the one remembered after the previous invocations of insert-last-word.
For example, the default behaviour of the command corresponds to
while the command
always copies the first word of the line in the history immediately before the
line being edited. This has the side effect that later invocations of the
widget will be relative to that line.
zle insert-last-word -- -1 -1
zle insert-last-word -- -1 1 -
- vi-repeat-search (unbound) (n) (unbound)
- Repeat the last vi history search.
- vi-rev-repeat-search (unbound) (N) (unbound)
- Repeat the last vi history search, but in reverse.
- up-line-or-history (^P ESC-[A) (k) (ESC-[A)
- Move up a line in the buffer, or if already at the top line, move to the previous event in the history list.
- vi-up-line-or-history (unbound) (-) (unbound)
- Move up a line in the buffer, or if already at the top line, move to the previous event in the history list. Then move to the first non-blank character on the line.
- up-line-or-search
- Move up a line in the buffer, or if already at the top line, search backward in the history for a line beginning with the first word in the buffer.
If called from a function by the zle command with arguments, the first
argument is taken as the string for which to search, rather than the first
word in the buffer.
- up-history (unbound) (^P) (unbound)
- Move to the previous event in the history list.
- history-beginning-search-forward
- Search forward in the history for a line beginning with the current line up to the cursor. This leaves the cursor in its original position.
- set-local-history
- By default, history movement commands visit the imported lines as well as the local lines. This widget lets you toggle this on and off, or set it with the numeric argument. Zero for both local and imported lines and nonzero for only local lines.
Modifying Text
- vi-add-eol (unbound) (A) (unbound)
- Move to the end of the line and enter insert mode.
- vi-add-next (unbound) (a) (unbound)
- Enter insert mode after the current cursor position, without changing lines.
- backward-delete-char (^H ^?) (unbound) (unbound)
- Delete the character behind the cursor.
- vi-backward-delete-char (unbound) (X) (^H)
- Delete the character behind the cursor, without changing lines. If in insert mode, this won't delete past the point where insert mode was last entered.
- backward-delete-word
- Delete the word behind the cursor.
- backward-kill-line
- Kill from the beginning of the line to the cursor position.
- backward-kill-word (^W ESC-^H ESC-^?) (unbound) (unbound)
- Kill the word behind the cursor.
- vi-backward-kill-word (unbound) (unbound) (^W)
- Kill the word behind the cursor, without going past the point where insert mode was last entered.
- capitalize-word (ESC-C ESC-c) (unbound) (unbound)
- Capitalize the current word and move past it.
- vi-change (unbound) (c) (unbound)
- Read a movement command from the keyboard, and kill from the cursor position to the endpoint of the movement. Then enter insert mode. If the command is vi-change, change the current line.
For compatibility with vi, if the command is vi-forward-word or
vi-forward-blank-word, the whitespace after the word is not included.
If you prefer the more consistent behaviour with the whitespace included use
the following key binding:
bindkey -a -s cw dwi
- vi-change-eol (unbound) (C) (unbound)
- Kill to the end of the line and enter insert mode.
- vi-change-whole-line (unbound) (S) (unbound)
- Kill the current line and enter insert mode.
- copy-region-as-kill (ESC-W ESC-w) (unbound) (unbound)
- Copy the area from the cursor to the mark to the kill buffer.
If called from a ZLE widget function in the form ` zle
copy-region-as-kill string' then string will be taken as
the text to copy to the kill buffer. The cursor, the mark and the text on the
command line are not used in this case.
- copy-prev-word (ESC-^_) (unbound) (unbound)
- Duplicate the word to the left of the cursor.
- copy-prev-shell-word
- Like copy-prev-word, but the word is found by using shell parsing, whereas copy-prev-word looks for blanks. This makes a difference when the word is quoted and contains spaces.
- vi-delete (unbound) (d) (unbound)
- Read a movement command from the keyboard, and kill from the cursor position to the endpoint of the movement. If the command is vi-delete, kill the current line.
- delete-char
- Delete the character under the cursor.
- vi-delete-char (unbound) (x) (unbound)
- Delete the character under the cursor, without going past the end of the line.
- delete-word
- Delete the current word.
- down-case-word (ESC-L ESC-l) (unbound) (unbound)
- Convert the current word to all lowercase and move past it.
- vi-down-case (unbound) (gu) (unbound)
- Read a movement command from the keyboard, and convert all characters from the cursor position to the endpoint of the movement to lowercase. If the movement command is vi-down-case, swap the case of all characters on the current line.
- kill-word (ESC-D ESC-d) (unbound) (unbound)
- Kill the current word.
- gosmacs-transpose-chars
- Exchange the two characters behind the cursor.
- vi-indent (unbound) (>) (unbound)
- Indent a number of lines.
- vi-insert (unbound) (i) (unbound)
- Enter insert mode.
- vi-insert-bol (unbound) (I) (unbound)
- Move to the first non-blank character on the line and enter insert mode.
- vi-join (^X^J) (J) (unbound)
- Join the current line with the next one.
- kill-line (^K) (unbound) (unbound)
- Kill from the cursor to the end of the line. If already on the end of the line, kill the newline character.
- vi-kill-line (unbound) (unbound) (^U)
- Kill from the cursor back to wherever insert mode was last entered.
- vi-kill-eol (unbound) (D) (unbound)
- Kill from the cursor to the end of the line.
- kill-region
- Kill from the cursor to the mark.
- kill-buffer (^X^K) (unbound) (unbound)
- Kill the entire buffer.
- kill-whole-line (^U) (unbound) (unbound)
- Kill the current line.
- vi-match-bracket (^X^B) (%) (unbound)
- Move to the bracket character (one of {}, () or []) that matches the one under the cursor. If the cursor is not on a bracket character, move forward without going past the end of the line to find one, and then go to the matching bracket.
- vi-open-line-above (unbound) (O) (unbound)
- Open a line above the cursor and enter insert mode.
- vi-open-line-below (unbound) (o) (unbound)
- Open a line below the cursor and enter insert mode.
- vi-oper-swap-case (unbound) (g~) (unbound)
- Read a movement command from the keyboard, and swap the case of all characters from the cursor position to the endpoint of the movement. If the movement command is vi-oper-swap-case, swap the case of all characters on the current line.
- overwrite-mode (^X^O) (unbound) (unbound)
- Toggle between overwrite mode and insert mode.
- vi-put-before (unbound) (P) (unbound)
- Insert the contents of the kill buffer before the cursor. If the kill buffer contains a sequence of lines (as opposed to characters), paste it above the current line.
- vi-put-after (unbound) (p) (unbound)
- Insert the contents of the kill buffer after the cursor. If the kill buffer contains a sequence of lines (as opposed to characters), paste it below the current line.
- put-replace-selection (unbound) (unbound) (unbound)
- Replace the contents of the current region or selection with the contents of the kill buffer. If the kill buffer contains a sequence of lines (as opposed to characters), the current line will be split by the pasted lines.
- quoted-insert (^V) (unbound) (unbound)
- Insert the next character typed into the buffer literally. An interrupt character will not be inserted.
- vi-quoted-insert (unbound) (unbound) (^Q ^V)
- Display a `^' at the cursor position, and insert the next character typed into the buffer literally. An interrupt character will not be inserted.
- quote-line (ESC-') (unbound) (unbound)
- Quote the current line; that is, put a `'' character at the beginning and the end, and convert all ` '' characters to ` '\'''.
- quote-region (ESC-") (unbound) (unbound)
- Quote the region from the cursor to the mark.
- vi-replace (unbound) (R) (unbound)
- Enter overwrite mode.
- vi-repeat-change (unbound) (.) (unbound)
- Repeat the last vi mode text modification. If a count was used with the modification, it is remembered. If a count is given to this command, it overrides the remembered count, and is remembered for future uses of this command. The cut buffer specification is similarly remembered.
- vi-replace-chars (unbound) (r) (unbound)
- Replace the character under the cursor with a character read from the keyboard.
- self-insert (printable characters) (unbound) (printable characters and some control characters)
- Insert a character into the buffer at the cursor position.
- self-insert-unmeta (ESC-^I ESC-^J ESC-^M) (unbound) (unbound)
- Insert a character into the buffer after stripping the meta bit and converting ^M to ^J.
- vi-substitute (unbound) (s) (unbound)
- Substitute the next character(s).
- vi-swap-case (unbound) (~) (unbound)
- Swap the case of the character under the cursor and move past it.
- transpose-chars (^T) (unbound) (unbound)
- Exchange the two characters to the left of the cursor if at end of line, else exchange the character under the cursor with the character to the left.
- transpose-words (ESC-T ESC-t) (unbound) (unbound)
- Exchange the current word with the one before it.
With a positive numeric argument N, the word around the cursor, or
following it if the cursor is between words, is transposed with the preceding
N words. The cursor is put at the end of the resulting group of words.
With a negative numeric argument -N, the effect is the same as using a
positive argument N except that the original cursor position is
retained, regardless of how the words are rearranged.
- vi-unindent (unbound) (<) (unbound)
- Unindent a number of lines.
- vi-up-case (unbound) (gU) (unbound)
- Read a movement command from the keyboard, and convert all characters from the cursor position to the endpoint of the movement to lowercase. If the movement command is vi-up-case, swap the case of all characters on the current line.
- up-case-word (ESC-U ESC-u) (unbound) (unbound)
- Convert the current word to all caps and move past it.
- yank (^Y) (unbound) (unbound)
- Insert the contents of the kill buffer at the cursor position.
- yank-pop (ESC-y) (unbound) (unbound)
- Remove the text just yanked, rotate the kill-ring (the history of previously killed text) and yank the new top. Only works following yank, vi-put-before, vi-put-after or yank-pop.
- vi-yank (unbound) (y) (unbound)
- Read a movement command from the keyboard, and copy the region from the cursor position to the endpoint of the movement into the kill buffer. If the command is vi-yank, copy the current line.
- vi-yank-whole-line (unbound) (Y) (unbound)
- Copy the current line into the kill buffer.
- vi-yank-eol
- Copy the region from the cursor position to the end of the line into the kill buffer. Arguably, this is what Y should do in vi, but it isn't what it actually does.
Arguments
- digit-argument (ESC-0..ESC-9) (1- 9) (unbound)
- Start a new numeric argument, or add to the current one. See also vi-digit-or-beginning-of-line. This only works if bound to a key sequence ending in a decimal digit.
Inside a widget function, a call to this function treats the last key of the key
sequence which called the widget as the digit.
- neg-argument (ESC--) (unbound) (unbound)
- Changes the sign of the following argument.
- universal-argument
- Multiply the argument of the next command by 4. Alternatively, if this command is followed by an integer (positive or negative), use that as the argument for the next command. Thus digits cannot be repeated using this command. For example, if this command occurs twice, followed immediately by forward-char, move forward sixteen spaces; if instead it is followed by -2, then forward-char, move backward two spaces.
Inside a widget function, if passed an argument, i.e. ` zle
universal-argument num', the numeric argument will be set to
num; this is equivalent to ` NUMERIC=num'.
- argument-base
- Use the existing numeric argument as a numeric base, which must be in the range 2 to 36 inclusive. Subsequent use of digit-argument and universal-argument will input a new numeric argument in the given base. The usual hexadecimal convention is used: the letter a or A corresponds to 10, and so on. Arguments in bases requiring digits from 10 upwards are more conveniently input with universal-argument, since ESC-a etc. are not usually bound to digit-argument.
The function can be used with a command argument inside a user-defined widget.
The following code sets the base to 16 and lets the user input a hexadecimal
argument until a key out of the digit range is typed:
zle argument-base 16 zle universal-argument
Completion
- accept-and-menu-complete
- In a menu completion, insert the current completion into the buffer, and advance to the next possible completion.
- complete-word
- Attempt completion on the current word.
- delete-char-or-list (^D) (unbound) (unbound)
- Delete the character under the cursor. If the cursor is at the end of the line, list possible completions for the current word.
- expand-cmd-path
- Expand the current command to its full pathname.
- expand-or-complete (TAB) (unbound) (TAB)
- Attempt shell expansion on the current word. If that fails, attempt completion.
- expand-or-complete-prefix
- Attempt shell expansion on the current word up to cursor.
- expand-history (ESC-space ESC-!) (unbound) (unbound)
- Perform history expansion on the edit buffer.
- expand-word (^X*) (unbound) (unbound)
- Attempt shell expansion on the current word.
- list-choices (ESC-^D) (^D =) (^D)
- List possible completions for the current word.
- list-expand (^Xg ^XG) (^G) (^G)
- List the expansion of the current word.
- magic-space
- Perform history expansion and insert a space into the buffer. This is intended to be bound to space.
- menu-complete
- Like complete-word, except that menu completion is used. See the MENU_COMPLETE option.
- menu-expand-or-complete
- Like expand-or-complete, except that menu completion is used.
- reverse-menu-complete
- Perform menu completion, like menu-complete, except that if a menu completion is already in progress, move to the previous completion rather than the next.
- end-of-list
- When a previous completion displayed a list below the prompt, this widget can be used to move the prompt below the list.
Miscellaneous
- accept-and-hold (ESC-A ESC-a) (unbound) (unbound)
- Push the contents of the buffer on the buffer stack and execute it.
- accept-and-infer-next-history
- Execute the contents of the buffer. Then search the history list for a line matching the current one and push the event following onto the buffer stack.
- accept-line (^J ^M) (^J ^M) (^J ^M)
- Finish editing the buffer. Normally this causes the buffer to be executed as a shell command.
- accept-line-and-down-history (^O) (unbound) (unbound)
- Execute the current line, and push the next history event on the buffer stack.
- auto-suffix-remove
- If the previous action added a suffix (space, slash, etc.) to the word on the command line, remove it. Otherwise do nothing. Removing the suffix ends any active menu completion or menu selection.
This widget is intended to be called from user-defined widgets to enforce a
desired suffix-removal behavior.
- auto-suffix-retain
- If the previous action added a suffix (space, slash, etc.) to the word on the command line, force it to be preserved. Otherwise do nothing. Retaining the suffix ends any active menu completion or menu selection.
This widget is intended to be called from user-defined widgets to enforce a
desired suffix-preservation behavior.
- beep
- Beep, unless the BEEP option is unset.
- bracketed-paste (^[[200~) (^[[200~) (^[[200~)
- This widget is invoked when text is pasted to the terminal emulator. It is not intended to be bound to actual keys but instead to the special sequence generated by the terminal emulator when text is pasted.
When invoked interactively, the pasted text is inserted to the buffer and placed
in the cutbuffer. If a numeric argument is given, shell quoting will be
applied to the pasted text before it is inserted.
When a named buffer is specified with vi-set-buffer ("x), the
pasted text is stored in that named buffer but not inserted.
When called from a widget function as ` bracketed-paste name`, the
pasted text is assigned to the variable name and no other processing is
done.
See also the zle_bracketed_paste parameter.
- vi-cmd-mode (^X^V) (unbound) (^[)
- Enter command mode; that is, select the `vicmd' keymap. Yes, this is bound by default in emacs mode.
- vi-caps-lock-panic
- Hang until any lowercase key is pressed. This is for vi users without the mental capacity to keep track of their caps lock key (like the author).
- clear-screen (^L ESC-^L) (^L) (^L)
- Clear the screen and redraw the prompt.
- deactivate-region
- Make the current region inactive. This disables vim-style visual selection mode if it is active.
- describe-key-briefly
- Reads a key sequence, then prints the function bound to that sequence.
- exchange-point-and-mark (^X^X) (unbound) (unbound)
- Exchange the cursor position (point) with the position of the mark. Unless a negative numeric argument is given, the region between point and mark is activated so that it can be highlighted. If a zero numeric argument is given, the region is activated but point and mark are not swapped.
- execute-named-cmd (ESC-x) (:) (unbound)
- Read the name of an editor command and execute it. Aliasing this widget with ` zle -A' or replacing it with `zle -N' has no effect when interpreting key bindings, but ` zle execute-named-cmd' will invoke such an alias or replacement.
A restricted set of editing functions is available in the mini-buffer. Keys are
looked up in the special command keymap, and if not found there in the
main keymap. An interrupt signal, as defined by the stty setting, will abort
the function. Note that the following always perform the same task within the
executed-named-cmd environment and cannot be replaced by user defined
widgets, nor can the set of functions be extended. The allowed functions are:
backward-delete-char, vi-backward-delete-char,
clear-screen, redisplay, quoted-insert,
vi-quoted-insert, backward-kill-word,
vi-backward-kill-word, kill-whole-line, vi-kill-line,
backward-kill-line, list-choices, delete-char-or-list,
complete-word, accept-line, expand-or-complete and
expand-or-complete-prefix.
kill-region kills the last word, and vi-cmd-mode is treated the same as
accept-line. The space and tab characters, if not bound to one of these
functions, will complete the name and then list the possibilities if the
AUTO_LIST option is set. Any other character that is not bound to
self-insert or self-insert-unmeta will beep and be ignored. The
bindings of the current insert mode will be used.
Currently this command may not be redefined or called by name.
- execute-last-named-cmd (ESC-z) (unbound) (unbound)
- Redo the last function executed with execute-named-cmd.
Like execute-named-cmd, this command may not be redefined, but it may be
called by name.
- get-line (ESC-G ESC-g) (unbound) (unbound)
- Pop the top line off the buffer stack and insert it at the cursor position.
- pound-insert (unbound) (#) (unbound)
- If there is no # character at the beginning of the buffer, add one to the beginning of each line. If there is one, remove a # from each line that has one. In either case, accept the current line. The INTERACTIVE_COMMENTS option must be set for this to have any usefulness.
- vi-pound-insert
- If there is no # character at the beginning of the current line, add one. If there is one, remove it. The INTERACTIVE_COMMENTS option must be set for this to have any usefulness.
- push-input
- Push the entire current multiline construct onto the buffer stack and return to the top-level ( PS1) prompt. If the current parser construct is only a single line, this is exactly like push-line. Next time the editor starts up or is popped with get-line, the construct will be popped off the top of the buffer stack and loaded into the editing buffer.
- push-line (^Q ESC-Q ESC-q) (unbound) (unbound)
- Push the current buffer onto the buffer stack and clear the buffer. Next time the editor starts up, the buffer will be popped off the top of the buffer stack and loaded into the editing buffer.
- push-line-or-edit
- At the top-level (PS1) prompt, equivalent to push-line. At a secondary ( PS2) prompt, move the entire current multiline construct into the editor buffer. The latter is equivalent to push-input followed by get-line.
- read-command
- Only useful from a user-defined widget. A keystroke is read just as in normal operation, but instead of the command being executed the name of the command that would be executed is stored in the shell parameter REPLY. This can be used as the argument of a future zle command. If the key sequence is not bound, status 1 is returned; typically, however, REPLY is set to undefined-key to indicate a useless key sequence.
- recursive-edit
- Only useful from a user-defined widget. At this point in the function, the editor regains control until one of the standard widgets which would normally cause zle to exit (typically an accept-line caused by hitting the return key) is executed. Instead, control returns to the user-defined widget. The status returned is non-zero if the return was caused by an error, but the function still continues executing and hence may tidy up. This makes it safe for the user-defined widget to alter the command line or key bindings temporarily.
The following widget, caps-lock, serves as an example.
This causes typed letters to be inserted capitalised until either
accept-line (i.e. typically the return key) is typed or the
caps-lock widget is invoked again; the later is handled by saving the
old definition of caps-lock as save-caps-lock and then rebinding
it to invoke accept-line. Note that an error from the recursive edit is
detected as a non-zero return status and propagated by using the
send-break widget.
self-insert-ucase() { LBUFFER+=${(U)KEYS[-1]} } integer stat zle -N self-insert self-insert-ucase zle -A caps-lock save-caps-lock zle -A accept-line caps-lock zle recursive-edit stat=$? zle -A .self-insert self-insert zle -A save-caps-lock caps-lock zle -D save-caps-lock (( stat )) && zle send-break return $stat
- redisplay (unbound) (^R) (^R)
- Redisplays the edit buffer.
- reset-prompt (unbound) (unbound) (unbound)
- Force the prompts on both the left and right of the screen to be re-expanded, then redisplay the edit buffer. This reflects changes both to the prompt variables themselves and changes in the expansion of the values (for example, changes in time or directory, or changes to the value of variables referred to by the prompt).
Otherwise, the prompt is only expanded each time zle starts, and when the
display has been interrupted by output from another part of the shell (such as
a job notification) which causes the command line to be reprinted.
reset-prompt doesn't alter the special parameter LASTWIDGET.
- send-break (^G ESC-^G) (unbound) (unbound)
- Abort the current editor function, e.g. execute-named-command, or the editor itself, e.g. if you are in vared. Otherwise abort the parsing of the current line; in this case the aborted line is available in the shell variable ZLE_LINE_ABORTED. If the editor is aborted from within vared, the variable ZLE_VARED_ABORTED is set.
- run-help (ESC-H ESC-h) (unbound) (unbound)
- Push the buffer onto the buffer stack, and execute the command ` run-help cmd', where cmd is the current command. run-help is normally aliased to man.
- vi-set-buffer (unbound) (") (unbound)
- Specify a buffer to be used in the following command. There are 37 buffers that can be specified: the 26 `named' buffers "a to "z, the `yank' buffer "0, the nine `queued' buffers "1 to "9 and the `black hole' buffer "_. The named buffers can also be specified as "A to "Z.
When a buffer is specified for a cut, change or yank command, the text concerned
replaces the previous contents of the specified buffer. If a named buffer is
specified using a capital, the newly cut text is appended to the buffer
instead of overwriting it. When using the "_ buffer, nothing
happens. This can be useful for deleting text without affecting any buffers.
If no buffer is specified for a cut or change command, "1 is used,
and the contents of "1 to "8 are each shifted along
one buffer; the contents of "9 is lost. If no buffer is specified
for a yank command, "0 is used. Finally, a paste command without a
specified buffer will paste the text from the most recent command regardless
of any buffer that might have been used with that command.
When called from a widget function by the zle command, the buffer can
optionally be specified with an argument. For example,
zle vi-set-buffer A
- vi-set-mark (unbound) (m) (unbound)
- Set the specified mark at the cursor position.
- set-mark-command (^@) (unbound) (unbound)
- Set the mark at the cursor position. If called with a negative numeric argument, do not set the mark but deactivate the region so that it is no longer highlighted (it is still usable for other purposes). Otherwise the region is marked as active.
- spell-word (ESC-$ ESC-S ESC-s) (unbound) (unbound)
- Attempt spelling correction on the current word.
- split-undo
- Breaks the undo sequence at the current change. This is useful in vi mode as changes made in insert mode are coalesced on entering command mode. Similarly, undo will normally revert as one all the changes made by a user-defined widget.
- undefined-key
- This command is executed when a key sequence that is not bound to any command is typed. By default it beeps.
- undo (^_ ^Xu ^X^U) (u) (unbound)
- Incrementally undo the last text modification. When called from a user-defined widget, takes an optional argument indicating a previous state of the undo history as returned by the UNDO_CHANGE_NO variable; modifications are undone until that state is reached, subject to any limit imposed by the UNDO_LIMIT_NO variable.
Note that when invoked from vi command mode, the full prior change made in
insert mode is reverted, the changes having been merged when command mode was
selected.
- redo (unbound) (^R) (unbound)
- Incrementally redo undone text modifications.
- vi-undo-change (unbound) (unbound) (unbound)
- Undo the last text modification. If repeated, redo the modification.
- visual-mode (unbound) (v) (unbound)
- Toggle vim-style visual selection mode. If line-wise visual mode is currently enabled then it is changed to being character-wise. If used following an operator, it forces the subsequent movement command to be treated as a character-wise movement.
- visual-line-mode (unbound) (V) (unbound)
- Toggle vim-style line-wise visual selection mode. If character-wise visual mode is currently enabled then it is changed to being line-wise. If used following an operator, it forces the subsequent movement command to be treated as a line-wise movement.
- what-cursor-position (^X=) (ga) (unbound)
- Print the character under the cursor, its code as an octal, decimal and hexadecimal number, the current cursor position within the buffer and the column of the cursor in the current line.
- where-is
- Read the name of an editor command and print the listing of key sequences that invoke the specified command. A restricted set of editing functions is available in the mini-buffer. Keys are looked up in the special command keymap, and if not found there in the main keymap.
- which-command (ESC-?) (unbound) (unbound)
- Push the buffer onto the buffer stack, and execute the command ` which-command cmd'. where cmd is the current command. which-command is normally aliased to whence.
- vi-digit-or-beginning-of-line (unbound) (0) (unbound)
- If the last command executed was a digit as part of an argument, continue the argument. Otherwise, execute vi-beginning-of-line.
Text Objects
Text objects are commands that can be used to select a block of text according to some criteria. They are a feature of the vim text editor and so are primarily intended for use with vi operators or from visual selection mode. However, they can also be used from vi-insert or emacs mode. Key bindings listed below apply to the viopp and visual keymaps.- select-a-blank-word (aW)
- Select a word including adjacent blanks, where a word is defined as a series of non-blank characters. With a numeric argument, multiple words will be selected.
- select-a-shell-word (aa)
- Select the current command argument applying the normal rules for quoting.
- select-a-word (aw)
- Select a word including adjacent blanks, using the normal vi-style word definition. With a numeric argument, multiple words will be selected.
- select-in-blank-word (iW)
- Select a word, where a word is defined as a series of non-blank characters. With a numeric argument, multiple words will be selected.
- select-in-shell-word (ia)
- Select the current command argument applying the normal rules for quoting. If the argument begins and ends with matching quote characters, these are not included in the selection.
- select-in-word (iw)
- Select a word, using the normal vi-style word definition. With a numeric argument, multiple words will be selected.
CHARACTER HIGHLIGHTING
The line editor has the ability to highlight characters or regions of the line that have a particular significance. This is controlled by the array parameter zle_highlight, if it has been set by the user. If the parameter contains the single entry none all highlighting is turned off. Note the parameter is still expected to be an array. Otherwise each entry of the array should consist of a word indicating a context for highlighting, then a colon, then a comma-separated list of the types of highlighting to apply in that context. The contexts available for highlighting are the following:- default
- Any text within the command line not affected by any other highlighting. Text outside the editable area of the command line is not affected.
- isearch
- When one of the incremental history search widgets is active, the area of the command line matched by the search string or pattern.
- region
- The currently selected text. In emacs terminology, this is referred to as the region and is bounded by the cursor (point) and the mark. The region is only highlighted if it is active, which is the case after the mark is modified with set-mark-command or exchange-point-and-mark. Note that whether or not the region is active has no effect on its use within emacs style widgets, it simply determines whether it is highlighted. In vi mode, the region corresponds to selected text in visual mode.
- special
- Individual characters that have no direct printable representation but are shown in a special manner by the line editor. These characters are described below.
- suffix
- This context is used in completion for characters that are marked as suffixes that will be removed if the completion ends at that point, the most obvious example being a slash ( /) after a directory name. Note that suffix removal is configurable; the circumstances under which the suffix will be removed may differ for different completions.
- paste
- Following a command to paste text, the characters that were inserted.
- fg_start_code (\e[3)
- The start of the escape sequence for the foreground colour. This is followed by one to three ASCII digits representing the colour. Only used for palette colors, i.e. not 24-bit colors specified via a color triplet.
- fg_default_code (9)
- The number to use instead of the colour to reset the default foreground colour.
- fg_end_code (m)
- The end of the escape sequence for the foreground colour.
- bg_start_code (\e[4)
- The start of the escape sequence for the background colour. See fg_start_code above.
- bg_default_code (9)
- The number to use instead of the colour to reset the default background colour.
- bg_end_code (m)
- The end of the escape sequence for the background colour.
- none
- No highlighting is applied to the given context. It is not useful for this to appear with other types of highlighting; it is used to override a default.
- fg=colour
- The foreground colour should be set to colour, a decimal integer, the name of one of the eight most widely-supported colours or as a ` #' followed by an RGB triplet in hexadecimal format.
Not all terminals support this and, of those that do, not all provide facilities
to test the support, hence the user should decide based on the terminal type.
Most terminals support the colours black, red, green,
yellow, blue, magenta, cyan and white,
which can be set by name. In addition. default may be used to set the
terminal's default foreground colour. Abbreviations are allowed; b or
bl selects black. Some terminals may generate additional colours if the
bold attribute is also present.
On recent terminals and on systems with an up-to-date terminal database the
number of colours supported may be tested by the command ` echotc
Co'; if this succeeds, it indicates a limit on the number of colours
which will be enforced by the line editor. The number of colours is in any
case limited to 256 (i.e. the range 0 to 255).
Some modern terminal emulators have support for 24-bit true colour (16 million
colours). In this case, the hex triplet format can be used. This consists of a
` #' followed by either a three or six digit hexadecimal number
describing the red, green and blue components of the colour. Hex triplets can
also be used with 88 and 256 colour terminals via the zsh/nearcolor
module (see zshmodules(1)).
Colour is also known as color.
- bg=colour
- The background colour should be set to colour. This works similarly to the foreground colour, except the background is not usually affected by the bold attribute.
- bold
- The characters in the given context are shown in a bold font. Not all terminals distinguish bold fonts.
- standout
- The characters in the given context are shown in the terminal's standout mode. The actual effect is specific to the terminal; on many terminals it is inverse video. On some such terminals, where the cursor does not blink it appears with standout mode negated, making it less than clear where the cursor actually is. On such terminals one of the other effects may be preferable for highlighting the region and matched search string.
- underline
- The characters in the given context are shown underlined. Some terminals show the foreground in a different colour instead; in this case whitespace will not be highlighted.
- ASCII control characters
- Control characters in the ASCII range are shown as ` ^' followed by the base character.
- Unprintable multibyte characters
- This item applies to control characters not in the ASCII range, plus other characters as follows. If the MULTIBYTE option is in effect, multibyte characters not in the ASCII character set that are reported as having zero width are treated as combining characters when the option COMBINING_CHARS is on. If the option is off, or if a character appears where a combining character is not valid, the character is treated as unprintable.
Unprintable multibyte characters are shown as a hexadecimal number between angle
brackets. The number is the code point of the character in the wide character
set; this may or may not be Unicode, depending on the operating system.
- Invalid multibyte characters
- If the MULTIBYTE option is in effect, any sequence of one or more bytes that does not form a valid character in the current character set is treated as a series of bytes each shown as a special character. This case can be distinguished from other unprintable characters as the bytes are represented as two hexadecimal digits between angle brackets, as distinct from the four or eight digits that are used for unprintable characters that are nonetheless valid in the current character set.
Not all systems support this: for it to work, the system's representation of
wide characters must be code values from the Universal Character Set, as
defined by IS0 10646 (also known as Unicode).
- Wrapped double-width characters
- When a double-width character appears in the final column of a line, it is instead shown on the next line. The empty space left in the original position is highlighted as a special character.
zle_highlight=(region:standout special:standout suffix:bold isearch:underline paste:standout)
NAME
zshcompwid - zsh completion widgetsDESCRIPTION
The shell's programmable completion mechanism can be manipulated in two ways; here the low-level features supporting the newer, function-based mechanism are defined. A complete set of shell functions based on these features is described in zshcompsys(1), and users with no interest in adding to that system (or, potentially, writing their own -- see dictionary entry for `hubris') should skip the current section. The older system based on the compctl builtin command is described in zshcompctl(1). Completion widgets are defined by the -C option to the zle builtin command provided by the zsh/zle module (see zshzle(1)). For example,zle -C complete expand-or-complete completer
COMPLETION SPECIAL PARAMETERS
The parameters ZLE_REMOVE_SUFFIX_CHARS and ZLE_SPACE_SUFFIX_CHARS are used by the completion mechanism, but are not special. See Parameters Used By The Shell in zshparam(1). Inside completion widgets, and any functions called from them, some parameters have special meaning; outside these functions they are not special to the shell in any way. These parameters are used to pass information between the completion code and the completion widget. Some of the builtin commands and the condition codes use or change the current values of these parameters. Any existing values will be hidden during execution of completion widgets; except for compstate, the parameters are reset on each function exit (including nested function calls from within the completion widget) to the values they had when the function was entered.- CURRENT
- This is the number of the current word, i.e. the word the cursor is currently on in the words array. Note that this value is only correct if the ksharrays option is not set.
- IPREFIX
- Initially this will be set to the empty string. This parameter functions like PREFIX; it contains a string which precedes the one in PREFIX and is not considered part of the list of matches. Typically, a string is transferred from the beginning of PREFIX to the end of IPREFIX, for example:
IPREFIX=${PREFIX%%\=*}= PREFIX=${PREFIX#*=}
- ISUFFIX
- As IPREFIX, but for a suffix that should not be considered part of the matches; note that the ISUFFIX string follows the SUFFIX string.
- PREFIX
- Initially this will be set to the part of the current word from the beginning of the word up to the position of the cursor; it may be altered to give a common prefix for all matches.
- QIPREFIX
- This parameter is read-only and contains the quoted string up to the word being completed. E.g. when completing ` "foo', this parameter contains the double quote. If the -q option of compset is used (see below), and the original string was ` "foo bar' with the cursor on the ` bar', this parameter contains ` "foo '.
- QISUFFIX
- Like QIPREFIX, but containing the suffix.
- SUFFIX
- Initially this will be set to the part of the current word from the cursor position to the end; it may be altered to give a common suffix for all matches. It is most useful when the option COMPLETE_IN_WORD is set, as otherwise the whole word on the command line is treated as a prefix.
- compstate
- This is an associative array with various keys and values that the completion code uses to exchange information with the completion widget. The keys are:
- all_quotes
- The -q option of the compset builtin command (see below) allows a quoted string to be broken into separate words; if the cursor is on one of those words, that word will be completed, possibly invoking ` compset -q' recursively. With this key it is possible to test the types of quoted strings which are currently broken into parts in this fashion. Its value contains one character for each quoting level. The characters are a single quote or a double quote for strings quoted with these characters, a dollars sign for strings quoted with $'... ' and a backslash for strings not starting with a quote character. The first character in the value always corresponds to the innermost quoting level.
- context
- This will be set by the completion code to the overall context in which completion is attempted. Possible values are:
- array_value
- when completing inside the value of an array parameter assignment; in this case the words array contains the words inside the parentheses.
- brace_parameter
- when completing the name of a parameter in a parameter expansion beginning with ${. This context will also be set when completing parameter flags following ${(; the full command line argument is presented and the handler must test the value to be completed to ascertain that this is the case.
- assign_parameter
- when completing the name of a parameter in a parameter assignment.
- command
- when completing for a normal command (either in command position or for an argument of the command).
- condition
- when completing inside a `[[...]]' conditional expression; in this case the words array contains only the words inside the conditional expression.
- math
- when completing in a mathematical environment such as a ` ((...))' construct.
- parameter
- when completing the name of a parameter in a parameter expansion beginning with $ but not ${.
- redirect
- when completing after a redirection operator.
- subscript
- when completing inside a parameter subscript.
- value
- when completing the value of a parameter assignment.
- exact
- Controls the behaviour when the REC_EXACT option is set. It will be set to accept if an exact match would be accepted, and will be unset otherwise.
If it was set when at least one match equal to the string on the line was
generated, the match is accepted.
- exact_string
- The string of an exact match if one was found, otherwise unset.
- ignored
- The number of completions that were ignored because they matched one of the patterns given with the -F option to the compadd builtin command.
- insert
- This controls the manner in which a match is inserted into the command line. On entry to the widget function, if it is unset the command line is not to be changed; if set to unambiguous, any prefix common to all matches is to be inserted; if set to automenu-unambiguous, the common prefix is to be inserted and the next invocation of the completion code may start menu completion (due to the AUTO_MENU option being set); if set to menu or automenu menu completion will be started for the matches currently generated (in the latter case this will happen because the AUTO_MENU is set). The value may also contain the string ` tab' when the completion code would normally not really do completion, but only insert the TAB character.
On exit it may be set to any of the values above (where setting it to the empty
string is the same as unsetting it), or to a number, in which case the match
whose number is given will be inserted into the command line. Negative numbers
count backward from the last match (with ` -1' selecting the last
match) and out-of-range values are wrapped around, so that a value of zero
selects the last match and a value one more than the maximum selects the
first. Unless the value of this key ends in a space, the match is inserted as
in a menu completion, i.e. without automatically appending a space.
Both menu and automenu may also specify the number of the match to
insert, given after a colon. For example, ` menu:2' says to start menu
completion, beginning with the second match.
Note that a value containing the substring ` tab' makes the matches
generated be ignored and only the TAB be inserted.
Finally, it may also be set to all, which makes all matches generated be
inserted into the line.
- insert_positions
- When the completion system inserts an unambiguous string into the line, there may be multiple places where characters are missing or where the character inserted differs from at least one match. The value of this key contains a colon separated list of all these positions, as indexes into the command line.
- last_prompt
- If this is set to a non-empty string for every match added, the completion code will move the cursor back to the previous prompt after the list of completions has been displayed. Initially this is set or unset according to the ALWAYS_LAST_PROMPT option.
- list
- This controls whether or how the list of matches will be displayed. If it is unset or empty they will never be listed; if its value begins with list, they will always be listed; if it begins with autolist or ambiguous, they will be listed when the AUTO_LIST or LIST_AMBIGUOUS options respectively would normally cause them to be.
If the substring force appears in the value, this makes the list be shown
even if there is only one match. Normally, the list would be shown only if
there are at least two matches.
The value contains the substring packed if the LIST_PACKED option
is set. If this substring is given for all matches added to a group, this
group will show the LIST_PACKED behavior. The same is done for the
LIST_ROWS_FIRST option with the substring rows.
Finally, if the value contains the string explanations, only the
explanation strings, if any, will be listed and if it contains
messages, only the messages (added with the -x option of
compadd) will be listed. If it contains both explanations and
messages both kinds of explanation strings will be listed. It will be
set appropriately on entry to a completion widget and may be changed
there.
- list_lines
- This gives the number of lines that are needed to display the full list of completions. Note that to calculate the total number of lines to display you need to add the number of lines needed for the command line to this value, this is available as the value of the BUFFERLINES special parameter.
- list_max
- Initially this is set to the value of the LISTMAX parameter. It may be set to any other value; when the widget exits this value will be used in the same way as the value of LISTMAX.
- nmatches
- The number of matches added by the completion code so far.
- old_insert
- On entry to the widget this will be set to the number of the match of an old list of completions that is currently inserted into the command line. If no match has been inserted, this is unset.
As with old_list, the value of this key will only be used if it is the
string keep. If it was set to this value by the widget and there was an
old match inserted into the command line, this match will be kept and if the
value of the insert key specifies that another match should be
inserted, this will be inserted after the old one.
- old_list
- This is set to yes if there is still a valid list of completions from a previous completion at the time the widget is invoked. This will usually be the case if and only if the previous editing operation was a completion widget or one of the builtin completion functions. If there is a valid list and it is also currently shown on the screen, the value of this key is shown.
After the widget has exited the value of this key is only used if it was set to
keep. In this case the completion code will continue to use this old
list. If the widget generated new matches, they will not be used.
- parameter
- The name of the parameter when completing in a subscript or in the value of a parameter assignment.
- pattern_insert
- Normally this is set to menu, which specifies that menu completion will be used whenever a set of matches was generated using pattern_match (see below). If it is set to any other non-empty string by the user and menu completion is not selected by other option settings, the code will instead insert any common prefix for the generated matches as with normal completion.
- pattern_match
- Locally controls the behaviour given by the GLOB_COMPLETE option. Initially it is set to ` *' if and only if the option is set. The completion widget may set it to this value, to an empty string (which has the same effect as unsetting it), or to any other non-empty string. If it is non-empty, unquoted metacharacters on the command line will be treated as patterns; if it is ` *', then additionally a wildcard ` *' is assumed at the cursor position; if it is empty or unset, metacharacters will be treated literally.
Note that the match specifications given to the compadd builtin command
are not used if this is set to a non-empty string.
- quote
- When completing inside quotes, this contains the quotation character (i.e. either a single quote, a double quote, or a backtick). Otherwise it is unset.
- quoting
- When completing inside single quotes, this is set to the string single; inside double quotes, the string double; inside backticks, the string backtick. Otherwise it is unset.
- redirect
- The redirection operator when completing in a redirection position, i.e. one of <, >, etc.
- restore
- This is set to auto before a function is entered, which forces the special parameters mentioned above ( words, CURRENT, PREFIX, IPREFIX, SUFFIX, and ISUFFIX) to be restored to their previous values when the function exits. If a function unsets it or sets it to any other string, they will not be restored.
- to_end
- Specifies the occasions on which the cursor is moved to the end of a string when a match is inserted. On entry to a widget function, it may be single if this will happen when a single unambiguous match was inserted or match if it will happen any time a match is inserted (for example, by menu completion; this is likely to be the effect of the ALWAYS_TO_END option).
On exit, it may be set to single as above. It may also be set to
always, or to the empty string or unset; in those cases the cursor will
be moved to the end of the string always or never respectively. Any other
string is treated as match.
- unambiguous
- This key is read-only and will always be set to the common (unambiguous) prefix the completion code has generated for all matches added so far.
- unambiguous_cursor
- This gives the position the cursor would be placed at if the common prefix in the unambiguous key were inserted, relative to the value of that key. The cursor would be placed before the character whose index is given by this key.
- unambiguous_positions
- This contains all positions where characters in the unambiguous string are missing or where the character inserted differs from at least one of the matches. The positions are given as indexes into the string given by the value of the unambiguous key.
- vared
- If completion is called while editing a line using the vared builtin, the value of this key is set to the name of the parameter given as an argument to vared. This key is only set while a vared command is active.
- words
- This array contains the words present on the command line currently being edited.
COMPLETION BUILTIN COMMANDS
- compadd [ -akqQfenUl12C ] [ -F array ]
- [-P prefix ] [ -S suffix ]
- [-p hidden-prefix ] [ -s hidden-suffix ]
- [-i ignored-prefix ] [ -I ignored-suffix ]
- [-W file-prefix ] [ -d array ]
- [-J group-name ] [ -X explanation ] [ -x message ]
- [-V group-name ] [ -o [ order ] ]
- [-r remove-chars ] [ -R remove-func ]
- [-D array ] [ -O array ] [ -A array ]
- [-E number ]
- [-M match-spec ] [ -- ] [ completions ... ]
This builtin command can be used to add matches directly and control all the
information the completion code stores with each possible completion. The
return status is zero if at least one match was added and non-zero if no
matches were added.
The completion code breaks each match into seven fields in the order:
The first field is an ignored prefix taken from the command line, the contents
of the IPREFIX parameter plus the string given with the -i
option. With the -U option, only the string from the -i option
is used. The field <apre> is an optional prefix string given with
the -P option. The <hpre> field is a string that is
considered part of the match but that should not be shown when listing
completions, given with the -p option; for example, functions that do
filename generation might specify a common path prefix this way.
<body> is the part of the match that should appear in the list of
matches shown to the user. The suffixes <hsuf>,
<asuf> and <isuf> correspond to the prefixes
<hpre>, <apre> and <ipre> and are given
by the options -s, -S and -I, respectively.
The supported flags are:
<ipre><apre><hpre><body><hsuf><asuf><isuf>
- -P prefix
- This gives a string to be inserted before each match. The string given is not considered as part of the match and any shell metacharacters in it will not be quoted when the string is inserted.
- -S suffix
- Like -P, but gives a string to be inserted after each match.
- -p hidden-prefix
- This gives a string that should be inserted before each match but that should not appear in the list of matches. Unless the -U option is given, this string must be matched as part of the string on the command line.
- -s hidden-suffix
- Like `-p', but gives a string to insert after each match.
- -i ignored-prefix
- This gives a string to insert just before any string given with the ` -P' option. Without `-P' the string is inserted before the string given with ` -p' or directly before each match.
- -I ignored-suffix
- Like -i, but gives an ignored suffix.
- -a
- With this flag the completions are taken as names of arrays and the actual completions are their values. If only some elements of the arrays are needed, the completions may also contain subscripts, as in ` foo[2,-1]'.
- -k
- With this flag the completions are taken as names of associative arrays and the actual completions are their keys. As for -a, the words may also contain subscripts, as in `foo[(R)*bar*]'.
- -d array
- This adds per-completion display strings. The array should contain one element per completion given. The completion code will then display the first element instead of the first completion, and so on. The array may be given as the name of an array parameter or directly as a space-separated list of words in parentheses.
If there are fewer display strings than completions, the leftover
completions will be displayed unchanged and if there are more display
strings than completions, the leftover display strings will be silently
ignored.
- -l
- This option only has an effect if used together with the -d option. If it is given, the display strings are listed one per line, not arrayed in columns.
- -o [ order ]
- This controls the order in which matches are sorted. order is a comma-separated list comprising the following possible values. These values can be abbreviated to their initial two or three characters. Note that the order forms part of the group name space so matches with different orderings will not be in the same group.
- match
- If given, the order of the output is determined by the match strings; otherwise it is determined by the display strings (i.e. the strings given by the -d option). This is the default if `-o' is specified but the order argument is omitted.
- nosort
- This specifies that the completions are pre-sorted and their order should be preserved. This value only makes sense alone and cannot be combined with any others.
- numeric
- If the matches include numbers, sort them numerically rather than lexicographically.
- reverse
- Arrange the matches backwards by reversing the sort ordering.
- -J group-name
- Gives the name of the group that the matches should be stored in.
- -V group-name
- Like -J but naming an unsorted group. This option is identical to the combination of -J and -o nosort.
- -1
- If given together with the -V option, makes only consecutive duplicates in the group be removed. If combined with the -J option, this has no visible effect. Note that groups with and without this flag are in different name spaces.
- -2
- If given together with the -J or -V option, makes all duplicates be kept. Again, groups with and without this flag are in different name spaces.
- -X explanation
- The explanation string will be printed with the list of matches, above the group currently selected.
Within the explanation, the following sequences may be used to specify
output attributes as described in the section EXPANSION OF PROMPT SEQUENCES in
zshmisc(1): ` %B', `%S', `%U', `%F',
`%K' and their lower case counterparts, as well as `
%{...%}'. ` %F', `%K' and ` %{...%}'
take arguments in the same form as prompt expansion. (Note that the sequence `
%G' is not available; an argument to ` %{' should be used
instead.) The sequence ` %%' produces a literal ` %'.
These sequences are most often employed by users when customising the
format style (see zshcompsys(1)), but they must also be taken
into account when writing completion functions, as passing descriptions with
unescaped ` %' characters to utility functions such as
_arguments and _message may produce unexpected results. If
arbitrary text is to be passed in a description, it can be escaped using e.g.
${my_str//\%/%%}.
- -x message
- Like -X, but the message will be printed even if there are no matches in the group.
- -q
- The suffix given with -S will be automatically removed if the next character typed is a blank or does not insert anything, or if the suffix consists of only one character and the next character typed is the same character.
- -r remove-chars
- This is a more versatile form of the -q option. The suffix given with -S or the slash automatically added after completing directories will be automatically removed if the next character typed inserts one of the characters given in the remove-chars. This string is parsed as a characters class and understands the backslash sequences used by the print command. For example, ` -r "a-z\t"' removes the suffix if the next character typed inserts a lower case character or a TAB, and ` -r "^0-9"' removes the suffix if the next character typed inserts anything but a digit. One extra backslash sequence is understood in this string: ` \-' stands for all characters that insert nothing. Thus ` -S "=" -q' is the same as ` -S "=" -r "= \t\n\-"'.
This option may also be used without the -S option; then any
automatically added space will be removed when one of the characters in the
list is typed.
- -R remove-func
- This is another form of the -r option. When a match has been accepted and a suffix has been inserted, the function remove-func will be called after the next character typed. It is passed the length of the suffix as an argument and can use the special parameters available in ordinary (non-completion) zle widgets (see zshzle(1)) to analyse and modify the command line.
- -f
- If this flag is given, all of the matches built from the completions are marked as being the names of files. They are not required to be actual filenames, but if they are, and the option LIST_TYPES is set, the characters describing the types of the files in the completion lists will be shown. This also forces a slash to be added when the name of a directory is completed.
- -e
- This flag can be used to tell the completion code that the matches added are parameter names for a parameter expansion. This will make the AUTO_PARAM_SLASH and AUTO_PARAM_KEYS options be used for the matches.
- -W file-prefix
- This string is a pathname that will be prepended to each match together with any prefix specified by the -p option to form a complete filename for testing. Hence it is only useful if combined with the -f flag, as the tests will not otherwise be performed.
- -F array
- Specifies an array containing patterns. completions that match one of these patterns are ignored, that is, not considered to be matches.
The array may be the name of an array parameter or a list of literal
patterns enclosed in parentheses and quoted, as in ` -F "(*?.o
*?.h)"'. If the name of an array is given, the elements of the
array are taken as the patterns.
- -Q
- This flag instructs the completion code not to quote any metacharacters in the matches when inserting them into the command line.
- -M match-spec
- This gives local match specifications as described below in the section `Completion Matching Control'. This option may be given more than once. In this case all match-specs given are concatenated with spaces between them to form the specification string to use. Note that they will only be used if the -U option is not given.
- -n
- Specifies that matching completions are to be added to the set of matches, but are not to be listed to the user.
- -U
- If this flag is given, all completions are added to the set of matches and no matching will be done by the completion code. Normally this is used in functions that do the matching themselves.
- -O array
- If this option is given, the completions are not added to the set of matches. Instead, matching is done as usual and all of the completions that match will be stored in the array parameter whose name is given as array.
- -A array
- As the -O option, except that instead of those of the completions which match being stored in array, the strings generated internally by the completion code are stored. For example, with a match specification of ` -M "L:|no="', a current word of ` nof' and completions of `foo', this option stores the string ` nofoo' in the array, whereas the -O option stores the ` foo' originally given.
- -D array
- As with -O, the completions are not added to the set of matches. Instead, whenever the nth completion does not match, the nth element of the array is removed. Elements for which the corresponding completion matches are retained. This option can be used more than once to remove elements from multiple arrays.
- -C
- This option adds a special match which expands to all other matches when inserted into the line, even those that are added after this option is used. Together with the -d option it is possible to specify a string that should be displayed in the list for this special match. If no string is given, it will be shown as a string containing the strings that would be inserted for the other matches, truncated to the width of the screen.
- -E number
- This option adds number empty matches after matching completions have been added. An empty match takes up space in completion listings but will never be inserted in the line and can't be selected with menu completion or menu selection. This makes empty matches only useful to format completion lists and to make explanatory string be shown in completion lists (since empty matches can be given display strings with the -d option). And because all but one empty string would otherwise be removed, this option implies the -V and -2 options (even if an explicit -J option is given). This can be important to note as it affects the name space into which matches are added.
- -
- --
- This flag ends the list of flags and options. All arguments after it will be taken as the completions even if they begin with hyphens.
- compset -p number
- compset -P [ number ] pattern
- compset -s number
- compset -S [ number ] pattern
- compset -n begin [ end ]
- compset -N beg-pat [ end-pat ]
- compset -q
- This command simplifies modification of the special parameters, while its return status allows tests on them to be carried out.
The options are:
This forces anything up to and including the last equal sign to be ignored by
the completion code.
- -p number
- If the value of the PREFIX parameter is at least number characters long, the first number characters are removed from it and appended to the contents of the IPREFIX parameter.
- -P [ number ] pattern
- If the value of the PREFIX parameter begins with anything that matches the pattern, the matched portion is removed from PREFIX and appended to IPREFIX.
Without the optional number, the longest match is taken, but if
number is given, anything up to the numberth match is moved. If
the number is negative, the numberth longest match is moved. For
example, if PREFIX contains the string ` a=b=c', then compset
-P '*\=' will move the string ` a=b=' into the IPREFIX
parameter, but compset -P 1 '*\=' will move only the string `
a='.
- -s number
- As -p, but transfer the last number characters from the value of SUFFIX to the front of the value of ISUFFIX.
- -S [ number ] pattern
- As -P, but match the last portion of SUFFIX and transfer the matched portion to the front of the value of ISUFFIX.
- -n begin [ end ]
- If the current word position as specified by the parameter CURRENT is greater than or equal to begin, anything up to the beginth word is removed from the words array and the value of the parameter CURRENT is decremented by begin.
If the optional end is given, the modification is done only if the
current word position is also less than or equal to end. In this case,
the words from position end onwards are also removed from the
words array.
Both begin and end may be negative to count backwards from the
last element of the words array.
- -N beg-pat [ end-pat ]
- If one of the elements of the words array before the one at the index given by the value of the parameter CURRENT matches the pattern beg-pat, all elements up to and including the matching one are removed from the words array and the value of CURRENT is changed to point to the same word in the changed array.
If the optional pattern end-pat is also given, and there is an element in
the words array matching this pattern, the parameters are modified only
if the index of this word is higher than the one given by the CURRENT
parameter (so that the matching word has to be after the cursor). In this
case, the words starting with the one matching end-pat are also removed
from the words array. If words contains no word matching
end-pat, the testing and modification is performed as if it were not
given.
- -q
- The word currently being completed is split on spaces into separate words, respecting the usual shell quoting conventions. The resulting words are stored in the words array, and CURRENT, PREFIX, SUFFIX, QIPREFIX, and QISUFFIX are modified to reflect the word part that is completed.
if compset -P '*\='; then ...
- compcall [ -TD ]
- This allows the use of completions defined with the compctl builtin from within completion widgets. The list of matches will be generated as if one of the non-widget completion functions ( complete-word, etc.) had been called, except that only compctls given for specific commands are used. To force the code to try completions defined with the -T option of compctl and/or the default completion (whether defined by compctl -D or the builtin default) in the appropriate places, the -T and/or -D flags can be passed to compcall.
The return status can be used to test if a matching compctl definition
was found. It is non-zero if a compctl was found and zero otherwise.
Note that this builtin is defined by the zsh/compctl module.
COMPLETION CONDITION CODES
The following additional condition codes for use within the [[ ... ]] construct are available in completion widgets. These work on the special parameters. All of these tests can also be performed by the compset builtin, but in the case of the condition codes the contents of the special parameters are not modified.- -prefix [ number ] pattern
- true if the test for the -P option of compset would succeed.
- -suffix [ number ] pattern
- true if the test for the -S option of compset would succeed.
- -after beg-pat
- true if the test of the -N option with only the beg-pat given would succeed.
- -between beg-pat end-pat
- true if the test for the -N option with both patterns would succeed.
COMPLETION MATCHING CONTROL
When the user invokes completion, the current word on the command line (that is, the word the cursor is currently on) is used to generate a match pattern. Only those completions that match the pattern are offered to the user as matches. The default match pattern is generated from the current word by either- •
- appending a `*' (matching any number of characters in a completion) or,
- •
- if the shell option COMPLETE_IN_WORD is set, inserting a ` *' at the cursor position.
- •
- Note that the -M option is ignored if the current word contains a glob pattern and the shell option GLOB_COMPLETE is set or if the pattern_match key of the special associative array compstate is set to a non-empty value (see `Completion Special Parameters' above).
- •
- Users of the completion system (see zshcompsys(1)) should generally not use the -M option directly, but rather use the matcher-list and matcher styles (see the subsection Standard Styles in the documentation for COMPLETION SYSTEM CONFIGURATION in zshcompsys(1)).
- •
- a case-sensitive letter
- •
- a `:',
- •
- one or more patterns separated by pipes (`|'),
- •
- an equals sign (`='), and
- •
- another pattern.
- •
- the empty string or
- •
- a sequence of
- •
- literal characters (which may be quoted with a `\'),
- •
- question marks (`?'),
- •
- bracket expressions (`[...]'; see the subsection Glob Operators in the documentation for GLOB OPERATORS in zshexpn(1)), and/or
- •
- brace expressions (see below).
- •
- literal characters,
- •
- ranges (`0-9'), and/or
- •
- character classes (`[:name:]').
- •
- A brace expression is delimited by a pair of braces (`{...}').
- •
- Brace expressions do not support negations. That is, an initial ` !' or `^' has no special meaning and will be interpreted as a literal character.
- •
- When a character in the current word matches the nth pattern in a brace expression, the corresponding part of the match pattern is broadened only with the nth pattern of the brace expression on the other side of the ` =', if there is one; if there is no brace expression on the other side, then this pattern is the empty string. However, if either brace expression has more elements than the other, then the excess entries are simply ignored. When comparing indexes, each literal character or character class counts as one element, but each range is instead expanded to the full list of literal characters it represents. Additionally, if on both sides of the ` =', the nth pattern is ` [:upper:]' or `[:lower:]', then these are expanded as ranges, too.
- m:word-pat=match-pat
- M:word-pat=match-pat
For each substring of the current word that matches word-pat, broaden the
corresponding part of the match pattern to additionally match
match-pat.
- Examples:
m:{[:lower:]}={[:upper:]} lets any lower case character in the current
word be completed to itself or its uppercase counterpart. So, the completions
` foo', `FOO' and `Foo' will are be considered matches
for the word ` fo'.
M:_= inserts every underscore from the current word into each match, in
the same relative position, determined by matching the substrings around it.
So, given a completion ` foo', the word `f_o' will be completed
to the match ` f_oo', even though the latter was not present as a
completion.
- b:word-pat=match-pat
- B:word-pat=match-pat
- e:word-pat=match-pat
- E:word-pat=match-pat
For each consecutive substring at the b:eginning or e:nd of the
current word that matches word-pat, broaden the corresponding part of
the match pattern to additionally match match-pat.
- Examples:
` b:-=+' lets any number of minuses at the start of the current word be
completed to a minus or a plus.
` B:0=' adds all zeroes at the beginning of the current word to the
beginning of each match.
- l:|word-pat=match-pat
- L:|word-pat=match-pat
- R:word-pat|=match-pat
- r:word-pat|=match-pat
If there is a substring at the l:eft or r:ight edge of the current
word that matches word-pat, then broaden the corresponding part of the
match pattern to additionally match match-pat.
For each l:, L:, r: and R: matcher (including the
ones below), the pattern match-pat may also be a `*'. This
matches any number of characters in a completion.
- Examples:
` r:|=*' appends a `*' to the match pattern, even when
COMPLETE_IN_WORD is set and the cursor is not at the end of the current
word.
If the current word starts with a minus, then ` L:|-=' will prepend it to
each match.
- l:anchor|word-pat=match-pat
- L:anchor|word-pat=match-pat
- r:word-pat|anchor=match-pat
- R:word-pat|anchor=match-pat
For each substring of the current word that matches word-pat and has on
its l:eft or r:ight another substring matching anchor,
broaden the corresponding part of the match pattern to additionally match
match-pat.
Note that these matchers (and the ones below) modify only what is matched by
word-pat; they do not change the matching behavior of what is matched
by anchor (or coanchor; see the matchers below). Thus, unless
its corresponding part of the match pattern has been modified, the anchor in
the current word has to match literally in each completion, just like any
other substring of the current word.
If a matcher includes at least one anchor (which includes the matchers with two
anchors, below), then match-pat may also be `*' or `**'.
` *' can match any part of a completion that does not contain any
substrings matching anchor, whereas a `**' can match any part of
a completion, period. (Note that this is different from the behavior of `
*' in the anchorless forms of ` l:' and `r:' and and also
different from ` *' and ` **' in glob expressions.)
- Examples:
` r:|.=*' makes the completion `comp.sources.unix' a match for the
word ` ..u' -- but not for the word `.u'.
Given a completion ` --foo', the matcher `L:--|no-=' will
complete the word ` --no-' to the match
`--no-foo'.
- l:anchor||coanchor=match-pat
- L:anchor||coanchor=match-pat
- r:coanchor||anchor=match-pat
- R:coanchor||anchor=match-pat
For any two consecutive substrings of the current word that match anchor
and coanchor, in the order given, insert the pattern match-pat
between their corresponding parts in the match pattern.
Note that, unlike anchor, the pattern coanchor does not change
what ` *' can match.
- Examples:
` r:?||[[:upper:]]=*' will complete the current word `fB' to `
fooBar', but it will not complete it to ` fooHooBar' (because
`*' here cannot match anything that includes a match for `
[[:upper:]]), nor will it complete ` B' to `fooBar'
(because there is no character in the current word to match coanchor).
Given the current word ` pass.n' and a completion `pass.byname',
the matcher ` L:.||[[:alpha:]]=by' will produce the match
`pass.name'.
- x:
Ignore this matcher and all matchers to its right.
This matcher is used to mark the end of a match specification. In a single
standalone list of matchers, this has no use, but where match specifications
are concatenated, as is often the case when using the completion system (see
zshcompsys(1)), it can allow one match specification to override
another.
COMPLETION WIDGET EXAMPLE
The first step is to define the widget:zle -C complete complete-word complete-files
bindkey '^X\t' complete
complete-files () { compadd - * }
NAME
zshcompsys - zsh completion systemDESCRIPTION
This describes the shell code for the `new' completion system, referred to as compsys. It is written in shell functions based on the features described in zshcompwid(1). The features are contextual, sensitive to the point at which completion is started. Many completions are already provided. For this reason, a user can perform a great many tasks without knowing any details beyond how to initialize the system, which is described below in INITIALIZATION. The context that decides what completion is to be performed may be- •
- an argument or option position: these describe the position on the command line at which completion is requested. For example `first argument to rmdir, the word being completed names a directory';
- •
- a special context, denoting an element in the shell's syntax. For example `a word in command position' or `an array subscript'.
- •
- those beginning `comp' are to be called directly; there are only a few of these;
- •
- those beginning `_' are called by the completion code. The shell functions of this set, which implement completion behaviour and may be bound to keystrokes, are referred to as `widgets'. These proliferate as new completions are required.
INITIALIZATION
If the system was installed completely, it should be enough to call the shell function compinit from your initialization file; see the next section. However, the function compinstall can be run by a user to configure various aspects of the completion system. Usually, compinstall will insert code into .zshrc, although if that is not writable it will save it in another file and tell you that file's location. Note that it is up to you to make sure that the lines added to .zshrc are actually run; you may, for example, need to move them to an earlier place in the file if .zshrc usually returns early. So long as you keep them all together (including the comment lines at the start and finish), you can rerun compinstall and it will correctly locate and modify these lines. Note, however, that any code you add to this section by hand is likely to be lost if you rerun compinstall, although lines using the command ` zstyle' should be gracefully handled. The new code will take effect next time you start the shell, or run .zshrc by hand; there is also an option to make them take effect immediately. However, if compinstall has removed definitions, you will need to restart the shell to see the changes. To run compinstall you will need to make sure it is in a directory mentioned in your fpath parameter, which should already be the case if zsh was properly configured as long as your startup files do not remove the appropriate directories from fpath. Then it must be autoloaded (` autoload -U compinstall' is recommended). You can abort the installation any time you are being prompted for information, and your .zshrc will not be altered at all; changes only take place right at the end, where you are specifically asked for confirmation.Use of compinit
This section describes the use of compinit to initialize completion for the current session when called directly; if you have run compinstall it will be called automatically from your .zshrc. To initialize the system, the function compinit should be in a directory mentioned in the fpath parameter, and should be autoloaded (` autoload -U compinit' is recommended), and then run simply as ` compinit'. This will define a few utility functions, arrange for all the necessary shell functions to be autoloaded, and will then re-define all widgets that do completion to use the new system. If you use the menu-select widget, which is part of the zsh/complist module, you should make sure that that module is loaded before the call to compinit so that that widget is also re-defined. If completion styles (see below) are set up to perform expansion as well as completion by default, and the TAB key is bound to expand-or-complete, compinit will rebind it to complete-word; this is necessary to use the correct form of expansion. Should you need to use the original completion commands, you can still bind keys to the old widgets by putting a ` .' in front of the widget name, e.g. ` .expand-or-complete'. To speed up the running of compinit, it can be made to produce a dumped configuration that will be read in on future invocations; this is the default, but can be turned off by calling compinit with the option -D. The dumped file is .zcompdump in the same directory as the startup files (i.e. $ZDOTDIR or $HOME); alternatively, an explicit file name can be given by ` compinit -d dumpfile'. The next invocation of compinit will read the dumped file instead of performing a full initialization. If the number of completion files changes, compinit will recognise this and produce a new dump file. However, if the name of a function or the arguments in the first line of a #compdef function (as described below) change, it is easiest to delete the dump file by hand so that compinit will re-create it the next time it is run. The check performed to see if there are new functions can be omitted by giving the option -C. In this case the dump file will only be created if there isn't one already. The dumping is actually done by another function, compdump, but you will only need to run this yourself if you change the configuration (e.g. using compdef) and then want to dump the new one. The name of the old dumped file will be remembered for this purpose. If the parameter _compdir is set, compinit uses it as a directory where completion functions can be found; this is only necessary if they are not already in the function search path. For security reasons compinit also checks if the completion system would use files not owned by root or by the current user, or files in directories that are world- or group-writable or that are not owned by root or by the current user. If such files or directories are found, compinit will ask if the completion system should really be used. To avoid these tests and make all files found be used without asking, use the option -u, and to make compinit silently ignore all insecure files and directories use the option -i. This security check is skipped entirely when the -C option is given, provided the dumpfile exists. The security check can be retried at any time by running the function compaudit. This is the same check used by compinit, but when it is executed directly any changes to fpath are made local to the function so they do not persist. The directories to be checked may be passed as arguments; if none are given, compaudit uses fpath and _compdir to find completion system directories, adding missing ones to fpath as necessary. To force a check of exactly the directories currently named in fpath, set _compdir to an empty string before calling compaudit or compinit. The function bashcompinit provides compatibility with bash's programmable completion system. When run it will define the functions, compgen and complete which correspond to the bash builtins with the same names. It will then be possible to use completion specifications and functions written for bash.Autoloaded files
The convention for autoloaded functions used in completion is that they start with an underscore; as already mentioned, the fpath/FPATH parameter must contain the directory in which they are stored. If zsh was properly installed on your system, then fpath/FPATH automatically contains the required directories for the standard functions. For incomplete installations, if compinit does not find enough files beginning with an underscore (fewer than twenty) in the search path, it will try to find more by adding the directory _compdir to the search path. If that directory has a subdirectory named Base, all subdirectories will be added to the path. Furthermore, if the subdirectory Base has a subdirectory named Core, compinit will add all subdirectories of the subdirectories to the path: this allows the functions to be in the same format as in the zsh source distribution. When compinit is run, it searches all such files accessible via fpath/FPATH and reads the first line of each of them. This line should contain one of the tags described below. Files whose first line does not start with one of these tags are not considered to be part of the completion system and will not be treated specially. The tags are:- #compdef name ... [ -{p|P} pattern ... [ -N name ... ] ]
- The file will be made autoloadable and the function defined in it will be called when completing names, each of which is either the name of a command whose arguments are to be completed or one of a number of special contexts in the form -context- described below.
Each name may also be of the form `cmd=service'.
When completing the command cmd, the function typically behaves as if
the command (or special context) service was being completed instead.
This provides a way of altering the behaviour of functions that can perform
many different completions. It is implemented by setting the parameter
$service when calling the function; the function may choose to
interpret this how it wishes, and simpler functions will probably ignore it.
If the #compdef line contains one of the options -p or -P,
the words following are taken to be patterns. The function will be called when
completion is attempted for a command or context that matches one of the
patterns. The options -p and -P are used to specify patterns to
be tried before or after other completions respectively. Hence -P may
be used to specify default actions.
The option -N is used after a list following -p or -P; it
specifies that remaining words no longer define patterns. It is possible to
toggle between the three options as many times as necessary.
- #compdef -k style key-sequence ...
- This option creates a widget behaving like the builtin widget style and binds it to the given key-sequences, if any. The style must be one of the builtin widgets that perform completion, namely complete-word, delete-char-or-list, expand-or-complete, expand-or-complete-prefix, list-choices, menu-complete, menu-expand-or-complete, or reverse-menu-complete. If the zsh/complist module is loaded (see zshmodules(1)) the widget menu-select is also available.
When one of the key-sequences is typed, the function in the file will be
invoked to generate the matches. Note that a key will not be re-bound if it
already was (that is, was bound to something other than undefined-key).
The widget created has the same name as the file and can be bound to any other
keys using bindkey as usual.
- #compdef -K widget-name style key-sequence [ name style seq ... ]
- This is similar to -k except that only one key-sequence argument may be given for each widget-name style pair. However, the entire set of three arguments may be repeated with a different set of arguments. Note in particular that the widget-name must be distinct in each set. If it does not begin with ` _' this will be added. The widget-name should not clash with the name of any existing widget: names based on the name of the function are most useful. For example,
#compdef -K _foo_complete complete-word "^X^C" \ _foo_list list-choices "^X^D"
- #autoload [ options ]
- Functions with the #autoload tag are marked for autoloading but are not otherwise treated specially. Typically they are to be called from within one of the completion functions. Any options supplied will be passed to the autoload builtin; a typical use is +X to force the function to be loaded immediately. Note that the -U and -z flags are always added implicitly.
- -array-value-
- The right hand side of an array-assignment (` name=(...)')
- -assign-parameter-
- The name of a parameter in an assignment, i.e. on the left hand side of an ` ='
- -brace-parameter-
- The name of a parameter expansion within braces (`${...}')
- -command-
- A word in command position
- -condition-
- A word inside a condition (`[[...]]')
- -default-
- Any word for which no other completion is defined
- -equal-
- A word beginning with an equals sign
- -first-
- This is tried before any other completion function. The function called may set the _compskip parameter to one of various values: all: no further completion is attempted; a string containing the substring patterns: no pattern completion functions will be called; a string containing default: the function for the ` -default-' context will not be called, but functions defined for commands will be.
- -math-
- Inside mathematical contexts, such as ` ((...))'
- -parameter-
- The name of a parameter expansion (`$...')
- -redirect-
- The word after a redirection operator.
- -subscript-
- The contents of a parameter subscript.
- -tilde-
- After an initial tilde (`~'), but before the first slash in the word.
- -value-
- On the right hand side of an assignment.
compdef '_files -g "*.log"' '-redirect-,2>,-default-'
compdef _foo -value-,-default-,-default-
zstyle ':completion:*:*:-redirect-,2>,*:*' file-patterns '*.log'
Functions
The following function is defined by compinit and may be called directly.- compdef [ -ane ] function name ... [ -{p|P} pattern ... [ -N name ...]]
- compdef -d name ...
- compdef -k [ -an ] function style key-sequence [ key-sequence ... ]
- compdef -K [ -an ] function name style key-seq [ name style seq ... ]
- The first form defines the function to call for completion in the given contexts as described for the #compdef tag above.
Alternatively, all the arguments may have the form `
cmd=service'. Here service should already have
been defined by ` cmd1=service' lines in #compdef
files, as described above. The argument for cmd will be completed in
the same way as service.
The function argument may alternatively be a string containing almost any
shell code. If the string contains an equal sign, the above will take
precedence. The option -e may be used to specify the first argument is
to be evaluated as shell code even if it contains an equal sign. The string
will be executed using the eval builtin command to generate
completions. This provides a way of avoiding having to define a new completion
function. For example, to complete files ending in ` .h' as arguments
to the command foo:
The option -n prevents any completions already defined for the command or
context from being overwritten.
The option -d deletes any completion defined for the command or contexts
listed.
The names may also contain -p, -P and -N options as
described for the #compdef tag. The effect on the argument list is
identical, switching between definitions of patterns tried initially, patterns
tried finally, and normal commands and contexts.
The parameter $_compskip may be set by any function defined for a pattern
context. If it is set to a value containing the substring ` patterns'
none of the pattern-functions will be called; if it is set to a value
containing the substring ` all', no other function will be called.
Setting $_compskip in this manner is of particular utility when using
the -p option, as otherwise the dispatcher will move on to additional
functions (likely the default one) after calling the pattern-context one,
which can mangle the display of completion possibilities if not handled
properly.
The form with -k defines a widget with the same name as the
function that will be called for each of the key-sequences; this
is like the #compdef -k tag. The function should generate the
completions needed and will otherwise behave like the builtin widget whose
name is given as the style argument. The widgets usable for this are:
complete-word, delete-char-or-list, expand-or-complete,
expand-or-complete-prefix, list-choices, menu-complete,
menu-expand-or-complete, and reverse-menu-complete, as well as
menu-select if the zsh/complist module is loaded. The option
-n prevents the key being bound if it is already to bound to something
other than undefined-key.
The form with -K is similar and defines multiple widgets based on the
same function, each of which requires the set of three arguments
name, style and key-sequence, where the latter two are as
for -k and the first must be a unique widget name beginning with an
underscore.
Wherever applicable, the -a option makes the function
autoloadable, equivalent to autoload -U function.
The function compdef can be used to associate existing completion
functions with new commands. For example,
compdef '_files -g "*.h"' foo
compdef _pids foo
COMPLETION SYSTEM CONFIGURATION
This section gives a short overview of how the completion system works, and then more detail on how users can configure how and when matches are generated.Overview
When completion is attempted somewhere on the command line the completion system begins building the context. The context represents everything that the shell knows about the meaning of the command line and the significance of the cursor position. This takes account of a number of things including the command word (such as ` grep' or ` zsh') and options to which the current word may be an argument (such as the ` -o' option to zsh which takes a shell option as an argument). The context starts out very generic ("we are beginning a completion") and becomes more specific as more is learned ("the current word is in a position that is usually a command name" or "the current word might be a variable name" and so on). Therefore the context will vary during the same call to the completion system. This context information is condensed into a string consisting of multiple fields separated by colons, referred to simply as `the context' in the remainder of the documentation. Note that a user of the completion system rarely needs to compose a context string, unless for example a new function is being written to perform completion for a new command. What a user may need to do is compose a style pattern, which is matched against a context when needed to look up context-sensitive options that configure the completion system. The next few paragraphs explain how a context is composed within the completion function suite. Following that is discussion of how styles are defined. Styles determine such things as how the matches are generated, similarly to shell options but with much more control. They are defined with the zstyle builtin command (see zshmodules(1)). The context string always consists of a fixed set of fields, separated by colons and with a leading colon before the first. Fields which are not yet known are left empty, but the surrounding colons appear anyway. The fields are always in the order :completion:function:completer:command:argument:tag. These have the following meaning:- •
- The literal string completion, saying that this style is used by the completion system. This distinguishes the context from those used by, for example, zle widgets and ZFTP functions.
- •
- The function, if completion is called from a named widget rather than through the normal completion system. Typically this is blank, but it is set by special widgets such as predict-on and the various functions in the Widget directory of the distribution to the name of that function, often in an abbreviated form.
- •
- The completer currently active, the name of the function without the leading underscore and with other underscores converted to hyphens. A `completer' is in overall control of how completion is to be performed; ` complete' is the simplest, but other completers exist to perform related tasks such as correction, or to modify the behaviour of a later completer. See the section `Control Functions' below for more information.
- •
- The command or a special -context-, just at it appears following the #compdef tag or the compdef function. Completion functions for commands that have sub-commands usually modify this field to contain the name of the command followed by a minus sign and the sub-command. For example, the completion function for the cvs command sets this field to cvs-add when completing arguments to the add subcommand.
- •
- The argument; this indicates which command line or option argument we are completing. For command arguments this generally takes the form argument-n, where n is the number of the argument, and for arguments to options the form option-opt -n where n is the number of the argument to option opt. However, this is only the case if the command line is parsed with standard UNIX-style options and arguments, so many completions do not set this.
- •
- The tag. As described previously, tags are used to discriminate between the types of matches a completion function can generate in a certain context. Any completion function may use any tag name it likes, but a list of the more common ones is given below.
:completion::complete:dvips:option-o-1:files
dvips -o ...
zstyle ':completion:*' verbose yes
zstyle ':completion:*:*:kill:*:*' verbose no
zstyle ':completion:*:*:kill:*:jobs' verbose no
zstyle -e ':completion:*' hosts 'reply=($myhosts)'
Standard Tags
Some of the following are only used when looking up particular styles and do not refer to a type of match.- accounts
- used to look up the users-hosts style
- all-expansions
- used by the _expand completer when adding the single string containing all possible expansions
- all-files
- for the names of all files (as distinct from a particular subset, see the globbed-files tag).
- arguments
- for arguments to a command
- arrays
- for names of array parameters
- association-keys
- for keys of associative arrays; used when completing inside a subscript to a parameter of this type
- bookmarks
- when completing bookmarks (e.g. for URLs and the zftp function suite)
- builtins
- for names of builtin commands
- characters
- for single characters in arguments of commands such as stty. Also used when completing character classes after an opening bracket
- colormapids
- for X colormap ids
- colors
- for color names
- commands
- for names of external commands. Also used by complex commands such as cvs when completing names subcommands.
- contexts
- for contexts in arguments to the zstyle builtin command
- corrections
- used by the _approximate and _correct completers for possible corrections
- cursors
- for cursor names used by X programs
- default
- used in some contexts to provide a way of supplying a default when more specific tags are also valid. Note that this tag is used when only the function field of the context name is set
- descriptions
- used when looking up the value of the format style to generate descriptions for types of matches
- devices
- for names of device special files
- directories
- for names of directories -- local-directories is used instead when completing arguments of cd and related builtin commands when the cdpath array is set
- directory-stack
- for entries in the directory stack
- displays
- for X display names
- domains
- for network domains
- email-plugin
- for email addresses from the `_email-plugin' backend of _email_addresses
- expansions
- used by the _expand completer for individual words (as opposed to the complete set of expansions) resulting from the expansion of a word on the command line
- extensions
- for X server extensions
- file-descriptors
- for numbers of open file descriptors
- files
- the generic file-matching tag used by functions completing filenames
- fonts
- for X font names
- fstypes
- for file system types (e.g. for the mount command)
- functions
- names of functions -- normally shell functions, although certain commands may understand other kinds of function
- globbed-files
- for filenames when the name has been generated by pattern matching
- groups
- for names of user groups
- history-words
- for words from the history
- hosts
- for hostnames
- indexes
- for array indexes
- interfaces
- for network interfaces
- jobs
- for jobs (as listed by the `jobs' builtin)
- keymaps
- for names of zsh keymaps
- keysyms
- for names of X keysyms
- libraries
- for names of system libraries
- limits
- for system limits
- local-directories
- for names of directories that are subdirectories of the current working directory when completing arguments of cd and related builtin commands (compare path-directories) -- when the cdpath array is unset, directories is used instead
- mailboxes
- for e-mail folders
- manuals
- for names of manual pages
- maps
- for map names (e.g. NIS maps)
- messages
- used to look up the format style for messages
- modifiers
- for names of X modifiers
- modules
- for modules (e.g. zsh modules)
- my-accounts
- used to look up the users-hosts style
- named-directories
- for named directories (you wouldn't have guessed that, would you?)
- names
- for all kinds of names
- newsgroups
- for USENET groups
- nicknames
- for nicknames of NIS maps
- options
- for command options
- original
- used by the _approximate, _correct and _expand completers when offering the original string as a match
- other-accounts
- used to look up the users-hosts style
- packages
- for packages (e.g. rpm or installed Debian packages)
- parameters
- for names of parameters
- path-directories
- for names of directories found by searching the cdpath array when completing arguments of cd and related builtin commands (compare local-directories)
- paths
- used to look up the values of the expand, ambiguous and special-dirs styles
- pods
- for perl pods (documentation files)
- ports
- for communication ports
- prefixes
- for prefixes (like those of a URL)
- printers
- for print queue names
- processes
- for process identifiers
- processes-names
- used to look up the command style when generating the names of processes for killall
- sequences
- for sequences (e.g. mh sequences)
- sessions
- for sessions in the zftp function suite
- signals
- for signal names
- strings
- for strings (e.g. the replacement strings for the cd builtin command)
- styles
- for styles used by the zstyle builtin command
- suffixes
- for filename extensions
- tags
- for tags (e.g. rpm tags)
- targets
- for makefile targets
- time-zones
- for time zones (e.g. when setting the TZ parameter)
- types
- for types of whatever (e.g. address types for the xhost command)
- urls
- used to look up the urls and local styles when completing URLs
- users
- for usernames
- values
- for one of a set of values in certain lists
- variant
- used by _pick_variant to look up the command to run when determining what program is installed for a particular command name.
- visuals
- for X visuals
- warnings
- used to look up the format style for warnings
- widgets
- for zsh widget names
- windows
- for IDs of X windows
- zsh-options
- for shell options
Standard Styles
Note that the values of several of these styles represent boolean values. Any of the strings ` true', `on', ` yes', and `1' can be used for the value `true' and any of the strings ` false', `off', ` no', and `0' for the value `false'. The behavior for any other value is undefined except where explicitly mentioned. The default value may be either `true' or `false' if the style is not set. Some of these styles are tested first for every possible tag corresponding to a type of match, and if no style was found, for the default tag. The most notable styles of this type are menu, list-colors and styles controlling completion listing such as list-packed and last-prompt. When tested for the default tag, only the function field of the context will be set so that a style using the default tag will normally be defined along the lines of:zstyle ':completion:*:default' menu ...
- accept-exact
- This is tested for the default tag in addition to the tags valid for the current context. If it is set to `true' and any of the trial matches is the same as the string on the command line, this match will immediately be accepted (even if it would otherwise be considered ambiguous).
When completing pathnames (where the tag used is ` paths') this style
accepts any number of patterns as the value in addition to the boolean values.
Pathnames matching one of these patterns will be accepted immediately even if
the command line contains some more partially typed pathname components and
these match no file under the directory accepted.
This style is also used by the _expand completer to decide if words
beginning with a tilde or parameter expansion should be expanded. For example,
if there are parameters foo and foobar, the string `$foo'
will only be expanded if accept-exact is set to `true'; otherwise the
completion system will be allowed to complete $foo to $foobar.
If the style is set to ` continue', _expand will add the
expansion as a match and the completion system will also be allowed to
continue.
- accept-exact-dirs
- This is used by filename completion. Unlike accept-exact it is a boolean. By default, filename completion examines all components of a path to see if there are completions of that component, even if the component matches an existing directory. For example, when completion after /usr/bin/, the function examines possible completions to /usr.
When this style is `true', any prefix of a path that matches an existing
directory is accepted without any attempt to complete it further. Hence, in
the given example, the path /usr/bin/ is accepted immediately and
completion tried in that directory.
This style is also useful when completing after directories that magically
appear when referenced, such as ZFS .zfs directories or NetApp
.snapshot directories. When the style is set the shell does not check
for the existence of the directory within the parent directory.
If you wish to inhibit this behaviour entirely, set the path-completion
style (see below) to `false'.
- add-space
- This style is used by the _expand completer. If it is `true' (the default), a space will be inserted after all words resulting from the expansion, or a slash in the case of directory names. If the value is ` file', the completer will only add a space to names of existing files. Either a boolean `true' or the value ` file' may be combined with ` subst', in which case the completer will not add a space to words generated from the expansion of a substitution of the form ` $(...)' or `${... }'.
The _prefix completer uses this style as a simple boolean value to decide
if a space should be inserted before the suffix.
- ambiguous
- This applies when completing non-final components of filename paths, in other words those with a trailing slash. If it is set, the cursor is left after the first ambiguous component, even if menu completion is in use. The style is always tested with the paths tag.
- assign-list
- When completing after an equals sign that is being treated as an assignment, the completion system normally completes only one filename. In some cases the value may be a list of filenames separated by colons, as with PATH and similar parameters. This style can be set to a list of patterns matching the names of such parameters.
The default is to complete lists when the word on the line already contains a
colon.
- auto-description
- If set, this style's value will be used as the description for options that are not described by the completion functions, but that have exactly one argument. The sequence ` %d' in the value will be replaced by the description for this argument. Depending on personal preferences, it may be useful to set this style to something like ` specify: %d'. Note that this may not work for some commands.
- avoid-completer
- This is used by the _all_matches completer to decide if the string consisting of all matches should be added to the list currently being generated. Its value is a list of names of completers. If any of these is the name of the completer that generated the matches in this completion, the string will not be added.
The default value for this style is ` _expand _old_list _correct
_approximate', i.e. it contains the completers for which a string with
all matches will almost never be wanted.
- cache-path
- This style defines the path where any cache files containing dumped completion data are stored. It defaults to ` $ZDOTDIR/.zcompcache', or ` $HOME/.zcompcache' if $ZDOTDIR is not defined. The completion cache will not be used unless the use-cache style is set.
- cache-policy
- This style defines the function that will be used to determine whether a cache needs rebuilding. See the section on the _cache_invalid function below.
- call-command
- This style is used in the function for commands such as make and ant where calling the command directly to generate matches suffers problems such as being slow or, as in the case of make can potentially cause actions in the makefile to be executed. If it is set to `true' the command is called to generate matches. The default value of this style is `false'.
- command
- In many places, completion functions need to call external commands to generate the list of completions. This style can be used to override the command that is called in some such cases. The elements of the value are joined with spaces to form a command line to execute. The value can also start with a hyphen, in which case the usual command will be added to the end; this is most useful for putting ` builtin' or ` command' in front to make sure the appropriate version of a command is called, for example to avoid calling a shell function with the same name as an external command.
As an example, the completion function for process IDs uses this style with the
processes tag to generate the IDs to complete and the list of processes
to display (if the verbose style is `true'). The list produced by the
command should look like the output of the ps command. The first line
is not displayed, but is searched for the string ` PID' (or
`pid') to find the position of the process IDs in the following lines.
If the line does not contain ` PID', the first numbers in each of the
other lines are taken as the process IDs to complete.
Note that the completion function generally has to call the specified command
for each attempt to generate the completion list. Hence care should be taken
to specify only commands that take a short time to run, and in particular to
avoid any that may never terminate.
- command-path
- This is a list of directories to search for commands to complete. The default for this style is the value of the special parameter path.
- commands
- This is used by the function completing sub-commands for the system initialisation scripts (residing in /etc/init.d or somewhere not too far away from that). Its values give the default commands to complete for those commands for which the completion function isn't able to find them out automatically. The default for this style are the two strings ` start' and `stop'.
- complete
- This is used by the _expand_alias function when invoked as a bindable command. If set to `true' and the word on the command line is not the name of an alias, matching alias names will be completed.
- complete-options
- This is used by the completer for cd, chdir and pushd. For these commands a - is used to introduce a directory stack entry and completion of these is far more common than completing options. Hence unless the value of this style is `true' options will not be completed, even after an initial -. If it is `true', options will be completed after an initial - unless there is a preceding -- on the command line.
- completer
- The strings given as the value of this style provide the names of the completer functions to use. The available completer functions are described in the section `Control Functions' below.
Each string may be either the name of a completer function or a string of the
form ` function:name'. In the first case the
completer field of the context will contain the name of the completer
without the leading underscore and with all other underscores replaced by
hyphens. In the second case the function is the name of the completer
to call, but the context will contain the user-defined name in the
completer field of the context. If the name starts with a
hyphen, the string for the context will be build from the name of the
completer function as in the first case with the name appended to it.
For example:
Here, completion will call the _complete completer twice, once using `
complete' and once using `complete-foo' in the completer
field of the context. Normally, using the same completer more than once only
makes sense when used with the ` functions:name' form,
because otherwise the context name will be the same in all calls to the
completer; possible exceptions to this rule are the _ignored and
_prefix completers.
The default value for this style is ` _complete _ignored': only
completion will be done, first using the ignored-patterns style and the
$fignore array and then without ignoring matches.
zstyle ':completion:*' completer _complete _complete:-foo
- condition
- This style is used by the _list completer function to decide if insertion of matches should be delayed unconditionally. The default is `true'.
- delimiters
- This style is used when adding a delimiter for use with history modifiers or glob qualifiers that have delimited arguments. It is an array of preferred delimiters to add. Non-special characters are preferred as the completion system may otherwise become confused. The default list is :, +, /, -, %. The list may be empty to force a delimiter to be typed.
- disabled
- If this is set to `true', the _expand_alias completer and bindable command will try to expand disabled aliases, too. The default is `false'.
- domains
- A list of names of network domains for completion. If this is not set, domain names will be taken from the file /etc/resolv.conf.
- environ
- The environ style is used when completing for `sudo'. It is set to an array of ` VAR=value' assignments to be exported into the local environment before the completion for the target command is invoked.
zstyle ':completion:*:sudo::' environ \ PATH="/sbin:/usr/sbin:$PATH" HOME="/root"
- expand
- This style is used when completing strings consisting of multiple parts, such as path names.
If one of its values is the string ` prefix', the partially typed word
from the line will be expanded as far as possible even if trailing parts
cannot be completed.
If one of its values is the string ` suffix', matching names for
components after the first ambiguous one will also be added. This means that
the resulting string is the longest unambiguous string possible. However, menu
completion can be used to cycle through all matches.
- extra-verbose
- If set, the completion listing is more verbose at the cost of a probable decrease in completion speed. Completion performance will suffer if this style is set to `true'.
- fake
- This style may be set for any completion context. It specifies additional strings that will always be completed in that context. The form of each string is ` value:description'; the colon and description may be omitted, but any literal colons in value must be quoted with a backslash. Any description provided is shown alongside the value in completion listings.
It is important to use a sufficiently restrictive context when specifying fake
strings. Note that the styles fake-files and fake-parameters
provide additional features when completing files or parameters.
- fake-always
- This works identically to the fake style except that the ignored-patterns style is not applied to it. This makes it possible to override a set of matches completely by setting the ignored patterns to ` *'.
The following shows a way of supplementing any tag with arbitrary data, but
having it behave for display purposes like a separate tag. In this example we
use the features of the tag-order style to divide the
named-directories tag into two when performing completion with the
standard completer complete for arguments of cd. The tag
named-directories-normal behaves as normal, but the tag
named-directories-mine contains a fixed set of directories. This has
the effect of adding the match group ` extra directories' with the
given completions.
zstyle ':completion::complete:cd:*' tag-order \ 'named-directories:-mine:extra\ directories named-directories:-normal:named\ directories *' zstyle ':completion::complete:cd:*:named-directories-mine' \ fake-always mydir1 mydir2 zstyle ':completion::complete:cd:*:named-directories-mine' \ ignored-patterns '*'
- fake-files
- This style is used when completing files and looked up without a tag. Its values are of the form ` dir:names...'. This will add the names (strings separated by spaces) as possible matches when completing in the directory dir, even if no such files really exist. The dir may be a pattern; pattern characters or colons in dir should be quoted with a backslash to be treated literally.
This can be useful on systems that support special file systems whose top-level
pathnames can not be listed or generated with glob patterns (but see
accept-exact-dirs for a more general way of dealing with this problem).
It can also be used for directories for which one does not have read
permission.
The pattern form can be used to add a certain `magic' entry to all directories
on a particular file system.
- fake-parameters
- This is used by the completion function for parameter names. Its values are names of parameters that might not yet be set but should be completed nonetheless. Each name may also be followed by a colon and a string specifying the type of the parameter (like ` scalar', ` array' or `integer'). If the type is given, the name will only be completed if parameters of that type are required in the particular context. Names for which no type is specified will always be completed.
- file-list
- This style controls whether files completed using the standard builtin mechanism are to be listed with a long list similar to ls -l. Note that this feature uses the shell module zsh/stat for file information; this loads the builtin stat which will replace any external stat executable. To avoid this the following code can be included in an initialization file:
zmodload -i zsh/stat disable stat
zstyle ':completion:*' file-list list=20 insert=10
zstyle -e ':completion:*' file-list \ '(( ${+NUMERIC} )) && reply=(true)'
- file-patterns
- This is used by the standard function for completing filenames, _files. If the style is unset up to three tags are offered, ` globbed-files',`directories' and `all-files', depending on the types of files expected by the caller of _files. The first two (` globbed-files' and `directories') are normally offered together to make it easier to complete files in sub-directories.
The file-patterns style provides alternatives to the default tags, which
are not used. Its value consists of elements of the form `
pattern: tag'; each string may contain any number of such
specifications separated by spaces.
The pattern is a pattern that is to be used to generate filenames. Any
occurrence of the sequence ` %p' is replaced by any pattern(s) passed
by the function calling _files. Colons in the pattern must be preceded
by a backslash to make them distinguishable from the colon before the
tag. If more than one pattern is needed, the patterns can be given
inside braces, separated by commas.
The tags of all strings in the value will be offered by _files and
used when looking up other styles. Any tags in the same word will be
offered at the same time and before later words. If no ` :tag'
is given the ` files' tag will be used.
The tag may also be followed by an optional second colon and a
description, which will be used for the ` %d' in the value of the
format style (if that is set) instead of the default description
supplied by the completion function. The inclusion of a description also gives
precedence to associated options such as for completion grouping so it can be
used where files should be separated.
For example, to make the rm command first complete only names of object
files and then the names of all files if there is no matching object file:
To alter the default behaviour of file completion -- offer files matching a
pattern and directories on the first attempt, then all files -- to offer only
matching files on the first attempt, then directories, and finally all files:
This works even where there is no special pattern: _files matches all
files using the pattern ` *' at the first step and stops when it sees
this pattern. Note also it will never try a pattern more than once for a
single completion attempt.
To separate directories into a separate group from the files but still complete
them at the first attempt, a description needs to be given. Note that
directories need to be explicitly excluded from the globbed-files because `
*' will match directories. For grouping, it is also necessary to set
the group-name style.
During the execution of completion functions, the EXTENDED_GLOB option is
in effect, so the characters ` #', `~' and `^' have
special meanings in the patterns.
zstyle ':completion:*:*:rm:*:*' file-patterns \ '*.o:object-files' '%p:all-files'
zstyle ':completion:*' file-patterns \ '%p:globbed-files' '*(-/):directories' '*:all-files'
zstyle ':completion:*' file-patterns \ '%p(^-/):globbed-files *(-/):directories:location'
- file-sort
- The standard filename completion function uses this style without a tag to determine in which order the names should be listed; menu completion will cycle through them in the same order. The possible values are: ` size' to sort by the size of the file; ` links' to sort by the number of links to the file; ` modification' (or `time' or ` date') to sort by the last modification time; ` access' to sort by the last access time; and ` inode' (or `change') to sort by the last inode change time. If the style is set to any other value, or is unset, files will be sorted alphabetically by name. If the value contains the string ` reverse', sorting is done in the opposite order. If the value contains the string ` follow', timestamps are associated with the targets of symbolic links; the default is to use the timestamps of the links themselves.
- file-split-chars
- A set of characters that will cause all file completions for the given context to be split at the point where any of the characters occurs. A typical use is to set the style to :; then everything up to and including the last : in the string so far is ignored when completing files. As this is quite heavy-handed, it is usually preferable to update completion functions for contexts where this behaviour is useful.
- filter
- The ldap plugin of email address completion (see _email_addresses) uses this style to specify the attributes to match against when filtering entries. So for example, if the style is set to ` sn', matching is done against surnames. Standard LDAP filtering is used so normal completion matching is bypassed. If this style is not set, the LDAP plugin is skipped. You may also need to set the command style to specify how to connect to your LDAP server.
- force-list
- This forces a list of completions to be shown at any point where listing is done, even in cases where the list would usually be suppressed. For example, normally the list is only shown if there are at least two different matches. By setting this style to ` always', the list will always be shown, even if there is only a single match that will immediately be accepted. The style may also be set to a number. In this case the list will be shown if there are at least that many matches, even if they would all insert the same string.
This style is tested for the default tag as well as for each tag valid for the
current completion. Hence the listing can be forced only for certain types of
match.
- format
- If this is set for the descriptions tag, its value is used as a string to display above matches in completion lists. The sequence ` %d' in this string will be replaced with a short description of what these matches are. This string may also contain the output attribute sequences understood by compadd -X (see zshcompwid(1)).
The style is tested with each tag valid for the current completion before it is
tested for the descriptions tag. Hence different format strings can be
defined for different types of match.
Note also that some completer functions define additional ` %'-sequences.
These are described for the completer functions that make use of them.
Some completion functions display messages that may be customised by setting
this style for the messages tag. Here, the `%d' is replaced with
a message given by the completion function.
Finally, the format string is looked up with the warnings tag, for use
when no matches could be generated at all. In this case the ` %d' is
replaced with the descriptions for the matches that were expected separated by
spaces. The sequence ` %D' is replaced with the same descriptions
separated by newlines.
It is possible to use printf-style field width specifiers with ` %d' and
similar escape sequences. This is handled by the zformat builtin
command from the zsh/zutil module, see zshmodules(1).
- gain-privileges
- If set to true, this style enables the use of commands like sudo or doas to gain extra privileges when retrieving information for completion. This is only done when a command such as sudo appears on the command-line. To force the use of, e.g. sudo or to override any prefix that might be added due to gain-privileges, the command style can be used with a value that begins with a hyphen.
- glob
- This is used by the _expand completer. If it is set to `true' (the default), globbing will be attempted on the words resulting from a previous substitution (see the substitute style) or else the original string from the line.
- global
- If this is set to `true' (the default), the _expand_alias completer and bindable command will try to expand global aliases.
- group-name
- The completion system can group different types of matches, which appear in separate lists. This style can be used to give the names of groups for particular tags. For example, in command position the completion system generates names of builtin and external commands, names of aliases, shell functions and parameters and reserved words as possible completions. To have the external commands and shell functions listed separately:
zstyle ':completion:*:*:-command-:*:commands' \ group-name commands zstyle ':completion:*:*:-command-:*:functions' \ group-name functions
zstyle ':completion:*' group-name ''
- group-order
- This style is additional to the group-name style to specify the order for display of the groups defined by that style (compare tag-order, which determines which completions appear at all). The groups named are shown in the given order; any other groups are shown in the order defined by the completion function.
For example, to have names of builtin commands, shell functions and external
commands appear in that order when completing in command position:
zstyle ':completion:*:*:-command-:*:*' group-order \ builtins functions commands
- groups
- A list of names of UNIX groups. If this is not set, group names are taken from the YP database or the file ` /etc/group'.
- hidden
- If this is set to `true', matches for the given context will not be listed, although any description for the matches set with the format style will be shown. If it is set to ` all', not even the description will be displayed.
Note that the matches will still be completed; they are just not shown in the
list. To avoid having matches considered as possible completions at all, the
tag-order style can be modified as described below.
- hosts
- A list of names of hosts that should be completed. If this is not set, hostnames are taken from the file ` /etc/hosts'.
- hosts-ports
- This style is used by commands that need or accept hostnames and network ports. The strings in the value should be of the form ` host:port'. Valid ports are determined by the presence of hostnames; multiple ports for the same host may appear.
- ignore-line
- This is tested for each tag valid for the current completion. If it is set to `true', none of the words that are already on the line will be considered as possible completions. If it is set to ` current', the word the cursor is on will not be considered as a possible completion. The value ` current-shown' is similar but only applies if the list of completions is currently shown on the screen. Finally, if the style is set to ` other', all words on the line except for the current one will be excluded from the possible completions.
The values ` current' and `current-shown' are a bit like the
opposite of the accept-exact style: only strings with missing
characters will be completed.
Note that you almost certainly don't want to set this to `true' or `
other' for a general context such as ` :completion:*'. This is
because it would disallow completion of, for example, options multiple times
even if the command in question accepts the option more than once.
- ignore-parents
- The style is tested without a tag by the function completing pathnames in order to determine whether to ignore the names of directories already mentioned in the current word, or the name of the current working directory. The value must include one or both of the following strings:
- parent
- The name of any directory whose path is already contained in the word on the line is ignored. For example, when completing after foo/../, the directory foo will not be considered a valid completion.
- pwd
- The name of the current working directory will not be completed; hence, for example, completion after ../ will not use the name of the current directory.
- ..
- Ignore the specified directories only when the word on the line contains the substring ` ../'.
- directory
- Ignore the specified directories only when names of directories are completed, not when completing names of files.
- ignored-patterns
- A list of patterns; any trial completion matching one of the patterns will be excluded from consideration. The _ignored completer can appear in the list of completers to restore the ignored matches. This is a more configurable version of the shell parameter $fignore.
Note that the EXTENDED_GLOB option is set during the execution of
completion functions, so the characters ` #', `~' and `^'
have special meanings in the patterns.
- insert
- This style is used by the _all_matches completer to decide whether to insert the list of all matches unconditionally instead of adding the list as another match.
- insert-ids
- When completing process IDs, for example as arguments to the kill and wait builtins the name of a command may be converted to the appropriate process ID. A problem arises when the process name typed is not unique. By default (or if this style is set explicitly to ` menu') the name will be converted immediately to a set of possible IDs, and menu completion will be started to cycle through them.
If the value of the style is ` single', the shell will wait until the
user has typed enough to make the command unique before converting the name to
an ID; attempts at completion will be unsuccessful until that point. If the
value is any other string, menu completion will be started when the string
typed by the user is longer than the common prefix to the corresponding
IDs.
- insert-sections
- This style is used with tags of the form `manuals.X' when completing names of manual pages. If set and the X in the tag name matches the section number of the page being completed, the section number is inserted along with the page name. For example, given
zstyle ':completion:*:manuals.*' insert-sections true
- insert-tab
- If this is set to `true', the completion system will insert a TAB character (assuming that was used to start completion) instead of performing completion when there is no non-blank character to the left of the cursor. If it is set to `false', completion will be done even there.
The value may also contain the substrings ` pending' or `
pending=val'. In this case, the typed character will be inserted
instead of starting completion when there is unprocessed input pending. If a
val is given, completion will not be done if there are at least that
many characters of unprocessed input. This is often useful when pasting
characters into a terminal. Note however, that it relies on the
$PENDING special parameter from the zsh/zle module being set
properly which is not guaranteed on all platforms.
The default value of this style is `true' except for completion within
vared builtin command where it is `false'.
- insert-unambiguous
- This is used by the _match and _approximate completers. These completers are often used with menu completion since the word typed may bear little resemblance to the final completion. However, if this style is `true', the completer will start menu completion only if it could find no unambiguous initial string at least as long as the original string typed by the user.
In the case of the _approximate completer, the completer field in the
context will already have been set to one of correct-num or
approximate- num, where num is the number of errors that
were accepted.
In the case of the _match completer, the style may also be set to the
string ` pattern'. Then the pattern on the line is left unchanged if it
does not match unambiguously.
- keep-prefix
- This style is used by the _expand completer. If it is `true', the completer will try to keep a prefix containing a tilde or parameter expansion. Hence, for example, the string ` ~/f*' would be expanded to ` ~/foo' instead of `/home/user/foo'. If the style is set to ` changed' (the default), the prefix will only be left unchanged if there were other changes between the expanded words and the original word from the command line. Any other value forces the prefix to be expanded unconditionally.
The behaviour of _expand when this style is `true' is to cause
_expand to give up when a single expansion with the restored prefix is
the same as the original; hence any remaining completers may be called.
- known-hosts-files
- This style should contain a list of files to search for host names and (if the use-ip style is set) IP addresses in a format compatible with ssh known_hosts files. If it is not set, the files /etc/ssh/ssh_known_hosts and ~/.ssh/known_hosts are used.
- last-prompt
- This is a more flexible form of the ALWAYS_LAST_PROMPT option. If it is `true', the completion system will try to return the cursor to the previous command line after displaying a completion list. It is tested for all tags valid for the current completion, then the default tag. The cursor will be moved back to the previous line if this style is `true' for all types of match. Note that unlike the ALWAYS_LAST_PROMPT option this is independent of the numeric argument.
- list
- This style is used by the _history_complete_word bindable command. If it is set to `true' it has no effect. If it is set to `false' matches will not be listed. This overrides the setting of the options controlling listing behaviour, in particular AUTO_LIST. The context always starts with ` :completion:history-words'.
- list-colors
- If the zsh/complist module is loaded, this style can be used to set color specifications. This mechanism replaces the use of the ZLS_COLORS and ZLS_COLOURS parameters described in the section `The zsh/complist Module' in zshmodules(1), but the syntax is the same.
If this style is set for the default tag, the strings in the value are
taken as specifications that are to be used everywhere. If it is set for other
tags, the specifications are used only for matches of the type described by
the tag. For this to work best, the group-name style must be set to an
empty string.
In addition to setting styles for specific tags, it is also possible to use
group names specified explicitly by the group-name tag together with
the ` (group)' syntax allowed by the ZLS_COLORS and
ZLS_COLOURS parameters and simply using the default tag.
It is possible to use any color specifications already set up for the GNU
version of the ls command:
The default colors are the same as for the GNU ls command and can be
obtained by setting the style to an empty string (i.e. '').
zstyle ':completion:*:default' list-colors \ ${(s.:.)LS_COLORS}
- list-dirs-first
- This is used by file completion and corresponds to a particular setting of the file-patterns style. If set, the default directories to be completed are listed separately from and before completion for other files.
- list-grouped
- If this style is `true' (the default), the completion system will try to make certain completion listings more compact by grouping matches. For example, options for commands that have the same description (shown when the verbose style is set to `true') will appear as a single entry. However, menu selection can be used to cycle through all the matches.
- list-packed
- This is tested for each tag valid in the current context as well as the default tag. If it is set to `true', the corresponding matches appear in listings as if the LIST_PACKED option were set. If it is set to `false', they are listed normally.
- list-prompt
- If this style is set for the default tag, completion lists that don't fit on the screen can be scrolled (see the description of the zsh/complist module in zshmodules(1)). The value, if not the empty string, will be displayed after every screenful and the shell will prompt for a key press; if the style is set to the empty string, a default prompt will be used.
The value may contain the escape sequences: ` %l' or `%L', which
will be replaced by the number of the last line displayed and the total number
of lines; ` %m' or `%M', the number of the last match shown and
the total number of matches; and ` %p' and `%P', `Top'
when at the beginning of the list, ` Bottom' when at the end and the
position shown as a percentage of the total length otherwise. In each case the
form with the uppercase letter will be replaced by a string of fixed width,
padded to the right with spaces, while the lowercase form will be replaced by
a variable width string. As in other prompt strings, the escape sequences `
%S', `%s', `%B', `%b', `%U', ` %u'
for entering and leaving the display modes standout, bold and underline, and `
%F', `%f', `%K', `%k' for changing the foreground
background colour, are also available, as is the form ` %{...%}'
for enclosing escape sequences which display with zero (or, with a numeric
argument, some other) width.
After deleting this prompt the variable LISTPROMPT should be unset for
the removal to take effect.
- list-rows-first
- This style is tested in the same way as the list-packed style and determines whether matches are to be listed in a rows-first fashion as if the LIST_ROWS_FIRST option were set.
- list-separator
- The value of this style is used in completion listing to separate the string to complete from a description when possible (e.g. when completing options). It defaults to ` --' (two hyphens).
- list-suffixes
- This style is used by the function that completes filenames. If it is `true', and completion is attempted on a string containing multiple partially typed pathname components, all ambiguous components will be shown. Otherwise, completion stops at the first ambiguous component.
- local
- This is for use with functions that complete URLs for which the corresponding files are available directly from the file system. Its value should consist of three strings: a hostname, the path to the default web pages for the server, and the directory name used by a user placing web pages within their home area.
For example:
Completion after ` http://toast/stuff/' will look for files in the
directory /var/http/public/toast/stuff, while completion after `
http://toast/~yousir/' will look for files in the directory
~yousir/public_html.
zstyle ':completion:*' local toast \ /var/http/public/toast public_html
- mail-directory
- If set, zsh will assume that mailbox files can be found in the directory specified. It defaults to ` ~/Mail'.
- match-original
- This is used by the _match completer. If it is set to only, _match will try to generate matches without inserting a ` *' at the cursor position. If set to any other non-empty value, it will first try to generate matches without inserting the ` *' and if that yields no matches, it will try again with the ` *' inserted. If it is unset or set to the empty string, matching will only be performed with the ` *' inserted.
- matcher
- This style is tested separately for each tag valid in the current context. Its value is placed before any match specifications given by the matcher-list style so can override them via the use of an x: specification. The value should be in the form described in the section `Completion Matching Control' in zshcompwid(1). For examples of this, see the description of the tag-order style.
For notes comparing the use of this and the matcher-list style, see under
the description of the tag-order style.
- matcher-list
- This style can be set to a list of match specifications that are to be applied everywhere. Match specifications are described in the section `Completion Matching Control' in zshcompwid(1). The completion system will try them one after another for each completer selected. For example, to try first simple completion and, if that generates no matches, case-insensitive completion:
zstyle ':completion:*' matcher-list '' 'm:{a-zA-Z}={A-Za-z}'
zstyle ':completion:*' matcher-list \ '' '+m:{a-z}={A-Z}' '+m:{A-Z}={a-z}'
zstyle ':completion:*' completer _complete _prefix zstyle ':completion:*:complete:*:*:*' matcher-list \ '' 'm:{a-zA-Z}={A-Za-z}'
zstyle ':completion:*' completer \ _complete _correct _complete:foo zstyle ':completion:*:complete:*:*:*' matcher-list \ '' 'm:{a-zA-Z}={A-Za-z}' zstyle ':completion:*:foo:*:*:*' matcher-list \ 'm:{a-zA-Z}={A-Za-z} r:|[-_./]=* r:|=*'
- max-errors
- This is used by the _approximate and _correct completer functions to determine the maximum number of errors to allow. The completer will try to generate completions by first allowing one error, then two errors, and so on, until either a match or matches were found or the maximum number of errors given by this style has been reached.
If the value for this style contains the string ` numeric', the completer
function will take any numeric argument as the maximum number of errors
allowed. For example, with
two errors are allowed if no numeric argument is given, but with a numeric
argument of six (as in ` ESC-6 TAB'), up to six errors are accepted.
Hence with a value of ` 0 numeric', no correcting completion will be
attempted unless a numeric argument is given.
If the value contains the string ` not-numeric', the completer will
not try to generate corrected completions when given a numeric
argument, so in this case the number given should be greater than zero. For
example, ` 2 not-numeric' specifies that correcting completion with two
errors will usually be performed, but if a numeric argument is given,
correcting completion will not be performed.
The default value for this style is ` 2 numeric'.
zstyle ':completion:*:approximate:::' max-errors 2 numeric
- max-matches-width
- This style is used to determine the trade off between the width of the display used for matches and the width used for their descriptions when the verbose style is in effect. The value gives the number of display columns to reserve for the matches. The default is half the width of the screen.
This has the most impact when several matches have the same description and so
will be grouped together. Increasing the style will allow more matches to be
grouped together; decreasing it will allow more of the description to be
visible.
- menu
- If this is `true' in the context of any of the tags defined for the current completion menu completion will be used. The value for a specific tag will take precedence over that for the ` default' tag.
If none of the values found in this way is `true' but at least one is set to `
auto', the shell behaves as if the AUTO_MENU option is set.
If one of the values is explicitly set to `false', menu completion will be
explicitly turned off, overriding the MENU_COMPLETE option and other
settings.
In the form ` yes=num', where `yes' may be any of the
`true' values (` yes', `true', `on' and `1'), menu
completion will be turned on if there are at least num matches. In the
form ` yes=long', menu completion will be turned on if the list does
not fit on the screen. This does not activate menu completion if the widget
normally only lists completions, but menu completion can be activated in that
case with the value ` yes=long-list' (Typically, the value `
select=long-list' described later is more useful as it provides control
over scrolling.)
Similarly, with any of the `false' values (as in ` no=10'), menu
completion will not be used if there are num or more matches.
The value of this widget also controls menu selection, as implemented by the
zsh/complist module. The following values may appear either alongside
or instead of the values above.
If the value contains the string ` select', menu selection will be
started unconditionally.
In the form ` select=num', menu selection will only be started if
there are at least num matches. If the values for more than one tag
provide a number, the smallest number is taken.
Menu selection can be turned off explicitly by defining a value containing the
string` no-select'.
It is also possible to start menu selection only if the list of matches does not
fit on the screen by using the value ` select=long'. To start menu
selection even if the current widget only performs listing, use the value `
select=long-list'.
To turn on menu completion or menu selection when there are a certain number of
matches or the list of matches does not fit on the screen, both of `
yes=' and `select=' may be given twice, once with a number and
once with ` long' or `long-list'.
Finally, it is possible to activate two special modes of menu selection. The
word ` interactive' in the value causes interactive mode to be entered
immediately when menu selection is started; see the description of the
zsh/complist module in zshmodules(1) for a description of
interactive mode. Including the string ` search' does the same for
incremental search mode. To select backward incremental search, include the
string ` search-backward'.
- muttrc
- If set, gives the location of the mutt configuration file. It defaults to ` ~/.muttrc'.
- numbers
- This is used with the jobs tag. If it is `true', the shell will complete job numbers instead of the shortest unambiguous prefix of the job command text. If the value is a number, job numbers will only be used if that many words from the job descriptions are required to resolve ambiguities. For example, if the value is ` 1', strings will only be used if all jobs differ in the first word on their command lines.
- old-list
- This is used by the _oldlist completer. If it is set to ` always', then standard widgets which perform listing will retain the current list of matches, however they were generated; this can be turned off explicitly with the value ` never', giving the behaviour without the _oldlist completer. If the style is unset, or any other value, then the existing list of completions is displayed if it is not already; otherwise, the standard completion list is generated; this is the default behaviour of _oldlist. However, if there is an old list and this style contains the name of the completer function that generated the list, then the old list will be used even if it was generated by a widget which does not do listing.
For example, suppose you type ^Xc to use the _correct_word widget,
which generates a list of corrections for the word under the cursor. Usually,
typing ^D would generate a standard list of completions for the word on
the command line, and show that. With _oldlist, it will instead show
the list of corrections already generated.
As another example consider the _match completer: with the
insert-unambiguous style set to `true' it inserts only a common prefix
string, if there is any. However, this may remove parts of the original
pattern, so that further completion could produce more matches than on the
first attempt. By using the _oldlist completer and setting this style
to _match, the list of matches generated on the first attempt will be
used again.
- old-matches
- This is used by the _all_matches completer to decide if an old list of matches should be used if one exists. This is selected by one of the `true' values or by the string ` only'. If the value is ` only', _all_matches will only use an old list and won't have any effect on the list of matches currently being generated.
If this style is set it is generally unwise to call the _all_matches
completer unconditionally. One possible use is for either this style or the
completer style to be defined with the -e option to
zstyle to make the style conditional.
- old-menu
- This is used by the _oldlist completer. It controls how menu completion behaves when a completion has already been inserted and the user types a standard completion key such as TAB. The default behaviour of _oldlist is that menu completion always continues with the existing list of completions. If this style is set to `false', however, a new completion is started if the old list was generated by a different completion command; this is the behaviour without the _oldlist completer.
For example, suppose you type ^Xc to generate a list of corrections, and
menu completion is started in one of the usual ways. Usually, or with this
style set to `false', typing TAB at this point would start trying to
complete the line as it now appears. With _oldlist, it instead
continues to cycle through the list of corrections.
- original
- This is used by the _approximate and _correct completers to decide if the original string should be added as a possible completion. Normally, this is done only if there are at least two possible corrections, but if this style is set to `true', it is always added. Note that the style will be examined with the completer field in the context name set to correct-num or approximate-num, where num is the number of errors that were accepted.
- packageset
- This style is used when completing arguments of the Debian ` dpkg' program. It contains an override for the default package set for a given context. For example,
zstyle ':completion:*:complete:dpkg:option--status-1:*' \ packageset avail
- path
- The function that completes color names uses this style with the colors tag. The value should be the pathname of a file containing color names in the format of an X11 rgb.txt file. If the style is not set but this file is found in one of various standard locations it will be used as the default.
- path-completion
- This is used by filename completion. By default, filename completion examines all components of a path to see if there are completions of that component. For example, /u/b/z can be completed to /usr/bin/zsh. Explicitly setting this style to `false' inhibits this behaviour for path components up to the / before the cursor; this overrides the setting of accept-exact-dirs.
Even with the style set to `false', it is still possible to complete multiple
paths by setting the option COMPLETE_IN_WORD and moving the cursor back
to the first component in the path to be completed. For example, /u/b/z
can be completed to /usr/bin/zsh if the cursor is after the
/u.
- pine-directory
- If set, specifies the directory containing PINE mailbox files. There is no default, since recursively searching this directory is inconvenient for anyone who doesn't use PINE.
- ports
- A list of Internet service names (network ports) to complete. If this is not set, service names are taken from the file ` /etc/services'.
- prefix-hidden
- This is used for certain completions which share a common prefix, for example command options beginning with dashes. If it is `true', the prefix will not be shown in the list of matches.
The default value for this style is `false'.
- prefix-needed
- This style is also relevant for matches with a common prefix. If it is set to `true' this common prefix must be typed by the user to generate the matches.
The style is applicable to the options, signals, jobs,
functions, and parameters completion tags.
For command options, this means that the initial ` -', `+', or `
--' must be typed explicitly before option names will be
completed.
For signals, an initial ` -' is required before signal names will be
completed.
For jobs, an initial ` %' is required before job names will be completed.
For function and parameter names, an initial ` _' or `.' is
required before function or parameter names starting with those characters
will be completed.
The default value for this style is `false' for function and
parameter completions, and `true' otherwise.
- preserve-prefix
- This style is used when completing path names. Its value should be a pattern matching an initial prefix of the word to complete that should be left unchanged under all circumstances. For example, on some Unices an initial ` //' (double slash) has a special meaning; setting this style to the string ` //' will preserve it. As another example, setting this style to ` ?:/' under Cygwin would allow completion after ` a:/...' and so on.
- range
- This is used by the _history completer and the _history_complete_word bindable command to decide which words should be completed.
If it is a single number, only the last N words from the history will be
completed.
If it is a range of the form ` max:slice', the last
slice words will be completed; then if that yields no matches, the
slice words before those will be tried and so on. This process stops
either when at least one match has been found, or max words have been
tried.
The default is to complete all words from the history at once.
- recursive-files
- If this style is set, its value is an array of patterns to be tested against ` $PWD/': note the trailing slash, which allows directories in the pattern to be delimited unambiguously by including slashes on both sides. If an ordinary file completion fails and the word on the command line does not yet have a directory part to its name, the style is retrieved using the same tag as for the completion just attempted, then the elements tested against $PWD/ in turn. If one matches, then the shell reattempts completion by prepending the word on the command line with each directory in the expansion of **/*(/) in turn. Typically the elements of the style will be set to restrict the number of directories beneath the current one to a manageable number, for example ` */.git/*'.
For example,
If the current directory is /home/pws/zsh/Src, then
zle_tr<TAB> can be completed to Zle/zle_tricky.c.
zstyle ':completion:*' recursive-files '*/zsh/*'
- regular
- This style is used by the _expand_alias completer and bindable command. If set to `true' (the default), regular aliases will be expanded but only in command position. If it is set to `false', regular aliases will never be expanded. If it is set to ` always', regular aliases will be expanded even if not in command position.
- rehash
- If this is set when completing external commands, the internal list (hash) of commands will be updated for each search by issuing the rehash command. There is a speed penalty for this which is only likely to be noticeable when directories in the path have slow file access.
- remote-access
- If set to `false', certain commands will be prevented from making Internet connections to retrieve remote information. This includes the completion for the CVS command.
It is not always possible to know if connections are in fact to a remote site,
so some may be prevented unnecessarily.
- remove-all-dups
- The _history_complete_word bindable command and the _history completer use this to decide if all duplicate matches should be removed, rather than just consecutive duplicates.
- select-prompt
- If this is set for the default tag, its value will be displayed during menu selection (see the menu style above) when the completion list does not fit on the screen as a whole. The same escapes as for the list-prompt style are understood, except that the numbers refer to the match or line the mark is on. A default prompt is used when the value is the empty string.
- select-scroll
- This style is tested for the default tag and determines how a completion list is scrolled during a menu selection (see the menu style above) when the completion list does not fit on the screen as a whole. If the value is ` 0' (zero), the list is scrolled by half-screenfuls; if it is a positive integer, the list is scrolled by the given number of lines; if it is a negative number, the list is scrolled by a screenful minus the absolute value of the given number of lines. The default is to scroll by single lines.
- separate-sections
- This style is used with the manuals tag when completing names of manual pages. If it is `true', entries for different sections are added separately using tag names of the form ` manuals. X', where X is the section number. When the group-name style is also in effect, pages from different sections will appear separately. This style is also used similarly with the words style when completing words for the dict command. It allows words from different dictionary databases to be added separately. See also insert-sections.
The default for this style is `false'.
- show-ambiguity
- If the zsh/complist module is loaded, this style can be used to highlight the first ambiguous character in completion lists. The value is either a color indication such as those supported by the list-colors style or, with a value of `true', a default of underlining is selected. The highlighting is only applied if the completion display strings correspond to the actual matches.
- show-completer
- Tested whenever a new completer is tried. If it is `true', the completion system outputs a progress message in the listing area showing what completer is being tried. The message will be overwritten by any output when completions are found and is removed after completion is finished.
- single-ignored
- This is used by the _ignored completer when there is only one match. If its value is ` show', the single match will be displayed but not inserted. If the value is ` menu', then the single match and the original string are both added as matches and menu completion is started, making it easy to select either of them.
- sort
- This allows the standard ordering of matches to be overridden.
If its value is ` true' or `false', sorting is enabled or
disabled. Additionally the values associated with the ` -o' option to
compadd can also be listed: match, nosort,
numeric, reverse. If it is not set for the context, the standard
behaviour of the calling widget is used.
The style is tested first against the full context including the tag, and if
that fails to produce a value against the context without the tag.
In many cases where a calling widget explicitly selects a particular ordering in
lieu of the default, a value of ` true' is not honoured. An example of
where this is not the case is for command history where the default of sorting
matches chronologically may be overridden by setting the style to `true'.
In the _expand completer, if it is set to `true', the expansions
generated will always be sorted. If it is set to ` menu', then the
expansions are only sorted when they are offered as single strings but not in
the string containing all possible expansions.
- special-dirs
- Normally, the completion code will not produce the directory names ` .' and `..' as possible completions. If this style is set to `true', it will add both ` .' and `..' as possible completions; if it is set to ` ..', only `..' will be added.
The following example sets special-dirs to `..' when the current
prefix is empty, is a single ` .', or consists only of a path beginning
with ` ../'. Otherwise the value is `false'.
zstyle -e ':completion:*' special-dirs \ '[[ $PREFIX = (../)#(|.|..) ]] && reply=(..)'
- squeeze-slashes
- If set to `true', sequences of slashes in filename paths (for example in ` foo//bar') will be treated as a single slash. This is the usual behaviour of UNIX paths. However, by default the file completion function behaves as if there were a ` *' between the slashes.
- stop
- If set to `true', the _history_complete_word bindable command will stop once when reaching the beginning or end of the history. Invoking _history_complete_word will then wrap around to the opposite end of the history. If this style is set to `false' (the default), _history_complete_word will loop immediately as in a menu completion.
- strip-comments
- If set to `true', this style causes non-essential comment text to be removed from completion matches. Currently it is only used when completing e-mail addresses where it removes any display name from the addresses, cutting them down to plain user@host form.
- subst-globs-only
- This is used by the _expand completer. If it is set to `true', the expansion will only be used if it resulted from globbing; hence, if expansions resulted from the use of the substitute style described below, but these were not further changed by globbing, the expansions will be rejected.
The default for this style is `false'.
- substitute
- This boolean style controls whether the _expand completer will first try to expand all substitutions in the string (such as ` $(...)' and `${...}').
The default is `true'.
- suffix
- This is used by the _expand completer if the word starts with a tilde or contains a parameter expansion. If it is set to `true', the word will only be expanded if it doesn't have a suffix, i.e. if it is something like ` ~foo' or `$foo' rather than `~foo/' or ` $foo/bar', unless that suffix itself contains characters eligible for expansion. The default for this style is `true'.
- tag-order
- This provides a mechanism for sorting how the tags available in a particular context will be used.
The values for the style are sets of space-separated lists of tags. The tags in
each value will be tried at the same time; if no match is found, the next
value is used. (See the file-patterns style for an exception to this
behavior.)
For example:
specifies that completion in command position first offers external commands and
shell functions. Remaining tags will be tried if no completions are found.
In addition to tag names, each string in the value may take one of the following
forms:
On the first attempt, all tags will be offered but the functions tag will
be replaced by functions-non-comp. The ignored-patterns style is
set for this tag to exclude functions starting with an underscore. If there
are no matches, the second value of the tag-order style is used which
completes functions using the default tag, this time presumably including all
function names.
The matches for one tag can be split into different groups. For example:
With the group-names style set, options beginning with `
--', options beginning with a single ` -' or `+'
but containing multiple characters, and single-letter options will be
displayed in separate groups with different descriptions.
Another use of patterns is to try multiple match specifications one after
another. The matcher-list style offers something similar, but it is
tested very early in the completion system and hence can't be set for single
commands nor for more specific contexts. Here is how to try normal completion
without any match specification and, if that generates no matches, try again
with case-insensitive matching, restricting the effect to arguments of the
command foo:
First, all the tags offered when completing after foo are tried using the
normal tag name. If that generates no matches, the second value of
tag-order is used, which tries all tags again except that this time
each has -case appended to its name for lookup of styles. Hence this
time the value for the matcher style from the second call to
zstyle in the example is used to make completion case-insensitive.
It is possible to use the -e option of the zstyle builtin command
to specify conditions for the use of particular tags. For example:
Completion in command position will be attempted only if the string typed so far
is not empty. This is tested using the PREFIX special parameter; see
zshcompwid for a description of parameters which are special inside completion
widgets. Setting reply to an empty array provides the default behaviour
of trying all tags at once; setting it to an array containing only a hyphen
disables the use of all tags and hence of all completions.
If no tag-order style has been defined for a context, the strings `
(|*-)argument-* (|*-)option-* values' and ` options' plus all
tags offered by the completion function will be used to provide a sensible
default behavior that causes arguments (whether normal command arguments or
arguments of options) to be completed before option names for most
commands.
zstyle ':completion:*:complete:-command-:*:*' tag-order \ 'commands functions'
- -
- If any value consists of only a hyphen, then only the tags specified in the other values are generated. Normally all tags not explicitly selected are tried last if the specified tags fail to generate any matches. This means that a single value consisting only of a single hyphen turns off completion.
- ! tags...
- A string starting with an exclamation mark specifies names of tags that are not to be used. The effect is the same as if all other possible tags for the context had been listed.
- tag:label ...
- Here, tag is one of the standard tags and label is an arbitrary name. Matches are generated as normal but the name label is used in contexts instead of tag. This is not useful in words starting with !.
If the label starts with a hyphen, the tag is prepended to the
label to form the name used for lookup. This can be used to make the
completion system try a certain tag more than once, supplying different style
settings for each attempt; see below for an example.
- tag:label:description
- As before, but description will replace the `%d' in the value of the format style instead of the default description supplied by the completion function. Spaces in the description must be quoted with a backslash. A ` %d' appearing in description is replaced with the description given by the completion function.
zstyle ':completion:*:*:-command-:*:*' tag-order \ 'functions:-non-comp *' functions zstyle ':completion:*:functions-non-comp' \ ignored-patterns '_*'
zstyle ':completion:*' tag-order \ 'options:-long:long\ options options:-short:short\ options options:-single-letter:single\ letter\ options' zstyle ':completion:*:options-long' \ ignored-patterns '[-+](|-|[^-]*)' zstyle ':completion:*:options-short' \ ignored-patterns '--*' '[-+]?' zstyle ':completion:*:options-single-letter' \ ignored-patterns '???*'
zstyle ':completion:*:*:foo:*:*' tag-order '*' '*:-case' zstyle ':completion:*-case' matcher 'm:{a-z}={A-Z}'
zstyle -e '*:-command-:*' tag-order ' if [[ -n $PREFIX$SUFFIX ]]; then reply=( ) else reply=( - ) fi'
- urls
- This is used together with the urls tag by functions completing URLs.
If the value consists of more than one string, or if the only string does not
name a file or directory, the strings are used as the URLs to complete.
If the value contains only one string which is the name of a normal file the
URLs are taken from that file (where the URLs may be separated by white space
or newlines).
Finally, if the only string in the value names a directory, the directory
hierarchy rooted at this directory gives the completions. The top level
directory should be the file access method, such as ` http',
`ftp', ` bookmark' and so on. In many cases the next level of
directories will be a filename. The directory hierarchy can descend as deep as
necessary.
For example,
allows completion of all the components of the URL ftp://ftp.zsh.org/pub
after suitable commands such as ` netscape' or `lynx'. Note,
however, that access methods and files are completed separately, so if the
hosts style is set hosts can be completed without reference to the
urls style.
See the description in the function _urls itself for more information
(e.g. ` more $^fpath/_urls(N)').
zstyle ':completion:*' urls ~/.urls mkdir -p ~/.urls/ftp/ftp.zsh.org/pub
- use-cache
- If this is set, the completion caching layer is activated for any completions which use it (via the _store_cache, _retrieve_cache, and _cache_invalid functions). The directory containing the cache files can be changed with the cache-path style.
- use-compctl
- If this style is set to a string not equal to false, 0, no, and off, the completion system may use any completion specifications defined with the compctl builtin command. If the style is unset, this is done only if the zsh/compctl module is loaded. The string may also contain the substring ` first' to use completions defined with ` compctl -T', and the substring ` default' to use the completion defined with ` compctl -D'.
Note that this is only intended to smooth the transition from compctl to
the new completion system and may disappear in the future.
Note also that the definitions from compctl will only be used if there is
no specific completion function for the command in question. For example, if
there is a function _foo to complete arguments to the command
foo, compctl will never be invoked for foo. However, the
compctl version will be tried if foo only uses default
completion.
- use-ip
- By default, the function _hosts that completes host names strips IP addresses from entries read from host databases such as NIS and ssh files. If this style is `true', the corresponding IP addresses can be completed as well. This style is not use in any context where the hosts style is set; note also it must be set before the cache of host names is generated (typically the first completion attempt).
- users
- This may be set to a list of usernames to be completed. If it is not set all usernames will be completed. Note that if it is set only that list of users will be completed; this is because on some systems querying all users can take a prohibitive amount of time.
- users-hosts
- The values of this style should be of the form ` user @host' or `user:host'. It is used for commands that need pairs of user- and hostnames. These commands will complete usernames from this style (only), and will restrict subsequent hostname completion to hosts paired with that user in one of the values of the style.
It is possible to group values for sets of commands which allow a remote login,
such as rlogin and ssh, by using the my-accounts tag.
Similarly, values for sets of commands which usually refer to the accounts of
other people, such as talk and finger, can be grouped by using
the other-accounts tag. More ambivalent commands may use the
accounts tag.
- users-hosts-ports
- Like users-hosts but used for commands like telnet and containing strings of the form ` user@host :port'.
- verbose
- If set, as it is by default, the completion listing is more verbose. In particular many commands show descriptions for options if this style is `true'.
- word
- This is used by the _list completer, which prevents the insertion of completions until a second completion attempt when the line has not changed. The normal way of finding out if the line has changed is to compare its entire contents between the two occasions. If this style is `true', the comparison is instead performed only on the current word. Hence if completion is performed on another word with the same contents, completion will not be delayed.
CONTROL FUNCTIONS
The initialization script compinit redefines all the widgets which perform completion to call the supplied widget function _main_complete. This function acts as a wrapper calling the so-called `completer' functions that generate matches. If _main_complete is called with arguments, these are taken as the names of completer functions to be called in the order given. If no arguments are given, the set of functions to try is taken from the completer style. For example, to use normal completion and correction if that doesn't generate any matches:zstyle ':completion:*' completer _complete _correct
- _all_matches
- This completer can be used to add a string consisting of all other matches. As it influences later completers it must appear as the first completer in the list. The list of all matches is affected by the avoid-completer and old-matches styles described above.
It may be useful to use the _generic function described below to bind
_all_matches to its own keystroke, for example:
Note that this does not generate completions by itself: first use any of the
standard ways of generating a list of completions, then use ^Xa to show
all matches. It is possible instead to add a standard completer to the list
and request that the list of all matches should be directly inserted:
In this case the old-matches style should not be set.
zle -C all-matches complete-word _generic bindkey '^Xa' all-matches zstyle ':completion:all-matches:*' old-matches only zstyle ':completion:all-matches::::' completer _all_matches
zstyle ':completion:all-matches::::' completer \ _all_matches _complete zstyle ':completion:all-matches:*' insert true
- _approximate
- This is similar to the basic _complete completer but allows the completions to undergo corrections. The maximum number of errors can be specified by the max-errors style; see the description of approximate matching in zshexpn(1) for how errors are counted. Normally this completer will only be tried after the normal _complete completer:
zstyle ':completion:*' completer _complete _approximate
zstyle -e ':completion:*' completer ' if [[ $_last_try != "$HISTNO$BUFFER$CURSOR" ]]; then _last_try="$HISTNO$BUFFER$CURSOR" reply=(_complete _match _prefix) else reply=(_ignored _correct _approximate) fi'
- _canonical_paths [ -A var ] [ -N ] [ -MJV12nfX ] tag descr [ paths ... ]
- This completion function completes all paths given to it, and also tries to offer completions which point to the same file as one of the paths given (relative path when an absolute path is given, and vice versa; when ..'s are present in the word to be completed; and some paths got from symlinks).
-A, if specified, takes the paths from the array variable specified.
Paths can also be specified on the command line as shown above. -N, if
specified, prevents canonicalizing the paths given before using them for
completion, in case they are already so. The options -M, -J,
-V, -1, -2, -n, -F, -X are passed to
compadd.
See _description for a description of tag and descr.
- _cmdambivalent
- Completes the remaining positional arguments as an external command. The external command and its arguments are completed as separate arguments (in a manner appropriate for completing /usr/bin/env) if there are two or more remaining positional arguments on the command line, and as a quoted command string (in the manner of system(...)) otherwise. See also _cmdstring and _precommand.
This function takes no arguments.
- _cmdstring
- Completes an external command as a single argument, as for system(...).
- _complete
- This completer generates all possible completions in a context-sensitive manner, i.e. using the settings defined with the compdef function explained above and the current settings of all special parameters. This gives the normal completion behaviour.
To complete arguments of commands, _complete uses the utility function
_normal, which is in turn responsible for finding the particular
function; it is described below. Various contexts of the form
-context - are handled specifically. These are all
mentioned above as possible arguments to the #compdef tag.
Before trying to find a function for a specific context, _complete checks
if the parameter ` compcontext' is set. Setting ` compcontext'
allows the usual completion dispatching to be overridden which is useful in
places such as a function that uses vared for input. If it is set to an
array, the elements are taken to be the possible matches which will be
completed using the tag ` values' and the description `value'.
If it is set to an associative array, the keys are used as the possible
completions and the values (if non-empty) are used as descriptions for the
matches. If ` compcontext' is set to a string containing colons, it
should be of the form ` tag:descr:action'.
In this case the tag and descr give the tag and description to
use and the action indicates what should be completed in one of the
forms accepted by the _arguments utility function described below.
Finally, if ` compcontext' is set to a string without colons, the value
is taken as the name of the context to use and the function defined for that
context will be called. For this purpose, there is a special context named
-command-line- that completes whole command lines (commands and their
arguments). This is not used by the completion system itself but is
nonetheless handled when explicitly called.
- _correct
- Generate corrections, but not completions, for the current word; this is similar to _approximate but will not allow any number of extra characters at the cursor as that completer does. The effect is similar to spell-checking. It is based on _approximate, but the completer field in the context name is correct.
For example, with:
correction will accept up to two errors. If a numeric argument is given,
correction will not be performed, but correcting completion will be, and will
accept as many errors as given by the numeric argument. Without a numeric
argument, first correction and then correcting completion will be tried, with
the first one accepting two errors and the second one accepting three errors.
When _correct is called as a function, the number of errors to accept may
be given following the -a option. The argument is in the same form a
values to the accept style, all in one string.
This completer function is intended to be used without the _approximate
completer or, as in the example, just before it. Using it after the
_approximate completer is useless since _approximate will at
least generate the corrected strings generated by the _correct
completer -- and probably more.
zstyle ':completion:::::' completer \ _complete _correct _approximate zstyle ':completion:*:correct:::' max-errors 2 not-numeric zstyle ':completion:*:approximate:::' max-errors 3 numeric
- _expand
- This completer function does not really perform completion, but instead checks if the word on the command line is eligible for expansion and, if it is, gives detailed control over how this expansion is done. For this to happen, the completion system needs to be invoked with complete-word, not expand-or-complete (the default binding for TAB), as otherwise the string will be expanded by the shell's internal mechanism before the completion system is started. Note also this completer should be called before the _complete completer function.
The tags used when generating expansions are all-expansions for the
string containing all possible expansions, expansions when adding the
possible expansions as single matches and original when adding the
original string from the line. The order in which these strings are generated,
if at all, can be controlled by the group-order and tag-order
styles, as usual.
The format string for all-expansions and for expansions may
contain the sequence ` %o' which will be replaced by the original
string from the line.
The kind of expansion to be tried is controlled by the substitute,
glob and subst-globs-only styles.
It is also possible to call _expand as a function, in which case the
different modes may be selected with options: -s for substitute,
-g for glob and -o for subst-globs-only.
- _expand_alias
- If the word the cursor is on is an alias, it is expanded and no other completers are called. The types of aliases which are to be expanded can be controlled with the styles regular, global and disabled.
This function is also a bindable command, see the section `Bindable Commands'
below.
- _extensions
- If the cursor follows the string `*.', filename extensions are completed. The extensions are taken from files in current directory or a directory specified at the beginning of the current word. For exact matches, completion continues to allow other completers such as _expand to expand the pattern. The standard add-space and prefix-hidden styles are observed.
- _external_pwds
- Completes current directories of other zsh processes belonging to the current user.
This is intended to be used via _generic, bound to a custom key
combination. Note that pattern matching is enabled so matching is performed
similar to how it works with the _match completer.
- _history
- Complete words from the shell's command history. This completer can be controlled by the remove-all-dups, and sort styles as for the _history_complete_word bindable command, see the section `Bindable Commands' below and the section `Completion System Configuration' above.
- _ignored
- The ignored-patterns style can be set to a list of patterns which are compared against possible completions; matching ones are removed. With this completer those matches can be reinstated, as if no ignored-patterns style were set. The completer actually generates its own list of matches; which completers are invoked is determined in the same way as for the _prefix completer. The single-ignored style is also available as described above.
- _list
- This completer allows the insertion of matches to be delayed until completion is attempted a second time without the word on the line being changed. On the first attempt, only the list of matches will be shown. It is affected by the styles condition and word, see the section `Completion System Configuration' above.
- _match
- This completer is intended to be used after the _complete completer. It behaves similarly but the string on the command line may be a pattern to match against trial completions. This gives the effect of the GLOB_COMPLETE option.
Normally completion will be performed by taking the pattern from the line,
inserting a ` *' at the cursor position and comparing the resulting
pattern with the possible completions generated. This can be modified with the
match-original style described above.
The generated matches will be offered in a menu completion unless the
insert-unambiguous style is set to `true'; see the description above
for other options for this style.
Note that matcher specifications defined globally or used by the completion
functions (the styles matcher-list and matcher) will not be
used.
- _menu
- This completer was written as simple example function to show how menu completion can be enabled in shell code. However, it has the notable effect of disabling menu selection which can be useful with _generic based widgets. It should be used as the first completer in the list. Note that this is independent of the setting of the MENU_COMPLETE option and does not work with the other menu completion widgets such as reverse-menu-complete, or accept-and-menu-complete.
- _oldlist
- This completer controls how the standard completion widgets behave when there is an existing list of completions which may have been generated by a special completion (i.e. a separately-bound completion command). It allows the ordinary completion keys to continue to use the list of completions thus generated, instead of producing a new list of ordinary contextual completions. It should appear in the list of completers before any of the widgets which generate matches. It uses two styles: old-list and old-menu, see the section `Completion System Configuration' above.
- _precommand
- Complete an external command in word-separated arguments, as for exec and /usr/bin/env.
- _prefix
- This completer can be used to try completion with the suffix (everything after the cursor) ignored. In other words, the suffix will not be considered to be part of the word to complete. The effect is similar to the expand-or-complete-prefix command.
The completer style is used to decide which other completers are to be
called to generate matches. If this style is unset, the list of completers set
for the current context is used -- except, of course, the _prefix
completer itself. Furthermore, if this completer appears more than once in the
list of completers only those completers not already tried by the last
invocation of _prefix will be called.
For example, consider this global completer style:
Here, the _prefix completer tries normal completion but ignoring the
suffix. If that doesn't generate any matches, and neither does the call to the
_correct completer after it, _prefix will be called a second
time and, now only trying correction with the suffix ignored. On the second
invocation the completer part of the context appears as ` foo'.
To use _prefix as the last resort and try only normal completion when it
is invoked:
The add-space style is also respected. If it is set to `true' then
_prefix will insert a space between the matches generated (if any) and
the suffix.
Note that this completer is only useful if the COMPLETE_IN_WORD option is
set; otherwise, the cursor will be moved to the end of the current word before
the completion code is called and hence there will be no suffix.
zstyle ':completion:*' completer \ _complete _prefix _correct _prefix:foo
zstyle ':completion:*' completer _complete ... _prefix zstyle ':completion::prefix:*' completer _complete
- _user_expand
- This completer behaves similarly to the _expand completer but instead performs expansions defined by users. The styles add-space and sort styles specific to the _expand completer are usable with _user_expand in addition to other styles handled more generally by the completion system. The tag all-expansions is also available.
The expansion depends on the array style user-expand being defined for
the current context; remember that the context for completers is less specific
than that for contextual completion as the full context has not yet been
determined. Elements of the array may have one of the following forms:
- $hash
- hash is the name of an associative array. Note this is not a full parameter expression, merely a $, suitably quoted to prevent immediate expansion, followed by the name of an associative array. If the trial expansion word matches a key in hash, the resulting expansion is the corresponding value.
- _func
- _func is the name of a shell function whose name must begin with _ but is not otherwise special to the completion system. The function is called with the trial word as an argument. If the word is to be expanded, the function should set the array reply to a list of expansions. Optionally, it can set REPLY to a word that will be used as a description for the set of expansions. The return status of the function is irrelevant.
BINDABLE COMMANDS
In addition to the context-dependent completions provided, which are expected to work in an intuitively obvious way, there are a few widgets implementing special behaviour which can be bound separately to keys. The following is a list of these and their default bindings.- _bash_completions
- This function is used by two widgets, _bash_complete-word and _bash_list-choices. It exists to provide compatibility with completion bindings in bash. The last character of the binding determines what is completed: ` !', command names; `$', environment variables; ` @', host names; `/', file names; ` ~' user names. In bash, the binding preceded by ` \e' gives completion, and preceded by ` ^X' lists options. As some of these bindings clash with standard zsh bindings, only ` \e~' and ` ^X~' are bound by default. To add the rest, the following should be added to .zshrc after compinit has been run:
for key in '!' '$' '@' '/' '~'; do bindkey "\e$key" _bash_complete-word bindkey "^X$key" _bash_list-choices done
- _correct_filename (^XC)
- Correct the filename path at the cursor position. Allows up to six errors in the name. Can also be called with an argument to correct a filename path, independently of zle; the correction is printed on standard output.
- _correct_word (^Xc)
- Performs correction of the current argument using the usual contextual completions as possible choices. This stores the string ` correct-word' in the function field of the context name and then calls the _correct completer.
- _expand_alias (^Xa)
- This function can be used as a completer and as a bindable command. It expands the word the cursor is on if it is an alias. The types of alias expanded can be controlled with the styles regular, global and disabled.
When used as a bindable command there is one additional feature that can be
selected by setting the complete style to `true'. In this case, if the
word is not the name of an alias, _expand_alias tries to complete the
word to a full alias name without expanding it. It leaves the cursor directly
after the completed word so that invoking _expand_alias once more will
expand the now-complete alias name.
- _expand_word (^Xe)
- Performs expansion on the current word: equivalent to the standard expand-word command, but using the _expand completer. Before calling it, the function field of the context is set to ` expand-word'.
- _generic
- This function is not defined as a widget and not bound by default. However, it can be used to define a widget and will then store the name of the widget in the function field of the context and call the completion system. This allows custom completion widgets with their own set of style settings to be defined easily. For example, to define a widget that performs normal completion and starts menu selection:
zle -C foo complete-word _generic bindkey '...' foo zstyle ':completion:foo:*' menu yes select=1
- _history_complete_word (\e/)
- Complete words from the shell's command history. This uses the list, remove-all-dups, sort, and stop styles.
- _most_recent_file (^Xm)
- Complete the name of the most recently modified file matching the pattern on the command line (which may be blank). If given a numeric argument N, complete the Nth most recently modified file. Note the completion, if any, is always unique.
- _next_tags (^Xn)
- This command alters the set of matches used to that for the next tag, or set of tags, either as given by the tag-order style or as set by default; these matches would otherwise not be available. Successive invocations of the command cycle through all possible sets of tags.
- _read_comp (^X^R)
- Prompt the user for a string, and use that to perform completion on the current word. There are two possibilities for the string. First, it can be a set of words beginning ` _', for example ` _files -/', in which case the function with any arguments will be called to generate the completions. Unambiguous parts of the function name will be completed automatically (normal completion is not available at this point) until a space is typed.
Second, any other string will be passed as a set of arguments to compadd
and should hence be an expression specifying what should be completed.
A very restricted set of editing commands is available when reading the string:
` DEL' and `^H' delete the last character; `^U' deletes
the line, and ` ^C' and `^G' abort the function, while
`RET' accepts the completion. Note the string is used verbatim as a
command line, so arguments must be quoted in accordance with standard shell
rules.
Once a string has been read, the next call to _read_comp will use the
existing string instead of reading a new one. To force a new string to be
read, call _read_comp with a numeric argument.
- _complete_debug (^X?)
- This widget performs ordinary completion, but captures in a temporary file a trace of the shell commands executed by the completion system. Each completion attempt gets its own file. A command to view each of these files is pushed onto the editor buffer stack.
- _complete_help (^Xh)
- This widget displays information about the context names, the tags, and the completion functions used when completing at the current cursor position. If given a numeric argument other than 1 (as in `ESC-2 ^Xh'), then the styles used and the contexts for which they are used will be shown, too.
Note that the information about styles may be incomplete; it depends on the
information available from the completion functions called, which in turn is
determined by the user's own styles and other settings.
- _complete_help_generic
- Unlike other commands listed here, this must be created as a normal ZLE widget rather than a completion widget (i.e. with zle -N). It is used for generating help with a widget bound to the _generic widget that is described above.
If this widget is created using the name of the function, as it is by default,
then when executed it will read a key sequence. This is expected to be bound
to a call to a completion function that uses the _generic widget. That
widget will be executed, and information provided in the same format that the
_complete_help widget displays for contextual completion.
If the widget's name contains debug, for example if it is created as `
zle -N _complete_debug_generic _complete_help_generic', it will read
and execute the keystring for a generic widget as before, but then generate
debugging information as done by _complete_debug for contextual
completion.
If the widget's name contains noread, it will not read a keystring but
instead arrange that the next use of a generic widget run in the same shell
will have the effect as described above.
The widget works by setting the shell parameter ZSH_TRACE_GENERIC_WIDGET
which is read by _generic. Unsetting the parameter cancels any pending
effect of the noread form.
For example, after executing the following:
typing ` C-x :' followed by the key sequence for a generic widget will
cause trace output for that widget to be saved to a file.
zle -N _complete_debug_generic _complete_help_generic bindkey '^x:' _complete_debug_generic
- _complete_tag (^Xt)
- This widget completes symbol tags created by the etags or ctags programmes (note there is no connection with the completion system's tags) stored in a file TAGS, in the format used by etags, or tags, in the format created by ctags. It will look back up the path hierarchy for the first occurrence of either file; if both exist, the file TAGS is preferred. You can specify the full path to a TAGS or tags file by setting the parameter $TAGSFILE or $tagsfile respectively. The corresponding completion tags used are etags and vtags, after emacs and vi respectively.
UTILITY FUNCTIONS
Descriptions follow for utility functions that may be useful when writing completion functions. If functions are installed in subdirectories, most of these reside in the Base subdirectory. Like the example functions for commands in the distribution, the utility functions generating matches all follow the convention of returning status zero if they generated completions and non-zero if no matching completions could be added.- _absolute_command_paths
- This function completes external commands as absolute paths (unlike _command_names -e which completes their basenames). It takes no arguments.
- _all_labels [ -x ] [ -12VJ ] tag name descr [ command arg ... ]
- This is a convenient interface to the _next_label function below, implementing the loop shown in the _next_label example. The command and its arguments are called to generate the matches. The options stored in the parameter name will automatically be inserted into the args passed to the command. Normally, they are put directly after the command, but if one of the args is a single hyphen, they are inserted directly before that. If the hyphen is the last argument, it will be removed from the argument list before the command is called. This allows _all_labels to be used in almost all cases where the matches can be generated by a single call to the compadd builtin command or by a call to one of the utility functions.
For example:
Will complete the strings from the matches parameter, using
compadd with additional options which will take precedence over those
generated by _all_labels.
local expl ... if _requested foo; then ... _all_labels foo expl '...' compadd ... - $matches fi
- _alternative [ -O name ] [ -C name ] spec ...
- This function is useful in simple cases where multiple tags are available. Essentially it implements a loop like the one described for the _tags function below.
The tags to use and the action to perform if a tag is requested are described
using the specs which are of the form: `
tag:descr:action'. The tags are
offered using _tags and if the tag is requested, the action is
executed with the given description descr. The actions are those
accepted by the _arguments function (described below), with the
following exceptions:
offers usernames and hostnames as possible matches, generated by the
_users and _hosts functions respectively.
Like _arguments, this function uses _all_labels to execute the
actions, which will loop over all sets of tags. Special handling is only
required if there is an additional valid tag, for example inside a function
called from _alternative.
The option ` -O name' is used in the same way as by the
_arguments function. In other words, the elements of the name
array will be passed to compadd when executing an action.
Like _tags this function supports the -C option to give a
different name for the argument context field.
- •
- The `->state' and `=...' forms are not supported.
- •
- The `((a\:bar b\:baz))' form does not need the colon to be escaped, since the specs have no colon-separated fields after the action.
_alternative \ 'users:user:_users' \ 'hosts:host:_hosts'
- _arguments [ -nswWCRS ] [ -A pat ] [ -O name ] [ -M matchspec ]
- [ : ] spec ...
- _arguments [ opt ... ] -- [ -l ] [ -i pats ] [ -s pair ]
- [ helpspec ...]
- This function can be used to give a complete specification for completion for a command whose arguments follow standard UNIX option and argument conventions.
Options Overview
Options to _arguments itself must be in separate words, i.e. -s
-w, not -sw. The options are followed by specs that describe
options and arguments of the analyzed command. To avoid ambiguity, all options
to _arguments itself may be separated from the spec forms by a
single colon.
The ` --' form is used to intuit spec forms from the help
output of the command being analyzed, and is described in detail below. The
opts for the ` --' form are otherwise the same options as
the first form. Note that ` -s' following `--' has a
distinct meaning from ` -s' preceding ` --', and both may
appear.
The option switches -s, -S, -A, -w, and -W
affect how _arguments parses the analyzed command line's options. These
switches are useful for commands with standard argument parsing.
The options of _arguments have the following meanings:
the ` -x' is considered an option, the `-y' is considered an
argument, and the ` --' is considered to be neither.
In each of the forms above the action determines how completions should
be generated. Except for the ` ->string' form below, the
action will be executed by calling the _all_labels function to
process all tag labels. No special handling of tags is needed unless a
function call introduces a new one.
The functions called to execute actions will be called with the elements
of the array named by the ` -O name' option as arguments. This
can be used, for example, to pass the same set of options for the
compadd builtin to all actions.
The forms for action are as follows.
The matches will be listed together with their descriptions if the
description style is set with the values tag in the
context.
by default, and
if _arguments had been called with the -0 option.
The parameter ` context' is set when returning to the calling function to
perform an action of the form ` ->string'. It is set to an
array of elements corresponding to the elements of $state. Each element
is a suitable name for the argument field of the context: either a string of
the form ` option-opt-n' for the n'th
argument of the option -opt, or a string of the form `
argument-n' for the n'th argument. For `rest' arguments,
that is those in the list at the end not handled by position, n is the
string ` rest'. For example, when completing the argument of the
-o option, the name is ` option-o-1', while for the second
normal (non-option-) argument it is ` argument-2'.
Furthermore, during the evaluation of the action the context name in the
curcontext parameter is altered to append the same string that is
stored in the context parameter.
The option -C tells _arguments to modify the curcontext
parameter for an action of the form ` ->state'. This is the
standard parameter used to keep track of the current context. Here it (and not
the context array) should be made local to the calling function to
avoid passing back the modified value and should be initialised to the current
value at the start of the function:
This is useful where it is not possible for multiple states to be valid
together.
Grouping Options
Options can be grouped to simplify exclusion lists. A group is introduced with `
+' followed by a name for the group in the subsequent word. Whole
groups can then be referenced in an exclusion list or a group name can be used
to disambiguate between two forms of the same option. For example:
If the name of a group is specified in the form ` (name)'
then only one value from that group will ever be completed; more formally, all
specifications are mutually exclusive to all other specifications in that
group. This is useful for defining options that are aliases for each other.
For example:
If an option in a group appears on the command line, it is stored in the
associative array ` opt_args' with 'group-option'
as a key. In the example above, a key ` operation--c' is used if the
option ` -c' is present on the command line.
Specifying Multiple Sets of Arguments
It is possible to specify multiple sets of options and arguments with the sets
separated by single hyphens. This differs from groups in that sets are
considered to be mutually exclusive of each other.
Specifications before the first set and from any group are common to all sets.
For example:
This defines two sets. When the command line contains the option ` -c',
the ` -d' option and the argument will not be considered possible
completions. When it contains ` -d' or an argument, the option `
-c' will not be considered. However, after ` -a' both sets will
still be considered valid.
As for groups, the name of a set may appear in exclusion lists, either alone or
preceding a normal option or argument specification.
The completion code has to parse the command line separately for each set. This
can be slow so sets should only be used when necessary. A useful alternative
is often an option specification with rest-arguments (as in `
-foo:*:...'); here the option -foo swallows up all remaining
arguments as described by the optarg definitions.
Deriving spec forms from the help output
The option ` --' allows _arguments to work out the names of
long options that support the ` --help' option which is standard
in many GNU commands. The command word is called with the argument `
--help' and the output examined for option names. Clearly, it
can be dangerous to pass this to commands which may not support this option as
the behaviour of the command is unspecified.
In addition to options, ` _arguments --' will try to deduce the
types of arguments available for options when the form `
--opt =val' is valid. It is also possible
to provide hints by examining the help text of the command and adding
helpspec of the form `
pattern:message:action'; note that other
_arguments spec forms are not used. The pattern is
matched against the help text for an option, and if it matches the
message and action are used as for other argument specifiers.
The special case of ` *:' means both message and action
are empty, which has the effect of causing options having no description in
the help output to be ordered in listings ahead of options that have a
description.
For example:
Here, ` yes' and `no' will be completed as the argument of options
whose description ends in a star; file names will be completed for options
that contain the substring ` =FILE' in the description; and directories
will be completed for options whose description contains ` =DIR' or
`=PATH'. The last three are in fact the default and so need not be
given explicitly, although it is possible to override the use of these
patterns. A typical help text which uses this feature is:
so that the above specifications will cause directories to be completed after `
--directory', though not after `-C'.
Note also that _arguments tries to find out automatically if the argument
for an option is optional. This can be specified explicitly by doubling the
colon before the message.
If the pattern ends in `(-)', this will be removed from the
pattern and the action will be used only directly after the `
=', not in the next word. This is the behaviour of a normal
specification defined with the form ` =-'.
By default, the command (with the option ` --help') is run after
resetting all the locale categories (except for LC_CTYPE) to
`C'. If the localized help output is known to work, the option `
-l' can be specified after the ` _arguments --' so that
the command is run in the current locale.
The ` _arguments --' can be followed by the option `-i
patterns' to give patterns for options which are not to be completed.
The patterns can be given as the name of an array parameter or as a literal
list in parentheses. For example,
will cause completion to ignore the options ` --enable-FEATURE'
and ` --disable-FEATURE' (this example is useful with GNU
configure).
The ` _arguments --' form can also be followed by the option
`-s pair' to describe option aliases. The pair consists
of a list of alternating patterns and corresponding replacements, enclosed in
parens and quoted so that it forms a single argument word in the
_arguments call.
For example, some configure-script help output describes options only as
` --enable-foo', but the script also accepts the negated form `
--disable-foo'. To allow completion of the second form:
Miscellaneous notes
Finally, note that _arguments generally expects to be the primary
function handling any completion for which it is used. It may have side
effects which change the treatment of any matches added by other functions
called after it. To combine _arguments with other functions, those
functions should be called either before _arguments, as an
action within a spec, or in handlers for
`->state' actions.
Here is a more general example of the use of _arguments:
This describes three options: ` -l', `-format', and `
-copy'. The first takes one argument described as ` left
border' for which no completion will be offered because of the empty
action. Its argument may come directly after the ` -l' or it may be
given as the next word on the line.
The ` -format' option takes one argument in the next word, described as `
paper size' for which only the strings ` letter' and `A4'
will be completed.
The ` -copy' option may appear more than once on the command line and
takes two arguments. The first is mandatory and will be completed as a
filename. The second is optional (because of the second colon before the
description ` resolution') and will be completed from the strings `
300' and ` 600'.
The last two descriptions say what should be completed as arguments. The first
describes the first argument as a ` postscript file' and makes files
ending in ` ps' or `eps' be completed. The last description
gives all other arguments the description ` page number' but does not
offer completions.
- -n
- With this option, _arguments sets the parameter NORMARG to the position of the first normal argument in the $words array, i.e. the position after the end of the options. If that argument has not been reached, NORMARG is set to -1. The caller should declare ` integer NORMARG' if the -n option is passed; otherwise the parameter is not used.
- -s
- Enable option stacking for single-letter options, whereby multiple single-letter options may be combined into a single word. For example, the two options ` -x' and `-y' may be combined into a single word ` -xy'. By default, every word corresponds to a single option name (` -xy' is a single option named `xy').
Options beginning with a single hyphen or plus sign are eligible for stacking;
words beginning with two hyphens are not.
Note that -s after -- has a different meaning, which is
documented in the segment entitled `Deriving spec forms from the help
output'.
- -w
- In combination with -s, allow option stacking even if one or more of the options take arguments. For example, if -x takes an argument, with no -s, `-xy' is considered as a single (unhandled) option; with -s, -xy is an option with the argument ` y'; with both -s and -w, -xy is the option -x and the option -y with arguments to -x (and to -y, if it takes arguments) still to come in subsequent words.
- -W
- This option takes -w a stage further: it is possible to complete single-letter options even after an argument that occurs in the same word. However, it depends on the action performed whether options will really be completed at this point. For more control, use a utility function like _guard as part of the action.
- -C
- Modify the curcontext parameter for an action of the form ` ->state'. This is discussed in detail below.
- -R
- Return status 300 instead of zero when a $state is to be handled, in the ` ->string' syntax.
- -S
- Do not complete options after a `--' appearing on the line, and ignore the ` --'. For example, with -S, in the line
foobar -x -- -y
- -A pat
- Do not complete options after the first non-option argument on the line. pat is a pattern matching all strings which are not to be taken as arguments. For example, to make _arguments stop completing options after the first normal argument, but ignoring all strings starting with a hyphen even if they are not described by one of the optspecs, the form is `-A "-*"'.
- -O name
- Pass the elements of the array name as arguments to functions called to execute actions. This is discussed in detail below.
- -M matchspec
- Use the match specification matchspec for completing option names and values. The default matchspec allows partial word completion after ` _' and ` -', such as completing `-f-b' to ` -foo-bar'. The default matchspec is:
r:|[_-]=* r:|=*
- -0
- When populating values of the `opt_args' associative array, don't backslash-escape colons and backslashes and use NUL rather than colon for joining multiple values. This option is described in more detail below, under the heading specs: actions.
- n:message:action
- n::message:action
- This describes the n'th normal argument. The message will be printed above the matches generated and the action indicates what can be completed in this position (see below). If there are two colons before the message the argument is optional. If the message contains only white space, nothing will be printed above the matches unless the action adds an explanation string itself.
- :message:action
- ::message:action
- Similar, but describes the next argument, whatever number that happens to be. If all arguments are specified in this form in the correct order the numbers are unnecessary.
- *:message:action
- *::message:action
- *:::message:action
- This describes how arguments (usually non-option arguments, those not beginning with - or +) are to be completed when neither of the first two forms was provided. Any number of arguments can be completed in this fashion.
With two colons before the message, the words special array and
the CURRENT special parameter are modified to refer only to the normal
arguments when the action is executed or evaluated. With three colons
before the message they are modified to refer only to the normal
arguments covered by this description.
- optspec
- optspec:...
- This describes an option. The colon indicates handling for one or more arguments to the option; if it is not present, the option is assumed to take no arguments.
The following forms are available for the initial optspec, whether or not
the option has arguments.
Any literal colon in an optname, message, or action must be
preceded by a backslash, ` \:'.
Each of the forms above may be preceded by a list in parentheses of option names
and argument numbers. If the given option is on the command line, the options
and arguments indicated in parentheses will not be offered. For example, `
(-two -three 1)-one: ...' completes the option `-one'; if
this appears on the command line, the options -two and -three
and the first ordinary argument will not be completed after it. `
(-foo): ...' specifies an ordinary argument completion;
-foo will not be completed if that argument is already present.
Other items may appear in the list of excluded options to indicate various other
items that should not be applied when the current specification is matched: a
single star ( *) for the rest arguments (i.e. a specification of the
form ` *:...'); a colon (:) for all normal (non-option-)
arguments; and a hyphen ( -) for all options. For example, if `
(*)' appears before an option and the option appears on the command
line, the list of remaining arguments (those shown in the above table
beginning with ` *:') will not be completed.
To aid in reuse of specifications, it is possible to precede any of the forms
above with ` !'; then the form will no longer be completed, although if
the option or argument appears on the command line they will be skipped as
normal. The main use for this is when the arguments are given by an array, and
_arguments is called repeatedly for more specific contexts: on the
first call ` _arguments $global_options' is used, and on subsequent
calls ` _arguments !$^global_options'.
specs: actions
- *optspec
- Here optspec is one of the remaining forms below. This indicates the following optspec may be repeated. Otherwise if the corresponding option is already present on the command line to the left of the cursor it will not be offered again.
- -optname
- +optname
- In the simplest form the optspec is just the option name beginning with a minus or a plus sign, such as ` -foo'. The first argument for the option (if any) must follow as a separate word directly after the option.
Either of ` -+optname' and `+-optname' can be used
to specify that -optname and +optname are both
valid.
In all the remaining forms, the leading ` -' may be replaced by or paired
with ` +' in this way.
- -optname-
- The first argument of the option must come directly after the option name in the same word. For example, `-foo-:...' specifies that the completed option and argument will look like ` -fooarg'.
- -optname+
- The first argument may appear immediately after optname in the same word, or may appear as a separate word after the option. For example, ` -foo+:...' specifies that the completed option and argument will look like either ` -fooarg' or ` -foo arg'.
- -optname=
- The argument may appear as the next word, or in same word as the option name provided that it is separated from it by an equals sign, for example ` -foo=arg' or `-foo arg'.
- -optname=-
- The argument to the option must appear after an equals sign in the same word, and may not be given in the next argument.
- optspec[explanation]
- An explanation string may be appended to any of the preceding forms of optspec by enclosing it in brackets, as in `-q[query operation]'.
The verbose style is used to decide whether the explanation strings are
displayed with the option in a completion listing.
If no bracketed explanation string is given but the auto-description
style is set and only one argument is described for this optspec, the
value of the style is displayed, with any appearance of the sequence `
%d' in it replaced by the message of the first optarg
that follows the optspec; see below.
It is possible for options with a literal ` +' or `=' to appear,
but that character must be quoted, for example ` -\+'.
Each optarg following an optspec must take one of the following
forms:
- :message:action
- ::message:action
- An argument to the option; message and action are treated as for ordinary arguments. In the first form, the argument is mandatory, and in the second form it is optional.
This group may be repeated for options which take multiple arguments. In other
words,
:message1:action1:message2:
action2 specifies that the option takes two arguments.
- :*pattern:message:action
- :*pattern::message:action
- :*pattern:::message:action
- This describes multiple arguments. Only the last optarg for an option taking multiple arguments may be given in this form. If the pattern is empty (i.e. :*:), all the remaining words on the line are to be completed as described by the action; otherwise, all the words up to and including a word matching the pattern are to be completed using the action.
Multiple colons are treated as for the ` *:...' forms for ordinary
arguments: when the message is preceded by two colons, the words
special array and the CURRENT special parameter are modified during the
execution or evaluation of the action to refer only to the words after
the option. When preceded by three colons, they are modified to refer only to
the words covered by this description.
- (single unquoted space)
- This is useful where an argument is required but it is not possible or desirable to generate matches for it. The message will be displayed but no completions listed. Note that even in this case the colon at the end of the message is needed; it may only be omitted when neither a message nor an action is given.
- (item1 item2 ...)
- One of a list of possible matches, for example:
:foo:(foo bar baz)
- ((item1\:desc1 ... ))
- Similar to the above, but with descriptions for each possible match. Note the backslash before the colon. For example,
:foo:((a\:bar b\:baz))
- ->string
- In this form, _arguments processes the arguments and options and then returns control to the calling function with parameters set to indicate the state of processing; the calling function then makes its own arrangements for generating completions. For example, functions that implement a state machine can use this type of action.
Where _arguments encounters action in the
`->string' format, it will strip all leading and trailing
whitespace from string and set the array state to the set of all
strings for which an action is to be performed. The elements of the
array state_descr are assigned the corresponding message field
from each optarg containing such an action.
By default and in common with all other well behaved completion functions,
_arguments returns status zero if it was able to add matches and non-zero
otherwise. However, if the -R option is given, _arguments will
instead return a status of 300 to indicate that $state is to be
handled.
In addition to $state and $state_descr, _arguments also
sets the global parameters ` context', `line' and
`opt_args' as described below, and does not reset any changes made to
the special parameters such as PREFIX and words. This gives the
calling function the choice of resetting these parameters or propagating
changes in them.
A function calling _arguments with at least one action containing a `
-> string' must therefore declare appropriate local
parameters:
to prevent _arguments from altering the global environment.
local context state state_descr line typeset -A opt_args
- {eval-string}
- A string in braces is evaluated as shell code to generate matches. If the eval-string itself does not begin with an opening parenthesis or brace it is split into separate words before execution.
- = action
- If the action starts with `= ' (an equals sign followed by a space), _arguments will insert the contents of the argument field of the current context as the new first element in the words special array and increment the value of the CURRENT special parameter. This has the effect of inserting a dummy word onto the completion command line while not changing the point at which completion is taking place.
This is most useful with one of the specifiers that restrict the words on the
command line on which the action is to operate (the two- and
three-colon forms above). One particular use is when an action itself
causes _arguments on a restricted range; it is necessary to use this
trick to insert an appropriate command name into the range for the second call
to _arguments to be able to parse the line.
- word...
- word...
- This covers all forms other than those above. If the action starts with a space, the remaining list of words will be invoked unchanged.
Otherwise it will be invoked with some extra strings placed after the first
word; these are to be passed down as options to the compadd builtin.
They ensure that the state specified by _arguments, in particular the
descriptions of options and arguments, is correctly passed to the completion
command. These additional arguments are taken from the array parameter `
expl'; this will be set up before executing the action and hence
may be referred to inside it, typically in an expansion of the form `
$expl[@]' which preserves empty elements of the array.
During the performance of the action the array ` line' will be set to the
normal arguments from the command line, i.e. the words from the command line
after the command name excluding all options and their arguments. Options are
stored in the associative array ` opt_args' with option names as keys
and their arguments as the values. By default, all colons and backslashes in
the value are escaped with backslashes, and if an option has multiple
arguments (for example, when using an optspec of the form
`*optspec'), they are joined with (unescaped) colons. However,
if the -0 option was passed, no backslash escaping is performed, and
multiple values are joined with NUL bytes. For example, after ` zsh -o
foo:foo -o bar:bar -o <TAB>', the contents of ` opt_args'
would be
typeset -A opt_args=( [-o]='foo\:foo:bar\:bar:' )
typeset -A opt_args=( [-o]=$'foo:foo\x00bar:bar\x00' )
local curcontext="$curcontext"
_arguments \ '(group2--x)-a' \ + group1 \ -m \ '(group2)-n' \ + group2 \ -x -y
_arguments \ -a -b \ + '(operation)' \ {-c,--compress}'[compress]' \ {-d,--decompress}'[decompress]' \ {-l,--list}'[list]'
_arguments \ -a \ - set1 \ -c \ - set2 \ -d \ ':arg:(x2 y2)'
_arguments -- '*\*:toggle:(yes no)' \ '*=FILE*:file:_files' \ '*=DIR*:directory:_files -/' \ '*=PATH*:directory:_files -/'
-C, --directory=DIR change to directory DIR
_arguments -- -i \ "(--(en|dis)able-FEATURE*)"
_arguments -- -s "((#s)--enable- --disable-)"
_arguments '-l+:left border:' \ '-format:paper size:(letter A4)' \ '*-copy:output file:_files::resolution:(300 600)' \ ':postscript file:_files -g \*.\(ps\|eps\)' \ '*:page number:'
- _cache_invalid cache_identifier
- This function returns status zero if the completions cache corresponding to the given cache identifier needs rebuilding. It determines this by looking up the cache-policy style for the current context. This should provide a function name which is run with the full path to the relevant cache file as the only argument.
Example:
_example_caching_policy () { # rebuild if cache is more than a week old local -a oldp oldp=( "$1"(Nm+7) ) (( $#oldp )) }
- _call_function return name [ arg ... ]
- If a function name exists, it is called with the arguments args. The return argument gives the name of a parameter in which the return status from the function name should be stored; if return is empty or a single hyphen it is ignored.
The return status of _call_function itself is zero if the function
name exists and was called and non-zero otherwise.
- _call_program [ -l ] [ -p ] tag string ...
- This function provides a mechanism for the user to override the use of an external command. It looks up the command style with the supplied tag. If the style is set, its value is used as the command to execute. The strings from the call to _call_program, or from the style if set, are concatenated with spaces between them and the resulting string is evaluated. The return status is the return status of the command called.
By default, the command is run in an environment where all the locale categories
(except for LC_CTYPE) are reset to `C' by calling the utility
function _comp_locale (see below). If the option `-l' is given,
the command is run with the current locale.
If the option ` -p' is supplied it indicates that the command output is
influenced by the permissions it is run with. If the gain-privileges
style is set to true, _call_program will make use of commands such as
sudo, if present on the command-line, to match the permissions to
whatever the final command is likely to run under. When looking up the
gain-privileges and command styles, the command component of the
zstyle context will end with a slash (` /') followed by the command
that would be used to gain privileges.
- _combination [ -s pattern ] tag style spec ... field opts ...
- This function is used to complete combinations of values, for example pairs of hostnames and usernames. The style argument gives the style which defines the pairs; it is looked up in a context with the tag specified.
The style name consists of field names separated by hyphens, for example `
users-hosts-ports'. For each field for a value is already known, a
spec of the form ` field=pattern' is given. For
example, if the command line so far specifies a user ` pws', the
argument ` users=pws' should appear.
The next argument with no equals sign is taken as the name of the field for
which completions should be generated (presumably not one of the fields
for which the value is known).
The matches generated will be taken from the value of the style. These should
contain the possible values for the combinations in the appropriate order
(users, hosts, ports in the example above). The values for the different
fields are separated by colons. This can be altered with the option -s
to _combination which specifies a pattern. Typically this is a
character class, as for example ` -s "[:@]"' in the case of
the users-hosts style. Each ` field=pattern'
specification restricts the completions which apply to elements of the style
with appropriately matching fields.
If no style with the given name is defined for the given tag, or if none of the
strings in style's value match, but a function name of the required field
preceded by an underscore is defined, that function will be called to generate
the matches. For example, if there is no ` users-hosts-ports' or no
matching hostname when a host is required, the function ` _hosts' will
automatically be called.
If the same name is used for more than one field, in both the `
field= pattern' and the argument that gives the name of
the field to be completed, the number of the field (starting with one) may be
given after the fieldname, separated from it by a colon.
All arguments after the required field name are passed to compadd when
generating matches from the style value, or to the functions for the fields if
they are called.
- _command_names [ -e | - ]
- This function completes words that are valid at command position: names of aliases, builtins, hashed commands, functions, and so on. With the -e flag, only hashed commands are completed. The - flag is ignored.
- _comp_locale
- This function resets all the locale categories other than LC_CTYPE to ` C' so that the output from external commands can be easily analyzed by the completion system. LC_CTYPE retains the current value (taking LC_ALL and LANG into account), ensuring that non-ASCII characters in file names are still handled properly.
This function should normally be run only in a subshell, because the new locale
is exported to the environment. Typical usage would be ` $(_comp_locale;
command ...)'.
- _completers [ -p ]
- This function completes names of completers.
- -p
- Include the leading underscore (`_') in the matches.
- _default
- This function corresponds to the -default- special context which is applied where no completion is defined. It is useful to call it under certain error conditions such as completion after an unrecognised subcommand. This applies the concept of graceful degradation to the completion system, allowing it to fallback on basic completion of commonly useful things like filenames.
- _describe [-12JVx] [ -oO | -t tag ] descr name1 [ name2 ] [ opt ... ]
- [ -- name1 [ name2 ] [ opt ... ] ... ]
- This function associates completions with descriptions. Multiple groups separated by -- can be supplied, potentially with different completion options opts.
The descr is taken as a string to display above the matches if the
format style for the descriptions tag is set. This is followed
by one or two names of arrays followed by options to pass to compadd.
The array name1 contains the possible completions with their
descriptions in the form ` completion:description'. Any
literal colons in completion must be quoted with a backslash. If a
name2 is given, it should have the same number of elements as
name1; in this case the corresponding elements are added as possible
completions instead of the completion strings from name1. The
completion list will retain the descriptions from name1. Finally, a set
of completion options can appear.
If the option ` -o' appears before the first argument, the matches added
will be treated as names of command options (N.B. not shell options),
typically following a ` -', `--' or `+' on the
command line. In this case _describe uses the prefix-hidden,
prefix-needed and verbose styles to find out if the strings
should be added as completions and if the descriptions should be shown.
Without the ` -o' option, only the verbose style is used to
decide how descriptions are shown. If ` -O' is used instead of
`-o', command options are completed as above but _describe will
not handle the prefix-needed style.
With the -t option a tag can be specified. The default is `
values' or, if the -o option is given, `options'.
The options -1, -2, -J, -V, -x are passed to
_next_label.
If selected by the list-grouped style, strings with the same description
will appear together in the list.
_describe uses the _all_labels function to generate the matches,
so it does not need to appear inside a loop over tag labels.
- _description [ -x ] [ -12VJ ] tag name descr [ spec ... ]
- This function is not to be confused with the previous one; it is used as a helper function for creating options to compadd. It is buried inside many of the higher level completion functions and so often does not need to be called directly.
The styles listed below are tested in the current context using the given
tag. The resulting options for compadd are put into the array
named name (this is traditionally `expl', but this convention is
not enforced). The description for the corresponding set of matches is passed
to the function in descr.
The styles tested are: format, hidden, matcher,
ignore-line, ignored-patterns, group-name and
sort. The format style is first tested for the given tag
and then for the descriptions tag if no value was found, while the
remainder are only tested for the tag given as the first argument. The
function also calls _setup which tests some more styles.
The string returned by the format style (if any) will be modified so that
the sequence ` %d' is replaced by the descr given as the third
argument without any leading or trailing white space. If, after removing the
white space, the descr is the empty string, the format style will not
be used and the options put into the name array will not contain an
explanation string to be displayed above the matches.
If _description is called with more than three arguments, the additional
specs should be of the form `char:str'. These
supply escape sequence replacements for the format style: every
appearance of ` %char' will be replaced by string. If no
additional specs are given but the description in descr conforms
to a common form then further escape sequences are set for elements of that
description. These elements correspond to a default value (` %o'), the
units (` %m') range of acceptable values (` %r') and the
remaining initial part of the description (` %h'). The form the
description takes consists of specifying the units and range in parentheses
and the default value in square brackets, for example:
It is possible to use zformat conditional expressions when styling these
elements. So, for example, to add ` default:' as a tag but only when
there is a default value to show, the format style might include `
%(o.default: %o.)'.
If the -x option is given, the description will be passed to
compadd using the -x option instead of the default -X.
This means that the description will be displayed even if there are no
corresponding matches.
The options placed in the array name take account of the
group-name style, so matches are placed in a separate group where
necessary. The group normally has its elements sorted (by passing the option
-J to compadd), but if an option starting with `-V', `
-J', `-1', or `-2' is passed to _description, that
option will be included in the array. Hence it is possible for the completion
group to be unsorted by giving the option ` -V', ` -1V', or
`-2V'.
In most cases, the function will be used like this:
Note the use of the parameter expl, the hyphen, and the list of matches.
Almost all calls to compadd within the completion system use a similar
format; this ensures that user-specified styles are correctly passed down to
the builtins which implement the internals of completion.
_description times expl 'timeout (seconds) (0-60) [20]'
local expl _description files expl file compadd "$expl[@]" - "$files[@]"
- _dir_list [ -s sep ] [ -S ]
- Complete a list of directory names separated by colons (the same format as $PATH).
- -s sep
- Use sep as separator between items. sep defaults to a colon (` :').
- -S
- Add sep instead of slash (`/') as an autoremoveable suffix.
- _dispatch context string ...
- This sets the current context to context and looks for completion functions to handle this context by hunting through the list of command names or special contexts (as described above for compdef) given as strings. The first completion function to be defined for one of the contexts in the list is used to generate matches. Typically, the last string is -default- to cause the function for default completion to be used as a fallback.
The function sets the parameter $service to the string being
tried, and sets the context/command field (the fourth) of the
$curcontext parameter to the context given as the first
argument.
- _email_addresses [ -c ] [ -n plugin ]
- Complete email addresses. Addresses are provided by plugins.
- -c
- Complete bare [email protected] addresses, without a name part or a comment. Without this option, RFC822 ` Firstname Lastname <address>' strings are completed.
- -n plugin
- Complete aliases from plugin.
- _files
- The function _files is a wrapper around _path_files. It supports all of the same functionality, with some enhancements -- notably, it respects the list-dirs-first style, and it allows users to override the behaviour of the -g and -/ options with the file-patterns style. _files should therefore be preferred over _path_files in most cases.
This function accepts the full set of options allowed by _path_files,
described below.
- _gnu_generic
- This function is a simple wrapper around the _arguments function described above. It can be used to determine automatically the long options understood by commands that produce a list when passed the option ` --help'. It is intended to be used as a top-level completion function in its own right. For example, to enable option completion for the commands foo and bar, use
compdef _gnu_generic foo bar
- _guard [ options ] pattern descr
- This function displays descr if pattern matches the string to be completed. It is intended to be used in the action for the specifications passed to _arguments and similar functions.
The return status is zero if the message was displayed and the word to complete
is not empty, and non-zero otherwise.
The pattern may be preceded by any of the options understood by
compadd that are passed down from _description, namely
-M, -J, -V, -1, -2, -n, -F
and -X. All of these options will be ignored. This fits in conveniently
with the argument-passing conventions of actions for _arguments.
As an example, consider a command taking the options -n and -none,
where -n must be followed by a numeric value in the same word. By
using:
_arguments can be made to both display the message `numeric
value' and complete options after ` -n<TAB>'. If the
`-n' is already followed by one or more digits (the pattern passed to
_guard) only the message will be displayed; if the `-n' is
followed by another character, only options are completed.
_arguments '-n-: :_guard "[0-9]#" "numeric value"' '-none'
- _message [ -r12 ] [ -VJ group ] descr
- _message -e [ tag ] descr
- The descr is used in the same way as the third argument to the _description function, except that the resulting string will always be shown whether or not matches were generated. This is useful for displaying a help message in places where no completions can be generated.
The format style is examined with the messages tag to find a
message; the usual tag, descriptions, is used only if the style is not
set with the former.
If the -r option is given, no style is used; the descr is taken
literally as the string to display. This is most useful when the descr
comes from a pre-processed argument list which already contains an expanded
description. Note that this option does not disable the ` %'-sequence
parsing done by compadd.
The -12VJ options and the group are passed to compadd and
hence determine the group the message string is added to.
The second -e form gives a description for completions with the tag
tag to be shown even if there are no matches for that tag. This form is
called by _arguments in the event that there is no action for an option
specification. The tag can be omitted and if so the tag is taken from the
parameter $curtag; this is maintained by the completion system and so
is usually correct. Note that if there are no matches at the time this
function is called, compstate[insert] is cleared, so additional matches
generated later are not inserted on the command line.
- _multi_parts [ -i ] sep array
- The argument sep is a separator character. The array may be either the name of an array parameter or a literal array in the form ` (foo bar)', a parenthesised list of words separated by whitespace. The possible completions are the strings from the array. However, each chunk delimited by sep will be completed separately. For example, the _tar function uses ` _multi_parts / patharray' to complete partial file paths from the given array of complete file paths.
The -i option causes _multi_parts to insert a unique match even if
that requires multiple separators to be inserted. This is not usually the
expected behaviour with filenames, but certain other types of completion, for
example those with a fixed set of possibilities, may be more suited to this
form.
Like other utility functions, this function accepts the ` -V', `
-J', ` -1', `-2', `-n', `-f', `-X',
` -M', ` -P', `-S', `-r', `-R', and
`-q' options and passes them to the compadd builtin.
- _next_label [ -x ] [ -12VJ ] tag name descr [ option ... ]
- This function is used to implement the loop over different tag labels for a particular tag as described above for the tag-order style. On each call it checks to see if there are any more tag labels; if there is it returns status zero, otherwise non-zero. As this function requires a current tag to be set, it must always follow a call to _tags or _requested.
The -x12VJ options and the first three arguments are passed to the
_description function. Where appropriate the tag will be
replaced by a tag label in this call. Any description given in the
tag-order style is preferred to the descr passed to
_next_label.
The options given after the descr are set in the parameter given
by name, and hence are to be passed to compadd or whatever
function is called to add the matches.
Here is a typical use of this function for the tag foo. The call to
_requested determines if tag foo is required at all; the loop
over _next_label handles any labels defined for the tag in the
tag-order style.
local expl ret=1 ... if _requested foo; then ... while _next_label foo expl '...'; do compadd "$expl[@]" ... && ret=0 done ... fi return ret
- _normal [ -P | -p precommand ]
- This is the standard function called to handle completion outside any special -context-. It is called both to complete the command word and also the arguments for a command. In the second case, _normal looks for a special completion for that command, and if there is none it uses the completion for the -default- context.
A second use is to reexamine the command line specified by the $words
array and the $CURRENT parameter after those have been modified. For
example, the function _precommand, which completes after precommand
specifiers such as nohup, removes the first word from the words
array, decrements the CURRENT parameter, then calls ` _normal -p
$service'. The effect is that ` nohup cmd ...' is treated in
the same way as ` cmd ...'.
- -P
- Reset the list of precommands. This option should be used if completing a command line which allows internal commands (e.g. builtins and functions) regardless of prior precommands (e.g. ` zsh -c').
- -p precommand
- Append precommand to the list of precommands. This option should be used in nearly all cases in which -P is not applicable.
- _numbers [ option ... ] [ description ] [ suffix ... ]
- This can be used where a number is followed by a suffix to indicate the units. The unit suffixes are completed and can also be included in the description used when completion is invoked for the preceding number.
In addition to common compadd options, _numbers accepts the
following options:
It is typically helpful for units to be presented in order of magnitude when
completed. To facilitate this, the order in which they are given is preserved.
When the format style is looked up with the descriptions tag or
the tag specified with -t, the list of suffixes is available as a `
%x' escape sequence. This is in addition to the usual sequences
documented under the format style. The form this list takes can also be
configured. To this end, the format style is first looked up with the
tag unit-suffixes. The retrieved format is applied to each suffix in
turn and the results are then concatenated to form the completed list. For the
unit-suffixes format, `%x' expands to the individual suffix and
` %X' to its description. %d' indicates a default suffix and can
be used in a condition. The index and reverse index are set in ` %i'
and ` %r' respectively and are useful for text included only with the
first and last suffixes in the list. So for example, the following joins the
suffixes together as a comma-separated list:
- -t tag
- Specify a tag to use instead of the default of numbers.
- -u units
- Indicate the default units for the number, e.g. bytes.
- -l min
- Specify the lowest possible value for the number.
- -m max
- Specify the highest possible value for the number.
- -d default
- Specify the default value.
- -N
- Allow negative numbers. This is implied if the range includes a negative.
- -f
- Allow decimal numbers.
_numbers -u seconds age :s:seconds m:minutes h:hours d:days
zstyle ':completion:*:unit-suffixes' format '%x%(r::,)'
- _options
- This can be used to complete the names of shell options. It provides a matcher specification that ignores a leading ` no', ignores underscores and allows upper-case letters to match their lower-case counterparts (for example, ` glob', ` noglob', `NO_GLOB' are all completed). Any arguments are propagated to the compadd builtin.
- _options_set and _options_unset
- These functions complete only set or unset options, with the same matching specification used in the _options function.
Note that you need to uncomment a few lines in the _main_complete
function for these functions to work properly. The lines in question are used
to store the option settings in effect before the completion widget locally
sets the options it needs. Hence these functions are not generally used by the
completion system.
- _parameters
- This is used to complete the names of shell parameters.
The option ` -g pattern' limits the completion to parameters whose
type matches the pattern. The type of a parameter is that shown by `
print ${(t)param}', hence judicious use of ` *' in
pattern is probably necessary.
All other arguments are passed to the compadd builtin.
- _path_files
- This function is used throughout the completion system to complete filenames. It allows completion of partial paths. For example, the string ` /u/i/s/sig' may be completed to ` /usr/include/sys/signal.h'.
The options accepted by both _path_files and _files are:
- -f
- Complete all filenames. This is the default.
- -/
- Specifies that only directories should be completed.
- -g pattern
- Specifies that only files matching the pattern should be completed.
- -W paths
- Specifies path prefixes that are to be prepended to the string from the command line to generate the filenames but that should not be inserted as completions nor shown in completion listings. Here, paths may be the name of an array parameter, a literal list of paths enclosed in parentheses or an absolute pathname.
- -F ignored-files
- This behaves as for the corresponding option to the compadd builtin. It gives direct control over which filenames should be ignored. If the option is not present, the ignored-patterns style is used.
- _pick_variant [ -b builtin-label ] [ -c command ] [ -r name ]
- label=pattern ... label [ arg ... ]
- This function is used to resolve situations where a single command name requires more than one type of handling, either because it has more than one variant or because there is a name clash between two different commands.
The command to run is taken from the first element of the array words
unless this is overridden by the option -c. This command is run and its
output is compared with a series of patterns. Arguments to be passed to the
command can be specified at the end after all the other arguments. The
patterns to try in order are given by the arguments
label=pattern; if the output of ` command
arg ...' contains pattern, then label is selected as the
label for the command variant. If none of the patterns match, the final
command label is selected and status 1 is returned.
If the ` -b builtin-label' is given, the command is tested to see
if it is provided as a shell builtin, possibly autoloaded; if so, the label
builtin-label is selected as the label for the variant.
If the ` -r name' is given, the label picked is stored in
the parameter named name.
The results are also cached in the _cmd_variant associative array indexed
by the name of the command run.
- _regex_arguments name spec ...
- This function generates a completion function name which matches the specifications specs, a set of regular expressions as described below. After running _regex_arguments, the function name should be called as a normal completion function. The pattern to be matched is given by the contents of the words array up to the current cursor position joined together with null characters; no quotation is applied.
The arguments are grouped as sets of alternatives separated by ` |',
which are tried one after the other until one matches. Each alternative
consists of a one or more specifications which are tried left to right, with
each pattern matched being stripped in turn from the command line being
tested, until all of the group succeeds or until one fails; in the latter
case, the next alternative is tried. This structure can be repeated to
arbitrary depth by using parentheses; matching proceeds from inside to
outside.
A special procedure is applied if no test succeeds but the remaining command
line string contains no null character (implying the remaining word is the one
for which completions are to be generated). The completion target is
restricted to the remaining word and any actions for the corresponding
patterns are executed. In this case, nothing is stripped from the command line
string. The order of evaluation of the actions can be determined by the
tag-order style; the various formats supported by _alternative
can be used in action. The descr is used for setting up the
array parameter expl.
Specification arguments take one of following forms, in which metacharacters
such as ` (', `)', `#' and `|' should be quoted.
This generates a function _tst that completes aaa as its only
argument. The tag and description for the action have been
omitted for brevity (this works but is not recommended in normal use). The
first component matches the command word, which is arbitrary; the second
matches any argument. As the argument is also arbitrary, any following
component would not depend on aaa being present.
This is a more typical use; it is similar, but any following patterns would only
match if aaa was present as the first argument.
In this example, an indefinite number of command arguments may be completed. Odd
arguments are completed as aaa and even arguments as bbb.
Completion fails unless the set of aaa and bbb arguments before
the current one is matched correctly.
This is similar, but either aaa or bbb may be completed for any
argument. In this case _regex_words could be used to generate a
suitable expression for the arguments.
- /pattern/ [%lookahead%] [ -guard] [:tag :descr:action]
- This is a single primitive component. The function tests whether the combined pattern ` (#b)((#B)pattern)lookahead *' matches the command line string. If so, ` guard' is evaluated and its return status is examined to determine if the test has succeeded. The pattern string ` []' is guaranteed never to match. The lookahead is not stripped from the command line before the next pattern is examined.
The argument starting with : is used in the same manner as an argument to
_alternative.
A component is used as follows: pattern is tested to see if the component
already exists on the command line. If it does, any following specifications
are examined to find something to complete. If a component is reached but no
such pattern exists yet on the command line, the string containing the
action is used to generate matches to insert at that point.
- /pattern/+ [%lookahead%] [-guard] [:tag :descr:action]
- This is similar to `/pattern/ ...' but the left part of the command line string (i.e. the part already matched by previous patterns) is also considered part of the completion target.
- /pattern/- [%lookahead%] [-guard] [:tag :descr:action]
- This is similar to `/pattern/ ...' but the actions of the current and previously matched patterns are ignored even if the following ` pattern' matches the empty string.
- ( spec )
- Parentheses may be used to groups specs; note each parenthesis is a single argument to _regex_arguments.
- spec #
- This allows any number of repetitions of spec.
- spec spec
- The two specs are to be matched one after the other as described above.
- spec | spec
- Either of the two specs can be matched.
_regex_arguments _tst /$'[^\0]#\0'/ \ /$'[^\0]#\0'/ :'compadd aaa'
_regex_arguments _tst /$'[^\0]#\0'/ \ /$'aaa\0'/ :'compadd aaa'
_regex_arguments _tst /$'[^\0]#\0'/ \( \ /$'aaa\0'/ :'compadd aaa' \ /$'bbb\0'/ :'compadd bbb' \) \#
_regex_arguments _tst /$'[^\0]#\0'/ \ \( /$'aaa\0'/ :'compadd aaa' \| \ /$'bbb\0'/ :'compadd bbb' \) \#
- _regex_words tag description spec ...
- This function can be used to generate arguments for the _regex_arguments command which may be inserted at any point where a set of rules is expected. The tag and description give a standard tag and description pertaining to the current context. Each spec contains two or three arguments separated by a colon: note that there is no leading colon in this case.
Each spec gives one of a set of words that may be completed at this
point, together with arguments. It is thus roughly equivalent to the
_arguments function when used in normal (non-regex) completion.
The part of the spec before the first colon is the word to be completed.
This may contain a *; the entire word, before and after the * is
completed, but only the text before the * is required for the context
to be matched, so that further arguments may be completed after the
abbreviated form.
The second part of spec is a description for the word being completed.
The optional third part of the spec describes how words following the one
being completed are themselves to be completed. It will be evaluated in order
to avoid problems with quoting. This means that typically it contains a
reference to an array containing previously generated regex arguments.
The option -t term specifies a terminator for the word instead of
the usual space. This is handled as an auto-removable suffix in the manner of
the option -s sep to _values.
The result of the processing by _regex_words is placed in the array
reply, which should be made local to the calling function. If the set
of words and arguments may be matched repeatedly, a # should be
appended to the generated array at that point.
For example:
This shows a completion function for a command mydb which takes two
command arguments, add and show. show takes no arguments,
while the arguments for add have already been prepared in an array
mydb_add_cmds, quite possibly by a previous call to
_regex_words.
local -a reply _regex_words mydb-commands 'mydb commands' \ 'add:add an entry to mydb:$mydb_add_cmds' \ 'show:show entries in mydb' _regex_arguments _mydb "$reply[@]" _mydb "$@"
- _requested [ -x ] [ -12VJ ] tag [ name descr [ command [ arg ... ] ]
- This function is called to decide whether a tag already registered by a call to _tags (see below) has been requested by the user and hence completion should be performed for it. It returns status zero if the tag is requested and non-zero otherwise. The function is typically used as part of a loop over different tags as follows:
_tags foo bar baz while _tags; do if _requested foo; then ... # perform completion for foo fi ... # test the tags bar and baz in the same way ... # exit loop if matches were generated done
local expl ret=1 _tags foo bar baz while _tags; do _requested foo expl 'description' \ compadd foobar foobaz && ret=0 ... (( ret )) || break done
- _retrieve_cache cache_identifier
- This function retrieves completion information from the file given by cache_identifier, stored in a directory specified by the cache-path style which defaults to ~/.zcompcache. The return status is zero if retrieval was successful. It will only attempt retrieval if the use-cache style is set, so you can call this function without worrying about whether the user wanted to use the caching layer.
See _store_cache below for more details.
- _sep_parts
- This function is passed alternating arrays and separators as arguments. The arrays specify completions for parts of strings to be separated by the separators. The arrays may be the names of array parameters or a quoted list of words in parentheses. For example, with the array ` hosts=(ftp news)' the call `_sep_parts '(foo bar)' @ hosts' will complete the string ` f' to `foo' and the string ` b@n' to ` bar@news'.
This function accepts the compadd options `-V', `-J', `
-1', ` -2', `-n', `-X', `-M', `-P',
` -S', ` -r', `-R', and `-q' and passes them on to
the compadd builtin used to add the matches.
- _sequence [ -s sep ] [ -n max ] [ -d ] function [ - ] ...
- This function is a wrapper to other functions for completing items in a separated list. The same function is used to complete each item in the list. The separator is specified with the -s option. If -s is omitted it will use ` ,'. Duplicate values are not matched unless -d is specified. If there is a fixed or maximum number of items in the list, this can be specified with the -n option.
Common compadd options are passed on to the function. It is possible to
use compadd directly with _sequence, though _values may
be more appropriate in this situation.
- _setup tag [ group ]
- This function sets up the special parameters used by the completion system appropriately for the tag given as the first argument. It uses the styles list-colors, list-packed, list-rows-first, last-prompt, accept-exact, menu and force-list.
The optional group supplies the name of the group in which the matches
will be placed. If it is not given, the tag is used as the group name.
This function is called automatically from _description and hence is not
normally called explicitly.
- _store_cache cache_identifier param ...
- This function, together with _retrieve_cache and _cache_invalid, implements a caching layer which can be used in any completion function. Data obtained by costly operations are stored in parameters; this function then dumps the values of those parameters to a file. The data can then be retrieved quickly from that file via _retrieve_cache, even in different instances of the shell.
The cache_identifier specifies the file which the data should be dumped
to. The file is stored in a directory specified by the cache-path style
which defaults to ~/.zcompcache. The remaining params arguments
are the parameters to dump to the file.
The return status is zero if storage was successful. The function will only
attempt storage if the use-cache style is set, so you can call this
function without worrying about whether the user wanted to use the caching
layer.
The completion function may avoid calling _retrieve_cache when it already
has the completion data available as parameters. However, in that case it
should call _cache_invalid to check whether the data in the parameters
and in the cache are still valid.
See the _perl_modules completion function for a simple example of the usage of
the caching layer.
- _tags [ [ -C name ] tag ... ]
- If called with arguments, these are taken to be the names of tags valid for completions in the current context. These tags are stored internally and sorted by using the tag-order style.
Next, _tags is called repeatedly without arguments from the same
completion function. This successively selects the first, second, etc. set of
tags requested by the user. The return status is zero if at least one of the
tags is requested and non-zero otherwise. To test if a particular tag is to be
tried, the _requested function should be called (see above).
If ` -C name' is given, name is temporarily stored in the
argument field (the fifth) of the context in the curcontext
parameter during the call to _tags; the field is restored on exit. This
allows _tags to use a more specific context without having to change
and reset the curcontext parameter (which has the same effect).
- _tilde_files
- Like _files, but resolve leading tildes according to the rules of filename expansion, so the suggested completions don't start with a ` ~' even if the filename on the command-line does.
- _values [ -O name ] [ -s sep ] [ -S sep ] [ -wC ] desc spec ...
- This is used to complete arbitrary keywords (values) and their arguments, or lists of such combinations.
If the first argument is the option ` -O name', it will be used in
the same way as by the _arguments function. In other words, the
elements of the name array will be passed to compadd when
executing an action.
If the first argument (or the first argument after ` -O name') is
` -s', the next argument is used as the character that separates
multiple values. This character is automatically added after each value in an
auto-removable fashion (see below); all values completed by ` _values
-s' appear in the same word on the command line, unlike completion using
_arguments. If this option is not present, only a single value will be
completed per word.
Normally, _values will only use the current word to determine which
values are already present on the command line and hence are not to be
completed again. If the -w option is given, other arguments are
examined as well.
The first non-option argument, desc, is used as a string to print as a
description before listing the values.
All other arguments describe the possible values and their arguments in the same
format used for the description of options by the _arguments function
(see above). The only differences are that no minus or plus sign is required
at the beginning, values can have only one argument, and the forms of action
beginning with an equal sign are not supported.
The character separating a value from its argument can be set using the option
-S (like -s, followed by the character to use as the separator
in the next argument). By default the equals sign will be used as the
separator between values and arguments.
Example:
This describes three possible values: ` foo', `one', and `
two'. The first is described as ` bar', takes no argument and
may appear more than once. The second is described as ` number', may
appear more than once, and takes one mandatory argument described as `
first count'; no action is specified, so it will not be completed. The
` (two)' at the beginning says that if the value `one' is on the
line, the value ` two' will no longer be considered a possible
completion. Finally, the last value (` two') is described as `
another number' and takes an optional argument described as ` second
count' for which the completions (to appear after an ` =') are
`1', ` 2', and `3'. The _values function will
complete lists of these values separated by commas.
Like _arguments, this function temporarily adds another context name
component to the arguments element (the fifth) of the current context while
executing the action. Here this name is just the name of the value for
which the argument is completed.
The style verbose is used to decide if the descriptions for the values
(but not those for the arguments) should be printed.
The associative array val_args is used to report values and their
arguments; this works similarly to the opt_args associative array used
by _arguments. Hence the function calling _values should declare
the local parameters state, state_descr, line,
context and val_args:
when using an action of the form ` ->string'. With this
function the context parameter will be set to the name of the value
whose argument is to be completed. Note that for _values, the
state and state_descr are scalars rather than arrays. Only a
single matching state is returned.
Note also that _values normally adds the character used as the separator
between values as an auto-removable suffix (similar to a ` /' after a
directory). However, this is not possible for a ` ->string'
action as the matches for the argument are generated by the calling function.
To get the usual behaviour, the calling function can add the separator
x as a suffix by passing the options ` -qS x' either
directly or indirectly to compadd.
The option -C is treated in the same way as it is by _arguments.
In that case the parameter curcontext should be made local instead of
context (as described above).
_values -s , 'description' \ '*foo[bar]' \ '(two)*one[number]:first count:' \ 'two[another number]::second count:(1 2 3)'
local context state state_descr line typeset -A val_args
- _wanted [ -x ] [ -C name ] [ -12VJ ] tag name descr command [ arg ...]
- In many contexts, completion can only generate one particular set of matches, usually corresponding to a single tag. However, it is still necessary to decide whether the user requires matches of this type. This function is useful in such a case.
The arguments to _wanted are the same as those to _requested, i.e.
arguments to be passed to _description. However, in this case the
command is not optional; all the processing of tags, including the loop
over both tags and tag labels and the generation of matches, is carried out
automatically by _wanted.
Hence to offer only one tag and immediately add the corresponding matches with
the given description:
See also the use of _wanted in the example function in the subsection
`Dynamic named directories' in zshexpn(1).
Note that, as for _requested, the command must be able to accept
options to be passed down to compadd.
Like _tags this function supports the -C option to give a
different name for the argument context field. The -x option has the
same meaning as for _description.
local expl _wanted tag expl 'description' \ compadd -- match1 match2...
- _widgets [ -g pattern ]
- This function completes names of zle widgets (see the section `Widgets' in zshzle(1)). The pattern, if present, is matched against values of the $widgets special parameter, documented in the section `The zsh/zleparameter Module' in zshmodules(1).
COMPLETION SYSTEM VARIABLES
There are some standard variables, initialised by the _main_complete function and then used from other functions. The standard variables are:- _comp_caller_options
- The completion system uses setopt to set a number of options. This allows functions to be written without concern for compatibility with every possible combination of user options. However, sometimes completion needs to know what the user's option preferences are. These are saved in the _comp_caller_options associative array. Option names, spelled in lowercase without underscores, are mapped to one or other of the strings ` on' and `off'.
- _comp_priv_prefix
- Completion functions such as _sudo can set the _comp_priv_prefix array to a command prefix that may then be used by _call_program to match the privileges when calling programs to generate matches.
COMPLETION DIRECTORIES
In the source distribution, the files are contained in various subdirectories of the Completion directory. They may have been installed in the same structure, or into one single function directory. The following is a description of the files found in the original directory structure. If you wish to alter an installed file, you will need to copy it to some directory which appears earlier in your fpath than the standard directory where it appears.- Base
- The core functions and special completion widgets automatically bound to keys. You will certainly need most of these, though will probably not need to alter them. Many of these are documented above.
- Zsh
- Functions for completing arguments of shell builtin commands and utility functions for this. Some of these are also used by functions from the Unix directory.
- Unix
- Functions for completing arguments of external commands and suites of commands. They may need modifying for your system, although in many cases some attempt is made to decide which version of a command is present. For example, completion for the mount command tries to determine the system it is running on, while completion for many other utilities try to decide whether the GNU version of the command is in use, and hence whether the --help option is supported.
- X, AIX, BSD, ...
- Completion and utility function for commands available only on some systems. These are not arranged hierarchically, so, for example, both the Linux and Debian directories, as well as the X directory, may be useful on your system.
NAME
zshcompctl - zsh programmable completionDESCRIPTION
This version of zsh has two ways of performing completion of words on the command line. New users of the shell may prefer to use the newer and more powerful system based on shell functions; this is described in zshcompsys(1), and the basic shell mechanisms which support it are described in zshcompwid(1). This manual entry describes the older compctl command.- compctl [ -CDT ] options [ command ... ]
- compctl [ -CDT ] options [ -x pattern options - ... -- ]
- [ + options [ -x ... -- ] ... [+] ] [ command ... ]
- compctl -M match-specs ...
- compctl -L [ -CDTM ] [ command ... ]
- compctl + command ...
COMMAND FLAGS
Completion of the arguments of a command may be different for each command or may use the default. The behavior when completing the command word itself may also be separately specified. These correspond to the following flags and arguments, all of which (except for -L) may be combined with any combination of the options described subsequently in the section `Option Flags':- command ...
- controls completion for the named commands, which must be listed last on the command line. If completion is attempted for a command with a pathname containing slashes and no completion definition is found, the search is retried with the last pathname component. If the command starts with a =, completion is tried with the pathname of the command.
Any of the command strings may be patterns of the form normally used for
filename generation. These should be quoted to protect them from immediate
expansion; for example the command string 'foo*' arranges for
completion of the words of any command beginning with foo. When
completion is attempted, all pattern completions are tried in the reverse
order of their definition until one matches. By default, completion then
proceeds as normal, i.e. the shell will try to generate more matches for the
specific command on the command line; this can be overridden by including
-tn in the flags for the pattern completion.
Note that aliases are expanded before the command name is determined unless the
COMPLETE_ALIASES option is set. Commands may not be combined with the
-C, -D or -T flags.
- -C
- controls completion when the command word itself is being completed. If no compctl -C command has been issued, the names of any executable command (whether in the path or specific to the shell, such as aliases or functions) are completed.
- -D
- controls default completion behavior for the arguments of commands not assigned any special behavior. If no compctl -D command has been issued, filenames are completed.
- -T
- supplies completion flags to be used before any other processing is done, even before processing for compctls defined for specific commands. This is especially useful when combined with extended completion (the -x flag, see the section `Extended Completion' below). Using this flag you can define default behavior which will apply to all commands without exception, or you can alter the standard behavior for all commands. For example, if your access to the user database is too slow and/or it contains too many users (so that completion after ` ~' is too slow to be usable), you can use
compctl -T -x 's[~] C[0,[^/]#]' -k friends -S/ -tn
- -L
- lists the existing completion behavior in a manner suitable for putting into a start-up script; the existing behavior is not changed. Any combination of the above forms, or the -M flag (which must follow the -L flag), may be specified, otherwise all defined completions are listed. Any other flags supplied are ignored.
- no argument
- If no argument is given, compctl lists all defined completions in an abbreviated form; with a list of options, all completions with those flags set (not counting extended completion) are listed.
compctl -M '' 'm:{a-zA-Z}={A-Za-z}'
OPTION FLAGS
- [ -fcFBdeaRGovNAIOPZEnbjrzu/12 ]
- [ -k array ] [ -g globstring ] [ -s subststring ]
- [ -K function ]
- [ -Q ] [ -P prefix ] [ -S suffix ]
- [ -W file-prefix ] [ -H num pattern ]
- [ -q ] [ -X explanation ] [ -Y explanation ]
- [ -y func-or-var ] [ -l cmd ] [ -h cmd ] [ -U ]
- [ -t continue ] [ -J name ] [ -V name ]
- [ -M match-spec ]
Simple Flags
These produce completion lists made up by the shell itself:- -f
- Filenames and file system paths.
- -/
- Just file system paths.
- -c
- Command names, including aliases, shell functions, builtins and reserved words.
- -F
- Function names.
- -B
- Names of builtin commands.
- -m
- Names of external commands.
- -w
- Reserved words.
- -a
- Alias names.
- -R
- Names of regular (non-global) aliases.
- -G
- Names of global aliases.
- -d
- This can be combined with -F, -B, -w, -a, -R and -G to get names of disabled functions, builtins, reserved words or aliases.
- -e
- This option (to show enabled commands) is in effect by default, but may be combined with -d; -de in combination with -F, -B, -w, -a, -R and -G will complete names of functions, builtins, reserved words or aliases whether or not they are disabled.
- -o
- Names of shell options (see zshoptions(1)).
- -v
- Names of any variable defined in the shell.
- -N
- Names of scalar (non-array) parameters.
- -A
- Array names.
- -I
- Names of integer variables.
- -O
- Names of read-only variables.
- -p
- Names of parameters used by the shell (including special parameters).
- -Z
- Names of shell special parameters.
- -E
- Names of environment variables.
- -n
- Named directories.
- -b
- Key binding names.
- -j
- Job names: the first word of the job leader's command line. This is useful with the kill builtin.
- -r
- Names of running jobs.
- -z
- Names of suspended jobs.
- -u
- User names.
Flags with Arguments
These have user supplied arguments to determine how the list of completions is to be made up:- -k array
- Names taken from the elements of $array (note that the ` $' does not appear on the command line). Alternatively, the argument array itself may be a set of space- or comma-separated values in parentheses, in which any delimiter may be escaped with a backslash; in this case the argument should be quoted. For example,
compctl -k "(cputime filesize datasize stacksize coredumpsize resident descriptors)" limit
- -g globstring
- The globstring is expanded using filename globbing; it should be quoted to protect it from immediate expansion. The resulting filenames are taken as the possible completions. Use ` *(/)' instead of ` */' for directories. The fignore special parameter is not applied to the resulting files. More than one pattern may be given separated by blanks. (Note that brace expansion is not part of globbing. Use the syntax ` (either|or)' to match alternatives.)
- -s subststring
- The subststring is split into words and these words are than expanded using all shell expansion mechanisms (see zshexpn(1)). The resulting words are taken as possible completions. The fignore special parameter is not applied to the resulting files. Note that -g is faster for filenames.
- -K function
- Call the given function to get the completions. Unless the name starts with an underscore, the function is passed two arguments: the prefix and the suffix of the word on which completion is to be attempted, in other words those characters before the cursor position, and those from the cursor position onwards. The whole command line can be accessed with the -c and -l flags of the read builtin. The function should set the variable reply to an array containing the completions (one completion per element); note that reply should not be made local to the function. From such a function the command line can be accessed with the -c and -l flags to the read builtin. For example,
function whoson { reply=(`users`); } compctl -K whoson talk
- -H num pattern
- The possible completions are taken from the last num history lines. Only words matching pattern are taken. If num is zero or negative the whole history is searched and if pattern is the empty string all words are taken (as with ` *'). A typical use is
compctl -D -f + -H 0 ''
Control Flags
These do not directly specify types of name to be completed, but manipulate the options that do:- -Q
- This instructs the shell not to quote any metacharacters in the possible completions. Normally the results of a completion are inserted into the command line with any metacharacters quoted so that they are interpreted as normal characters. This is appropriate for filenames and ordinary strings. However, for special effects, such as inserting a backquoted expression from a completion array ( -k) so that the expression will not be evaluated until the complete line is executed, this option must be used.
- -P prefix
- The prefix is inserted just before the completed string; any initial part already typed will be completed and the whole prefix ignored for completion purposes. For example,
compctl -j -P "%" kill
- -S suffix
- When a completion is found the suffix is inserted after the completed string. In the case of menu completion the suffix is inserted immediately, but it is still possible to cycle through the list of completions by repeatedly hitting the same key.
- -W file-prefix
- With directory file-prefix: for command, file, directory and globbing completion (options -c, -f, -/, -g), the file prefix is implicitly added in front of the completion. For example,
compctl -/ -W ~/Mail maildirs
- -q
- If used with a suffix as specified by the -S option, this causes the suffix to be removed if the next character typed is a blank or does not insert anything or if the suffix consists of only one character and the next character typed is the same character; this the same rule used for the AUTO_REMOVE_SLASH option. The option is most useful for list separators (comma, colon, etc.).
- -l cmd
- This option restricts the range of command line words that are considered to be arguments. If combined with one of the extended completion patterns ` p[...]', ` r[...]', or `R[...]' (see the section `Extended Completion' below) the range is restricted to the range of arguments specified in the brackets. Completion is then performed as if these had been given as arguments to the cmd supplied with the option. If the cmd string is empty the first word in the range is instead taken as the command name, and command name completion performed on the first word in the range. For example,
compctl -x 'r[-exec,;]' -l '' -- find
- -h cmd
- Normally zsh completes quoted strings as a whole. With this option, completion can be done separately on different parts of such strings. It works like the -l option but makes the completion code work on the parts of the current word that are separated by spaces. These parts are completed as if they were arguments to the given cmd. If cmd is the empty string, the first part is completed as a command name, as with -l.
- -U
- Use the whole list of possible completions, whether or not they actually match the word on the command line. The word typed so far will be deleted. This is most useful with a function (given by the -K option) which can examine the word components passed to it (or via the read builtin's -c and -l flags) and use its own criteria to decide what matches. If there is no completion, the original word is retained. Since the produced possible completions seldom have interesting common prefixes and suffixes, menu completion is started immediately if AUTO_MENU is set and this flag is used.
- -y func-or-var
- The list provided by func-or-var is displayed instead of the list of completions whenever a listing is required; the actual completions to be inserted are not affected. It can be provided in two ways. Firstly, if func-or-var begins with a $ it defines a variable, or if it begins with a left parenthesis a literal array, which contains the list. A variable may have been set by a call to a function using the -K option. Otherwise it contains the name of a function which will be executed to create the list. The function will be passed as an argument list all matching completions, including prefixes and suffixes expanded in full, and should set the array reply to the result. In both cases, the display list will only be retrieved after a complete list of matches has been created.
Note that the returned list does not have to correspond, even in length, to the
original set of matches, and may be passed as a scalar instead of an array. No
special formatting of characters is performed on the output in this case; in
particular, newlines are printed literally and if they appear output in
columns is suppressed.
- -X explanation
- Print explanation when trying completion on the current set of options. A ` %n' in this string is replaced by the number of matches that were added for this explanation string. The explanation only appears if completion was tried and there was no unique match, or when listing completions. Explanation strings will be listed together with the matches of the group specified together with the -X option (using the -J or -V option). If the same explanation string is given to multiple -X options, the string appears only once (for each group) and the number of matches shown for the ` %n' is the total number of all matches for each of these uses. In any case, the explanation string will only be shown if there was at least one match added for the explanation string.
The sequences %B, %b, %S, %s, %U, and
%u specify output attributes (bold, standout, and underline),
%F, %f, %K, %k specify foreground and background
colours, and %{...%} can be used to include literal
escape sequences as in prompts.
- -Y explanation
- Identical to -X, except that the explanation first undergoes expansion following the usual rules for strings in double quotes. The expansion will be carried out after any functions are called for the -K or -y options, allowing them to set variables.
- -t continue
- The continue-string contains a character that specifies which set of completion flags should be used next. It is useful:
(i) With -T, or when trying a list of pattern completions, when
compctl would usually continue with ordinary processing after finding
matches; this can be suppressed with ` -tn'.
(ii) With a list of alternatives separated by +, when compctl
would normally stop when one of the alternatives generates matches. It can be
forced to consider the next set of completions by adding ` -t+' to the
flags of the alternative before the ` +'.
(iii) In an extended completion list (see below), when compctl would
normally continue until a set of conditions succeeded, then use only the
immediately following flags. With ` -t-', compctl will continue
trying extended completions after the next ` -'; with ` -tx' it
will attempt completion with the default flags, in other words those before
the ` -x'.
- -J name
- This gives the name of the group the matches should be placed in. Groups are listed and sorted separately; likewise, menu completion will offer the matches in the groups in the order in which the groups were defined. If no group name is explicitly given, the matches are stored in a group named default. The first time a group name is encountered, a group with that name is created. After that all matches with the same group name are stored in that group.
This can be useful with non-exclusive alternative completions. For example, in
both files and variables are possible completions, as the -t+ forces both
sets of alternatives before and after the + to be considered at once.
Because of the -J options, however, all files are listed before all
variables.
compctl -f -J files -t+ + -v -J variables foo
- -V name
- Like -J, but matches within the group will not be sorted in listings nor in menu completion. These unsorted groups are in a different name space from the sorted ones, so groups defined as -J files and -V files are distinct.
- -1
- If given together with the -V option, makes only consecutive duplicates in the group be removed. Note that groups with and without this flag are in different name spaces.
- -2
- If given together with the -J or -V option, makes all duplicates be kept. Again, groups with and without this flag are in different name spaces.
- -M match-spec
- This defines additional matching control specifications that should be used only when testing words for the list of flags this flag appears in. The format of the match-spec string is described in zshcompwid.
ALTERNATIVE COMPLETION
- compctl [ -CDT ] options + options [ + ... ] [ + ] command ...
EXTENDED COMPLETION
- compctl [ -CDT ] options -x pattern options - ... --
- [ command ... ]
- compctl [ -CDT ] options [ -x pattern options - ... -- ]
- [ + options [ -x ... -- ] ... [+] ] [ command ... ]
- s[string]...
- Matches if the current word on the command line starts with one of the strings given in brackets. The string is not removed and is not part of the completion.
- S[string]...
- Like s[string] except that the string is part of the completion.
- p[from,to]...
- Matches if the number of the current word is between one of the from and to pairs inclusive. The comma and to are optional; to defaults to the same value as from. The numbers may be negative: -n refers to the n'th last word on the line.
- c[offset,string]...
- Matches if the string matches the word offset by offset from the current word position. Usually offset will be negative.
- C[offset,pattern]...
- Like c but using pattern matching instead.
- w[index,string]...
- Matches if the word in position index is equal to the corresponding string. Note that the word count is made after any alias expansion.
- W[index,pattern]...
- Like w but using pattern matching instead.
- n[index,string]...
- Matches if the current word contains string. Anything up to and including the indexth occurrence of this string will not be considered part of the completion, but the rest will. index may be negative to count from the end: in most cases, index will be 1 or -1. For example,
compctl -s '`users`' -x 'n[1,@]' -k hosts -- talk
- N[index,string]...
- Like n except that the string will be taken as a character class. Anything up to and including the indexth occurrence of any of the characters in string will not be considered part of the completion.
- m[min,max]...
- Matches if the total number of words lies between min and max inclusive.
- r[str1,str2]...
- Matches if the cursor is after a word with prefix str1. If there is also a word with prefix str2 on the command line after the one matched by str1 it matches only if the cursor is before this word. If the comma and str2 are omitted, it matches if the cursor is after a word with prefix str1.
- R[str1,str2]...
- Like r but using pattern matching instead.
- q[str]...
- Matches the word currently being completed is in single quotes and the str begins with the letter `s', or if completion is done in double quotes and str starts with the letter `d', or if completion is done in backticks and str starts with a `b'.
EXAMPLE
compctl -u -x 's[+] c[-1,-f],s[-f+]' \ -g '~/Mail/*(:t)' - 's[-f],c[-1,-f]' -f -- mail
if ((the current word begins with + and the previous word is -f) or (the current word begins with -f+)), then complete the non-directory part (the ` :t' glob modifier) of files in the directory ~/Mail; else
if the current word begins with -f or the previous word was -f, then complete any file; else
complete user names.
NAME
zshmodules - zsh loadable modulesDESCRIPTION
Some optional parts of zsh are in modules, separate from the core of the shell. Each of these modules may be linked in to the shell at build time, or can be dynamically linked while the shell is running if the installation supports this feature. Modules are linked at runtime with the zmodload command, see zshbuiltins(1). The modules that are bundled with the zsh distribution are:- zsh/attr
- Builtins for manipulating extended attributes (xattr).
- zsh/cap
- Builtins for manipulating POSIX.1e (POSIX.6) capability (privilege) sets.
- zsh/clone
- A builtin that can clone a running shell onto another terminal.
- zsh/compctl
- The compctl builtin for controlling completion.
- zsh/complete
- The basic completion code.
- zsh/complist
- Completion listing extensions.
- zsh/computil
- A module with utility builtins needed for the shell function based completion system.
- zsh/curses
- curses windowing commands
- zsh/datetime
- Some date/time commands and parameters.
- zsh/db/gdbm
- Builtins for managing associative array parameters tied to GDBM databases.
- zsh/deltochar
- A ZLE function duplicating EMACS' zap-to-char.
- zsh/example
- An example of how to write a module.
- zsh/files
- Some basic file manipulation commands as builtins.
- zsh/langinfo
- Interface to locale information.
- zsh/mapfile
- Access to external files via a special associative array.
- zsh/mathfunc
- Standard scientific functions for use in mathematical evaluations.
- zsh/nearcolor
- Map colours to the nearest colour in the available palette.
- zsh/newuser
- Arrange for files for new users to be installed.
- zsh/parameter
- Access to internal hash tables via special associative arrays.
- zsh/pcre
- Interface to the PCRE library.
- zsh/param/private
- Builtins for managing private-scoped parameters in function context.
- zsh/regex
- Interface to the POSIX regex library.
- zsh/sched
- A builtin that provides a timed execution facility within the shell.
- zsh/net/socket
- Manipulation of Unix domain sockets
- zsh/stat
- A builtin command interface to the stat system call.
- zsh/system
- A builtin interface to various low-level system features.
- zsh/net/tcp
- Manipulation of TCP sockets
- zsh/termcap
- Interface to the termcap database.
- zsh/terminfo
- Interface to the terminfo database.
- zsh/watch
- Reporting of login and logout events.
- zsh/zftp
- A builtin FTP client.
- zsh/zle
- The Zsh Line Editor, including the bindkey and vared builtins.
- zsh/zleparameter
- Access to internals of the Zsh Line Editor via parameters.
- zsh/zprof
- A module allowing profiling for shell functions.
- zsh/zpty
- A builtin for starting a command in a pseudo-terminal.
- zsh/zselect
- Block and return when file descriptors are ready.
- zsh/zutil
- Some utility builtins, e.g. the one for supporting configuration via styles.
THE ZSH/ATTR MODULE
The zsh/attr module is used for manipulating extended attributes. The -h option causes all commands to operate on symbolic links instead of their targets. The builtins in this module are:- zgetattr [ -h ] filename attribute [ parameter ]
- Get the extended attribute attribute from the specified filename. If the optional argument parameter is given, the attribute is set on that parameter instead of being printed to stdout.
- zsetattr [ -h ] filename attribute value
- Set the extended attribute attribute on the specified filename to value.
- zdelattr [ -h ] filename attribute
- Remove the extended attribute attribute from the specified filename.
- zlistattr [ -h ] filename [ parameter ]
- List the extended attributes currently set on the specified filename. If the optional argument parameter is given, the list of attributes is set on that parameter instead of being printed to stdout.
THE ZSH/CAP MODULE
The zsh/cap module is used for manipulating POSIX.1e (POSIX.6) capability sets. If the operating system does not support this interface, the builtins defined by this module will do nothing. The builtins in this module are:- cap [ capabilities ]
- Change the shell's process capability sets to the specified capabilities, otherwise display the shell's current capabilities.
- getcap filename ...
- This is a built-in implementation of the POSIX standard utility. It displays the capability sets on each specified filename.
- setcap capabilities filename ...
- This is a built-in implementation of the POSIX standard utility. It sets the capability sets on each specified filename to the specified capabilities.
THE ZSH/CLONE MODULE
The zsh/clone module makes available one builtin command:- clone tty
- Creates a forked instance of the current shell, attached to the specified tty. In the new shell, the PID, PPID and TTY special parameters are changed appropriately. $! is set to zero in the new shell, and to the new shell's PID in the original shell.
The return status of the builtin is zero in both shells if successful, and
non-zero on error.
The target of clone should be an unused terminal, such as an unused
virtual console or a virtual terminal created by
Some words of explanation are warranted about this long xterm command line: when
doing clone on a pseudo-terminal, some other session ("session"
meant as a unix session group, or SID) is already owning the terminal. Hence
the cloned zsh cannot acquire the pseudo-terminal as a controlling tty. That
means two things:
xterm -e sh -c 'trap : INT QUIT TSTP; tty; while :; do sleep 100000000; done'
- •
- the job control signals will go to the sh-started-by-xterm process group (that's why we disable INT QUIT and TSTP with trap; otherwise the while loop could get suspended or killed)
- •
- the cloned shell will have job control disabled, and the job control keys (control-C, control-\ and control-Z) will not work.
THE ZSH/COMPCTL MODULE
The zsh/compctl module makes available two builtin commands. compctl, is the old, deprecated way to control completions for ZLE. See zshcompctl(1). The other builtin command, compcall can be used in user-defined completion widgets, see zshcompwid(1).THE ZSH/COMPLETE MODULE
The zsh/complete module makes available several builtin commands which can be used in user-defined completion widgets, see zshcompwid(1).THE ZSH/COMPLIST MODULE
The zsh/complist module offers three extensions to completion listings: the ability to highlight matches in such a list, the ability to scroll through long lists and a different style of menu completion.Colored completion listings
Whenever one of the parameters ZLS_COLORS or ZLS_COLOURS is set and the zsh/complist module is loaded or linked into the shell, completion lists will be colored. Note, however, that complist will not automatically be loaded if it is not linked in: on systems with dynamic loading, ` zmodload zsh/complist' is required. The parameters ZLS_COLORS and ZLS_COLOURS describe how matches are highlighted. To turn on highlighting an empty value suffices, in which case all the default values given below will be used. The format of the value of these parameters is the same as used by the GNU version of the ls command: a colon-separated list of specifications of the form ` name= value'. The name may be one of the following strings, most of which specify file types for which the value will be used. The strings and their default values are:- no 0
- for normal text (i.e. when displaying something other than a matched file)
- fi 0
- for regular files
- di 32
- for directories
- ln 36
- for symbolic links. If this has the special value target, symbolic links are dereferenced and the target file used to determine the display format.
- pi 31
- for named pipes (FIFOs)
- so 33
- for sockets
- bd 44;37
- for block devices
- cd 44;37
- for character devices
- or none
- for a symlink to nonexistent file (default is the value defined for ln)
- mi none
- for a non-existent file (default is the value defined for fi); this code is currently not used
- su 37;41
- for files with setuid bit set
- sg 30;43
- for files with setgid bit set
- tw 30;42
- for world writable directories with sticky bit set
- ow 34;43
- for world writable directories without sticky bit set
- sa none
- for files with an associated suffix alias; this is only tested after specific suffixes, as described below
- st 37;44
- for directories with sticky bit set but not world writable
- ex 35
- for executable files
- lc \e[
- for the left code (see below)
- rc m
- for the right code
- tc 0
- for the character indicating the file type printed after filenames if the LIST_TYPES option is set
- sp 0
- for the spaces printed after matches to align the next column
- ec none
- for the end code
Scrolling in completion listings
To enable scrolling through a completion list, the LISTPROMPT parameter must be set. Its value will be used as the prompt; if it is the empty string, a default prompt will be used. The value may contain escapes of the form ` %x'. It supports the escapes ` %B', `%b', `%S', `%s', `%U', `%u', `%F', ` %f', `%K', ` %k' and ` %{...%}' used also in shell prompts as well as three pairs of additional sequences: a ` %l' or `%L' is replaced by the number of the last line shown and the total number of lines in the form ` number/total'; a `%m' or `%M' is replaced with the number of the last match shown and the total number of matches; and ` %p' or `%P' is replaced with `Top', `Bottom' or the position of the first line shown in percent of the total number of lines, respectively. In each of these cases the form with the uppercase letter will be replaced with a string of fixed width, padded to the right with spaces, while the lowercase form will not be padded. If the parameter LISTPROMPT is set, the completion code will not ask if the list should be shown. Instead it immediately starts displaying the list, stopping after the first screenful, showing the prompt at the bottom, waiting for a keypress after temporarily switching to the listscroll keymap. Some of the zle functions have a special meaning while scrolling lists:- send-break
- stops listing discarding the key pressed
- accept-line, down-history, down-line-or-history
- down-line-or-search, vi-down-line-or-history
- scrolls forward one line
- complete-word, menu-complete, expand-or-complete
- expand-or-complete-prefix, menu-complete-or-expand
- scrolls forward one screenful
- accept-search
- stop listing but take no other action
Menu selection
The zsh/complist module also offers an alternative style of selecting matches from a list, called menu selection, which can be used if the shell is set up to return to the last prompt after showing a completion list (see the ALWAYS_LAST_PROMPT option in zshoptions(1)). Menu selection can be invoked directly by the widget menu-select defined by this module. This is a standard ZLE widget that can be bound to a key in the usual way as described in zshzle(1). Alternatively, the parameter MENUSELECT can be set to an integer, which gives the minimum number of matches that must be present before menu selection is automatically turned on. This second method requires that menu completion be started, either directly from a widget such as menu-complete, or due to one of the options MENU_COMPLETE or AUTO_MENU being set. If MENUSELECT is set, but is 0, 1 or empty, menu selection will always be started during an ambiguous menu completion. When using the completion system based on shell functions, the MENUSELECT parameter should not be used (like the ZLS_COLORS and ZLS_COLOURS parameters described above). Instead, the menu style should be used with the select=... keyword. After menu selection is started, the matches will be listed. If there are more matches than fit on the screen, only the first screenful is shown. The matches to insert into the command line can be selected from this list. In the list one match is highlighted using the value for ma from the ZLS_COLORS or ZLS_COLOURS parameter. The default value for this is ` 7' which forces the selected match to be highlighted using standout mode on a vt100-compatible terminal. If neither ZLS_COLORS nor ZLS_COLOURS is set, the same terminal control sequence as for the ` %S' escape in prompts is used. If there are more matches than fit on the screen and the parameter MENUPROMPT is set, its value will be shown below the matches. It supports the same escape sequences as LISTPROMPT, but the number of the match or line shown will be that of the one where the mark is placed. If its value is the empty string, a default prompt will be used. The MENUSCROLL parameter can be used to specify how the list is scrolled. If the parameter is unset, this is done line by line, if it is set to ` 0' (zero), the list will scroll half the number of lines of the screen. If the value is positive, it gives the number of lines to scroll and if it is negative, the list will be scrolled the number of lines of the screen minus the (absolute) value. As for the ZLS_COLORS, ZLS_COLOURS and LISTPROMPT parameters, neither MENUPROMPT nor MENUSCROLL should be set directly when using the shell function based completion system. Instead, the select-prompt and select-scroll styles should be used. The completion code sometimes decides not to show all of the matches in the list. These hidden matches are either matches for which the completion function which added them explicitly requested that they not appear in the list (using the -n option of the compadd builtin command) or they are matches which duplicate a string already in the list (because they differ only in things like prefixes or suffixes that are not displayed). In the list used for menu selection, however, even these matches are shown so that it is possible to select them. To highlight such matches the hi and du capabilities in the ZLS_COLORS and ZLS_COLOURS parameters are supported for hidden matches of the first and second kind, respectively. Selecting matches is done by moving the mark around using the zle movement functions. When not all matches can be shown on the screen at the same time, the list will scroll up and down when crossing the top or bottom line. The following zle functions have special meaning during menu selection. Note that the following always perform the same task within the menu selection map and cannot be replaced by user defined widgets, nor can the set of functions be extended:- accept-line, accept-search
- accept the current match and leave menu selection (but do not cause the command line to be accepted)
- send-break
- leaves menu selection and restores the previous contents of the command line
- redisplay, clear-screen
- execute their normal function without leaving menu selection
- accept-and-hold, accept-and-menu-complete
- accept the currently inserted match and continue selection allowing to select the next match to insert into the line
- accept-and-infer-next-history
- accepts the current match and then tries completion with menu selection again; in the case of files this allows one to select a directory and immediately attempt to complete files in it; if there are no matches, a message is shown and one can use undo to go back to completion on the previous level, every other key leaves menu selection (including the other zle functions which are otherwise special during menu selection)
- undo
- removes matches inserted during the menu selection by one of the three functions before
- down-history, down-line-or-history
- vi-down-line-or-history, down-line-or-search
- moves the mark one line down
- up-history, up-line-or-history
- vi-up-line-or-history, up-line-or-search
- moves the mark one line up
- forward-char, vi-forward-char
- moves the mark one column right
- backward-char, vi-backward-char
- moves the mark one column left
- forward-word, vi-forward-word
- vi-forward-word-end, emacs-forward-word
- moves the mark one screenful down
- backward-word, vi-backward-word, emacs-backward-word
- moves the mark one screenful up
- vi-forward-blank-word, vi-forward-blank-word-end
- moves the mark to the first line of the next group of matches
- vi-backward-blank-word
- moves the mark to the last line of the previous group of matches
- beginning-of-history
- moves the mark to the first line
- end-of-history
- moves the mark to the last line
- beginning-of-buffer-or-history, beginning-of-line
- beginning-of-line-hist, vi-beginning-of-line
- moves the mark to the leftmost column
- end-of-buffer-or-history, end-of-line
- end-of-line-hist, vi-end-of-line
- moves the mark to the rightmost column
- complete-word, menu-complete, expand-or-complete
- expand-or-complete-prefix, menu-expand-or-complete
- moves the mark to the next match
- reverse-menu-complete
- moves the mark to the previous match
- vi-insert
- this toggles between normal and interactive mode; in interactive mode the keys bound to self-insert and self-insert-unmeta insert into the command line as in normal editing mode but without leaving menu selection; after each character completion is tried again and the list changes to contain only the new matches; the completion widgets make the longest unambiguous string be inserted in the command line and undo and backward-delete-char go back to the previous set of matches
- history-incremental-search-forward
- history-incremental-search-backward
- this starts incremental searches in the list of completions displayed; in this mode, accept-line only leaves incremental search, going back to the normal menu selection mode
bindkey -M menuselect '^M' send-break
THE ZSH/COMPUTIL MODULE
The zsh/computil module adds several builtin commands that are used by some of the completion functions in the completion system based on shell functions (see zshcompsys(1) ). Except for compquote these builtin commands are very specialised and thus not very interesting when writing your own completion functions. In summary, these builtin commands are:- comparguments
- This is used by the _arguments function to do the argument and command line parsing. Like compdescribe it has an option -i to do the parsing and initialize some internal state and various options to access the state information to decide what should be completed.
- compdescribe
- This is used by the _describe function to build the displays for the matches and to get the strings to add as matches with their options. On the first call one of the options -i or -I should be supplied as the first argument. In the first case, display strings without the descriptions will be generated, in the second case, the string used to separate the matches from their descriptions must be given as the second argument and the descriptions (if any) will be shown. All other arguments are like the definition arguments to _describe itself.
Once compdescribe has been called with either the -i or the
-I option, it can be repeatedly called with the -g option and
the names of four parameters as its arguments. This will step through the
different sets of matches and store the value of compstate[list] in the
first scalar, the options for compadd in the second array, the matches
in the third array, and the strings to be displayed in the completion listing
in the fourth array. The arrays may then be directly given to compadd
to register the matches with the completion code.
- compfiles
- Used by the _path_files function to optimize complex recursive filename generation (globbing). It does three things. With the -p and -P options it builds the glob patterns to use, including the paths already handled and trying to optimize the patterns with respect to the prefix and suffix from the line and the match specification currently used. The -i option does the directory tests for the ignore-parents style and the -r option tests if a component for some of the matches are equal to the string on the line and removes all other matches if that is true.
- compgroups
- Used by the _tags function to implement the internals of the group-order style. This only takes its arguments as names of completion groups and creates the groups for it (all six types: sorted and unsorted, both without removing duplicates, with removing all duplicates and with removing consecutive duplicates).
- compquote [ -p ] names ...
- There may be reasons to write completion functions that have to add the matches using the -Q option to compadd and perform quoting themselves. Instead of interpreting the first character of the all_quotes key of the compstate special association and using the q flag for parameter expansions, one can use this builtin command. The arguments are the names of scalar or array parameters and the values of these parameters are quoted as needed for the innermost quoting level. If the -p option is given, quoting is done as if there is some prefix before the values of the parameters, so that a leading equal sign will not be quoted.
The return status is non-zero in case of an error and zero otherwise.
- comptags
- comptry
- These implement the internals of the tags mechanism.
- compvalues
- Like comparguments, but for the _values function.
THE ZSH/CURSES MODULE
The zsh/curses module makes available one builtin command and various parameters.Builtin
- zcurses init
- zcurses end
- zcurses addwin targetwin nlines ncols begin_y begin_x [ parentwin ]
- zcurses delwin targetwin
- zcurses refresh [ targetwin ... ]
- zcurses touch targetwin ...
- zcurses move targetwin new_y new_x
- zcurses clear targetwin [ redraw | eol | bot ]
- zcurses position targetwin array
- zcurses char targetwin character
- zcurses string targetwin string
- zcurses border targetwin border
- zcurses attr targetwin [ [+|-] attribute | fg_col/bg_col ] [...]
- zcurses bg targetwin [ [+|-] attribute | fg_col/bg_col | @char ] [...]
- zcurses scroll targetwin [ on | off | [+|-]lines ]
- zcurses input targetwin [ param [ kparam [ mparam ] ] ]
- zcurses mouse [ delay num | [+|-]motion ]
- zcurses timeout targetwin intval
- zcurses querychar targetwin [ param ]
- zcurses resize height width [ endwin | nosave | endwin_nosave ]
- Manipulate curses windows. All uses of this command should be bracketed by ` zcurses init' to initialise use of curses, and ` zcurses end' to end it; omitting `zcurses end' can cause the terminal to be in an unwanted state.
The subcommand addwin creates a window with nlines lines and
ncols columns. Its upper left corner will be placed at row
begin_y and column begin_x of the screen. targetwin is a
string and refers to the name of a window that is not currently assigned. Note
in particular the curses convention that vertical values appear before
horizontal values.
If addwin is given an existing window as the final argument, the new
window is created as a subwindow of parentwin. This differs from an
ordinary new window in that the memory of the window contents is shared with
the parent's memory. Subwindows must be deleted before their parent. Note that
the coordinates of subwindows are relative to the screen, not the parent, as
with other windows.
Use the subcommand delwin to delete a window created with addwin.
Note that end does not implicitly delete windows, and that
delwin does not erase the screen image of the window.
The window corresponding to the full visible screen is called stdscr; it
always exists after ` zcurses init' and cannot be delete with
delwin.
The subcommand refresh will refresh window targetwin; this is
necessary to make any pending changes (such as characters you have prepared
for output with char) visible on the screen. refresh without an
argument causes the screen to be cleared and redrawn. If multiple windows are
given, the screen is updated once at the end.
The subcommand touch marks the targetwins listed as changed. This
is necessary before refreshing windows if a window that was in front of
another window (which may be stdscr) is deleted.
The subcommand move moves the cursor position in targetwin to new
coordinates new_y and new_x. Note that the subcommand
string (but not the subcommand char) advances the cursor
position over the characters added.
The subcommand clear erases the contents of targetwin. One (and no
more than one) of three options may be specified. With the option
redraw, in addition the next refresh of targetwin will
cause the screen to be cleared and repainted. With the option eol,
targetwin is only cleared to the end of the current cursor line. With
the option bot, targetwin is cleared to the end of the window,
i.e everything to the right and below the cursor is cleared.
The subcommand position writes various positions associated with
targetwin into the array named array. These are, in order:
- -
- The y and x coordinates of the cursor relative to the top left of targetwin
- -
- The y and x coordinates of the top left of targetwin on the screen
- -
- The size of targetwin in y and x dimensions.
- -
- An identifier to discriminate different input devices; this is only rarely useful.
- -
- The x, y and z coordinates of the mouse click relative to the full screen, as three elements in that order (i.e. the y coordinate is, unusually, after the x coordinate). The z coordinate is only available for a few unusual input devices and is otherwise set to zero.
- -
- Any events that occurred as separate items; usually there will be just one. An event consists of PRESSED, RELEASED, CLICKED, DOUBLE_CLICKED or TRIPLE_CLICKED followed immediately (in the same element) by the number of the button.
- -
- If the shift key was pressed, the string SHIFT.
- -
- If the control key was pressed, the string CTRL.
- -
- If the alt key was pressed, the string ALT.
Parameters
- ZCURSES_COLORS
- Readonly integer. The maximum number of colors the terminal supports. This value is initialised by the curses library and is not available until the first time zcurses init is run.
- ZCURSES_COLOR_PAIRS
- Readonly integer. The maximum number of color pairs fg_col /bg_col that may be defined in `zcurses attr' commands; note this limit applies to all color pairs that have been used whether or not they are currently active. This value is initialised by the curses library and is not available until the first time zcurses init is run.
- zcurses_attrs
- Readonly array. The attributes supported by zsh/curses; available as soon as the module is loaded.
- zcurses_colors
- Readonly array. The colors supported by zsh/curses; available as soon as the module is loaded.
- zcurses_keycodes
- Readonly array. The values that may be returned in the second parameter supplied to ` zcurses input' in the order in which they are defined internally by curses. Not all function keys are listed, only F0; curses reserves space for F0 up to F63.
- zcurses_windows
- Readonly array. The current list of windows, i.e. all windows that have been created with ` zcurses addwin' and not removed with ` zcurses delwin'.
THE ZSH/DATETIME MODULE
The zsh/datetime module makes available one builtin command:- strftime [ -s scalar | -n ] format [ epochtime [ nanoseconds ] ]
- strftime -r [ -q ] [ -s scalar | -n ] format timestring
- Output the date in the format specified. With no epochtime, the current system date/time is used; optionally, epochtime may be used to specify the number of seconds since the epoch, and nanoseconds may additionally be used to specify the number of nanoseconds past the second (otherwise that number is assumed to be 0). See strftime(3) for details. The zsh extensions described in the section EXPANSION OF PROMPT SEQUENCES in zshmisc(1) are also available.
- -n
- Suppress printing a newline after the formatted string.
- -q
- Run quietly; suppress printing of all error messages described below. Errors for invalid epochtime values are always printed.
- -r
- With the option -r (reverse), use format to parse the input string timestring and output the number of seconds since the epoch at which the time occurred. The parsing is implemented by the system function strptime; see strptime(3). This means that zsh format extensions are not available, but for reverse lookup they are not required.
In most implementations of strftime any timezone in the timestring
is ignored and the local timezone declared by the TZ environment
variable is used; other parameters are set to zero if not present.
If timestring does not match format the command returns status 1
and prints an error message. If timestring matches format but
not all characters in timestring were used, the conversion succeeds but
also prints an error message.
If either of the system functions strptime or mktime is not
available, status 2 is returned and an error message is printed.
- -s scalar
- Assign the date string (or epoch time in seconds if -r is given) to scalar instead of printing it.
- EPOCHREALTIME
- A floating point value representing the number of seconds since the epoch. The notional accuracy is to nanoseconds if the clock_gettime call is available and to microseconds otherwise, but in practice the range of double precision floating point and shell scheduling latencies may be significant effects.
- EPOCHSECONDS
- An integer value representing the number of seconds since the epoch.
- epochtime
- An array value containing the number of seconds since the epoch in the first element and the remainder of the time since the epoch in nanoseconds in the second element. To ensure the two elements are consistent the array should be copied or otherwise referenced as a single substitution before the values are used. The following idiom may be used:
for secs nsecs in $epochtime; do ... done
THE ZSH/DB/GDBM MODULE
The zsh/db/gdbm module is used to create "tied" associative arrays that interface to database files. If the GDBM interface is not available, the builtins defined by this module will report an error. This module is also intended as a prototype for creating additional database interfaces, so the ztie builtin may move to a more generic module in the future. The builtins in this module are:- ztie -d db/gdbm -f filename [ -r ] arrayname
- Open the GDBM database identified by filename and, if successful, create the associative array arrayname linked to the file. To create a local tied array, the parameter must first be declared, so commands similar to the following would be executed inside a function scope:
local -A sampledb ztie -d db/gdbm -f sample.gdbm sampledb
- zuntie [ -u ] arrayname ...
- Close the GDBM database associated with each arrayname and then unset the parameter. The -u option forces an unset of parameters made readonly with ` ztie -r'.
This happens automatically if the parameter is explicitly unset or its local
scope (function) ends. Note that a readonly parameter may not be explicitly
unset, so the only way to unset a global parameter created with ` ztie
-r' is to use ` zuntie -u'.
- zgdbmpath parametername
- Put path to database file assigned to parametername into REPLY scalar.
- zgdbm_tied
- Array holding names of all tied parameters.
THE ZSH/DELTOCHAR MODULE
The zsh/deltochar module makes available two ZLE functions:- delete-to-char
- Read a character from the keyboard, and delete from the cursor position up to and including the next (or, with repeat count n, the nth) instance of that character. Negative repeat counts mean delete backwards.
- zap-to-char
- This behaves like delete-to-char, except that the final occurrence of the character itself is not deleted.
THE ZSH/EXAMPLE MODULE
The zsh/example module makes available one builtin command:- example [ -flags ] [ args ... ]
- Displays the flags and arguments it is invoked with.
THE ZSH/FILES MODULE
The zsh/files module makes available some common commands for file manipulation as builtins; these commands are probably not needed for many normal situations but can be useful in emergency recovery situations with constrained resources. The commands do not implement all features now required by relevant standards committees. For all commands, a variant beginning zf_ is also available and loaded automatically. Using the features capability of zmodload will let you load only those names you want. Note that it's possible to load only the builtins with zsh-specific names using the following command:zmodload -m -F zsh/files b:zf_\*
- chgrp [ -hRs ] group filename ...
- Changes group of files specified. This is equivalent to chown with a user-spec argument of `:group'.
- chmod [ -Rs ] mode filename ...
- Changes mode of files specified.
The specified mode must be in octal.
The -R option causes chmod to recursively descend into
directories, changing the mode of all files in the directory after changing
the mode of the directory itself.
The -s option is a zsh extension to chmod functionality. It
enables paranoid behaviour, intended to avoid security problems involving a
chmod being tricked into affecting files other than the ones intended.
It will refuse to follow symbolic links, so that (for example) `` chmod 600
/tmp/foo/passwd'' can't accidentally chmod /etc/passwd if
/tmp/foo happens to be a link to /etc. It will also check where
it is after leaving directories, so that a recursive chmod of a deep directory
tree can't end up recursively chmoding /usr as a result of directories
being moved up the tree.
- chown [ -hRs ] user-spec filename ...
- Changes ownership and group of files specified.
The user-spec can be in four forms:
- user
- change owner to user; do not change group
- user::
- change owner to user; do not change group
- user:
- change owner to user; change group to user's primary group
- user:group
- change owner to user; change group to group
- :group
- do not change owner; change group to group
- ln [ -dfhins ] filename dest
- ln [ -dfhins ] filename ... dir
- Creates hard (or, with -s, symbolic) links. In the first form, the specified destination is created, as a link to the specified filename. In the second form, each of the filenames is taken in turn, and linked to a pathname in the specified directory that has the same last pathname component.
Normally, ln will not attempt to create hard links to directories. This
check can be overridden using the -d option. Typically only the
super-user can actually succeed in creating hard links to directories. This
does not apply to symbolic links in any case.
By default, existing files cannot be replaced by links. The -i option
causes the user to be queried about replacing existing files. The -f
option causes existing files to be silently deleted, without querying.
-f takes precedence.
The -h and -n options are identical and both exist for
compatibility; either one indicates that if the target is a symlink then it
should not be dereferenced. Typically this is used in combination with
-sf so that if an existing link points to a directory then it will be
removed, instead of followed. If this option is used with multiple filenames
and the target is a symbolic link pointing to a directory then the result is
an error.
- mkdir [ -p ] [ -m mode ] dir ...
- Creates directories. With the -p option, non-existing parent directories are first created if necessary, and there will be no complaint if the directory already exists. The -m option can be used to specify (in octal) a set of file permissions for the created directories, otherwise mode 777 modified by the current umask (see umask(2)) is used.
- mv [ -fi ] filename dest
- mv [ -fi ] filename ... dir
- Moves files. In the first form, the specified filename is moved to the specified destination. In the second form, each of the filenames is taken in turn, and moved to a pathname in the specified directory that has the same last pathname component.
By default, the user will be queried before replacing any file that the user
cannot write to, but writable files will be silently removed. The -i
option causes the user to be queried about replacing any existing files. The
-f option causes any existing files to be silently deleted, without
querying. -f takes precedence.
Note that this mv will not move files across devices. Historical versions
of mv, when actual renaming is impossible, fall back on copying and
removing files; if this behaviour is desired, use cp and rm
manually. This may change in a future version.
- rm [ -dfiRrs ] filename ...
- Removes files and directories specified.
Normally, rm will not remove directories (except with the -R or
-r options). The -d option causes rm to try removing
directories with unlink (see unlink(2)), the same method used
for files. Typically only the super-user can actually succeed in unlinking
directories in this way. -d takes precedence over -R and
-r.
By default, the user will be queried before removing any file that the user
cannot write to, but writable files will be silently removed. The -i
option causes the user to be queried about removing any files. The -f
option causes files to be silently deleted, without querying, and suppresses
all error indications. -f takes precedence.
The -R and -r options cause rm to recursively descend into
directories, deleting all files in the directory before removing the directory
with the rmdir system call (see rmdir(2)).
The -s option is a zsh extension to rm functionality. It enables
paranoid behaviour, intended to avoid common security problems involving a
root-run rm being tricked into removing files other than the ones
intended. It will refuse to follow symbolic links, so that (for example) ``
rm /tmp/foo/passwd'' can't accidentally remove /etc/passwd if
/tmp/foo happens to be a link to /etc. It will also check where
it is after leaving directories, so that a recursive removal of a deep
directory tree can't end up recursively removing /usr as a result of
directories being moved up the tree.
- rmdir dir ...
- Removes empty directories specified.
- sync
- Calls the system call of the same name (see sync(2)), which flushes dirty buffers to disk. It might return before the I/O has actually been completed.
THE ZSH/LANGINFO MODULE
The zsh/langinfo module makes available one parameter:- langinfo
- An associative array that maps langinfo elements to their values.
Your implementation may support a number of the following keys:
CODESET, D_T_FMT, D_FMT, T_FMT, RADIXCHAR,
THOUSEP, YESEXPR, NOEXPR, CRNCYSTR,
ABDAY_{1..7}, DAY_{1..7}, ABMON_{1..12},
MON_{1..12}, T_FMT_AMPM, AM_STR, PM_STR,
ERA, ERA_D_FMT, ERA_D_T_FMT, ERA_T_FMT,
ALT_DIGITS
THE ZSH/MAPFILE MODULE
The zsh/mapfile module provides one special associative array parameter of the same name.- mapfile
- This associative array takes as keys the names of files; the resulting value is the content of the file. The value is treated identically to any other text coming from a parameter. The value may also be assigned to, in which case the file in question is written (whether or not it originally existed); or an element may be unset, which will delete the file in question. For example, ` vared 'mapfile[myfile]'' works as expected, editing the file ` myfile'.
When the array is accessed as a whole, the keys are the names of files in the
current directory, and the values are empty (to save a huge overhead in
memory). Thus ${(k)mapfile} has the same effect as the glob operator
*(D), since files beginning with a dot are not special. Care must be
taken with expressions such as rm ${(k)mapfile}, which will delete
every file in the current directory without the usual ` rm *' test.
The parameter mapfile may be made read-only; in that case, files
referenced may not be written or deleted.
A file may conveniently be read into an array as one line per element with the
form `
array=("${(f@)mapfile[filename]}")'. The
double quotes and the ` @' are necessary to prevent empty lines from
being removed. Note that if the file ends with a newline, the shell will split
on the final newline, generating an additional empty field; this can be
suppressed by using `
array=("${(f@)${mapfile[filename
]%$'\n'}}")'.
Limitations
Although reading and writing of the file in question is efficiently handled, zsh's internal memory management may be arbitrarily baroque; however, mapfile is usually very much more efficient than anything involving a loop. Note in particular that the whole contents of the file will always reside physically in memory when accessed (possibly multiple times, due to standard parameter substitution operations). In particular, this means handling of sufficiently long files (greater than the machine's swap space, or than the range of the pointer type) will be incorrect. No errors are printed or flagged for non-existent, unreadable, or unwritable files, as the parameter mechanism is too low in the shell execution hierarchy to make this convenient. It is unfortunate that the mechanism for loading modules does not yet allow the user to specify the name of the shell parameter to be given the special behaviour.THE ZSH/MATHFUNC MODULE
The zsh/mathfunc module provides standard mathematical functions for use when evaluating mathematical formulae. The syntax agrees with normal C and FORTRAN conventions, for example,(( f = sin(0.3) ))
print $(( rand48(seed) )) print $(( rand48() )) print $(( rand48(seed) ))
THE ZSH/NEARCOLOR MODULE
The zsh/nearcolor module replaces colours specified as hex triplets with the nearest colour in the 88 or 256 colour palettes that are widely used by terminal emulators. By default, 24-bit true colour escape codes are generated when colours are specified using hex triplets. These are not supported by all terminals. The purpose of this module is to make it easier to define colour preferences in a form that can work across a range of terminal emulators. Aside from the default colour, the ANSI standard for terminal escape codes provides for eight colours. The bright attribute brings this to sixteen. These basic colours are commonly used in terminal applications due to being widely supported. Expanded 88 and 256 colour palettes are also common and, while the first sixteen colours vary somewhat between terminals and configurations, these add a generally consistent and predictable set of colours. In order to use the zsh/nearcolor module, it only needs to be loaded. Thereafter, whenever a colour is specified using a hex triplet, it will be compared against each of the available colours and the closest will be selected. The first sixteen colours are never matched in this process due to being unpredictable. It isn't possible to reliably detect support for true colour in the terminal emulator. It is therefore recommended to be selective in loading the zsh/nearcolor module. For example, the following checks the COLORTERM environment variable:[[ $COLORTERM = *(24bit|truecolor)* ]] || zmodload zsh/nearcolor
THE ZSH/NEWUSER MODULE
The zsh/newuser module is loaded at boot if it is available, the RCS option is set, and the PRIVILEGED option is not set (all three are true by default). This takes place immediately after commands in the global zshenv file (typically /etc/zsh/zshenv), if any, have been executed. If the module is not available it is silently ignored by the shell; the module may safely be removed from $MODULE_PATH by the administrator if it is not required. On loading, the module tests if any of the start-up files .zshenv, .zprofile, .zshrc or .zlogin exist in the directory given by the environment variable ZDOTDIR, or the user's home directory if that is not set. The test is not performed and the module halts processing if the shell was in an emulation mode (i.e. had been invoked as some other shell than zsh). If none of the start-up files were found, the module then looks for the file newuser first in a sitewide directory, usually the parent directory of the site-functions directory, and if that is not found the module searches in a version-specific directory, usually the parent of the functions directory containing version-specific functions. (These directories can be configured when zsh is built using the --enable-site-scriptdir= dir and --enable-scriptdir=dir flags to configure, respectively; the defaults are prefix/share/zsh and prefix/share/zsh/$ZSH_VERSION where the default prefix is /usr/local.) If the file newuser is found, it is then sourced in the same manner as a start-up file. The file is expected to contain code to install start-up files for the user, however any valid shell code will be executed. The zsh/newuser module is then unconditionally unloaded. Note that it is possible to achieve exactly the same effect as the zsh/newuser module by adding code to /etc/zsh/zshenv. The module exists simply to allow the shell to make arrangements for new users without the need for intervention by package maintainers and system administrators. The script supplied with the module invokes the shell function zsh-newuser-install. This may be invoked directly by the user even if the zsh/newuser module is disabled. Note, however, that if the module is not installed the function will not be installed either. The function is documented in the section `User Configuration Functions' in zshcontrib(1).THE ZSH/PARAMETER MODULE
The zsh/parameter module gives access to some of the internal hash tables used by the shell by defining some special parameters.- options
- The keys for this associative array are the names of the options that can be set and unset using the setopt and unsetopt builtins. The value of each key is either the string on if the option is currently set, or the string off if the option is unset. Setting a key to one of these strings is like setting or unsetting the option, respectively. Unsetting a key in this array is like setting it to the value off.
- commands
- This array gives access to the command hash table. The keys are the names of external commands, the values are the pathnames of the files that would be executed when the command would be invoked. Setting a key in this array defines a new entry in this table in the same way as with the hash builtin. Unsetting a key as in `unset "commands[foo]"' removes the entry for the given key from the command hash table.
- functions
- This associative array maps names of enabled functions to their definitions. Setting a key in it is like defining a function with the name given by the key and the body given by the value. Unsetting a key removes the definition for the function named by the key.
- dis_functions
- Like functions but for disabled functions.
- functions_source
- This readonly associative array maps names of enabled functions to the name of the file containing the source of the function.
For an autoloaded function that has already been loaded, or marked for autoload
with an absolute path, or that has had its path resolved with ` functions
-r', this is the file found for autoloading, resolved to an absolute path.
For a function defined within the body of a script or sourced file, this is the
name of that file. In this case, this is the exact path originally used to
that file, which may be a relative path.
For any other function, including any defined at an interactive prompt or an
autoload function whose path has not yet been resolved, this is the empty
string. However, the hash element is reported as defined just so long as the
function is present: the keys to this hash are the same as those to
$functions.
- dis_functions_source
- Like functions_source but for disabled functions.
- builtins
- This associative array gives information about the builtin commands currently enabled. The keys are the names of the builtin commands and the values are either ` undefined' for builtin commands that will automatically be loaded from a module if invoked or ` defined' for builtin commands that are already loaded.
- dis_builtins
- Like builtins but for disabled builtin commands.
- reswords
- This array contains the enabled reserved words.
- dis_reswords
- Like reswords but for disabled reserved words.
- patchars
- This array contains the enabled pattern characters.
- dis_patchars
- Like patchars but for disabled pattern characters.
- aliases
- This maps the names of the regular aliases currently enabled to their expansions.
- dis_aliases
- Like aliases but for disabled regular aliases.
- galiases
- Like aliases, but for global aliases.
- dis_galiases
- Like galiases but for disabled global aliases.
- saliases
- Like raliases, but for suffix aliases.
- dis_saliases
- Like saliases but for disabled suffix aliases.
- parameters
- The keys in this associative array are the names of the parameters currently defined. The values are strings describing the type of the parameter, in the same format used by the t parameter flag, see zshexpn(1) . Setting or unsetting keys in this array is not possible.
- modules
- An associative array giving information about modules. The keys are the names of the modules loaded, registered to be autoloaded, or aliased. The value says which state the named module is in and is one of the strings ` loaded', `autoloaded', or `alias:name', where name is the name the module is aliased to.
Setting or unsetting keys in this array is not possible.
- dirstack
- A normal array holding the elements of the directory stack. Note that the output of the dirs builtin command includes one more directory, the current working directory.
- history
- This associative array maps history event numbers to the full history lines. Although it is presented as an associative array, the array of all values ( ${history[@]}) is guaranteed to be returned in order from most recent to oldest history event, that is, by decreasing history event number.
- historywords
- A special array containing the words stored in the history. These also appear in most to least recent order.
- jobdirs
- This associative array maps job numbers to the directories from which the job was started (which may not be the current directory of the job).
The keys of the associative arrays are usually valid job numbers, and these are
the values output with, for example, ${(k)jobdirs}. Non-numeric job
references may be used when looking up a value; for example,
${jobdirs[%+]} refers to the current job.
See the jobs builtin for how job information is provided in a
subshell.
- jobtexts
- This associative array maps job numbers to the texts of the command lines that were used to start the jobs.
Handling of the keys of the associative array is as described for jobdirs
above.
See the jobs builtin for how job information is provided in a
subshell.
- jobstates
- This associative array gives information about the states of the jobs currently known. The keys are the job numbers and the values are strings of the form ` job-state:mark:pid =state...'. The job-state gives the state the whole job is currently in, one of ` running', `suspended', or `done'. The mark is ` +' for the current job, `-' for the previous job and empty otherwise. This is followed by one ` :pid=state' for every process in the job. The pids are, of course, the process IDs and the state describes the state of that process.
Handling of the keys of the associative array is as described for jobdirs
above.
See the jobs builtin for how job information is provided in a
subshell.
- nameddirs
- This associative array maps the names of named directories to the pathnames they stand for.
- userdirs
- This associative array maps user names to the pathnames of their home directories.
- usergroups
- This associative array maps names of system groups of which the current user is a member to the corresponding group identifiers. The contents are the same as the groups output by the id command.
- funcfiletrace
- This array contains the absolute line numbers and corresponding file names for the point where the current function, sourced file, or (if EVAL_LINENO is set) eval command was called. The array is of the same length as funcsourcetrace and functrace, but differs from funcsourcetrace in that the line and file are the point of call, not the point of definition, and differs from functrace in that all values are absolute line numbers in files, rather than relative to the start of a function, if any.
- funcsourcetrace
- This array contains the file names and line numbers of the points where the functions, sourced files, and (if EVAL_LINENO is set) eval commands currently being executed were defined. The line number is the line where the ` function name' or ` name ()' started. In the case of an autoloaded function the line number is reported as zero. The format of each element is filename :lineno.
For functions autoloaded from a file in native zsh format, where only the body
of the function occurs in the file, or for files that have been executed by
the source or `.' builtins, the trace information is shown as
filename:0, since the entire file is the definition. The
source file name is resolved to an absolute path when the function is loaded
or the path to it otherwise resolved.
Most users will be interested in the information in the funcfiletrace
array instead.
- funcstack
- This array contains the names of the functions, sourced files, and (if EVAL_LINENO is set) eval commands. currently being executed. The first element is the name of the function using the parameter.
The standard shell array zsh_eval_context can be used to determine the
type of shell construct being executed at each depth: note, however, that is
in the opposite order, with the most recent item last, and it is more
detailed, for example including an entry for toplevel, the main shell
code being executed either interactively or from a script, which is not
present in $funcstack.
- functrace
- This array contains the names and line numbers of the callers corresponding to the functions currently being executed. The format of each element is name:lineno. Callers are also shown for sourced files; the caller is the point where the source or ` .' command was executed.
THE ZSH/PCRE MODULE
The zsh/pcre module makes some commands available as builtins:- pcre_compile [ -aimxs ] PCRE
- Compiles a perl-compatible regular expression.
Option -a will force the pattern to be anchored. Option -i will
compile a case-insensitive pattern. Option -m will compile a multi-line
pattern; that is, ^ and $ will match newlines within the
pattern. Option -x will compile an extended pattern, wherein whitespace
and # comments are ignored. Option -s makes the dot
metacharacter match all characters, including those that indicate
newline.
- pcre_study
- Studies the previously-compiled PCRE which may result in faster matching.
- pcre_match [ -v var ] [ -a arr ] [ -n offset ] [ -b ] string
- Returns successfully if string matches the previously-compiled PCRE.
Upon successful match, if the expression captures substrings within parentheses,
pcre_match will set the array match to those substrings, unless
the -a option is given, in which case it will set the array arr.
Similarly, the variable MATCH will be set to the entire matched portion
of the string, unless the -v option is given, in which case the
variable var will be set. No variables are altered if there is no
successful match. A -n option starts searching for a match from the
byte offset position in string. If the -b option is
given, the variable ZPCRE_OP will be set to an offset pair string,
representing the byte offset positions of the entire matched portion within
the string. For example, a ZPCRE_OP set to "32 45"
indicates that the matched portion began on byte offset 32 and ended on byte
offset 44. Here, byte offset position 45 is the position directly after the
matched portion. Keep in mind that the byte position isn't necessarily the
same as the character position when UTF-8 characters are involved.
Consequently, the byte offset positions are only to be relied on in the
context of using them for subsequent searches on string, using an
offset position as an argument to the -n option. This is mostly used to
implement the "find all non-overlapping matches" functionality.
A simple example of "find all non-overlapping matches":
The zsh/pcre module makes available the following test condition:
string="The following zip codes: 78884 90210 99513" pcre_compile -m "\d{5}" accum=() pcre_match -b -- $string while [[ $? -eq 0 ]] do b=($=ZPCRE_OP) accum+=$MATCH pcre_match -b -n $b[2] -- $string done print -l $accum
- expr -pcre-match pcre
- Matches a string against a perl-compatible regular expression.
For example,
If the REMATCH_PCRE option is set, the =~ operator is equivalent
to -pcre-match, and the NO_CASE_MATCH option may be used. Note
that NO_CASE_MATCH never applies to the pcre_match builtin,
instead use the -i switch of pcre_compile.
[[ "$text" -pcre-match ^d+$ ]] && print text variable contains only "d's".
THE ZSH/PARAM/PRIVATE MODULE
The zsh/param/private module is used to create parameters whose scope is limited to the current function body, and not to other functions called by the current function. This module provides a single autoloaded builtin:- private [ {+|-}AHUahlmrtux ] [ { +|-}EFLRZi [ n ] ] [ name[=value] ... ]
- The private builtin accepts all the same options and arguments as local ( zshbuiltins(1)) except for the ` - T' option. Tied parameters may not be made private.
The ` -p' option is presently a no-op because the state of private
parameters cannot reliably be reloaded. This also applies to printing private
parameters with ` typeset -p'.
If used at the top level (outside a function scope), private creates a
normal parameter in the same manner as declare or typeset. A
warning about this is printed if WARN_CREATE_GLOBAL is set (
zshoptions(1)). Used inside a function scope, private creates a
local parameter similar to one declared with local, except having
special properties noted below.
Special parameters which expose or manipulate internal shell state, such as
ARGC, argv, COLUMNS, LINES, UID,
EUID, IFS, PROMPT, RANDOM, SECONDS, etc.,
cannot be made private unless the ` -h' option is used to hide
the special meaning of the parameter. This may change in the future.
As with other typeset equivalents, private is both a builtin and a
reserved word, so arrays may be assigned with parenthesized word list
name =(value...) syntax. However, the reserved
word ` private' is not available until zsh/param/private is
loaded, so care must be taken with order of execution and parsing for function
definitions which use private. To compensate for this, the module also
adds the option ` -P' to the `local' builtin to declare private
parameters.
For example, this construction fails if zsh/param/private has not yet
been loaded when ` bad_declaration' is defined:
bad_declaration() { zmodload zsh/param/private private array=( one two three ) }
good_declaration() { zmodload zsh/param/private local -P array=( one two three ) }
zmodload zsh/param/private iffy_declaration() { private array=( one two three ) }
- •
- Within the function body where it is declared, the parameter behaves as a local, except as noted above for tied or special parameters.
- •
- The type of a parameter declared private cannot be changed in the scope where it was declared, even if the parameter is unset. Thus an array cannot be assigned to a private scalar, etc.
- •
- Within any other function called by the declaring function, the private parameter does NOT hide other parameters of the same name, so for example a global parameter of the same name is visible and may be assigned or unset. This includes calls to anonymous functions, although that may also change in the future. However, the private name may not be created outside the local scope when it was not previously declared.
- •
- An exported private remains in the environment of inner scopes but appears unset for the current shell in those scopes. Generally, exporting private parameters should be avoided.
THE ZSH/REGEX MODULE
The zsh/regex module makes available the following test condition:- expr -regex-match regex
- Matches a string against a POSIX extended regular expression. On successful match, matched portion of the string will normally be placed in the MATCH variable. If there are any capturing parentheses within the regex, then the match array variable will contain those. If the match is not successful, then the variables will not be altered.
For example,
If the option REMATCH_PCRE is not set, then the =~ operator will
automatically load this module as needed and will invoke the
-regex-match operator.
If BASH_REMATCH is set, then the array BASH_REMATCH will be set
instead of MATCH and match.
Note that the zsh/regex module logic relies on the host system. The same
expr and regex pair could produce different results on different
platforms if a regex with non-standard syntax is given.
For example, no syntax for matching a word boundary is defined in the POSIX
extended regular expression standard. GNU libc and BSD libc both
provide such syntaxes as extensions ( \b and
[[:<:]]/[[:>:]] respectively), but neither of these
syntaxes is supported by both of these implementations.
Refer to the regcomp(3) and re_format(7) manual pages on your
system for locally-supported syntax.
[[ alphabetical -regex-match ^a([^a]+)a([^a]+)a ]] && print -l $MATCH X $match
THE ZSH/SCHED MODULE
The zsh/sched module makes available one builtin command and one parameter.- sched [-o] [+]hh:mm[ :ss] command ...
- sched [-o] [+]seconds command ...
- sched [ -item ]
- Make an entry in the scheduled list of commands to execute. The time may be specified in either absolute or relative time, and either as hours, minutes and (optionally) seconds separated by a colon, or seconds alone. An absolute number of seconds indicates the time since the epoch (1970/01/01 00:00); this is useful in combination with the features in the zsh/datetime module, see the zsh/datetime module entry in zshmodules(1).
With no arguments, prints the list of scheduled commands. If the scheduled
command has the -o flag set, this is shown at the start of the command.
With the argument ` -item', removes the given item from the list.
The numbering of the list is continuous and entries are in time order, so the
numbering can change when entries are added or deleted.
Commands are executed either immediately before a prompt, or while the shell's
line editor is waiting for input. In the latter case it is useful to be able
to produce output that does not interfere with the line being edited.
Providing the option -o causes the shell to clear the command line
before the event and redraw it afterwards. This should be used with any
scheduled event that produces visible output to the terminal; it is not
needed, for example, with output that updates a terminal emulator's title bar.
To effect changes to the editor buffer when an event executes, use the `
zle' command with no arguments to test whether the editor is active,
and if it is, then use ` zle widget' to access the editor via
the named widget.
The sched builtin is not made available by default when the shell starts
in a mode emulating another shell. It can be made available with the command `
zmodload -F zsh/sched b:sched'.
- zsh_scheduled_events
- A readonly array corresponding to the events scheduled by the sched builtin. The indices of the array correspond to the numbers shown when sched is run with no arguments (provided that the KSH_ARRAYS option is not set). The value of the array consists of the scheduled time in seconds since the epoch (see the section `The zsh/datetime Module' for facilities for using this number), followed by a colon, followed by any options (which may be empty but will be preceded by a ` -' otherwise), followed by a colon, followed by the command to be executed.
The sched builtin should be used for manipulating the events. Note that
this will have an immediate effect on the contents of the array, so that
indices may become invalid.
THE ZSH/NET/SOCKET MODULE
The zsh/net/socket module makes available one builtin command:- zsocket [ -altv ] [ -d fd ] [ args ]
- zsocket is implemented as a builtin to allow full use of shell command line editing, file I/O, and job control mechanisms.
Outbound Connections
- zsocket [ -v ] [ -d fd ] filename
- Open a new Unix domain connection to filename. The shell parameter REPLY will be set to the file descriptor associated with that connection. Currently, only stream connections are supported.
If -d is specified, its argument will be taken as the target file
descriptor for the connection.
In order to elicit more verbose output, use -v.
File descriptors can be closed with normal shell syntax when no longer needed,
for example:
exec {REPLY}>&-
Inbound Connections
- zsocket -l [ -v ] [ -d fd ] filename
- zsocket -l will open a socket listening on filename. The shell parameter REPLY will be set to the file descriptor associated with that listener. The file descriptor remains open in subshells and forked external executables.
If -d is specified, its argument will be taken as the target file
descriptor for the connection.
In order to elicit more verbose output, use -v.
- zsocket -a [ -tv ] [ -d targetfd ] listenfd
- zsocket -a will accept an incoming connection to the socket associated with listenfd. The shell parameter REPLY will be set to the file descriptor associated with the inbound connection. The file descriptor remains open in subshells and forked external executables.
If -d is specified, its argument will be taken as the target file
descriptor for the connection.
If -t is specified, zsocket will return if no incoming connection
is pending. Otherwise it will wait for one.
In order to elicit more verbose output, use -v.
THE ZSH/STAT MODULE
The zsh/stat module makes available one builtin command under two possible names:- zstat [ -gnNolLtTrs ] [ -f fd ] [ -H hash ] [ -A array ] [ -F fmt ]
- [ +element ] [ file ... ]
- stat ...
- The command acts as a front end to the stat system call (see stat(2)). The same command is provided with two names; as the name stat is often used by an external command it is recommended that only the zstat form of the command is used. This can be arranged by loading the module with the command ` zmodload -F zsh/stat b:zstat'.
If the stat call fails, the appropriate system error message printed and
status 1 is returned. The fields of struct stat give information about
the files provided as arguments to the command. In addition to those available
from the stat call, an extra element `link' is provided. These
elements are:
- device
- The number of the device on which the file resides.
- inode
- The unique number of the file on this device (`inode' number).
- mode
- The mode of the file; that is, the file's type and access permissions. With the -s option, this will be returned as a string corresponding to the first column in the display of the ls -l command.
- nlink
- The number of hard links to the file.
- uid
- The user ID of the owner of the file. With the -s option, this is displayed as a user name.
- gid
- The group ID of the file. With the -s option, this is displayed as a group name.
- rdev
- The raw device number. This is only useful for special devices.
- size
- The size of the file in bytes.
- atime
- mtime
- ctime
- The last access, modification and inode change times of the file, respectively, as the number of seconds since midnight GMT on 1st January, 1970. With the -s option, these are printed as strings for the local time zone; the format can be altered with the -F option, and with the -g option the times are in GMT.
- blksize
- The number of bytes in one allocation block on the device on which the file resides.
- block
- The number of disk blocks used by the file.
- link
- If the file is a link and the -L option is in effect, this contains the name of the file linked to, otherwise it is empty. Note that if this element is selected (`` zstat +link'') then the -L option is automatically used.
- -A array
- Instead of displaying the results on standard output, assign them to an array, one struct stat element per array element for each file in order. In this case neither the name of the element nor the name of the files appears in array unless the -t or -n options were given, respectively. If -t is given, the element name appears as a prefix to the appropriate array element; if -n is given, the file name appears as a separate array element preceding all the others. Other formatting options are respected.
- -H hash
- Similar to -A, but instead assign the values to hash. The keys are the elements listed above. If the -n option is provided then the name of the file is included in the hash with key name.
- -f fd
- Use the file on file descriptor fd instead of named files; no list of file names is allowed in this case.
- -F fmt
- Supplies a strftime (see strftime(3)) string for the formatting of the time elements. The format string supports all of the zsh extensions described in the section EXPANSION OF PROMPT SEQUENCES in zshmisc(1). In particular, -F %s.%N can be used to show timestamps with nanosecond precision if supported by the system. The -s option is implied.
- -g
- Show the time elements in the GMT time zone. The -s option is implied.
- -l
- List the names of the type elements (to standard output or an array as appropriate) and return immediately; arguments, and options other than -A, are ignored.
- -L
- Perform an lstat (see lstat(2)) rather than a stat system call. In this case, if the file is a link, information about the link itself rather than the target file is returned. This option is required to make the link element useful. It's important to note that this is the exact opposite from ls(1), etc.
- -n
- Always show the names of files. Usually these are only shown when output is to standard output and there is more than one file in the list.
- -N
- Never show the names of files.
- -o
- If a raw file mode is printed, show it in octal, which is more useful for human consumption than the default of decimal. A leading zero will be printed in this case. Note that this does not affect whether a raw or formatted file mode is shown, which is controlled by the -r and -s options, nor whether a mode is shown at all.
- -r
- Print raw data (the default format) alongside string data (the -s format); the string data appears in parentheses after the raw data.
- -s
- Print mode, uid, gid and the three time elements as strings instead of numbers. In each case the format is like that of ls -l.
- -t
- Always show the type names for the elements of struct stat. Usually these are only shown when output is to standard output and no individual element has been selected.
- -T
- Never show the type names of the struct stat elements.
THE ZSH/SYSTEM MODULE
The zsh/system module makes available various builtin commands and parameters.Builtins
- syserror [ -e errvar ] [ -p prefix ] [ errno | errname ]
- This command prints out the error message associated with errno, a system error number, followed by a newline to standard error.
Instead of the error number, a name errname, for example ENOENT,
may be used. The set of names is the same as the contents of the array
errnos, see below.
If the string prefix is given, it is printed in front of the error
message, with no intervening space.
If errvar is supplied, the entire message, without a newline, is assigned
to the parameter names errvar and nothing is output.
A return status of 0 indicates the message was successfully printed (although it
may not be useful if the error number was out of the system's range), a return
status of 1 indicates an error in the parameters, and a return status of 2
indicates the error name was not recognised (no message is printed for
this).
- sysopen [ -arw ] [ -m permissions ] [ -o options ]
- -u fd file
- This command opens a file. The -r, -w and -a flags indicate whether the file should be opened for reading, writing and appending, respectively. The -m option allows the initial permissions to use when creating a file to be specified in octal form. The file descriptor is specified with -u. Either an explicit file descriptor in the range 0 to 9 can be specified or a variable name can be given to which the file descriptor number will be assigned.
The -o option allows various system specific options to be specified as a
comma-separated list. The following is a list of possible options. Note that,
depending on the system, some may not be available.
- cloexec
- mark file to be closed when other programs are executed (else the file descriptor remains open in subshells and forked external executables)
- create
- creat
- create file if it does not exist
- excl
- create file, error if it already exists
- noatime
- suppress updating of the file atime
- nofollow
- fail if file is a symbolic link
- nonblock
- the file is opened in nonblocking mode
- sync
- request that writes wait until data has been physically written
- truncate
- trunc
- truncate file to size 0
exec {fd}<&- exec {fd}>&-
- sysread [ -c countvar ] [ -i infd ] [ -o outfd ]
- [ -s bufsize ] [ -t timeout ] [ param ]
- Perform a single system read from file descriptor infd, or zero if that is not given. The result of the read is stored in param or REPLY if that is not given. If countvar is given, the number of bytes read is assigned to the parameter named by countvar.
The maximum number of bytes read is bufsize or 8192 if that is not given,
however the command returns as soon as any number of bytes was successfully
read.
If timeout is given, it specifies a timeout in seconds, which may be zero
to poll the file descriptor. This is handled by the poll system call if
available, otherwise the select system call if available.
If outfd is given, an attempt is made to write all the bytes just read to
the file descriptor outfd. If this fails, because of a system error
other than EINTR or because of an internal zsh error during an
interrupt, the bytes read but not written are stored in the parameter named by
param if supplied (no default is used in this case), and the number of
bytes read but not written is stored in the parameter named by countvar
if that is supplied. If it was successful, countvar contains the full
number of bytes transferred, as usual, and param is not set.
The error EINTR (interrupted system call) is handled internally so that
shell interrupts are transparent to the caller. Any other error causes a
return.
The possible return statuses are
- 0
- At least one byte of data was successfully read and, if appropriate, written.
- 1
- There was an error in the parameters to the command. This is the only error for which a message is printed to standard error.
- 2
- There was an error on the read, or on polling the input file descriptor for a timeout. The parameter ERRNO gives the error.
- 3
- Data were successfully read, but there was an error writing them to outfd. The parameter ERRNO gives the error.
- 4
- The attempt to read timed out. Note this does not set ERRNO as this is not a system error.
- 5
- No system error occurred, but zero bytes were read. This usually indicates end of file. The parameters are set according to the usual rules; no write to outfd is attempted.
- sysseek [ -u fd ] [ -w start| end|current ] offset
- The current file position at which future reads and writes will take place is adjusted to the specified byte offset. The offset is evaluated as a math expression. The -u option allows the file descriptor to be specified. By default the offset is specified relative to the start or the file but, with the -w option, it is possible to specify that the offset should be relative to the current position or the end of the file.
- syswrite [ -c countvar ] [ -o outfd ] data
- The data (a single string of bytes) are written to the file descriptor outfd, or 1 if that is not given, using the write system call. Multiple write operations may be used if the first does not write all the data.
If countvar is given, the number of byte written is stored in the
parameter named by countvar; this may not be the full length of
data if an error occurred.
The error EINTR (interrupted system call) is handled internally by
retrying; otherwise an error causes the command to return. For example, if the
file descriptor is set to non-blocking output, an error EAGAIN (on some
systems, EWOULDBLOCK) may result in the command returning early.
The return status may be 0 for success, 1 for an error in the parameters to the
command, or 2 for an error on the write; no error message is printed in the
last case, but the parameter ERRNO will reflect the error that
occurred.
- zsystem flock [ -t timeout ] [ -i interval ] [ -f var ] [-er] file
- zsystem flock -u fd_expr
- The builtin zsystem's subcommand flock performs advisory file locking (via the fcntl(2) system call) over the entire contents of the given file. This form of locking requires the processes accessing the file to cooperate; its most obvious use is between two instances of the shell itself.
In the first form the named file, which must already exist, is locked by
opening a file descriptor to the file and applying a lock to the file
descriptor. The lock terminates when the shell process that created the lock
exits; it is therefore often convenient to create file locks within subshells,
since the lock is automatically released when the subshell exits. Note that
use of the print builtin with the -u option will, as a side
effect, release the lock, as will redirection to the file in the shell holding
the lock. To work around this use a subshell, e.g. ` (print message)
>> file'. Status 0 is returned if the lock succeeds, else
status 1.
In the second form the file descriptor given by the arithmetic expression
fd_expr is closed, releasing a lock. The file descriptor can be queried
by using the ` -f var' form during the lock; on a successful
lock, the shell variable var is set to the file descriptor used for
locking. The lock will be released if the file descriptor is closed by any
other means, for example using ` exec {var}>&-';
however, the form described here performs a safety check that the file
descriptor is in use for file locking.
By default the shell waits indefinitely for the lock to succeed. The option
-t timeout specifies a timeout for the lock in seconds;
fractional seconds are allowed. During this period, the shell will attempt to
lock the file every interval seconds if the -i interval
option is given, otherwise once a second. (This interval is shortened
before the last attempt if needed, so that the shell waits only until the
timeout and not longer.) If the attempt times out, status 2 is
returned.
(Note: timeout is limited to 2^30-1 seconds (about 34 years), and
interval to 0.999 * LONG_MAX microseconds (only about 35 minutes on
32-bit systems).)
If the option -e is given, the file descriptor for the lock is preserved
when the shell uses exec to start a new process; otherwise it is closed
at that point and the lock released.
If the option -r is given, the lock is only for reading, otherwise it is
for reading and writing. The file descriptor is opened accordingly.
- zsystem supports subcommand
- The builtin zsystem's subcommand supports tests whether a given subcommand is supported. It returns status 0 if so, else status 1. It operates silently unless there was a syntax error (i.e. the wrong number of arguments), in which case status 255 is returned. Status 1 can indicate one of two things: subcommand is known but not supported by the current operating system, or subcommand is not known (possibly because this is an older version of the shell before it was implemented).
Math Functions
- systell(fd)
- The systell math function returns the current file position for the file descriptor passed as an argument.
Parameters
- errnos
- A readonly array of the names of errors defined on the system. These are typically macros defined in C by including the system header file errno.h. The index of each name (assuming the option KSH_ARRAYS is unset) corresponds to the error number. Error numbers num before the last known error which have no name are given the name Enum in the array.
Note that aliases for errors are not handled; only the canonical name is
used.
- sysparams
- A readonly associative array. The keys are:
- pid
- Returns the process ID of the current process, even in subshells. Compare $$, which returns the process ID of the main shell process.
- ppid
- Returns the current process ID of the parent of the current process, even in subshells. Compare $PPID, which returns the process ID of the initial parent of the main shell process.
- procsubstpid
- Returns the process ID of the last process started for process substitution, i.e. the <(...) and >( ...) expansions.
THE ZSH/NET/TCP MODULE
The zsh/net/tcp module makes available one builtin command:- ztcp [ -acflLtv ] [ -d fd ] [ args ]
- ztcp is implemented as a builtin to allow full use of shell command line editing, file I/O, and job control mechanisms.
If ztcp is run with no options, it will output the contents of its
session table.
If it is run with only the option -L, it will output the contents of the
session table in a format suitable for automatic parsing. The option is
ignored if given with a command to open or close a session. The output
consists of a set of lines, one per session, each containing the following
elements separated by spaces:
- File descriptor
- The file descriptor in use for the connection. For normal inbound ( I) and outbound ( O) connections this may be read and written by the usual shell mechanisms. However, it should only be close with ` ztcp -c'.
- Connection type
- A letter indicating how the session was created:
- Z
- A session created with the zftp command.
- L
- A connection opened for listening with `ztcp -l'.
- I
- An inbound connection accepted with `ztcp -a'.
- O
- An outbound connection created with `ztcp host ...'.
- The local host
- This is usually set to an all-zero IP address as the address of the localhost is irrelevant.
- The local port
- This is likely to be zero unless the connection is for listening.
- The remote host
- This is the fully qualified domain name of the peer, if available, else an IP address. It is an all-zero IP address for a session opened for listening.
- The remote port
- This is zero for a connection opened for listening.
Outbound Connections
- ztcp [ -v ] [ -d fd ] host [ port ]
- Open a new TCP connection to host. If the port is omitted, it will default to port 23. The connection will be added to the session table and the shell parameter REPLY will be set to the file descriptor associated with that connection.
If -d is specified, its argument will be taken as the target file
descriptor for the connection.
In order to elicit more verbose output, use -v.
Inbound Connections
- ztcp -l [ -v ] [ -d fd ] port
- ztcp -l will open a socket listening on TCP port. The socket will be added to the session table and the shell parameter REPLY will be set to the file descriptor associated with that listener.
If -d is specified, its argument will be taken as the target file
descriptor for the connection.
In order to elicit more verbose output, use -v.
- ztcp -a [ -tv ] [ -d targetfd ] listenfd
- ztcp -a will accept an incoming connection to the port associated with listenfd. The connection will be added to the session table and the shell parameter REPLY will be set to the file descriptor associated with the inbound connection.
If -d is specified, its argument will be taken as the target file
descriptor for the connection.
If -t is specified, ztcp will return if no incoming connection is
pending. Otherwise it will wait for one.
In order to elicit more verbose output, use -v.
Closing Connections
- ztcp -cf [ -v ] [ fd ]
- ztcp -c [ -v ] [ fd ]
- ztcp -c will close the socket associated with fd. The socket will be removed from the session table. If fd is not specified, ztcp will close everything in the session table.
Normally, sockets registered by zftp (see zshmodules(1) ) cannot be
closed this way. In order to force such a socket closed, use -f.
In order to elicit more verbose output, use -v.
Example
Here is how to create a TCP connection between two instances of zsh. We need to pick an unassigned port; here we use the randomly chosen 5123. On host1,zmodload zsh/net/tcp ztcp -l 5123 listenfd=$REPLY ztcp -a $listenfd fd=$REPLY
zmodload zsh/net/tcp ztcp host1 5123 fd=$REPLY
print This is a message >&$fd
read -r line <&$fd; print -r - $line
ztcp -c $listenfd ztcp -c $fd
ztcp -c $fd
THE ZSH/TERMCAP MODULE
The zsh/termcap module makes available one builtin command:- echotc cap [ arg ... ]
- Output the termcap value corresponding to the capability cap, with optional arguments.
- termcap
- An associative array that maps termcap capability codes to their values.
THE ZSH/TERMINFO MODULE
The zsh/terminfo module makes available one builtin command:- echoti cap [ arg ]
- Output the terminfo value corresponding to the capability cap, instantiated with arg if applicable.
- terminfo
- An associative array that maps terminfo capability names to their values.
THE ZSH/WATCH MODULE
The zsh/watch module can be used to report when specific users log in or out. This is controlled via the following parameters.- LOGCHECK
- The interval in seconds between checks for login/logout activity using the watch parameter.
- watch <S> <Z> (WATCH <S>)
- An array (colon-separated list) of login/logout events to report.
If it contains the single word ` all', then all login/logout events are
reported. If it contains the single word ` notme', then all events are
reported as with ` all' except $USERNAME.
An entry in this list may consist of a username, an ` @' followed by a
remote hostname, and a ` %' followed by a line (tty). Any of these may
be a pattern (be sure to quote this during the assignment to watch so
that it does not immediately perform file generation); the setting of the
EXTENDED_GLOB option is respected. Any or all of these components may
be present in an entry; if a login/logout event matches all of them, it is
reported.
For example, with the EXTENDED_GLOB option set, the following:
causes reports for activity associated with any user other than pws or
barts.
watch=('^(pws|barts)')
- WATCHFMT
- The format of login/logout reports if the watch parameter is set. Default is ` %n has %a %l from %m'. Recognizes the following escape sequences:
- %n
- The name of the user that logged in/out.
- %a
- The observed action, i.e. "logged on" or "logged off".
- %l
- The line (tty) the user is logged in on.
- %M
- The full hostname of the remote host.
- %m
- The hostname up to the first `.'. If only the IP address is available or the utmp field contains the name of an X-windows display, the whole name is printed.
NOTE: The ` %m' and `%M' escapes will work only if there is
a host name field in the utmp on your machine. Otherwise they are treated as
ordinary strings.
- %F{color} (%f)
- Start (stop) using a different foreground color.
- %K{color} (%k)
- Start (stop) using a different background color.
- %S (%s)
- Start (stop) standout mode.
- %U (%u)
- Start (stop) underline mode.
- %B (%b)
- Start (stop) boldface mode.
- %t
- %@
- The time, in 12-hour, am/pm format.
- %T
- The time, in 24-hour format.
- %w
- The date in `day-dd' format.
- %W
- The date in `mm/dd/yy' format.
- %D
- The date in `yy-mm-dd' format.
- %D{string}
- The date formatted as string using the strftime function, with zsh extensions as described by EXPANSION OF PROMPT SEQUENCES in zshmisc(1).
- %(x:true-text:false-text)
- Specifies a ternary expression. The character following the x is arbitrary; the same character is used to separate the text for the "true" result from that for the "false" result. Both the separator and the right parenthesis may be escaped with a backslash. Ternary expressions may be nested.
The test character x may be any one of `l', `n', `m'
or ` M', which indicate a `true' result if the corresponding escape
sequence would return a non-empty value; or it may be ` a', which
indicates a `true' result if the watched user has logged in, or `false' if he
has logged out. Other characters evaluate to neither true nor false; the
entire expression is omitted in this case.
If the result is `true', then the true-text is formatted according to the
rules above and printed, and the false-text is skipped. If `false', the
true-text is skipped and the false-text is formatted and
printed. Either or both of the branches may be empty, but both separators must
be present in any case.
- log
- List all users currently logged in who are affected by the current setting of the watch parameter.
THE ZSH/ZFTP MODULE
The zsh/zftp module makes available one builtin command:- zftp subcommand [ args ]
- The zsh/zftp module is a client for FTP (file transfer protocol). It is implemented as a builtin to allow full use of shell command line editing, file I/O, and job control mechanisms. Often, users will access it via shell functions providing a more powerful interface; a set is provided with the zsh distribution and is described in zshzftpsys(1). However, the zftp command is entirely usable in its own right.
All commands consist of the command name zftp followed by the name of a
subcommand. These are listed below. The return status of each subcommand is
supposed to reflect the success or failure of the remote operation. See a
description of the variable ZFTP_VERBOSE for more information on how
responses from the server may be printed.
Subcommands
- open host[:port] [ user [ password [ account ] ] ]
- Open a new FTP session to host, which may be the name of a TCP/IP connected host or an IP number in the standard dot notation. If the argument is in the form host:port, open a connection to TCP port port instead of the standard FTP port 21. This may be the name of a TCP service or a number: see the description of ZFTP_PORT below for more information.
If IPv6 addresses in colon format are used, the host should be surrounded
by quoted square brackets to distinguish it from the port, for example
'[fe80::203:baff:fe02:8b56]'. For consistency this is allowed with all
forms of host.
Remaining arguments are passed to the login subcommand. Note that if no
arguments beyond host are supplied, open will not
automatically call login. If no arguments at all are supplied,
open will use the parameters set by the params subcommand.
After a successful open, the shell variables ZFTP_HOST, ZFTP_PORT,
ZFTP_IP and ZFTP_SYSTEM are available; see `Variables'
below.
- login [ name [ password [ account ] ] ]
- user [ name [ password [ account ] ] ]
- Login the user name with parameters password and account. Any of the parameters can be omitted, and will be read from standard input if needed ( name is always needed). If standard input is a terminal, a prompt for each one will be printed on standard error and password will not be echoed. If any of the parameters are not used, a warning message is printed.
After a successful login, the shell variables ZFTP_USER,
ZFTP_ACCOUNT and ZFTP_PWD are available; see `Variables' below.
This command may be re-issued when a user is already logged in, and the server
will first be reinitialized for a new user.
- params [ host [ user [ password [ account ] ] ] ]
- params -
- Store the given parameters for a later open command with no arguments. Only those given on the command line will be remembered. If no arguments are given, the parameters currently set are printed, although the password will appear as a line of stars; the return status is one if no parameters were set, zero otherwise.
Any of the parameters may be specified as a ` ?', which may need to be
quoted to protect it from shell expansion. In this case, the appropriate
parameter will be read from stdin as with the login subcommand,
including special handling of password. If the ` ?' is followed
by a string, that is used as the prompt for reading the parameter instead of
the default message (any necessary punctuation and whitespace should be
included at the end of the prompt). The first letter of the parameter (only)
may be quoted with a ` \'; hence an argument "\\$word"
guarantees that the string from the shell parameter $word will be
treated literally, whether or not it begins with a ` ?'.
If instead a single ` -' is given, the existing parameters, if any, are
deleted. In that case, calling open with no arguments will cause an
error.
The list of parameters is not deleted after a close, however it will be
deleted if the zsh/zftp module is unloaded.
For example,
will store the host ftp.elsewhere.xx and the user juser and then
prompt the user for the corresponding password with the given prompt.
zftp params ftp.elsewhere.xx juser '?Password for juser: '
- test
- Test the connection; if the server has reported that it has closed the connection (maybe due to a timeout), return status 2; if no connection was open anyway, return status 1; else return status 0. The test subcommand is silent, apart from messages printed by the $ZFTP_VERBOSE mechanism, or error messages if the connection closes. There is no network overhead for this test.
The test is only supported on systems with either the select(2) or
poll(2) system calls; otherwise the message ` not supported
on this system' is printed instead.
The test subcommand will automatically be called at the start of any
other subcommand for the current session when a connection is open.
- cd directory
- Change the remote directory to directory. Also alters the shell variable ZFTP_PWD.
- cdup
- Change the remote directory to the one higher in the directory tree. Note that cd .. will also work correctly on non-UNIX systems.
- dir [ arg ... ]
- Give a (verbose) listing of the remote directory. The args are passed directly to the server. The command's behaviour is implementation dependent, but a UNIX server will typically interpret args as arguments to the ls command and with no arguments return the result of ` ls -l'. The directory is listed to standard output.
- ls [ arg ... ]
- Give a (short) listing of the remote directory. With no arg, produces a raw list of the files in the directory, one per line. Otherwise, up to vagaries of the server implementation, behaves similar to dir.
- type [ type ]
- Change the type for the transfer to type, or print the current type if type is absent. The allowed values are `A' (ASCII), ` I' (Image, i.e. binary), or `B' (a synonym for ` I').
The FTP default for a transfer is ASCII. However, if zftp finds that the
remote host is a UNIX machine with 8-bit byes, it will automatically switch to
using binary for file transfers upon open. This can subsequently be
overridden.
The transfer type is only passed to the remote host when a data connection is
established; this command involves no network overhead.
- ascii
- The same as type A.
- binary
- The same as type I.
- mode [ S | B ]
- Set the mode type to stream (S) or block (B). Stream mode is the default; block mode is not widely supported.
- remote file ...
- local [ file ... ]
- Print the size and last modification time of the remote or local files. If there is more than one item on the list, the name of the file is printed first. The first number is the file size, the second is the last modification time of the file in the format CCYYMMDDhhmmSS consisting of year, month, date, hour, minutes and seconds in GMT. Note that this format, including the length, is guaranteed, so that time strings can be directly compared via the [[ builtin's < and > operators, even if they are too long to be represented as integers.
Not all servers support the commands for retrieving this information. In that
case, the remote command will print nothing and return status 2,
compared with status 1 for a file not found.
The local command (but not remote) may be used with no arguments,
in which case the information comes from examining file descriptor zero. This
is the same file as seen by a put command with no further
redirection.
- get file ...
- Retrieve all files from the server, concatenating them and sending them to standard output.
- put file ...
- For each file, read a file from standard input and send that to the remote host with the given name.
- append file ...
- As put, but if the remote file already exists, data is appended to it instead of overwriting it.
- getat file point
- putat file point
- appendat file point
- Versions of get, put and append which will start the transfer at the given point in the remote file. This is useful for appending to an incomplete local file. However, note that this ability is not universally supported by servers (and is not quite the behaviour specified by the standard).
- delete file ...
- Delete the list of files on the server.
- mkdir directory
- Create a new directory directory on the server.
- rmdir directory
- Delete the directory directory on the server.
- rename old-name new-name
- Rename file old-name to new-name on the server.
- site arg ...
- Send a host-specific command to the server. You will probably only need this if instructed by the server to use it.
- quote arg ...
- Send the raw FTP command sequence to the server. You should be familiar with the FTP command set as defined in RFC959 before doing this. Useful commands may include STAT and HELP. Note also the mechanism for returning messages as described for the variable ZFTP_VERBOSE below, in particular that all messages from the control connection are sent to standard error.
- close
- quit
- Close the current data connection. This unsets the shell parameters ZFTP_HOST, ZFTP_PORT, ZFTP_IP, ZFTP_SYSTEM, ZFTP_USER, ZFTP_ACCOUNT, ZFTP_PWD, ZFTP_TYPE and ZFTP_MODE.
- session [ sessname ]
- Allows multiple FTP sessions to be used at once. The name of the session is an arbitrary string of characters; the default session is called ` default'. If this command is called without an argument, it will list all the current sessions; with an argument, it will either switch to the existing session called sessname, or create a new session of that name.
Each session remembers the status of the connection, the set of
connection-specific shell parameters (the same set as are unset when a
connection closes, as given in the description of close), and any user
parameters specified with the params subcommand. Changing to a previous
session restores those values; changing to a new session initialises them in
the same way as if zftp had just been loaded. The name of the current
session is given by the parameter ZFTP_SESSION.
- rmsession [ sessname ]
- Delete a session; if a name is not given, the current session is deleted. If the current session is deleted, the earliest existing session becomes the new current session, otherwise the current session is not changed. If the session being deleted is the only one, a new session called ` default' is created and becomes the current session; note that this is a new session even if the session being deleted is also called ` default'. It is recommended that sessions not be deleted while background commands which use zftp are still active.
Parameters
The following shell parameters are used by zftp. Currently none of them are special.- ZFTP_TMOUT
- Integer. The time in seconds to wait for a network operation to complete before returning an error. If this is not set when the module is loaded, it will be given the default value 60. A value of zero turns off timeouts. If a timeout occurs on the control connection it will be closed. Use a larger value if this occurs too frequently.
- ZFTP_IP
- Readonly. The IP address of the current connection in dot notation.
- ZFTP_HOST
- Readonly. The hostname of the current remote server. If the host was opened as an IP number, ZFTP_HOST contains that instead; this saves the overhead for a name lookup, as IP numbers are most commonly used when a nameserver is unavailable.
- ZFTP_PORT
- Readonly. The number of the remote TCP port to which the connection is open (even if the port was originally specified as a named service). Usually this is the standard FTP port, 21.
In the unlikely event that your system does not have the appropriate conversion
functions, this appears in network byte order. If your system is
little-endian, the port then consists of two swapped bytes and the standard
port will be reported as 5376. In that case, numeric ports passed to zftp
open will also need to be in this format.
- ZFTP_SYSTEM
- Readonly. The system type string returned by the server in response to an FTP SYST request. The most interesting case is a string beginning "UNIX Type: L8", which ensures maximum compatibility with a local UNIX host.
- ZFTP_TYPE
- Readonly. The type to be used for data transfers , either `A' or ` I'. Use the type subcommand to change this.
- ZFTP_USER
- Readonly. The username currently logged in, if any.
- ZFTP_ACCOUNT
- Readonly. The account name of the current user, if any. Most servers do not require an account name.
- ZFTP_PWD
- Readonly. The current directory on the server.
- ZFTP_CODE
- Readonly. The three digit code of the last FTP reply from the server as a string. This can still be read after the connection is closed, and is not changed when the current session changes.
- ZFTP_REPLY
- Readonly. The last line of the last reply sent by the server. This can still be read after the connection is closed, and is not changed when the current session changes.
- ZFTP_SESSION
- Readonly. The name of the current FTP session; see the description of the session subcommand.
- ZFTP_PREFS
- A string of preferences for altering aspects of zftp's behaviour. Each preference is a single character. The following are defined:
- P
- Passive: attempt to make the remote server initiate data transfers. This is slightly more efficient than sendport mode. If the letter S occurs later in the string, zftp will use sendport mode if passive mode is not available.
- S
- Sendport: initiate transfers by the FTP PORT command. If this occurs before any P in the string, passive mode will never be attempted.
- D
- Dumb: use only the bare minimum of FTP commands. This prevents the variables ZFTP_SYSTEM and ZFTP_PWD from being set, and will mean all connections default to ASCII type. It may prevent ZFTP_SIZE from being set during a transfer if the server does not send it anyway (many servers do).
- ZFTP_VERBOSE
- A string of digits between 0 and 5 inclusive, specifying which responses from the server should be printed. All responses go to standard error. If any of the numbers 1 to 5 appear in the string, raw responses from the server with reply codes beginning with that digit will be printed to standard error. The first digit of the three digit reply code is defined by RFC959 to correspond to:
- 1.
- A positive preliminary reply.
- 2.
- A positive completion reply.
- 3.
- A positive intermediate reply.
- 4.
- A transient negative completion reply.
- 5.
- A permanent negative completion reply.
Functions
- zftp_chpwd
- If this function is set by the user, it is called every time the directory changes on the server, including when a user is logged in, or when a connection is closed. In the last case, $ZFTP_PWD will be unset; otherwise it will reflect the new directory.
- zftp_progress
- If this function is set by the user, it will be called during a get, put or append operation each time sufficient data has been received from the host. During a get, the data is sent to standard output, so it is vital that this function should write to standard error or directly to the terminal, not to standard output.
When it is called with a transfer in progress, the following additional shell
parameters are set:
- ZFTP_FILE
- The name of the remote file being transferred from or to.
- ZFTP_TRANSFER
- A G for a get operation and a P for a put operation.
- ZFTP_SIZE
- The total size of the complete file being transferred: the same as the first value provided by the remote and local subcommands for a particular file. If the server cannot supply this value for a remote file being retrieved, it will not be set. If input is from a pipe the value may be incorrect and correspond simply to a full pipe buffer.
- ZFTP_COUNT
- The amount of data so far transferred; a number between zero and $ZFTP_SIZE, if that is set. This number is always available.
Problems
A connection may not be opened in the left hand side of a pipe as this occurs in a subshell and the file information is not updated in the main shell. In the case of type or mode changes or closing the connection in a subshell, the information is returned but variables are not updated until the next call to zftp. Other status changes in subshells will not be reflected by changes to the variables (but should be otherwise harmless). Deleting sessions while a zftp command is active in the background can have unexpected effects, even if it does not use the session being deleted. This is because all shell subprocesses share information on the state of all connections, and deleting a session changes the ordering of that information. On some operating systems, the control connection is not valid after a fork(), so that operations in subshells, on the left hand side of a pipeline, or in the background are not possible, as they should be. This is presumably a bug in the operating system.THE ZSH/ZLE MODULE
The zsh/zle module contains the Zsh Line Editor. See zshzle(1).THE ZSH/ZLEPARAMETER MODULE
The zsh/zleparameter module defines two special parameters that can be used to access internal information of the Zsh Line Editor (see zshzle(1)).- keymaps
- This array contains the names of the keymaps currently defined.
- widgets
- This associative array contains one entry per widget. The
name of the widget is the key and the value gives information about the
widget. It is either
the string ` builtin' for builtin widgets,
a string of the form ` user:name' for user-defined widgets,
where name is the name of the shell function implementing the widget,
a string of the form ` completion:type:name'
for completion widgets,
or a null value if the widget is not yet fully defined. In the penultimate case, type is the name of the builtin widget the completion widget imitates in its behavior and name is the name of the shell function implementing the completion widget.
THE ZSH/ZPROF MODULE
When loaded, the zsh/zprof causes shell functions to be profiled. The profiling results can be obtained with the zprof builtin command made available by this module. There is no way to turn profiling off other than unloading the module.- zprof [ -c ]
- Without the -c option, zprof lists profiling results to standard output. The format is comparable to that of commands like gprof.
At the top there is a summary listing all functions that were called at least
once. This summary is sorted in decreasing order of the amount of time spent
in each. The lines contain the number of the function in order, which is used
in other parts of the list in suffixes of the form `
[num]', then the number of calls made to the function.
The next three columns list the time in milliseconds spent in the function and
its descendants, the average time in milliseconds spent in the function and
its descendants per call and the percentage of time spent in all shell
functions used in this function and its descendants. The following three
columns give the same information, but counting only the time spent in the
function itself. The final column shows the name of the function.
After the summary, detailed information about every function that was invoked is
listed, sorted in decreasing order of the amount of time spent in each
function and its descendants. Each of these entries consists of descriptions
for the functions that called the function described, the function itself, and
the functions that were called from it. The description for the function
itself has the same format as in the summary (and shows the same information).
The other lines don't show the number of the function at the beginning and
have their function named indented to make it easier to distinguish the line
showing the function described in the section from the surrounding lines.
The information shown in this case is almost the same as in the summary, but
only refers to the call hierarchy being displayed. For example, for a calling
function the column showing the total running time lists the time spent in the
described function and its descendants only for the times when it was called
from that particular calling function. Likewise, for a called function, this
columns lists the total time spent in the called function and its descendants
only for the times when it was called from the function described.
Also in this case, the column showing the number of calls to a function also
shows a slash and then the total number of invocations made to the called
function.
As long as the zsh/zprof module is loaded, profiling will be done and
multiple invocations of the zprof builtin command will show the times
and numbers of calls since the module was loaded. With the -c option,
the zprof builtin command will reset its internal counters and will not
show the listing.
THE ZSH/ZPTY MODULE
The zsh/zpty module offers one builtin:- zpty [ -e ] [ -b ] name [ arg ... ]
- The arguments following name are concatenated with spaces between, then executed as a command, as if passed to the eval builtin. The command runs under a newly assigned pseudo-terminal; this is useful for running commands non-interactively which expect an interactive environment. The name is not part of the command, but is used to refer to this command in later calls to zpty.
With the -e option, the pseudo-terminal is set up so that input
characters are echoed.
With the -b option, input to and output from the pseudo-terminal are made
non-blocking.
The shell parameter REPLY is set to the file descriptor assigned to the
master side of the pseudo-terminal. This allows the terminal to be monitored
with ZLE descriptor handlers (see zshzle(1)) or manipulated with
sysread and syswrite (see THE ZSH/SYSTEM MODULE in
zshmodules(1)). Warning: Use of sysread and
syswrite is not recommended; use zpty -r and zpty
-w unless you know exactly what you are doing.
- zpty -d [ name ... ]
- The second form, with the -d option, is used to delete commands previously started, by supplying a list of their names. If no name is given, all commands are deleted. Deleting a command causes the HUP signal to be sent to the corresponding process.
- zpty -w [ -n ] name [ string ... ]
- The -w option can be used to send the to command name the given strings as input (separated by spaces). If the -n option is not given, a newline is added at the end.
If no string is provided, the standard input is copied to the
pseudo-terminal; this may stop before copying the full input if the
pseudo-terminal is non-blocking. The exact input is always copied: the
-n option is not applied.
Note that the command under the pseudo-terminal sees this input as if it were
typed, so beware when sending special tty driver characters such as
word-erase, line-kill, and end-of-file.
- zpty -r [ -mt ] name [ param [ pattern ] ]
- The -r option can be used to read the output of the command name. With only a name argument, the output read is copied to the standard output. Unless the pseudo-terminal is non-blocking, copying continues until the command under the pseudo-terminal exits; when non-blocking, only as much output as is immediately available is copied. The return status is zero if any output is copied.
When also given a param argument, at most one line is read and stored in
the parameter named param. Less than a full line may be read if the
pseudo-terminal is non-blocking. The return status is zero if at least one
character is stored in param.
If a pattern is given as well, output is read until the whole string read
matches the pattern, even in the non-blocking case. The return status
is zero if the string read matches the pattern, or if the command has exited
but at least one character could still be read. If the option -m is
present, the return status is zero only if the pattern matches. As of this
writing, a maximum of one megabyte of output can be consumed this way; if a
full megabyte is read without matching the pattern, the return status is
non-zero.
In all cases, the return status is non-zero if nothing could be read, and is
2 if this is because the command has finished.
If the -r option is combined with the -t option, zpty tests
whether output is available before trying to read. If no output is available,
zpty immediately returns the status 1. When used with a
pattern, the behaviour on a failed poll is similar to when the command
has exited: the return value is zero if at least one character could still be
read even if the pattern failed to match.
- zpty -t name
- The -t option without the -r option can be used to test whether the command name is still running. It returns a zero status if the command is running and a non-zero value otherwise.
- zpty [ -L ]
- The last form, without any arguments, is used to list the commands currently defined. If the -L option is given, this is done in the form of calls to the zpty builtin.
THE ZSH/ZSELECT MODULE
The zsh/zselect module makes available one builtin command:- zselect [ -rwe ] [ -t timeout ] [ -a array ] [ -A assoc ] [ fd ... ]
- The zselect builtin is a front-end to the `select' system call, which blocks until a file descriptor is ready for reading or writing, or has an error condition, with an optional timeout. If this is not available on your system, the command prints an error message and returns status 2 (normal errors return status 1). For more information, see your system's documentation for select(3). Note there is no connection with the shell builtin of the same name.
Arguments and options may be intermingled in any order. Non-option arguments are
file descriptors, which must be decimal integers. By default, file descriptors
are to be tested for reading, i.e. zselect will return when data is
available to be read from the file descriptor, or more precisely, when a read
operation from the file descriptor will not block. After a -r,
-w and -e, the given file descriptors are to be tested for
reading, writing, or error conditions. These options and an arbitrary list of
file descriptors may be given in any order.
(The presence of an `error condition' is not well defined in the documentation
for many implementations of the select system call. According to recent
versions of the POSIX specification, it is really an exception
condition, of which the only standard example is out-of-band data received on
a socket. So zsh users are unlikely to find the -e option useful.)
The option ` -t timeout' specifies a timeout in hundredths of a
second. This may be zero, in which case the file descriptors will simply be
polled and zselect will return immediately. It is possible to call
zselect with no file descriptors and a non-zero timeout for use as a
finer-grained replacement for `sleep'; note, however, the return status is
always 1 for a timeout.
The option ` -a array' indicates that array should be set
to indicate the file descriptor(s) which are ready. If the option is not
given, the array reply will be used for this purpose. The array will
contain a string similar to the arguments for zselect. For example,
might return immediately with status 0 and $reply containing `-r 0
-w 1' to show that both file descriptors are ready for the
requested operations.
The option ` -A assoc' indicates that the associative array
assoc should be set to indicate the file descriptor(s) which are ready.
This option overrides the option -a, nor will reply be modified.
The keys of assoc are the file descriptors, and the corresponding
values are any of the characters ` rwe' to indicate the condition.
The command returns status 0 if some file descriptors are ready for reading. If
the operation timed out, or a timeout of 0 was given and no file descriptors
were ready, or there was an error, it returns status 1 and the array will not
be set (nor modified in any way). If there was an error in the select
operation the appropriate error message is printed.
zselect -t 0 -r 0 -w 1
THE ZSH/ZUTIL MODULE
The zsh/zutil module only adds some builtins:- zstyle [ -L [ metapattern [ style ] ] ]
- zstyle [ -e | - | -- ] pattern style string ...
- zstyle -d [ pattern [ style ... ] ]
- zstyle -g name [ pattern [ style ] ]
- zstyle -{a|b|s} context style name [ sep ]
- zstyle -{T|t} context style [ string ... ]
- zstyle -m context style pattern
- This builtin command is used to define and lookup styles. Styles are pairs of names and values, where the values consist of any number of strings. They are stored together with patterns and lookup is done by giving a string, called the ` context', which is matched against the patterns. The definition stored for the most specific pattern that matches will be returned.
A pattern is considered to be more specific than another if it contains more
components (substrings separated by colons) or if the patterns for the
components are more specific, where simple strings are considered to be more
specific than patterns and complex patterns are considered to be more specific
than the pattern ` *'. A `*' in the pattern will match zero or
more characters in the context; colons are not treated specially in this
regard. If two patterns are equally specific, the tie is broken in favour of
the pattern that was defined first.
Example
For example, a fictional ` weather' plugin might state in its
documentation that it looks up the preferred-precipitation style under
the `
:weather:continent:day-of-the-week:phase-of-the-moon'
context. According to this, you might set the following in your zshrc:
Then the plugin would run under the hood a command such as
in order to retrieve your preference into the scalar variable $REPLY. On
Sundays $REPLY would be set to `snow'; in Europe it would be set
to ` rain'; and on Sundays in Europe it would be set to `snow'
again, because the patterns ` :weather:europe:*' and
`:weather:*:Sunday:*' both match the context argument to
zstyle -s, are equally specific, and the latter is more specific
(because it has more colon-separated components).
Usage
The forms that operate on patterns are the following.
zstyle ':weather:europe:*' preferred-precipitation rain zstyle ':weather:*:Sunday:*' preferred-precipitation snow
zstyle -s ":weather:${continent}:${day_of_week}:${moon_phase}" preferred-precipitation REPLY
- zstyle [ -L [ metapattern [ style ] ] ]
- Without arguments, lists style definitions. Styles are shown in alphabetic order and patterns are shown in the order zstyle will test them.
If the -L option is given, listing is done in the form of calls to
zstyle. The optional first argument, metapattern, is a pattern
which will be matched against the string supplied as pattern when the
style was defined. Note: this means, for example, ` zstyle -L
":completion:*"' will match any supplied pattern beginning `
:completion:', not just ":completion:*": use
':completion:\*' to match that. The optional second argument limits the
output to a specific style (not a pattern). -L is not compatible
with any other options.
- zstyle [ - | -- | -e ] pattern style string ...
- Defines the given style for the pattern with the strings as the value. If the -e option is given, the strings will be concatenated (separated by spaces) and the resulting string will be evaluated (in the same way as it is done by the eval builtin command) when the style is looked up. In this case the parameter ` reply' must be assigned to set the strings returned after the evaluation. Before evaluating the value, reply is unset, and if it is still unset after the evaluation, the style is treated as if it were not set.
- zstyle -d [ pattern [ style ... ] ]
- Delete style definitions. Without arguments all definitions are deleted, with a pattern all definitions for that pattern are deleted and if any styles are given, then only those styles are deleted for the pattern.
- zstyle -g name [ pattern [ style ] ]
- Retrieve a style definition. The name is used as the name of an array in which the results are stored. Without any further arguments, all patterns defined are returned. With a pattern the styles defined for that pattern are returned and with both a pattern and a style, the value strings of that combination is returned.
- zstyle -s context style name [ sep ]
- The parameter name is set to the value of the style interpreted as a string. If the value contains several strings they are concatenated with spaces (or with the sep string if that is given) between them.
Return 0 if the style is set, 1 otherwise.
- zstyle -b context style name
- The value is stored in name as a boolean, i.e. as the string ` yes' if the value has only one string and that string is equal to one of ` yes', `true', `on', or `1'. If the value is any other string or has more than one string, the parameter is set to ` no'.
Return 0 if name is set to `yes', 1 otherwise.
- zstyle -a context style name
- The value is stored in name as an array. If name is declared as an associative array, the first, third, etc. strings are used as the keys and the other strings are used as the values.
Return 0 if the style is set, 1 otherwise.
- zstyle -t context style [ string ... ]
- zstyle -T context style [ string ... ]
- Test the value of a style, i.e. the -t option only returns a status (sets $?). Without any string the return status is zero if the style is defined for at least one matching pattern, has only one string in its value, and that is equal to one of ` true', ` yes', `on' or ` 1'. If any strings are given the status is zero if and only if at least one of the strings is equal to at least one of the strings in the value. If the style is defined but doesn't match, the return status is 1. If the style is not defined, the status is 2.
The -T option tests the values of the style like -t, but it
returns status zero (rather than 2) if the style is not defined for any
matching pattern.
- zstyle -m context style pattern
- Match a value. Returns status zero if the pattern matches at least one of the strings in the value.
- zformat -f param format spec ...
- zformat -F param format spec ...
- zformat -a array sep spec ...
- This builtin provides different forms of formatting. The first form is selected with the -f option. In this case the format string will be modified by replacing sequences starting with a percent sign in it with strings from the specs. Each spec should be of the form ` char:string' which will cause every appearance of the sequence ` %char' in format to be replaced by the string. The `%' sequence may also contain optional minimum and maximum field width specifications between the ` %' and the ` char' in the form `%min. maxc', i.e. the minimum field width is given first and if the maximum field width is used, it has to be preceded by a dot. Specifying a minimum field width makes the result be padded with spaces to the right if the string is shorter than the requested width. Padding to the left can be achieved by giving a negative minimum field width. If a maximum field width is specified, the string will be truncated after that many characters. After all ` %' sequences for the given specs have been processed, the resulting string is stored in the parameter param.
The %-escapes also understand ternary expressions in the form used by
prompts. The % is followed by a `(' and then an ordinary format
specifier character as described above. There may be a set of digits either
before or after the ` ('; these specify a test number, which defaults
to zero. Negative numbers are also allowed. An arbitrary delimiter character
follows the format specifier, which is followed by a piece of `true' text, the
delimiter character again, a piece of `false' text, and a closing parenthesis.
The complete expression (without the digits) thus looks like `
%(X .text1.text2)', except
that the ` .' character is arbitrary. The value given for the format
specifier in the char:string expressions is evaluated as
a mathematical expression, and compared with the test number. If they are the
same, text1 is output, else text2 is output. A parenthesis may
be escaped in text2 as %). Either of text1 or
text2 may contain nested %-escapes.
For example:
outputs "The answer is 'yes'." to REPLY since the value for the
format specifier c is 3, agreeing with the digit argument to the
ternary expression.
With -F instead of -f, ternary expressions choose between the
`true' or `false' text on the basis of whether the format specifier is present
and non-empty. A test number indicates a minimum width for the value given in
the format specifier. Negative numbers reverse this, so the test is for
whether the value exceeds a maximum width.
The form, using the -a option, can be used for aligning strings. Here,
the specs are of the form ` left:right' where
`left' and ` right' are arbitrary strings. These strings are
modified by replacing the colons by the sep string and padding the
left strings with spaces to the right so that the sep strings in
the result (and hence the right strings after them) are all aligned if
the strings are printed below each other. All strings without a colon are left
unchanged and all strings with an empty right string have the trailing
colon removed. In both cases the lengths of the strings are not used to
determine how the other strings are to be aligned. A colon in the left
string can be escaped with a backslash. The resulting strings are stored in
the array.
zformat -f REPLY "The answer is '%3(c.yes.no)'." c:3
- zregexparse
- This implements some internals of the _regex_arguments function.
- zparseopts [ -D -E -F -K -M ] [ -a array ] [ -A assoc ] [ - ] spec ...
- This builtin simplifies the parsing of options in positional parameters, i.e. the set of arguments given by $*. Each spec describes one option and must be of the form ` opt[= array]'. If an option described by opt is found in the positional parameters it is copied into the array specified with the -a option; if the optional ` =array' is given, it is instead copied into that array, which should be declared as a normal array and never as an associative array.
Note that it is an error to give any spec without an `
=array' unless one of the -a or -A options is
used.
Unless the -E option is given, parsing stops at the first string that
isn't described by one of the specs. Even with -E, parsing
always stops at a positional parameter equal to ` -' or `
--'. See also -F.
The opt description must be one of the following. Any of the special
characters can appear in the option name provided it is preceded by a
backslash.
will have the effect of
The arguments from ` baz' on will not be used.
As an example for the -E option, consider:
will have the effect of
I.e., the option -b and its arguments are taken from the positional
parameters and put into the array bar.
The -M option can be used like this:
to have the effect of
- name
- name+
- The name is the name of the option without the leading ` -'. To specify a GNU-style long option, one of the usual two leading ` -' must be included in name; for example, a `--file' option is represented by a name of `-file'.
If a ` +' appears after name, the option is appended to
array each time it is found in the positional parameters; without the `
+' only the last occurrence of the option is preserved.
If one of these forms is used, the option takes no argument, so parsing stops if
the next positional parameter does not also begin with ` -' (unless the
-E option is used).
- name:
- name:-
- name::
- If one or two colons are given, the option takes an argument; with one colon, the argument is mandatory and with two colons it is optional. The argument is appended to the array after the option itself.
An optional argument is put into the same array element as the option name (note
that this makes empty strings as arguments indistinguishable). A mandatory
argument is added as a separate element unless the ` :-' form is used,
in which case the argument is put into the same element.
A ` +' as described above may appear between the name and the
first colon.
In all cases, option-arguments must appear either immediately following the
option in the same positional parameter or in the next one. Even an optional
argument may appear in the next parameter, unless it begins with a `
-'. There is no special handling of ` =' as with GNU-style
argument parsers; given the spec `-foo:', the positional
parameter ` --foo=bar' is parsed as ` --foo' with
an argument of ` =bar'.
When the names of two options that take no arguments overlap, the longest one
wins, so that parsing for the specs `-foo -foobar' (for example)
is unambiguous. However, due to the aforementioned handling of
option-arguments, ambiguities may arise when at least one overlapping
spec takes an argument, as in ` -foo: -foobar'. In that case,
the last matching spec wins.
The options of zparseopts itself cannot be stacked because, for example,
the stack ` -DEK' is indistinguishable from a spec for the
GNU-style long option ` --DEK'. The options of zparseopts
itself are:
- -a array
- As described above, this names the default array in which to store the recognised options.
- -A assoc
- If this is given, the options and their values are also put into an associative array with the option names as keys and the arguments (if any) as the values.
- -D
- If this option is given, all options found are removed from the positional parameters of the calling shell or shell function, up to but not including any not described by the specs. If the first such parameter is ` -' or ` --', it is removed as well. This is similar to using the shift builtin.
- -E
- This changes the parsing rules to not stop at the first string that isn't described by one of the specs. It can be used to test for or (if used together with -D) extract options and their arguments, ignoring all other options and arguments that may be in the positional parameters. As indicated above, parsing still stops at the first ` -' or `--' not described by a spec, but it is not removed when used with -D.
- -F
- If this option is given, zparseopts immediately stops at the first option-like parameter not described by one of the specs, prints an error message, and returns status 1. Removal ( -D) and extraction ( -E) are not performed, and option arrays are not updated. This provides basic validation for the given options.
Note that the appearance in the positional parameters of an option without its
required argument always aborts parsing and returns an error as described
above regardless of whether this option is used.
- -K
- With this option, the arrays specified with the -a option and with the ` =array' forms are kept unchanged when none of the specs for them is used. Otherwise the entire array is replaced when any of the specs is used. Individual elements of associative arrays specified with the -A option are preserved by -K. This allows assignment of default values to arrays before calling zparseopts.
- -M
- This changes the assignment rules to implement a map among equivalent option names. If any spec uses the `=array' form, the string array is interpreted as the name of another spec, which is used to choose where to store the values. If no other spec is found, the values are stored as usual. This changes only the way the values are stored, not the way $* is parsed, so results may be unpredictable if the ` name+' specifier is used inconsistently.
set -- -a -bx -c y -cz baz -cend zparseopts a=foo b:=bar c+:=bar
foo=(-a) bar=(-b x -c y -c z)
set -- -a x -b y -c z arg1 arg2 zparseopts -E -D b:=bar
bar=(-b y) set -- -a x -c z arg1 arg2
set -- -a -bx -c y -cz baz -cend zparseopts -A bar -M a=foo b+: c:=b
foo=(-a) bar=(-a '' -b xyz)
NAME
zshcalsys - zsh calendar systemDESCRIPTION
The shell is supplied with a series of functions to replace and enhance the traditional Unix calendar programme, which warns the user of imminent or future events, details of which are stored in a text file (typically calendar in the user's home directory). The version provided here includes a mechanism for alerting the user when an event is due. In addition functions age, before and after are provided that can be used in a glob qualifier; they allow files to be selected based on their modification times. The format of the calendar file and the dates used there in and in the age function are described first, then the functions that can be called to examine and modify the calendar file. The functions here depend on the availability of the zsh/datetime module which is usually installed with the shell. The library function strptime() must be available; it is present on most recent operating systems.FILE AND DATE FORMATS
Calendar File Format
The calendar file is by default ~/calendar. This can be configured by the calendar-file style, see the section STYLES below. The basic format consists of a series of separate lines, with no indentation, each including a date and time specification followed by a description of the event. Various enhancements to this format are supported, based on the syntax of Emacs calendar mode. An indented line indicates a continuation line that continues the description of the event from the preceding line (note the date may not be continued in this way). An initial ampersand ( &) is ignored for compatibility. An indented line on which the first non-whitespace character is # is not displayed with the calendar entry, but is still scanned for information. This can be used to hide information useful to the calendar system but not to the user, such as the unique identifier used by calendar_add. The Emacs extension that a date with no description may refer to a number of succeeding events at different times is not supported. Unless the done-file style has been altered, any events which have been processed are appended to the file with the same name as the calendar file with the suffix .done, hence ~/calendar.done by default. An example is shown below.Date Format
The format of the date and time is designed to allow flexibility without admitting ambiguity. (The words `date' and `time' are both used in the documentation below; except where specifically noted this implies a string that may include both a date and a time specification.) Note that there is no localization support; month and day names must be in English and separator characters are fixed. Matching is case insensitive, and only the first three letters of the names are significant, although as a special case a form beginning "month" does not match "Monday". Furthermore, time zones are not handled; all times are assumed to be local. It is recommended that, rather than exploring the intricacies of the system, users find a date format that is natural to them and stick to it. This will avoid unexpected effects. Various key facts should be noted.- •
- In particular, note the confusion between month/ day/year and day/month/year when the month is numeric; these formats should be avoided if at all possible. Many alternatives are available.
- •
- The year must be given in full to avoid confusion, and only years from 1900 to 2099 inclusive are matched.
2007/04/03 13:13 2007/04/03:13:13 2007/04/03 1:13 pm 3rd April 2007, 13:13 April 3rd 2007 1:13 p.m. Apr 3, 2007 13:13 Tue Apr 03 13:13:00 2007 13:13 2007/apr/3
- •
- HH:MM[:SS[.FFFFF]] [ am|pm|a.m.|p.m.]
- •
- HH:MM.SS[.FFFFF] [ am|pm|a.m.|p.m.]
+0100 GMT GMT-7 CET+1CDT
- •
- YYYY/MM/DD
- •
- YYYY-MM-DD
- •
- YYYY/MNM/DD
- •
- YYYY-MNM-DD
- •
- DD[th|st|rd] MNM[,] [ YYYY ]
- •
- MNM DD[th|st|rd][,] [ YYYY ]
- •
- DD[th|st|rd]/MM[,] YYYY
- •
- DD[th|st|rd]/MM/YYYY
- •
- MM/DD[th|st|rd][,] YYYY
- •
- MM/DD[th|st|rd]/YYYY
Fri Aug 18 17:00:48 BST 2006
Fri Aug 18 2006
Relative Time Format
In certain places relative times are handled. Here, a date is not allowed; instead a combination of various supported periods are allowed, together with an optional time. The periods must be in order from most to least significant. In some cases, a more accurate calculation is possible when there is an anchor date: offsets of months or years pick the correct day, rather than being rounded, and it is possible to pick a particular day in a month as `(1st Friday)', etc., as described in more detail below. Anchors are available in the following cases. If one or two times are passed to the function calendar, the start time acts an anchor for the end time when the end time is relative (even if the start time is implicit). When examining calendar files, the scheduled event being examined anchors the warning time when it is given explicitly by means of the WARN keyword; likewise, the scheduled event anchors a repetition period when given by the RPT keyword, so that specifications such as RPT 2 months, 3rd Thursday are handled properly. Finally, the -R argument to calendar_scandate directly provides an anchor for relative calculations. The periods handled, with possible abbreviations are:- Years
- years, yrs, ys, year, yr, y, yearly. A year is 365.25 days unless there is an anchor.
- Months
- months, mons, mnths, mths, month, mon, mnth, mth, monthly. Note that m, ms, mn, mns are ambiguous and are not handled. A month is a period of 30 days rather than a calendar month unless there is an anchor.
- Weeks
- weeks, wks, ws, week, wk, w, weekly
- Days
- days, dys, ds, day, dy, d, daily
- Hours
- hours, hrs, hs, hour, hr, h, hourly
- Minutes
- minutes, mins, minute, min, but not m, ms, mn or mns
- Seconds
- seconds, secs, ss, second, sec, s
30 years 3 months 4 days 3:42:41 14 days 5 hours Monthly, 3rd Thursday 4d,10hr
Example
Here is an example calendar file. It uses a consistent date format, as recommended above.Feb 1, 2006 14:30 Pointless bureaucratic meeting Mar 27, 2006 11:00 Mutual recrimination and finger pointing Bring water pistol and waterproofs Mar 31, 2006 14:00 Very serious managerial pontification # UID 12C7878A9A50 Apr 10, 2006 13:30 Even more pointless blame assignment exercise WARN 30 mins May 18, 2006 16:00 Regular moaning session RPT monthly, 3rd Thursday
USER FUNCTIONS
This section describes functions that are designed to be called directly by the user. The first part describes those functions associated with the user's calendar; the second part describes the use in glob qualifiers.Calendar system functions
- calendar [ -abdDsv ] [ -C calfile ] [ -n num ] [ -S showprog ]
- [ [ start ] end ]
- calendar -r [ -abdDrsv ] [ -C calfile ] [ -n num ] [ -S showprog ]
- [ start ]
- Show events in the calendar.
With no arguments, show events from the start of today until the end of the next
working day after today. In other words, if today is Friday, Saturday, or
Sunday, show up to the end of the following Monday, otherwise show today and
tomorrow.
If end is given, show events from the start of today up to the time and
date given, which is in the format described in the previous section. Note
that if this is a date the time is assumed to be midnight at the start of the
date, so that effectively this shows all events before the given date.
end may start with a +, in which case the remainder of the
specification is a relative time format as described in the previous section
indicating the range of time from the start time that is to be included.
If start is also given, show events starting from that time and date. The
word now can be used to indicate the current time.
To implement an alert when events are due, include calendar -s in your
~/.zshrc file.
Options:
- -a
- Show all items in the calendar, regardless of the start and end.
- -b
- Brief: don't display continuation lines (i.e. indented lines following the line with the date/time), just the first line.
- -B lines
- Brief: display at most the first lines lines of the calendar entry. ` -B 1' is equivalent to `-b'.
- -C calfile
- Explicitly specify a calendar file instead of the value of the calendar-file style or the default ~/calendar.
- -d
- Move any events that have passed from the calendar file to the "done" file, as given by the done-file style or the default which is the calendar file with .done appended. This option is implied by the -s option.
- -D
- Turns off the option -d, even if the -s option is also present.
- -n num, -num
- Show at least num events, if present in the calendar file, regardless of the start and end.
- -r
- Show all the remaining options in the calendar, ignoring the given end time. The start time is respected; any argument given is treated as a start time.
- -s
- Use the shell's sched command to schedule a timed event that will warn the user when an event is due. Note that the sched command only runs if the shell is at an interactive prompt; a foreground task blocks the scheduled task from running until it is finished.
The timed event usually runs the programme calendar_show to show the
event, as described in the section UTILITY FUNCTIONS below.
By default, a warning of the event is shown five minutes before it is due. The
warning period can be configured by the style warn-time or for a single
calendar entry by including WARN reltime in the first line of
the entry, where reltime is one of the usual relative time formats.
A repeated event may be indicated by including RPT reldate in the
first line of the entry. After the scheduled event has been displayed it will
be re-entered into the calendar file at a time reldate after the
existing event. Note that this is currently the only use made of the repeat
count, so that it is not possible to query the schedule for a recurrence of an
event in the calendar until the previous event has passed.
If RPT is used, it is also possible to specify that certain recurrences
of an event are rescheduled or cancelled. This is done with the
OCCURRENCE keyword, followed by whitespace and the date and time of the
occurrence in the regular sequence, followed by whitespace and either the date
and time of the rescheduled event or the exact string CANCELLED. In
this case the date and time must be in exactly the "date with local
time" format used by the text/calendar MIME type (RFC 2445),
<YYYY><MM><DD>
T<hh><mm><ss> (note the presence of the
literal character T). The first word (the regular recurrence) may be
something other than a proper date/time to indicate that the event is
additional to the normal sequence; a convention that retains the formatting
appearance is XXXXXXXXTXXXXXX.
Furthermore, it is useful to record the next regular recurrence (as then the
displayed date may be for a rescheduled event so cannot be used for
calculating the regular sequence). This is specified by RECURRENCE and
a time or date in the same format. calendar_add adds such an indication
when it encounters a recurring event that does not include one, based on the
headline date/time.
If calendar_add is used to update occurrences the UID keyword
described there should be present in both the existing entry and the added
occurrence in order to identify recurring event sequences.
For example,
The event that occurs at 11:00 on 13th May 2010 is rescheduled an hour later.
The event that occurs a week later is cancelled. The occurrences are given on
a continuation line starting with a # character so will not usually be
displayed as part of the event. As elsewhere, no account of time zones is
taken with the times. After the next event occurs the headline date/time will
be ` Thu May 13, 2010 12:00' while the RECURRENCE date/time will
be ` 20100513T110000' (note that cancelled and moved events are not
taken account of in the RECURRENCE, which records what the next regular
recurrence is, but they are accounted for in the headline date/time).
It is safe to run calendar -s to reschedule an existing event (if the
calendar file has changed, for example), and also to have it running in
multiples instances of the shell since the calendar file is locked when in
use.
By default, expired events are moved to the "done" file; see the
-d option. Use -D to prevent this.
Thu May 6, 2010 11:00 Informal chat RPT 1 week # RECURRENCE 20100506T110000 # OCCURRENCE 20100513T110000 20100513T120000 # OCCURRENCE 20100520T110000 CANCELLED
- -S showprog
- Explicitly specify a programme to be used for showing events instead of the value of the show-prog style or the default calendar_show.
- -v
- Verbose: show more information about stages of processing. This is useful for confirming that the function has successfully parsed the dates in the calendar file.
- calendar_add [ -BL ] event ...
- Adds a single event to the calendar in the appropriate location. The event can contain multiple lines, as described in the section `Calendar File Format' above. Using this function ensures that the calendar file is sorted in date and time order. It also makes special arrangements for locking the file while it is altered. The old calendar is left in a file with the suffix .old.
The option -B indicates that backing up the calendar file will be handled
by the caller and should not be performed by calendar_add. The option
-L indicates that calendar_add does not need to lock the
calendar file as it is already locked. These options will not usually be
needed by users.
If the style reformat-date is true, the date and time of the new entry
will be rewritten into the standard date format: see the descriptions of this
style and the style date-format.
The function can use a unique identifier stored with each event to ensure that
updates to existing events are treated correctly. The entry should contain the
word UID, followed by whitespace, followed by a word consisting
entirely of hexadecimal digits of arbitrary length (all digits are
significant, including leading zeroes). As the UID is not directly useful to
the user, it is convenient to hide it on an indented continuation line
starting with a #, for example:
The second line will not be shown by the calendar function.
It is possible to specify the RPT keyword followed by CANCELLED
instead of a relative time. This causes any matched event or series of events
to be cancelled (the original event does not have to be marked as recurring in
order to be cancelled by this method). A UID is required in order to
match an existing event in the calendar.
calendar_add will attempt to manage recurrences and occurrences of
repeating events as described for event scheduling by calendar -s
above. To reschedule or cancel a single event calendar_add should be
called with an entry that includes the correct UID but does not
include the RPT keyword as this is taken to mean the entry applies to a
series of repeating events and hence replaces all existing information. Each
rescheduled or cancelled occurrence must have an OCCURRENCE keyword in
the entry passed to calendar_add which will be merged into the calendar
file. Any existing reference to the occurrence is replaced. An occurrence that
does not refer to a valid existing event is added as a one-off occurrence to
the same calendar entry.
Aug 31, 2007 09:30 Celebrate the end of the holidays # UID 045B78A0
- calendar_edit
- This calls the user's editor to edit the calendar file. If there are arguments, they are taken as the editor to use (the file name is appended to the commands); otherwise, the editor is given by the variable VISUAL, if set, else the variable EDITOR.
If the calendar scheduler was running, then after editing the file calendar
-s is called to update it.
This function locks out the calendar system during the edit. Hence it should be
used to edit the calendar file if there is any possibility of a calendar event
occurring meanwhile. Note this can lead to another shell with calendar
functions enabled hanging waiting for a lock, so it is necessary to quit the
editor as soon as possible.
- calendar_parse calendar-entry
- This is the internal function that analyses the parts of a calendar entry, which is passed as the only argument. The function returns status 1 if the argument could not be parsed as a calendar entry and status 2 if the wrong number of arguments were passed; it also sets the parameter reply to an empty associative array. Otherwise, it returns status 0 and sets elements of the associative array reply as follows:
- time
- The time as a string of digits in the same units as $EPOCHSECONDS
- schedtime
- The regularly scheduled time. This may differ from the actual event time time if this is a recurring event and the next occurrence has been rescheduled. Then time gives the actual time and schedtime the time of the regular recurrence before modification.
- text1
- The text from the line not including the date and time of the event, but including any WARN or RPT keywords and values.
- warntime
- Any warning time given by the WARN keyword as a string of digits containing the time at which to warn in the same units as $EPOCHSECONDS. (Note this is an absolute time, not the relative time passed down.) Not set no WARN keyword and value were matched.
- warnstr
- The raw string matched after the WARN keyword, else unset.
- rpttime
- Any recurrence time given by the RPT keyword as a string of digits containing the time of the recurrence in the same units as $EPOCHSECONDS. (Note this is an absolute time.) Not set if no RPT keyword and value were matched.
- schedrpttime
- The next regularly scheduled occurrence of a recurring event before modification. This may differ from rpttime, which is the actual time of the event that may have been rescheduled from the regular time.
- rptstr
- The raw string matched after the RPT keyword, else unset.
- text2
- The text from the line after removal of the date and any keywords and values.
- calendar_showdate [ -r ] [ -f fmt ] date-spec ...
- The given date-spec is interpreted and the corresponding date and time printed. If the initial date-spec begins with a + or - it is treated as relative to the current time; date-specs after the first are treated as relative to the date calculated so far and a leading + is optional in that case. This allows one to use the system as a date calculator. For example, calendar_showdate '+1 month, 1st Friday' shows the date of the first Friday of next month.
With the option -r nothing is printed but the value of the date and time
in seconds since the epoch is stored in the parameter REPLY.
With the option -f fmt the given date/time conversion format is
passed to strftime; see notes on the date-format style below.
In order to avoid ambiguity with negative relative date specifications, options
must occur in separate words; in other words, -r and -f should
not be combined in the same word.
- calendar_sort
- Sorts the calendar file into date and time order. The old calendar is left in a file with the suffix .old.
Glob qualifiers
- age
- The function age can be autoloaded and use separately from the calendar system, although it uses the function calendar_scandate for date formatting. It requires the zsh/stat builtin, but uses only the builtin zstat.
age selects files having a given modification time for use as a glob
qualifier. The format of the date is the same as that understood by the
calendar system, described in the section FILE AND DATE FORMATS above.
The function can take one or two arguments, which can be supplied either
directly as command or arguments, or separately as shell parameters.
The example above matches all files modified between the start of those dates.
The second argument may alternatively be a relative time introduced by a
+:
The example above is equivalent to the previous example.
In addition to the special use of days of the week, today and
yesterday, times with no date may be specified; these apply to today.
Obviously such uses become problematic around midnight.
The example above shows files modified between 12:00 and 13:00 today.
The example above matches all files modified on that date. If the second
argument is omitted it is taken to be exactly 24 hours after the first
argument (even if the first argument contains a time).
The example above supplies times. Note that whitespace within the time and date
specification must be quoted to ensure age receives the correct
arguments, hence the use of the additional colon to separate the date and
time.
This shows the same example before using another form of argument passing. The
dates and times in the parameters AGEREF and AGEREF2 stay in
effect until unset, but will be overridden if any argument is passed as an
explicit argument to age. Any explicit argument causes both parameters to be
ignored.
Instead of an explicit date and time, it's possible to use the modification time
of a file as the date and time for either argument by introducing the file
name with a colon:
matches all files created on the same day (24 hours starting from midnight) as
file1.
matches all files modified no earlier than file1 and no later than
file2; precision here is to the nearest second.
print *(e:age 2006/10/04 2006/10/09:)
print *(e:age 2006/10/04 +5d:)
print *(e-age 12:00 13:30-)
print *(e:age 2006/10/04:)
print *(e-age 2006/10/04:10:15 2006/10/04:10:45-)
AGEREF=2006/10/04:10:15 AGEREF2=2006/10/04:10:45 print *(+age)
print *(e-age :file1-)
print *(e-age :file1 :file2-)
- after
- before
- The functions after and before are simpler versions of age that take just one argument. The argument is parsed similarly to an argument of age; if it is not given the variable AGEREF is consulted. As the names of the functions suggest, a file matches if its modification time is after or before the time and date specified. If a time only is given the date is today.
The two following examples are therefore equivalent:
print *(e-after 12:00-) print *(e-after today:12:00-)
STYLES
The zsh style mechanism using the zstyle command is describe in zshmodules(1). This is the same mechanism used in the completion system. The styles below are all examined in the context :datetime:function :, for example :datetime:calendar:.- calendar-file
- The location of the main calendar. The default is ~/calendar.
- date-format
- A strftime format string (see strftime(3)) with the zsh extensions providing various numbers with no leading zero or space if the number is a single digit as described for the %D{string } prompt format in the section EXPANSION OF PROMPT SEQUENCES in zshmisc(1).
This is used for outputting dates in calendar, both to support the
-v option and when adding recurring events back to the calendar file,
and in calendar_showdate as the final output format.
If the style is not set, the default used is similar the standard system format
as output by the date command (also known as `ctime format'): ` %a
%b %d %H:%M:%S %Z %Y'.
- done-file
- The location of the file to which events which have passed are appended. The default is the calendar file location with the suffix .done. The style may be set to an empty string in which case a "done" file will not be maintained.
- reformat-date
- Boolean, used by calendar_add. If it is true, the date and time of new entries added to the calendar will be reformatted to the format given by the style date-format or its default. Only the date and time of the event itself is reformatted; any subsidiary dates and times such as those associated with repeat and warning times are left alone.
- show-prog
- The programme run by calendar for showing events. It will be passed the start time and stop time of the events requested in seconds since the epoch followed by the event text. Note that calendar -s uses a start time and stop time equal to one another to indicate alerts for specific events.
The default is the function calendar_show.
- warn-time
- The time before an event at which a warning will be displayed, if the first line of the event does not include the text EVENT reltime. The default is 5 minutes.
UTILITY FUNCTIONS
- calendar_lockfiles
- Attempt to lock the files given in the argument. To prevent problems with network file locking this is done in an ad hoc fashion by attempting to create a symbolic link to the file with the name file.lockfile. No other system level functions are used for locking, i.e. the file can be accessed and modified by any utility that does not use this mechanism. In particular, the user is not prevented from editing the calendar file at the same time unless calendar_edit is used.
Three attempts are made to lock the file before giving up. If the module
zsh/zselect is available, the times of the attempts are jittered so
that multiple instances of the calling function are unlikely to retry at the
same time.
The files locked are appended to the array lockfiles, which should be
local to the caller.
If all files were successfully locked, status zero is returned, else status one.
This function may be used as a general file locking function, although this will
only work if only this mechanism is used to lock files.
- calendar_read
- This is a backend used by various other functions to parse the calendar file, which is passed as the only argument. The array calendar_entries is set to the list of events in the file; no pruning is done except that ampersands are removed from the start of the line. Each entry may contain multiple lines.
- calendar_scandate
- This is a generic function to parse dates and times that may be used separately from the calendar system. The argument is a date or time specification as described in the section FILE AND DATE FORMATS above. The parameter REPLY is set to the number of seconds since the epoch corresponding to that date or time. By default, the date and time may occur anywhere within the given argument.
Returns status zero if the date and time were successfully parsed, else one.
Options:
- -a
- The date and time are anchored to the start of the argument; they will not be matched if there is preceding text.
- -A
- The date and time are anchored to both the start and end of the argument; they will not be matched if the is any other text in the argument.
- -d
- Enable additional debugging output.
- -m
- Minus. When -R anchor_time is also given the relative time is calculated backwards from anchor_time.
- -r
- The argument passed is to be parsed as a relative time.
- -R anchor_time
- The argument passed is to be parsed as a relative time. The time is relative to anchor_time, a time in seconds since the epoch, and the returned value is the absolute time corresponding to advancing anchor_time by the relative time given. This allows lengths of months to be correctly taken into account. If the final day does not exist in the given month, the last day of the final month is given. For example, if the anchor time is during 31st January 2007 and the relative time is 1 month, the final time is the same time of day during 28th February 2007.
- -s
- In addition to setting REPLY, set REPLY2 to the remainder of the argument after the date and time have been stripped. This is empty if the option -A was given.
- -t
- Allow a time with no date specification. The date is assumed to be today. The behaviour is unspecified if the iron tongue of midnight is tolling twelve.
- calendar_show
- The function used by default to display events. It accepts a start time and end time for events, both in epoch seconds, and an event description.
The event is always printed to standard output. If the command line editor is
active (which will usually be the case) the command line will be redisplayed
after the output.
If the parameter DISPLAY is set and the start and end times are the same
(indicating a scheduled event), the function uses the command xmessage
to display a window with the event details.
BUGS
As the system is based entirely on shell functions (with a little support from the zsh/datetime module) the mechanisms used are not as robust as those provided by a dedicated calendar utility. Consequently the user should not rely on the shell for vital alerts. There is no calendar_delete function. There is no localization support for dates and times, nor any support for the use of time zones. Relative periods of months and years do not take into account the variable number of days. The calendar_show function is currently hardwired to use xmessage for displaying alerts on X Window System displays. This should be configurable and ideally integrate better with the desktop. calendar_lockfiles hangs the shell while waiting for a lock on a file. If called from a scheduled task, it should instead reschedule the event that caused it.NAME
zshtcpsys - zsh tcp systemDESCRIPTION
A module zsh/net/tcp is provided to provide network I/O over TCP/IP from within the shell; see its description in zshmodules(1). This manual page describes a function suite based on the module. If the module is installed, the functions are usually installed at the same time, in which case they will be available for autoloading in the default function search path. In addition to the zsh/net/tcp module, the zsh/zselect module is used to implement timeouts on read operations. For troubleshooting tips, consult the corresponding advice for the zftp functions described in zshzftpsys(1). There are functions corresponding to the basic I/O operations open, close, read and send, named tcp_open etc., as well as a function tcp_expect for pattern match analysis of data read as input. The system makes it easy to receive data from and send data to multiple named sessions at once. In addition, it can be linked with the shell's line editor in such a way that input data is automatically shown at the terminal. Other facilities available including logging, filtering and configurable output prompts. To use the system where it is available, it should be enough to ` autoload -U tcp_open' and run tcp_open as documented below to start a session. The tcp_open function will autoload the remaining functions.TCP USER FUNCTIONS
Basic I/O
- tcp_open [ -qz ] host port [ sess ]
- tcp_open [ -qz ] [ -s sess | -l sess[,...] ] ...
- tcp_open [ -qz ] [ -a fd | -f fd ] [ sess ]
- Open a new session. In the first and simplest form, open a TCP connection to host host at port port; numeric and symbolic forms are understood for both.
If sess is given, this becomes the name of the session which can be used
to refer to multiple different TCP connections. If sess is not given,
the function will invent a numeric name value (note this is not the
same as the file descriptor to which the session is attached). It is
recommended that session names not include `funny' characters, where funny
characters are not well-defined but certainly do not include alphanumerics or
underscores, and certainly do include whitespace.
In the second case, one or more sessions to be opened are given by name. A
single session name is given after -s and a comma-separated list after
-l; both options may be repeated as many times as necessary. A failure
to open any session causes tcp_open to abort. The host and port are
read from the file .ztcp_sessions in the same directory as the user's
zsh initialisation files, i.e. usually the home directory, but $ZDOTDIR
if that is set. The file consists of lines each giving a session name and the
corresponding host and port, in that order (note the session name comes first,
not last), separated by whitespace.
The third form allows passive and fake TCP connections. If the option -a
is used, its argument is a file descriptor open for listening for connections.
No function front-end is provided to open such a file descriptor, but a call
to ` ztcp -l port' will create one with the file descriptor
stored in the parameter $REPLY. The listening port can be closed with `
ztcp -c fd'. A call to `tcp_open -a fd' will block
until a remote TCP connection is made to port on the local machine. At
this point, a session is created in the usual way and is largely
indistinguishable from an active connection created with one of the first two
forms.
If the option -f is used, its argument is a file descriptor which is used
directly as if it were a TCP session. How well the remainder of the TCP
function system copes with this depends on what actually underlies this file
descriptor. A regular file is likely to be unusable; a FIFO (pipe) of some
sort will work better, but note that it is not a good idea for two different
sessions to attempt to read from the same FIFO at once.
If the option -q is given with any of the three forms, tcp_open
will not print informational messages, although it will in any case exit with
an appropriate status.
If the line editor (zle) is in use, which is typically the case if the shell is
interactive, tcp_open installs a handler inside zle which will check
for new data at the same time as it checks for keyboard input. This is
convenient as the shell consumes no CPU time while waiting; the test is
performed by the operating system. Giving the option -z to any of the
forms of tcp_open prevents the handler from being installed, so data
must be read explicitly. Note, however, this is not necessary for executing
complete sets of send and read commands from a function, as zle is not active
at this point. Generally speaking, the handler is only active when the shell
is waiting for input at a command prompt or in the vared builtin. The
option has no effect if zle is not active; ` [[ -o zle]]' will test for
this.
The first session to be opened becomes the current session and subsequent calls
to tcp_open do not change it. The current session is stored in the
parameter $TCP_SESS; see below for more detail about the parameters
used by the system.
The function tcp_on_open, if defined, is called when a session is opened.
See the description below.
- tcp_close [ -qn ] [ -a | -l sess[ ,...] | sess ... ]
- Close the named sessions, or the current session if none is given, or all open sessions if -a is given. The options -l and -s are both handled for consistency with tcp_open, although the latter is redundant.
If the session being closed is the current one, $TCP_SESS is unset,
leaving no current session, even if there are other sessions still open.
If the session was opened with tcp_open -f, the file descriptor is closed
so long as it is in the range 0 to 9 accessible directly from the command
line. If the option -n is given, no attempt will be made to close file
descriptors in this case. The -n option is not used for genuine
ztcp session; the file descriptors are always closed with the session.
If the option -q is given, no informational messages will be
printed.
- tcp_read [ -bdq ] [ -t TO ] [ -T TO ]
- [ -a | -u fd[,...] | -l sess[,...] | -s sess ... ]
- Perform a read operation on the current session, or on a list of sessions if any are given with -u, -l or -s, or all open sessions if the option -a is given. Any of the -u, -l or -s options may be repeated or mixed together. The -u option specifies a file descriptor directly (only those managed by this system are useful), the other two specify sessions as described for tcp_open above.
The function checks for new data available on all the sessions listed. Unless
the -b option is given, it will not block waiting for new data. Any one
line of data from any of the available sessions will be read, stored in the
parameter $TCP_LINE, and displayed to standard output unless
$TCP_SILENT contains a non-empty string. When printed to standard
output the string $TCP_PROMPT will be shown at the start of the line;
the default form for this includes the name of the session being read. See
below for more information on these parameters. In this mode, tcp_read
can be called repeatedly until it returns status 2 which indicates all pending
input from all specified sessions has been handled.
With the option -b, equivalent to an infinite timeout, the function will
block until a line is available to read from one of the specified sessions.
However, only a single line is returned.
The option -d indicates that all pending input should be drained. In this
case tcp_read may process multiple lines in the manner given above;
only the last is stored in $TCP_LINE, but the complete set is stored in
the array $tcp_lines. This is cleared at the start of each call to
tcp_read.
The options -t and -T specify a timeout in seconds, which may be a
floating point number for increased accuracy. With -t the timeout is
applied before each line read. With -T, the timeout applies to the
overall operation, possibly including multiple read operations if the option
-d is present; without this option, there is no distinction between
-t and -T.
The function does not print informational messages, but if the option -q
is given, no error message is printed for a non-existent session.
A return status of 2 indicates a timeout or no data to read. Any other non-zero
return status indicates some error condition.
See tcp_log for how to control where data is sent by
tcp_read.
- tcp_send [ -cnq ] [ -s sess | -l sess[,...] ] data ...
- tcp_send [ -cnq ] -a data ...
- Send the supplied data strings to all the specified sessions in turn. The underlying operation differs little from a ` print -r' to the session's file descriptor, although it attempts to prevent the shell from dying owing to a SIGPIPE caused by an attempt to write to a defunct session.
The option -c causes tcp_send to behave like cat. It reads
lines from standard input until end of input and sends them in turn to the
specified session(s) exactly as if they were given as data arguments to
individual tcp_send commands.
The option -n prevents tcp_send from putting a newline at the end
of the data strings.
The remaining options all behave as for tcp_read.
The data arguments are not further processed once they have been passed to
tcp_send; they are simply passed down to print -r.
If the parameter $TCP_OUTPUT is a non-empty string and logging is enabled
then the data sent to each session will be echoed to the log file(s) with
$TCP_OUTPUT in front where appropriate, much in the manner of
$TCP_PROMPT.
Session Management
- tcp_alias [ -q ] alias=sess ...
- tcp_alias [ -q ] [ alias ... ]
- tcp_alias -d [ -q ] alias ...
- This function is not particularly well tested.
The first form creates an alias for a session name; alias can then be
used to refer to the existing session sess. As many aliases may be
listed as required.
The second form lists any aliases specified, or all aliases if none.
The third form deletes all the aliases listed. The underlying sessions are not
affected.
The option -q suppresses an inconsistently chosen subset of error
messages.
- tcp_log [ -asc ] [ -n | -N ] [ logfile ]
- With an argument logfile, all future input from tcp_read will be logged to the named file. Unless -a (append) is given, this file will first be truncated or created empty. With no arguments, show the current status of logging.
With the option -s, per-session logging is enabled. Input from
tcp_read is output to the file logfile.sess. As
the session is automatically discriminated by the filename, the contents are
raw (no $TCP_PROMPT). The option -a applies as above.
Per-session logging and logging of all data in one file are not mutually
exclusive.
The option -c closes all logging, both complete and per-session logs.
The options -n and -N respectively turn off or restore output of
data read by tcp_read to standard output; hence `tcp_log -cn'
turns off all output by tcp_read.
The function is purely a convenient front end to setting the parameters
$TCP_LOG, $TCP_LOG_SESS, $TCP_SILENT, which are described
below.
- tcp_rename old new
- Rename session old to session new. The old name becomes invalid.
- tcp_sess [ sess [ command [ arg ... ] ] ]
- With no arguments, list all the open sessions and associated file descriptors. The current session is marked with a star. For use in functions, direct access to the parameters $tcp_by_name, $tcp_by_fd and $TCP_SESS is probably more convenient; see below.
With a sess argument, set the current session to sess. This is
equivalent to changing $TCP_SESS directly.
With additional arguments, temporarily set the current session while executing `
command arg ...'. command is re-evaluated so as to expand
aliases etc., but the remaining args are passed through as that appear
to tcp_sess. The original session is restored when tcp_sess
exits.
Advanced I/O
- tcp_command send-option ... send-argument ...
- This is a convenient front-end to tcp_send. All arguments are passed to tcp_send, then the function pauses waiting for data. While data is arriving at least every $TCP_TIMEOUT (default 0.3) seconds, data is handled and printed out according to the current settings. Status 0 is always returned.
This is generally only useful for interactive use, to prevent the display
becoming fragmented by output returned from the connection. Within a programme
or function it is generally better to handle reading data by a more explicit
method.
- tcp_expect [ -q ] [ -p var | -P var ] [ -t TO | -T TO ]
- [ -a | -s sess | -l sess[ ,...] ] pattern ...
- Wait for input matching any of the given patterns from any of the specified sessions. Input is ignored until an input line matches one of the given patterns; at this point status zero is returned, the matching line is stored in $TCP_LINE, and the full set of lines read during the call to tcp_expect is stored in the array $tcp_expect_lines.
Sessions are specified in the same way as tcp_read: the default is to use
the current session, otherwise the sessions specified by -a, -s,
or -l are used.
Each pattern is a standard zsh extended-globbing pattern; note that it
needs to be quoted to avoid it being expanded immediately by filename
generation. It must match the full line, so to match a substring there must be
a ` *' at the start and end. The line matched against includes the
$TCP_PROMPT added by tcp_read. It is possible to include the
globbing flags ` #b' or `#m' in the patterns to make
backreferences available in the parameters $MATCH, $match, etc.,
as described in the base zsh documentation on pattern matching.
Unlike tcp_read, the default behaviour of tcp_expect is to block
indefinitely until the required input is found. This can be modified by
specifying a timeout with -t or -T; these function as in
tcp_read, specifying a per-read or overall timeout, respectively, in
seconds, as an integer or floating-point number. As tcp_read, the
function returns status 2 if a timeout occurs.
The function returns as soon as any one of the patterns given match. If the
caller needs to know which of the patterns matched, the option -p
var can be used; on return, $var is set to the number of the
pattern using ordinary zsh indexing, i.e. the first is 1, and so on. Note the
absence of a ` $' in front of var. To avoid clashes, the
parameter cannot begin with ` _expect'. The index -1 is used if there
is a timeout and 0 if there is no match.
The option -P var works similarly to -p, but instead of
numerical indexes the regular arguments must begin with a prefix followed by a
colon: that prefix is then used as a tag to which var is set when the
argument matches. The tag timeout is used if there is a timeout and the
empty string if there is no match. Note it is acceptable for different
arguments to start with the same prefix if the matches do not need to be
distinguished.
The option -q is passed directly down to tcp_read.
As all input is done via tcp_read, all the usual rules about output of
lines read apply. One exception is that the parameter $tcp_lines will
only reflect the line actually matched by tcp_expect; use
$tcp_expect_lines for the full set of lines read during the function
call.
- tcp_proxy
- This is a simple-minded function to accept a TCP connection and execute a command with I/O redirected to the connection. Extreme caution should be taken as there is no security whatsoever and this can leave your computer open to the world. Ideally, it should only be used behind a firewall.
The first argument is a TCP port on which the function will listen.
The remaining arguments give a command and its arguments to execute with
standard input, standard output and standard error redirected to the file
descriptor on which the TCP session has been accepted. If no command is given,
a new zsh is started. This gives everyone on your network direct access to
your account, which in many cases will be a bad thing.
The command is run in the background, so tcp_proxy can then accept new
connections. It continues to accept new connections until interrupted.
- tcp_spam [ -ertv ] [ -a | -s sess | -l sess[,...] ] cmd [ arg ... ]
- Execute `cmd [ arg ... ]' for each session in turn. Note this executes the command and arguments; it does not send the command line as data unless the -t (transmit) option is given.
The sessions may be selected explicitly with the standard -a, -s
or -l options, or may be chosen implicitly. If none of the three
options is given the rules are: first, if the array $tcp_spam_list is
set, this is taken as the list of sessions, otherwise all sessions are taken.
Second, any sessions given in the array $tcp_no_spam_list are removed
from the list of sessions.
Normally, any sessions added by the ` -a' flag or when all sessions are
chosen implicitly are spammed in alphabetic order; sessions given by the
$tcp_spam_list array or on the command line are spammed in the order
given. The -r flag reverses the order however it was arrived it.
The -v flag specifies that a $TCP_PROMPT will be output before
each session. This is output after any modification to TCP_SESS by the
user-defined tcp_on_spam function described below. (Obviously that
function is able to generate its own output.)
If the option -e is present, the line given as `cmd [ arg
... ]' is executed using eval, otherwise it is executed without any
further processing.
- tcp_talk
- This is a fairly simple-minded attempt to force input to the line editor to go straight to the default TCP_SESS.
An escape string, $TCP_TALK_ESCAPE, default `:', is used to allow
access to normal shell operation. If it is on its own at the start of the
line, or followed only by whitespace, the line editor returns to normal
operation. Otherwise, the string and any following whitespace are skipped and
the remainder of the line executed as shell input without any change of the
line editor's operating mode.
The current implementation is somewhat deficient in terms of use of the command
history. For this reason, many users will prefer to use some form of
alternative approach for sending data easily to the current session. One
simple approach is to alias some special character (such as ` %') to `
tcp_command --'.
- tcp_wait
- The sole argument is an integer or floating point number which gives the seconds to delay. The shell will do nothing for that period except wait for input on all TCP sessions by calling tcp_read -a. This is similar to the interactive behaviour at the command prompt when zle handlers are installed.
`One-shot' file transfer
- tcp_point port
- tcp_shoot host port
- This pair of functions provide a simple way to transfer a file between two hosts within the shell. Note, however, that bulk data transfer is currently done using cat. tcp_point reads any data arriving at port and sends it to standard output; tcp_shoot connects to port on host and sends its standard input. Any unused port may be used; the standard mechanism for picking a port is to think of a random four-digit number above 1024 until one works.
To transfer a file from host woodcock to host springes, on
springes:
and on woodcock:
As these two functions do not require tcp_open to set up a TCP connection
first, they may need to be autoloaded separately.
tcp_point 8091 >output_file
tcp_shoot springes 8091 <input_file
TCP USER-DEFINED FUNCTIONS
Certain functions, if defined by the user, will be called by the function system in certain contexts. This facility depends on the module zsh/parameter, which is usually available in interactive shells as the completion system depends on it. None of the functions need be defined; they simply provide convenient hooks when necessary. Typically, these are called after the requested action has been taken, so that the various parameters will reflect the new state.- tcp_on_alias alias fd
- When an alias is defined, this function will be called with two arguments: the name of the alias, and the file descriptor of the corresponding session.
- tcp_on_awol sess fd
- If the function tcp_fd_handler is handling input from the line editor and detects that the file descriptor is no longer reusable, by default it removes it from the list of file descriptors handled by this method and prints a message. If the function tcp_on_awol is defined it is called immediately before this point. It may return status 100, which indicates that the normal handling should still be performed; any other return status indicates that no further action should be taken and the tcp_fd_handler should return immediately with the given status. Typically the action of tcp_on_awol will be to close the session.
The variable TCP_INVALIDATE_ZLE will be a non-empty string if it is
necessary to invalidate the line editor display using ` zle -I' before
printing output from the function.
(`AWOL' is military jargon for `absent without leave' or some variation. It has
no pre-existing technical meaning known to the author.)
- tcp_on_close sess fd
- This is called with the name of a session being closed and the file descriptor which corresponded to that session. Both will be invalid by the time the function is called.
- tcp_on_open sess fd
- This is called after a new session has been defined with the session name and file descriptor as arguments. If it returns a non-zero status, opening the session is assumed to fail and the session is closed again; however, tcp_open will continue to attempt to open any remaining sessions given on the command line.
- tcp_on_rename oldsess fd newsess
- This is called after a session has been renamed with the three arguments old session name, file descriptor, new session name.
- tcp_on_spam sess command ...
- This is called once for each session spammed, just before a command is executed for a session by tcp_spam. The arguments are the session name followed by the command list to be executed. If tcp_spam was called with the option -t, the first command will be tcp_send.
This function is called after $TCP_SESS is set to reflect the session to
be spammed, but before any use of it is made. Hence it is possible to alter
the value of $TCP_SESS within this function. For example, the session
arguments to tcp_spam could include extra information to be stripped
off and processed in tcp_on_spam.
If the function sets the parameter $REPLY to `done', the command
line is not executed; in addition, no prompt is printed for the -v
option to tcp_spam.
- tcp_on_unalias alias fd
- This is called with the name of an alias and the corresponding session's file descriptor after an alias has been deleted.
TCP UTILITY FUNCTIONS
The following functions are used by the TCP function system but will rarely if ever need to be called directly.- tcp_fd_handler
- This is the function installed by tcp_open for handling input from within the line editor, if that is required. It is in the format documented for the builtin ` zle -F' in zshzle(1) .
While active, the function sets the parameter TCP_HANDLER_ACTIVE to 1.
This allows shell code called internally (for example, by setting
tcp_on_read) to tell if is being called when the shell is otherwise
idle at the editor prompt.
- tcp_output [ -q ] -P prompt -F fd -S sess
- This function is used for both logging and handling output to standard output, from within tcp_read and (if $TCP_OUTPUT is set) tcp_send.
The prompt to use is specified by -P; the default is the empty
string. It can contain:
- %c
- Expands to 1 if the session is the current session, otherwise 0. Used with ternary expressions such as ` %(c.-.+)' to output ` +' for the current session and `-' otherwise.
- %f
- Replaced by the session's file descriptor.
- %s
- Replaced by the session name.
- %%
- Replaced by a single `%'.
TCP USER PARAMETERS
Parameters follow the usual convention that uppercase is used for scalars and integers, while lowercase is used for normal and associative array. It is always safe for user code to read these parameters. Some parameters may also be set; these are noted explicitly. Others are included in this group as they are set by the function system for the user's benefit, i.e. setting them is typically not useful but is benign. It is often also useful to make settable parameters local to a function. For example, ` local TCP_SILENT=1' specifies that data read during the function call will not be printed to standard output, regardless of the setting outside the function. Likewise, ` local TCP_SESS=sess' sets a session for the duration of a function, and ` local TCP_PROMPT=' specifies that no prompt is used for input during the function.- tcp_expect_lines
- Array. The set of lines read during the last call to tcp_expect, including the last ( $TCP_LINE).
- tcp_filter
- Array. May be set directly. A set of extended globbing patterns which, if matched in tcp_output, will cause the line not to be printed to standard output. The patterns should be defined as described for the arguments to tcp_expect. Output of line to log files is not affected.
- TCP_HANDLER_ACTIVE
- Scalar. Set to 1 within tcp_fd_handler to indicate to functions called recursively that they have been called during an editor session. Otherwise unset.
- TCP_LINE
- The last line read by tcp_read, and hence also tcp_expect.
- TCP_LINE_FD
- The file descriptor from which $TCP_LINE was read. ${tcp_by_fd[$TCP_LINE_FD]} will give the corresponding session name.
- tcp_lines
- Array. The set of lines read during the last call to tcp_read, including the last ( $TCP_LINE).
- TCP_LOG
- May be set directly, although it is also controlled by tcp_log. The name of a file to which output from all sessions will be sent. The output is proceeded by the usual $TCP_PROMPT. If it is not an absolute path name, it will follow the user's current directory.
- TCP_LOG_SESS
- May be set directly, although it is also controlled by tcp_log. The prefix for a set of files to which output from each session separately will be sent; the full filename is ${TCP_LOG_SESS}. sess. Output to each file is raw; no prompt is added. If it is not an absolute path name, it will follow the user's current directory.
- tcp_no_spam_list
- Array. May be set directly. See tcp_spam for how this is used.
- TCP_OUTPUT
- May be set directly. If a non-empty string, any data sent to a session by tcp_send will be logged. This parameter gives the prompt to be used in a file specified by $TCP_LOG but not in a file generated from $TCP_LOG_SESS. The prompt string has the same format as TCP_PROMPT and the same rules for its use apply.
- TCP_PROMPT
- May be set directly. Used as the prefix for data read by tcp_read which is printed to standard output or to the log file given by $TCP_LOG, if any. Any `%s', `%f' or `%%' occurring in the string will be replaced by the name of the session, the session's underlying file descriptor, or a single ` %', respectively. The expression ` %c' expands to 1 if the session being read is the current session, else 0; this is most useful in ternary expressions such as ` %(c.-.+)' which outputs `+' if the session is the current one, else ` -'.
If the prompt starts with %P, this is stripped and the complete result of
the previous stage is passed through standard prompt %-style formatting
before being output.
- TCP_READ_DEBUG
- May be set directly. If this has non-zero length, tcp_read will give some limited diagnostics about data being read.
- TCP_SECONDS_START
- This value is created and initialised to zero by tcp_open.
The functions tcp_read and tcp_expect use the shell's
SECONDS parameter for their own timing purposes. If that parameter is
not of floating point type on entry to one of the functions, it will create a
local parameter SECONDS which is floating point and set the parameter
TCP_SECONDS_START to the previous value of $SECONDS. If the
parameter is already floating point, it is used without a local copy being
created and TCP_SECONDS_START is not set. As the global value is zero,
the shell elapsed time is guaranteed to be the sum of $SECONDS and
$TCP_SECONDS_START.
This can be avoided by setting SECONDS globally to a floating point value
using ` typeset -F SECONDS'; then the TCP functions will never make a
local copy and never set TCP_SECONDS_START to a non-zero value.
- TCP_SESS
- May be set directly. The current session; must refer to one of the sessions established by tcp_open.
- TCP_SILENT
- May be set directly, although it is also controlled by tcp_log. If of non-zero length, data read by tcp_read will not be written to standard output, though may still be written to a log file.
- tcp_spam_list
- Array. May be set directly. See the description of the function tcp_spam for how this is used.
- TCP_TALK_ESCAPE
- May be set directly. See the description of the function tcp_talk for how this is used.
- TCP_TIMEOUT
- May be set directly. Currently this is only used by the function tcp_command, see above.
TCP USER-DEFINED PARAMETERS
The following parameters are not set by the function system, but have a special effect if set by the user.- tcp_on_read
- This should be an associative array; if it is not, the behaviour is undefined. Each key is the name of a shell function or other command, and the corresponding value is a shell pattern (using EXTENDED_GLOB). Every line read from a TCP session directly or indirectly using tcp_read (which includes lines read by tcp_expect) is compared against the pattern. If the line matches, the command given in the key is called with two arguments: the name of the session from which the line was read, and the line itself.
If any function called to handle a line returns a non-zero status, the line is
not output. Thus a tcp_on_read handler containing only the instruction
` return 1' can be used to suppress output of particular lines (see,
however, tcp_filter above). However, the line is still stored in
TCP_LINE and tcp_lines; this occurs after all tcp_on_read
processing.
TCP UTILITY PARAMETERS
These parameters are controlled by the function system; they may be read directly, but should not usually be set by user code.- tcp_aliases
- Associative array. The keys are the names of sessions established with tcp_open; each value is a space-separated list of aliases which refer to that session.
- tcp_by_fd
- Associative array. The keys are session file descriptors; each value is the name of that session.
- tcp_by_name
- Associative array. The keys are the names of sessions; each value is the file descriptor associated with that session.
TCP EXAMPLES
Here is a trivial example using a remote calculator. To create a calculator server on port 7337 (see the dc manual page for quite how infuriating the underlying command is):tcp_proxy 7337 dc
tcp_open localhost 7337 dc
tcp_command 2 4 + p
tcp_close
print -n "\033]2;TCP:" ${(k)tcp_by_name:/$TCP_SESS/$TCP_SESS\*} "\a"
TCP BUGS
The function tcp_read uses the shell's normal read builtin. As this reads a complete line at once, data arriving without a terminating newline can cause the function to block indefinitely. Though the function suite works well for interactive use and for data arriving in small amounts, the performance when large amounts of data are being exchanged is likely to be extremely poor.NAME
zshzftpsys - zftp function front-endDESCRIPTION
This describes the set of shell functions supplied with the source distribution as an interface to the zftp builtin command, allowing you to perform FTP operations from the shell command line or within functions or scripts. The interface is similar to a traditional FTP client (e.g. the ftp command itself, see ftp(1)), but as it is entirely done within the shell all the familiar completion, editing and globbing features, and so on, are present, and macros are particularly simple to write as they are just ordinary shell functions. The prerequisite is that the zftp command, as described in zshmodules(1) , must be available in the version of zsh installed at your site. If the shell is configured to load new commands at run time, it probably is: typing ` zmodload zsh/zftp' will make sure (if that runs silently, it has worked). If this is not the case, it is possible zftp was linked into the shell anyway: to test this, type ` which zftp' and if zftp is available you will get the message ` zftp: shell built-in command'. Commands given directly with zftp builtin may be interspersed between the functions in this suite; in a few cases, using zftp directly may cause some of the status information stored in shell parameters to become invalid. Note in particular the description of the variables $ZFTP_TMOUT, $ZFTP_PREFS and $ZFTP_VERBOSE for zftp.INSTALLATION
You should make sure all the functions from the Functions/Zftp directory of the source distribution are available; they all begin with the two letters ` zf'. They may already have been installed on your system; otherwise, you will need to find them and copy them. The directory should appear as one of the elements of the $fpath array (this should already be the case if they were installed), and at least the function zfinit should be autoloaded; it will autoload the rest. Finally, to initialize the use of the system you need to call the zfinit function. The following code in your .zshrc will arrange for this; assume the functions are stored in the directory ~/myfns:fpath=(~/myfns $fpath) autoload -U zfinit zfinit
FUNCTIONS
The sequence of operations in performing a file transfer is essentially the same as that in a standard FTP client. Note that, due to a quirk of the shell's getopts builtin, for those functions that handle options you must use ` --' rather than `-' to ensure the remaining arguments are treated literally (a single ` -' is treated as an argument).Opening a connection
- zfparams [ host [ user [ password ... ] ] ]
- Set or show the parameters for a future zfopen with no arguments. If no arguments are given, the current parameters are displayed (the password will be shown as a line of asterisks). If a host is given, and either the user or password is not, they will be prompted for; also, any parameter given as ` ?' will be prompted for, and if the ` ?' is followed by a string, that will be used as the prompt. As zfopen calls zfparams to store the parameters, this usually need not be called directly.
A single argument ` -' will delete the stored parameters. This will also
cause the memory of the last directory (and so on) on the other host to be
deleted.
- zfopen [ -1 ] [ host [ user [ password [ account ] ] ] ]
- If host is present, open a connection to that host under username user with password password (and, on the rare occasions when it is necessary, account account). If a necessary parameter is missing or given as ` ?' it will be prompted for. If host is not present, use a previously stored set of parameters.
If the command was successful, and the terminal is compatible with xterm
or is sun-cmd, a summary will appear in the title bar, giving the local
host:directory and the remote host:directory; this is handled by
the function zftp_chpwd, described below.
Normally, the host, user and password are internally
recorded for later re-opening, either by a zfopen with no arguments, or
automatically (see below). With the option ` -1', no information is
stored. Also, if an open command with arguments failed, the parameters will
not be retained (and any previous parameters will also be deleted). A
zfopen on its own, or a zfopen -1, never alters the stored
parameters.
Both zfopen and zfanon (but not zfparams) understand URLs
of the form ftp://host/path... as meaning to connect to
the host, then change directory to path (which must be a
directory, not a file). The ` ftp://' can be omitted; the trailing
`/' is enough to trigger recognition of the path. Note prefixes
other than ` ftp:' are not recognized, and that all characters after
the first slash beyond host are significant in path.
- zfanon [ -1 ] host
- Open a connection host for anonymous FTP. The username used is ` anonymous'. The password (which will be reported the first time) is generated as user@host; this is then stored in the shell parameter $EMAIL_ADDR which can alternatively be set manually to a suitable string.
Directory management
- zfcd [ dir ]
- zfcd -
- zfcd old new
- Change the current directory on the remote server: this is implemented to have many of the features of the shell builtin cd.
In the first form with dir present, change to the directory dir.
The command ` zfcd ..' is treated specially, so is guaranteed to work
on non-UNIX servers (note this is handled internally by zftp). If
dir is omitted, has the effect of ` zfcd ~'.
The second form changes to the directory previously current.
The third form attempts to change the current directory by replacing the first
occurrence of the string old with the string new in the current
directory.
Note that in this command, and indeed anywhere a remote filename is expected,
the string which on the local host corresponds to ` ~' is converted
back to a ` ~' before being passed to the remote machine. This is
convenient because of the way expansion is performed on the command line
before zfcd receives a string. For example, suppose the command is `
zfcd ~/foo'. The shell will expand this to a full path such as `
zfcd /home/user2/pws/foo'. At this stage, zfcd recognises the
initial path as corresponding to ` ~' and will send the directory to
the remote host as ~/foo, so that the `~' will be expanded by
the server to the correct remote host directory. Other named directories of
the form ` ~name' are not treated in this fashion.
- zfhere
- Change directory on the remote server to the one corresponding to the current local directory, with special handling of ` ~' as in zfcd. For example, if the current local directory is ~/foo/bar, then zfhere performs the effect of `zfcd ~/foo/bar'.
- zfdir [ -rfd ] [ - ] [ dir-options ] [ dir ]
- Produce a long directory listing. The arguments dir-options and dir are passed directly to the server and their effect is implementation dependent, but specifying a particular remote directory dir is usually possible. The output is passed through a pager given by the environment variable $PAGER, or `more' if that is not set.
The directory is usually cached for re-use. In fact, two caches are maintained.
One is for use when there is no dir-options or dir, i.e. a full
listing of the current remote directory; it is flushed when the current remote
directory changes. The other is kept for repeated use of zfdir with the
same arguments; for example, repeated use of ` zfdir /pub/gnu' will
only require the directory to be retrieved on the first call. Alternatively,
this cache can be re-viewed with the -r option. As relative directories
will confuse zfdir, the -f option can be used to force the cache
to be flushed before the directory is listed. The option -d will delete
both caches without showing a directory listing; it will also delete the cache
of file names in the current remote directory, if any.
- zfls [ ls-options ] [ dir ]
- List files on the remote server. With no arguments, this will produce a simple list of file names for the current remote directory. Any arguments are passed directly to the server. No pager and no caching is used.
Status commands
- zftype [ type ]
- With no arguments, show the type of data to be transferred, usually ASCII or binary. With an argument, change the type: the types ` A' or ` ASCII' for ASCII data and `B' or `BINARY', ` I' or ` IMAGE' for binary data are understood case-insensitively.
- zfstat [ -v ]
- Show the status of the current or last connection, as well as the status of some of zftp's status variables. With the -v option, a more verbose listing is produced by querying the server for its version of events, too.
Retrieving files
The commands for retrieving files all take at least two options. -G suppresses remote filename expansion which would otherwise be performed (see below for a more detailed description of that). -t attempts to set the modification time of the local file to that of the remote file: see the description of the function zfrtime below for more information.- zfget [ -Gtc ] file1 ...
- Retrieve all the listed files file1 ... one at a time from the remote server. If a file contains a ` /', the full name is passed to the remote server, but the file is stored locally under the name given by the part after the final ` /'. The option -c (cat) forces all files to be sent as a single stream to standard output; in this case the -t option has no effect.
- zfuget [ -Gvst ] file1 ...
- As zfget, but only retrieve files where the version on the remote server is newer (has a later modification time), or where the local file does not exist. If the remote file is older but the files have different sizes, or if the sizes are the same but the remote file is newer, the user will usually be queried. With the option -s, the command runs silently and will always retrieve the file in either of those two cases. With the option -v, the command prints more information about the files while it is working out whether or not to transfer them.
- zfcget [ -Gt ] file1 ...
- As zfget, but if any of the local files exists, and is shorter than the corresponding remote file, the command assumes that it is the result of a partially completed transfer and attempts to transfer the rest of the file. This is useful on a poor connection which keeps failing.
Note that this requires a commonly implemented, but non-standard, version of the
FTP protocol, so is not guaranteed to work on all servers.
- zfgcp [ -Gt ] remote-file local-file
- zfgcp [ -Gt ] rfile1 ... ldir
- This retrieves files from the remote server with arguments behaving similarly to the cp command.
In the first form, copy remote-file from the server to the local file
local-file.
In the second form, copy all the remote files rfile1 ... into the local
directory ldir retaining the same basenames. This assumes UNIX
directory semantics.
Sending files
- zfput [ -r ] file1 ...
- Send all the file1 ... given separately to the remote server. If a filename contains a ` /', the full filename is used locally to find the file, but only the basename is used for the remote file name.
With the option -r, if any of the files are directories they are
sent recursively with all their subdirectories, including files beginning with
` .'. This requires that the remote machine understand UNIX file
semantics, since ` /' is used as a directory separator.
- zfuput [ -vs ] file1 ...
- As zfput, but only send files which are newer than their remote equivalents, or if the remote file does not exist. The logic is the same as for zfuget, but reversed between local and remote files.
- zfcput file1 ...
- As zfput, but if any remote file already exists and is shorter than the local equivalent, assume it is the result of an incomplete transfer and send the rest of the file to append to the existing part. As the FTP append command is part of the standard set, this is in principle more likely to work than zfcget.
- zfpcp local-file remote-file
- zfpcp lfile1 ... rdir
- This sends files to the remote server with arguments behaving similarly to the cp command.
With two arguments, copy local-file to the server as remote-file.
With more than two arguments, copy all the local files lfile1 ... into
the existing remote directory rdir retaining the same basenames. This
assumes UNIX directory semantics.
A problem arises if you attempt to use zfpcp lfile1 rdir,
i.e. the second form of copying but with two arguments, as the command has no
simple way of knowing if rdir corresponds to a directory or a filename.
It attempts to resolve this in various ways. First, if the rdir
argument is ` .' or `..' or ends in a slash, it is assumed to be
a directory. Secondly, if the operation of copying to a remote file in the
first form failed, and the remote server sends back the expected failure code
553 and a reply including the string ` Is a directory', then
zfpcp will retry using the second form.
Closing the connection
- zfclose
- Close the connection.
Session management
- zfsession [ -lvod ] [ sessname ]
- Allows you to manage multiple FTP sessions at once. By default, connections take place in a session called ` default'; by giving the command ` zfsession sessname' you can change to a new or existing session with a name of your choice. The new session remembers its own connection, as well as associated shell parameters, and also the host/user parameters set by zfparams. Hence you can have different sessions set up to connect to different hosts, each remembering the appropriate host, user and password.
With no arguments, zfsession prints the name of the current session; with
the option -l it lists all sessions which currently exist, and with the
option -v it gives a verbose list showing the host and directory for
each session, where the current session is marked with an asterisk. With
-o, it will switch to the most recent previous session.
With -d, the given session (or else the current one) is removed;
everything to do with it is completely forgotten. If it was the only session,
a new session called ` default' is created and made current. It is
safest not to delete sessions while background commands using zftp are
active.
- zftransfer sess1:file1 sess2 :file2
- Transfer files between two sessions; no local copy is made. The file is read from the session sess1 as file1 and written to session sess2 as file file2; file1 and file2 may be relative to the current directories of the session. Either sess1 or sess2 may be omitted (though the colon should be retained if there is a possibility of a colon appearing in the file name) and defaults to the current session; file2 may be omitted or may end with a slash, in which case the basename of file1 will be added. The sessions sess1 and sess2 must be distinct.
The operation is performed using pipes, so it is required that the connections
still be valid in a subshell, which is not the case under versions of some
operating systems, presumably due to a system bug.
Bookmarks
The two functions zfmark and zfgoto allow you to `bookmark' the present location (host, user and directory) of the current FTP connection for later use. The file to be used for storing and retrieving bookmarks is given by the parameter $ZFTP_BMFILE; if not set when one of the two functions is called, it will be set to the file .zfbkmarks in the directory where your zsh startup files live (usually ~).- zfmark [ bookmark ]
- If given an argument, mark the current host, user and directory under the name bookmark for later use by zfgoto. If there is no connection open, use the values for the last connection immediately before it was closed; it is an error if there was none. Any existing bookmark under the same name will be silently replaced.
If not given an argument, list the existing bookmarks and the points to which
they refer in the form user@host:directory;
this is the format in which they are stored, and the file may be edited
directly.
- zfgoto [ -n ] bookmark
- Return to the location given by bookmark, as previously set by zfmark. If the location has user `ftp' or ` anonymous', open the connection with zfanon, so that no password is required. If the user and host parameters match those stored for the current session, if any, those will be used, and again no password is required. Otherwise a password will be prompted for.
With the option -n, the bookmark is taken to be a nickname stored by the
ncftp program in its bookmark file, which is assumed to be
~/.ncftp/bookmarks. The function works identically in other ways. Note
that there is no mechanism for adding or modifying ncftp bookmarks from
the zftp functions.
Other functions
Mostly, these functions will not be called directly (apart from zfinit), but are described here for completeness. You may wish to alter zftp_chpwd and zftp_progress, in particular.- zfinit [ -n ]
- As described above, this is used to initialize the zftp function system. The -n option should be used if the zftp command is already built into the shell.
- zfautocheck [ -dn ]
- This function is called to implement automatic reopening behaviour, as described in more detail below. The options must appear in the first argument; -n prevents the command from changing to the old directory, while -d prevents it from setting the variable do_close, which it otherwise does as a flag for automatically closing the connection after a transfer. The host and directory for the last session are stored in the variable $zflastsession, but the internal host/user/password parameters must also be correctly set.
- zfcd_match prefix suffix
- This performs matching for completion of remote directory names. If the remote server is UNIX, it will attempt to persuade the server to list the remote directory with subdirectories marked, which usually works but is not guaranteed. On other hosts it simply calls zfget_match and hence completes all files, not just directories. On some systems, directories may not even look like filenames.
- zfget_match prefix suffix
- This performs matching for completion of remote filenames. It caches files for the current directory (only) in the shell parameter $zftp_fcache. It is in the form to be called by the -K option of compctl, but also works when called from a widget-style completion function with prefix and suffix set appropriately.
- zfrglob varname
- Perform remote globbing, as describes in more detail below. varname is the name of a variable containing the pattern to be expanded; if there were any matches, the same variable will be set to the expanded set of filenames on return.
- zfrtime lfile rfile [ time ]
- Set the local file lfile to have the same modification time as the remote file rfile, or the explicit time time in FTP format CCYYMMDDhhmmSS for the GMT timezone. This uses the shell's zsh/datetime module to perform the conversion from GMT to local time.
- zftp_chpwd
- This function is called every time a connection is opened, or closed, or the remote directory changes. This version alters the title bar of an xterm-compatible or sun-cmd terminal emulator to reflect the local and remote hostnames and current directories. It works best when combined with the function chpwd. In particular, a function of the form
chpwd() { if [[ -n $ZFTP_USER ]]; then zftp_chpwd else # usual chpwd e.g put host:directory in title bar fi }
- zftp_progress
- This function shows the status of the transfer. It will not write anything unless the output is going to a terminal; however, if you transfer files in the background, you should turn off progress reports by hand using ` zstyle ':zftp:*' progress none'. Note also that if you alter it, any output must be to standard error, as standard output may be a file being received. The form of the progress meter, or whether it is used at all, can be configured without altering the function, as described in the next section.
- zffcache
- This is used to implement caching of files in the current directory for each session separately. It is used by zfget_match and zfrglob.
MISCELLANEOUS FEATURES
Configuration
Various styles are available using the standard shell style mechanism, described in zshmodules(1). Briefly, the command ` zstyle ':zftp:*' style value ...'. defines the style to have value value; more than one value may be given, although that is not useful in the cases described here. These values will then be used throughout the zftp function system. For more precise control, the first argument, which gives a pattern that matches contexts in which the style applies, can be modified to include a particular function, as for example ` :zftp:zfget': the style will then have the given value only in the zfget function, and will override styles set under ` :zftp:*'. Note that only the top level function name, as called by the user, is used; calling of lower level functions is transparent to the user. Hence modifications to the title bar in zftp_chpwd use the contexts :zftp:zfopen, :zftp:zfcd, etc., depending where it was called from. The following styles are understood:- progress
- Controls the way that zftp_progress reports on the progress of a transfer. If empty, unset, or ` none', no progress report is made; if ` bar' a growing bar of inverse video is shown; if ` percent' (or any other string, though this may change in future), the percentage of the file transferred is shown. The bar meter requires that the width of the terminal be available via the $COLUMNS parameter (normally this is set automatically). If the size of the file being transferred is not available, bar and percent meters will simply show the number of bytes transferred so far.
When zfinit is run, if this style is not defined for the context
:zftp:*, it will be set to `bar'.
- update
- Specifies the minimum time interval between updates of the progress meter in seconds. No update is made unless new data has been received, so the actual time interval is limited only by $ZFTP_TIMEOUT.
As described for progress, zfinit will force this to default to
1.
- remote-glob
- If set to `1', `yes' or `true', filename generation (globbing) is performed on the remote machine instead of by zsh itself; see below.
- titlebar
- If set to `1', `yes' or `true', zftp_chpwd will put the remote host and remote directory into the titlebar of terminal emulators such as xterm or sun-cmd that allow this.
As described for progress, zfinit will force this to default to
1.
- chpwd
- If set to `1' `yes' or `true', zftp_chpwd will call the function chpwd when a connection is closed. This is useful if the remote host details were put into the terminal title bar by zftp_chpwd and your usual chpwd also modifies the title bar.
When zfinit is run, it will determine whether chpwd exists and if
so it will set the default value for the style to 1 if none exists
already.
Note that there is also an associative array zfconfig which contains
values used by the function system. This should not be modified or
overwritten.
Remote globbing
The commands for retrieving files usually perform filename generation (globbing) on their arguments; this can be turned off by passing the option -G to each of the commands. Normally this operates by retrieving a complete list of files for the directory in question, then matching these locally against the pattern supplied. This has the advantage that the full range of zsh patterns (respecting the setting of the option EXTENDED_GLOB) can be used. However, it means that the directory part of a filename will not be expanded and must be given exactly. If the remote server does not support the UNIX directory semantics, directory handling is problematic and it is recommended that globbing only be used within the current directory. The list of files in the current directory, if retrieved, will be cached, so that subsequent globs in the same directory without an intervening zfcd are much faster. If the remote-glob style (see above) is set, globbing is instead performed on the remote host: the server is asked for a list of matching files. This is highly dependent on how the server is implemented, though typically UNIX servers will provide support for basic glob patterns. This may in some cases be faster, as it avoids retrieving the entire list of directory contents.Automatic and temporary reopening
As described for the zfopen command, a subsequent zfopen with no parameters will reopen the connection to the last host (this includes connections made with the zfanon command). Opened in this fashion, the connection starts in the default remote directory and will remain open until explicitly closed. Automatic re-opening is also available. If a connection is not currently open and a command requiring a connection is given, the last connection is implicitly reopened. In this case the directory which was current when the connection was closed again becomes the current directory (unless, of course, the command given changes it). Automatic reopening will also take place if the connection was close by the remote server for whatever reason (e.g. a timeout). It is not available if the -1 option to zfopen or zfanon was used. Furthermore, if the command issued is a file transfer, the connection will be closed after the transfer is finished, hence providing a one-shot mode for transfers. This does not apply to directory changing or listing commands; for example a zfdir may reopen a connection but will leave it open. Also, automatic closure will only ever happen in the same command as automatic opening, i.e a zfdir directly followed by a zfget will never close the connection automatically. Information about the previous connection is given by the zfstat function. So, for example, if that reports:Session: default Not connected. Last session: ftp.bar.com:/pub/textfiles
Completion
Completion of local and remote files, directories, sessions and bookmarks is supported. The older, compctl-style completion is defined when zfinit is called; support for the new widget-based completion system is provided in the function Completion/Zsh/Command/_zftp, which should be installed with the other functions of the completion system and hence should automatically be available.NAME
zshcontrib - user contributions to zshDESCRIPTION
The Zsh source distribution includes a number of items contributed by the user community. These are not inherently a part of the shell, and some may not be available in every zsh installation. The most significant of these are documented here. For documentation on other contributed items such as shell functions, look for comments in the function source files.UTILITIES
Accessing On-Line Help
The key sequence ESC h is normally bound by ZLE to execute the run-help widget (see zshzle(1)). This invokes the run-help command with the command word from the current input line as its argument. By default, run-help is an alias for the man command, so this often fails when the command word is a shell builtin or a user-defined function. By redefining the run-help alias, one can improve the on-line help provided by the shell. The helpfiles utility, found in the Util directory of the distribution, is a Perl program that can be used to process the zsh manual to produce a separate help file for each shell builtin and for many other shell features as well. The autoloadable run-help function, found in Functions/Misc, searches for these helpfiles and performs several other tests to produce the most complete help possible for the command. Help files are installed by default to a subdirectory of /usr/share/zsh or /usr/local/share/zsh. To create your own help files with helpfiles, choose or create a directory where the individual command help files will reside. For example, you might choose ~/zsh_help. If you unpacked the zsh distribution in your home directory, you would use the commands:mkdir ~/zsh_help perl ~/zsh-5.9/Util/helpfiles ~/zsh_help
HELPDIR=~/zsh_help
unalias run-help autoload run-help
Recompiling Functions
If you frequently edit your zsh functions, or periodically update your zsh installation to track the latest developments, you may find that function digests compiled with the zcompile builtin are frequently out of date with respect to the function source files. This is not usually a problem, because zsh always looks for the newest file when loading a function, but it may cause slower shell startup and function loading. Also, if a digest file is explicitly used as an element of fpath, zsh won't check whether any of its source files has changed. The zrecompile autoloadable function, found in Functions/Misc, can be used to keep function digests up to date.- zrecompile [ -qt ] [ name ... ]
- zrecompile [ -qt ] -p arg ... [ -- arg ... ]
- This tries to find *.zwc files and automatically re-compile them if at least one of the original files is newer than the compiled file. This works only if the names stored in the compiled files are full paths or are relative to the directory that contains the .zwc file.
In the first form, each name is the name of a compiled file or a
directory containing *.zwc files that should be checked. If no
arguments are given, the directories and *.zwc files in fpath
are used.
When -t is given, no compilation is performed, but a return status of
zero (true) is set if there are files that need to be re-compiled and non-zero
(false) otherwise. The -q option quiets the chatty output that
describes what zrecompile is doing.
Without the -t option, the return status is zero if all files that needed
re-compilation could be compiled and non-zero if compilation for at least one
of the files failed.
If the -p option is given, the args are interpreted as one or more
sets of arguments for zcompile, separated by `--'. For
example:
This compiles ~/.zshrc into ~/.zshrc.zwc if that doesn't exist or
if it is older than ~/.zshrc. The compiled file will be marked for
reading instead of mapping. The same is done for ~/.zcompdump and
~/.zcompdump.zwc, but this compiled file is marked for mapping. The
last line re-creates the file ~/zsh/comp.zwc if any of the files
matching the given pattern is newer than it.
Without the -p option, zrecompile does not create function digests
that do not already exist, nor does it add new functions to the digest.
The following shell loop is an example of a method for creating function digests
for all functions in your fpath, assuming that you have write
permission to the directories:
zrecompile -p \ -R ~/.zshrc -- \ -M ~/.zcompdump -- \ ~/zsh/comp.zwc ~/zsh/Completion/*/_*
for ((i=1; i <= $#fpath; ++i)); do dir=$fpath[i] zwc=${dir:t}.zwc if [[ $dir == (.|..) || $dir == (.|..)/* ]]; then continue fi files=($dir/*(N-.)) if [[ -w $dir:h && -n $files ]]; then files=(${${(M)files%/*/*}#/}) if ( cd $dir:h && zrecompile -p -U -z $zwc $files ); then fpath[i]=$fpath[i].zwc fi fi done
Keyboard Definition
The large number of possible combinations of keyboards, workstations, terminals, emulators, and window systems makes it impossible for zsh to have built-in key bindings for every situation. The zkbd utility, found in Functions/Misc, can help you quickly create key bindings for your configuration. Run zkbd either as an autoloaded function, or as a shell script:zsh -f ~/zsh-5.9/Functions/Misc/zkbd
source ${ZDOTDIR:-$HOME}/.zkbd/$TERM-$VENDOR-$OSTYPE [[ -n ${key[Left]} ]] && bindkey "${key[Left]}" backward-char [[ -n ${key[Right]} ]] && bindkey "${key[Right]}" forward-char # etc.
Dumping Shell State
Occasionally you may encounter what appears to be a bug in the shell, particularly if you are using a beta version of zsh or a development release. Usually it is sufficient to send a description of the problem to one of the zsh mailing lists (see zsh(1)), but sometimes one of the zsh developers will need to recreate your environment in order to track the problem down. The script named reporter, found in the Util directory of the distribution, is provided for this purpose. (It is also possible to autoload reporter, but reporter is not installed in fpath by default.) This script outputs a detailed dump of the shell state, in the form of another script that can be read with ` zsh -f' to recreate that state. To use reporter, read the script into your shell with the `.' command and redirect the output into a file:. ~/zsh-5.9/Util/reporter > zsh.report
- reporter [ state ... ]
- Print to standard output the indicated subset of the current shell state. The state arguments may be one or more of:
- all
- Output everything listed below.
- aliases
- Output alias definitions.
- bindings
- Output ZLE key maps and bindings.
- completion
- Output old-style compctl commands. New completion is covered by functions and zstyles.
- functions
- Output autoloads and function definitions.
- limits
- Output limit commands.
- options
- Output setopt commands.
- styles
- Same as zstyles.
- variables
- Output shell parameter assignments, plus export commands for any environment variables.
- zstyles
- Output zstyle commands.
Manipulating Hook Functions
- add-zsh-hook [ -L | -dD ] [ -Uzk ] hook function
- Several functions are special to the shell, as described in the section SPECIAL FUNCTIONS, see zshmisc(1), in that they are automatically called at specific points during shell execution. Each has an associated array consisting of names of functions to be called at the same point; these are so-called `hook functions'. The shell function add-zsh-hook provides a simple way of adding or removing functions from the array.
hook is one of chpwd, periodic, precmd,
preexec, zshaddhistory, zshexit, or
zsh_directory_name, the special functions in question. Note that
zsh_directory_name is called in a different way from the other
functions, but may still be manipulated as a hook.
function is name of an ordinary shell function. If no options are given
this will be added to the array of functions to be executed in the given
context. Functions are invoked in the order they were added.
If the option -L is given, the current values for the hook arrays are
listed with typeset.
If the option -d is given, the function is removed from the array
of functions to be executed.
If the option -D is given, the function is treated as a pattern
and any matching names of functions are removed from the array of functions to
be executed.
The options -U, -z and -k are passed as arguments to
autoload for function. For functions contributed with zsh, the
options -Uz are appropriate.
- add-zle-hook-widget [ -L | -dD ] [ -Uzk ] hook widgetname
- Several widget names are special to the line editor, as described in the section Special Widgets, see zshzle(1), in that they are automatically called at specific points during editing. Unlike function hooks, these do not use a predefined array of other names to call at the same point; the shell function add-zle-hook-widget maintains a similar array and arranges for the special widget to invoke those additional widgets.
hook is one of isearch-exit, isearch-update,
line-pre-redraw, line-init, line-finish,
history-line-set, or keymap-select, corresponding to each of the
special widgets zle-isearch-exit, etc. The special widget names are
also accepted as the hook argument.
widgetname is the name of a ZLE widget. If no options are given this is
added to the array of widgets to be invoked in the given hook context. Widgets
are invoked in the order they were added, with
Note that this means that the ` WIDGET' special parameter tracks the
widgetname when the widget function is called, rather than tracking the
name of the corresponding special hook widget.
If the option -d is given, the widgetname is removed from the
array of widgets to be executed.
If the option -D is given, the widgetname is treated as a pattern
and any matching names of widgets are removed from the array.
If widgetname does not name an existing widget when added to the array,
it is assumed that a shell function also named widgetname is meant to
provide the implementation of the widget. This name is therefore marked for
autoloading, and the options -U, -z and -k are passed as
arguments to autoload as with add-zsh-hook. The widget is also
created with ` zle -N widgetname' to cause the corresponding
function to be loaded the first time the hook is called.
The arrays of widgetname are currently maintained in zstyle
contexts, one for each hook context, with a style of `widgets'.
If the -L option is given, this set of styles is listed with `
zstyle -L'. This implementation may change, and the special widgets
that refer to the styles are created only if add-zle-hook-widget is
called to add at least one widget, so if this function is used for any hooks,
then all hooks should be managed only via this function.
zle widgetname -Nw -f "nolast" -- "$@"
REMEMBERING RECENT DIRECTORIES
The function cdr allows you to change the working directory to a previous working directory from a list maintained automatically. It is similar in concept to the directory stack controlled by the pushd, popd and dirs builtins, but is more configurable, and as it stores all entries in files it is maintained across sessions and (by default) between terminal emulators in the current session. Duplicates are automatically removed, so that the list reflects the single most recent use of each directory. Note that the pushd directory stack is not actually modified or used by cdr unless you configure it to do so as described in the configuration section below.Installation
The system works by means of a hook function that is called every time the directory changes. To install the system, autoload the required functions and use the add-zsh-hook function described above:autoload -Uz chpwd_recent_dirs cdr add-zsh-hook add-zsh-hook chpwd chpwd_recent_dirs
Use
All direct user interaction is via the cdr function. The argument to cdr is a number N corresponding to the Nth most recently changed-to directory. 1 is the immediately preceding directory; the current directory is remembered but is not offered as a destination. Note that if you have multiple windows open 1 may refer to a directory changed to in another window; you can avoid this by having per-terminal files for storing directory as described for the recent-dirs-file style below. If you set the recent-dirs-default style described below cdr will behave the same as cd if given a non-numeric argument, or more than one argument. The recent directory list is updated just the same however you change directory. If the argument is omitted, 1 is assumed. This is similar to pushd's behaviour of swapping the two most recent directories on the stack. Completion for the argument to cdr is available if compinit has been run; menu selection is recommended, using:zstyle ':completion:*:*:cdr:*:*' menu selection
Options
The behaviour of cdr may be modified by the following options.- -l
- lists the numbers and the corresponding directories in abbreviated form (i.e. with ~ substitution reapplied), one per line. The directories here are not quoted (this would only be an issue if a directory name contained a newline). This is used by the completion system.
- -r
- sets the variable reply to the current set of directories. Nothing is printed and the directory is not changed.
- -e
- allows you to edit the list of directories, one per line. The list can be edited to any extent you like; no sanity checking is performed. Completion is available. No quoting is necessary (except for newlines, where I have in any case no sympathy); directories are in unabbreviated form and contain an absolute path, i.e. they start with /. Usually the first entry should be left as the current directory.
- -p 'pattern'
- Prunes any items in the directory list that match the given extended glob pattern; the pattern needs to be quoted from immediate expansion on the command line. The pattern is matched against each completely expanded file name in the list; the full string must match, so wildcards at the end (e.g. '*removeme*') are needed to remove entries with a given substring.
If output is to a terminal, then the function will print the new list after
pruning and prompt for confirmation by the user. This output and confirmation
step can be skipped by using -P instead of -p.
Configuration
Configuration is by means of the styles mechanism that should be familiar from completion; if not, see the description of the zstyle command in see zshmodules(1). The context for setting styles should be ':chpwd:*' in case the meaning of the context is extended in future, for example:zstyle ':chpwd:*' recent-dirs-max 0
- recent-dirs-default
- If true, and the command is expecting a recent directory index, and either there is more than one argument or the argument is not an integer, then fall through to "cd". This allows the lazy to use only one command for directory changing. Completion recognises this, too; see recent-dirs-insert for how to control completion when this option is in use.
- recent-dirs-file
- The file where the list of directories is saved. The default is ${ZDOTDIR:-$HOME}/.chpwd-recent-dirs, i.e. this is in your home directory unless you have set the variable ZDOTDIR to point somewhere else. Directory names are saved in $'...' quoted form, so each line in the file can be supplied directly to the shell as an argument.
The value of this style may be an array. In this case, the first file in the
list will always be used for saving directories while any other files are left
untouched. When reading the recent directory list, if there are fewer than the
maximum number of entries in the first file, the contents of later files in
the array will be appended with duplicates removed from the list shown. The
contents of the two files are not sorted together, i.e. all the entries in the
first file are shown first. The special value + can appear in the list
to indicate the default file should be read at that point. This allows effects
like the following:
Recent directories are read from a file numbered according to the terminal. If
there are insufficient entries the list is supplemented from the default file.
It is possible to use zstyle -e to make the directory configurable at run
time:
In this example, if the current directory is ~/text/writing or a
directory under it, then use a special file for saving recent directories,
else use the default.
zstyle ':chpwd:*' recent-dirs-file \ ~/.chpwd-recent-dirs-${TTY##*/} +
zstyle -e ':chpwd:*' recent-dirs-file pick-recent-dirs-file pick-recent-dirs-file() { if [[ $PWD = ~/text/writing(|/*) ]]; then reply=(~/.chpwd-recent-dirs-writing) else reply=(+) fi }
- recent-dirs-insert
- Used by completion. If recent-dirs-default is true, then setting this to true causes the actual directory, rather than its index, to be inserted on the command line; this has the same effect as using the corresponding index, but makes the history clearer and the line easier to edit. With this setting, if part of an argument was already typed, normal directory completion rather than recent directory completion is done; this is because recent directory completion is expected to be done by cycling through entries menu fashion.
If the value of the style is always, then only recent directories will be
completed; in that case, use the cd command when you want to complete
other directories.
If the value is fallback, recent directories will be tried first, then
normal directory completion is performed if recent directory completion failed
to find a match.
Finally, if the value is both then both sets of completions are
presented; the usual tag mechanism can be used to distinguish results, with
recent directories tagged as recent-dirs. Note that the recent
directories inserted are abbreviated with directory names where
appropriate.
- recent-dirs-max
- The maximum number of directories to save to the file. If this is zero or negative there is no maximum. The default is 20. Note this includes the current directory, which isn't offered, so the highest number of directories you will be offered is one less than the maximum.
- recent-dirs-prune
- This style is an array determining what directories should (or should not) be added to the recent list. Elements of the array can include:
- parent
- Prune parents (more accurately, ancestors) from the recent list. If present, changing directly down by any number of directories causes the current directory to be overwritten. For example, changing from ~pws to ~pws/some/other/dir causes ~pws not to be left on the recent directory stack. This only applies to direct changes to descendant directories; earlier directories on the list are not pruned. For example, changing from ~pws/yet/another to ~pws/some/other/dir does not cause ~pws to be pruned.
- pattern:pattern
- Gives a zsh pattern for directories that should not be added to the recent list (if not already there). This element can be repeated to add different patterns. For example, 'pattern:/tmp(|/*)' stops /tmp or its descendants from being added. The EXTENDED_GLOB option is always turned on for these patterns.
- recent-dirs-pushd
- If set to true, cdr will use pushd instead of cd to change the directory, so the directory is saved on the directory stack. As the directory stack is completely separate from the list of files saved by the mechanism used in this file there is no obvious reason to do this.
Use with dynamic directory naming
It is possible to refer to recent directories using the dynamic directory name syntax by using the supplied function zsh_directory_name_cdr a hook:autoload -Uz add-zsh-hook add-zsh-hook -Uz zsh_directory_name zsh_directory_name_cdr
Details of directory handling
This section is for the curious or confused; most users will not need to know this information. Recent directories are saved to a file immediately and hence are preserved across sessions. Note currently no file locking is applied: the list is updated immediately on interactive commands and nowhere else (unlike history), and it is assumed you are only going to change directory in one window at once. This is not safe on shared accounts, but in any case the system has limited utility when someone else is changing to a different set of directories behind your back. To make this a little safer, only directory changes instituted from the command line, either directly or indirectly through shell function calls (but not through subshells, evals, traps, completion functions and the like) are saved. Shell functions should use cd -q or pushd -q to avoid side effects if the change to the directory is to be invisible at the command line. See the contents of the function chpwd_recent_dirs for more details.ABBREVIATED DYNAMIC REFERENCES TO DIRECTORIES
The dynamic directory naming system is described in the subsection Dynamic named directories of the section Filename Expansion in zshexpn(1). In this, a reference to ~[...] is expanded by a function found by the hooks mechanism. The contributed function zsh_directory_name_generic provides a system allowing the user to refer to directories with only a limited amount of new code. It supports all three of the standard interfaces for directory naming: converting from a name to a directory, converting in the reverse direction to find a short name, and completion of names. The main feature of this function is a path-like syntax, combining abbreviations at multiple levels separated by ":". As an example, ~[g:p:s] might specify:- g
- The top level directory for your git area. This first component has to match, or the function will return indicating another directory name hook function should be tried.
- p
- The name of a project within your git area.
- s
- The source area within that project. This allows you to collapse references to long hierarchies to a very compact form, particularly if the hierarchies are similar across different areas of the disk.
Usage
To use the function, first define a wrapper function for your specific case. We'll assume it's to be autoloaded. This can have any name but we'll refer to it as zdn_mywrapper. This wrapper function will define various variables and then call this function with the same arguments that the wrapper function gets. This configuration is described below. Then arrange for the wrapper to be run as a zsh_directory_name hook:autoload -Uz add-zsh-hook zsh_directory_name_generic zdn_mywrapper add-zsh-hook -U zsh_directory_name zdn_mywrapper
Configuration
The wrapper function should define a local associative array zdn_top. Alternatively, this can be set with a style called mapping. The context for the style is :zdn:wrapper-name where wrapper-name is the function calling zsh_directory_name_generic; for example:zstyle :zdn:zdn_mywrapper: mapping zdn_mywrapper_top
local -A zdn_top=( g ~/git ga ~/alternate/git gs /scratch/$USER/git/:second2 :default: /:second1 )
local -A second1=( p myproject s somproject os otherproject/subproject/:third )
Complete example
Here is a full fictitious but usable autoloadable definition of the example function defined by the code above. So ~[gs:p:s] expands to /scratch/$USER/git/myscratchproject/top/srcdir (with $USER also expanded).local -A zdn_top=( g ~/git ga ~/alternate/git gs /scratch/$USER/git/:second2 :default: /:second1 ) local -A second1=( p myproject s somproject os otherproject/subproject/:third ) local -A second2=( p myscratchproject s somescratchproject ) local -A third=( s top/srcdir d top/documentation ) # autoload not needed if you did this at initialisation... autoload -Uz zsh_directory_name_generic zsh_directory_name_generic "$@
typeset -A zdn_mywrapper_top=(...) # ... and so on for other associative arrays ... zstyle ':zdn:zdn_mywrapper:' mapping zdn_mywrapper_top autoload -Uz add-zsh-hook zsh_directory_name_generic zdn_mywrapper add-zsh-hook -U zsh_directory_name zdn_mywrapper
zsh_directory_name_generic "$@"
GATHERING INFORMATION FROM VERSION CONTROL SYSTEMS
In a lot of cases, it is nice to automatically retrieve information from version control systems (VCSs), such as subversion, CVS or git, to be able to provide it to the user; possibly in the user's prompt. So that you can instantly tell which branch you are currently on, for example. In order to do that, you may use the vcs_info function. The following VCSs are supported, showing the abbreviated name by which they are referred to within the system:- Bazaar (bzr)
- https://bazaar.canonical.com/
- Codeville (cdv)
- http://freecode.com/projects/codeville/
- Concurrent Versioning System (cvs)
- https://www.nongnu.org/cvs/
- Darcs (darcs)
- http://darcs.net/
- Fossil (fossil)
- https://fossil-scm.org/
- Git (git)
- https://git-scm.com/
- GNU arch (tla)
- https://www.gnu.org/software/gnu-arch/
- Mercurial (hg)
- https://www.mercurial-scm.org/
- Monotone (mtn)
- https://monotone.ca/
- Perforce (p4)
- https://www.perforce.com/
- Subversion (svn)
- https://subversion.apache.org/
- SVK (svk)
- https://svk.bestpractical.com/
autoload -Uz vcs_info
Quickstart
To get this feature working quickly (including colors), you can do the following (assuming, you loaded vcs_info properly - see above):zstyle ':vcs_info:*' actionformats \ '%F{5}(%f%s%F{5})%F{3}-%F{5}[%F{2}%b%F{3}|%F{1}%a%F{5}]%f ' zstyle ':vcs_info:*' formats \ '%F{5}(%f%s%F{5})%F{3}-%F{5}[%F{2}%b%F{5}]%f ' zstyle ':vcs_info:(sv[nk]|bzr):*' branchformat '%b%F{1}:%F{3}%r' precmd () { vcs_info } PS1='%F{5}[%F{2}%n%F{5}] %F{3}%3~ ${vcs_info_msg_0_}%f%# '
% vcs_info_printsys ## list of supported version control backends: ## disabled systems are prefixed by a hash sign (#) bzr cdv cvs darcs fossil git hg mtn p4 svk svn tla ## flavours (cannot be used in the enable or disable styles; they ## are enabled and disabled with their master [git-svn -> git]) ## they *can* be used in contexts: ':vcs_info:git-svn:*'. git-p4 git-svn hg-git hg-hgsubversion hg-hgsvn
zstyle ':vcs_info:*' disable bzr cdv darcs mtn svk tla
zstyle ':vcs_info:*' enable git cvs svn
Configuration
The vcs_info feature can be configured via zstyle. First, the context in which we are working::vcs_info:vcs-string:user-context:repo-root-name
- vcs-string
- is one of: git, git-svn, git-p4, hg, hg-git, hg-hgsubversion, hg-hgsvn, darcs, bzr, cdv, mtn, svn, cvs, svk, tla, p4 or fossil. This is followed by ` .quilt-quilt-mode' in Quilt mode (see Quilt Support for details) and by ` +hook-name' while hooks are active (see Hooks in vcs_info for details).
Currently, hooks in quilt mode don't add the ` .quilt-quilt-mode'
information. This may change in the future.
- user-context
- is a freely configurable string, assignable by the user as the first argument to vcs_info (see its description below).
- repo-root-name
- is the name of a repository in which you want a style to match. So, if you want a setting specific to /usr/src/zsh, with that being a CVS checkout, you can set repo-root-name to zsh to make it so.
- default
- the one used if none is specified
- command
- used by vcs_info_lastmsg to lookup its styles
- formats
- A list of formats, used when actionformats is not used (which is most of the time).
- actionformats
- A list of formats, used if there is a special action going on in your current repository; like an interactive rebase or a merge conflict.
- branchformat
- Some backends replace %b in the formats and actionformats styles above, not only by a branch name but also by a revision number. This style lets you modify how that string should look.
- nvcsformats
- These "formats" are set when we didn't detect a version control system for the current directory or vcs_info was disabled. This is useful if you want vcs_info to completely take over the generation of your prompt. You would do something like PS1='${vcs_info_msg_0_}' to accomplish that.
- hgrevformat
- hg uses both a hash and a revision number to reference a specific changeset in a repository. With this style you can format the revision string (see branchformat) to include either or both. It's only useful when get-revision is true. Note, the full 40-character revision id is not available (except when using the use-simple option) because executing hg more than once per prompt is too slow; you may customize this behavior using hooks.
- max-exports
- Defines the maximum number of vcs_info_msg_*_ variables vcs_info will set.
- enable
- A list of backends you want to use. Checked in the -init- context. If this list contains an item called NONE no backend is used at all and vcs_info will do nothing. If this list contains ALL, vcs_info will use all known backends. Only with ALL in enable will the disable style have any effect. ALL and NONE are case insensitive.
- disable
- A list of VCSs you don't want vcs_info to test for repositories (checked in the -init- context, too). Only used if enable contains ALL.
- disable-patterns
- A list of patterns that are checked against $PWD. If a pattern matches, vcs_info will be disabled. This style is checked in the :vcs_info:-init-:*:-all- context.
Say, ~/.zsh is a directory under version control, in which you do not
want vcs_info to be active, do:
zstyle ':vcs_info:*' disable-patterns "${(b)HOME}/.zsh(|/*)"
- use-quilt
- If enabled, the quilt support code is active in `addon' mode. See Quilt Support for details.
- quilt-standalone
- If enabled, `standalone' mode detection is attempted if no VCS is active in a given directory. See Quilt Support for details.
- quilt-patch-dir
- Overwrite the value of the $QUILT_PATCHES environment variable. See Quilt Support for details.
- quiltcommand
- When quilt itself is called in quilt support, the value of this style is used as the command name.
- check-for-changes
- If enabled, this style causes the %c and %u format escapes to show when the working directory has uncommitted changes. The strings displayed by these escapes can be controlled via the stagedstr and unstagedstr styles. The only backends that currently support this option are git, hg, and bzr (the latter two only support unstaged).
For this style to be evaluated with the hg backend, the
get-revision style needs to be set and the use-simple style
needs to be unset. The latter is the default; the former is not.
With the bzr backend, lightweight checkouts only honor this style
if the use-server style is set.
Note, the actions taken if this style is enabled are potentially expensive
(read: they may be slow, depending on how big the current repository is).
Therefore, it is disabled by default.
- check-for-staged-changes
- This style is like check-for-changes, but it never checks the worktree files, only the metadata in the .${vcs} dir. Therefore, this style initializes only the %c escape (with stagedstr) but not the %u escape. This style is faster than check-for-changes.
In the git backend, this style checks for changes in the index. Other
backends do not currently implement this style.
This style is disabled by default.
- stagedstr
- This string will be used in the %c escape if there are staged changes in the repository.
- unstagedstr
- This string will be used in the %u escape if there are unstaged changes in the repository.
- command
- This style causes vcs_info to use the supplied string as the command to use as the VCS's binary. Note, that setting this in ' :vcs_info:*' is not a good idea.
If the value of this style is empty (which is the default), the used binary name
is the name of the backend in use (e.g. svn is used in an svn
repository).
The repo-root-name part in the context is always the default -all-
when this style is looked up.
For example, this style can be used to use binaries from non-default
installation directories. Assume, git is installed in /usr/bin but your
sysadmin installed a newer version in /usr/local/bin. Instead of changing the
order of your $PATH parameter, you can do this:
zstyle ':vcs_info:git:*:-all-' command /usr/local/bin/git
- use-server
- This is used by the Perforce backend (p4) to decide if it should contact the Perforce server to find out if a directory is managed by Perforce. This is the only reliable way of doing this, but runs the risk of a delay if the server name cannot be found. If the server (more specifically, the host:port pair describing the server) cannot be contacted, its name is put into the associative array vcs_info_p4_dead_servers and is not contacted again during the session until it is removed by hand. If you do not set this style, the p4 backend is only usable if you have set the environment variable P4CONFIG to a file name and have corresponding files in the root directories of each Perforce client. See comments in the function VCS_INFO_detect_p4 for more detail.
The Bazaar backend ( bzr) uses this to permit contacting the server about
lightweight checkouts, see the check-for-changes style.
- use-simple
- If there are two different ways of gathering information, you can select the simpler one by setting this style to true; the default is to use the not-that-simple code, which is potentially a lot slower but might be more accurate in all possible cases. This style is used by the bzr, hg, and git backends. In the case of hg it will invoke the external hexdump program to parse the binary dirstate cache file; this method will not return the local revision number.
- get-revision
- If set to true, vcs_info goes the extra mile to figure out the revision of a repository's work tree (currently for the git and hg backends, where this kind of information is not always vital). For git, the hash value of the currently checked out commit is available via the %i expansion. With hg, the local revision number and the corresponding global hash are available via %i.
- get-mq
- If set to true, the hg backend will look for a Mercurial Queue ( mq) patch directory. Information will be available via the ` %m' replacement.
- get-bookmarks
- If set to true, the hg backend will try to get a list of current bookmarks. They will be available via the ` %m' replacement.
The default is to generate a comma-separated list of all bookmark names that
refer to the currently checked out revision. If a bookmark is active, its name
is suffixed an asterisk and placed first in the list.
- use-prompt-escapes
- Determines if we assume that the assembled string from vcs_info includes prompt escapes. (Used by vcs_info_lastmsg.)
- debug
- Enable debugging output to track possible problems. Currently this style is only used by vcs_info's hooks system.
- hooks
- A list style that defines hook-function names. See Hooks in vcs_info below for details.
- patch-format
- nopatch-format
- This pair of styles format the patch information used by the %m expando in formats and actionformats for the git and hg backends. The value is subject to certain %-expansions described below. The expanded value is made available in the global backend_misc array as ${backend_misc[patches]} (also if a set-patch-format hook is used).
- get-unapplied
- This boolean style controls whether a backend should attempt to gather a list of unapplied patches (for example with Mercurial Queue patches).
Used by the quilt, hg, and git backends.
The default values for these styles in all contexts are:
- formats
- " (%s)-[%b]%u%c-"
- actionformats
- " (%s)-[%b|%a]%u%c-"
- branchformat
- "%b:%r" (for bzr, svn, svk and hg)
- nvcsformats
- ""
- hgrevformat
- "%r:%h"
- max-exports
- 2
- enable
- ALL
- disable
- (empty list)
- disable-patterns
- (empty list)
- check-for-changes
- false
- check-for-staged-changes
- false
- stagedstr
- (string: "S")
- unstagedstr
- (string: "U")
- command
- (empty string)
- use-server
- false
- use-simple
- false
- get-revision
- false
- get-mq
- true
- get-bookmarks
- false
- use-prompt-escapes
- true
- debug
- false
- hooks
- (empty list)
- use-quilt
- false
- quilt-standalone
- false
- quilt-patch-dir
- empty - use $QUILT_PATCHES
- quiltcommand
- quilt
- patch-format
- backend dependent
- nopatch-format
- backend dependent
- get-unapplied
- false
- %s
- The VCS in use (git, hg, svn, etc.).
- %b
- Information about the current branch.
- %a
- An identifier that describes the action. Only makes sense in actionformats.
- %i
- The current revision number or identifier. For hg the hgrevformat style may be used to customize the output.
- %c
- The string from the stagedstr style if there are staged changes in the repository.
- %u
- The string from the unstagedstr style if there are unstaged changes in the repository.
- %R
- The base directory of the repository.
- %r
- The repository name. If %R is /foo/bar/repoXY, %r is repoXY.
- %S
- A subdirectory within a repository. If $PWD is /foo/bar/repoXY/beer/tasty, %S is beer/tasty.
- %m
- A "misc" replacement. It is at the discretion of the backend to decide what this replacement expands to.
The hg and git backends use this expando to display patch
information. hg sources patch information from the mq
extensions; git from in-progress rebase and cherry-pick
operations and from the stgit extension. The patch-format and
nopatch-format styles control the generated string. The former is used
when at least one patch from the patch queue has been applied, and the latter
otherwise.
The hg backend displays bookmark information in this expando (in addition
to mq information). See the get-mq and get-bookmarks
styles. Both of these styles may be enabled at the same time. If both are
enabled, both resulting strings will be shown separated by a semicolon (that
cannot currently be customized).
The quilt `standalone' backend sets this expando to the same value as the
%Q expando.
- %Q
- Quilt series information. When quilt is used (either in `addon' mode or as a `standalone' backend), this expando is set to the quilt series' patch-format string. The set-patch-format hook and nopatch-format style are honoured.
See Quilt Support below for details.
In branchformat these replacements are done:
- %b
- The branch name. For hg, the branch name can include a topic name.
- %r
- The current revision number or the hgrevformat style for hg.
- %r
- The current local revision number.
- %h
- The current global revision identifier.
- %p
- The name of the top-most applied patch; may be overridden by the applied-string hook.
- %u
- The number of unapplied patches; may be overridden by the unapplied-string hook.
- %n
- The number of applied patches.
- %c
- The number of unapplied patches.
- %a
- The number of all patches (%a = %n + %c).
- %g
- The names of active mq guards (hg backend).
- %G
- The number of active mq guards (hg backend).
Oddities
If you want to use the %b (bold off) prompt expansion in formats, which expands %b itself, use %%b. That will cause the vcs_info expansion to replace %%b with %b, so that zsh's prompt expansion mechanism can handle it. Similarly, to hand down %b from branchformat, use %%%%b. Sorry for this inconvenience, but it cannot be easily avoided. Luckily we do not clash with a lot of prompt expansions and this only needs to be done for those. When one of the gen-applied-string, gen-unapplied-string, and set-patch-format hooks is defined, applying %-escaping (`foo=${foo//'%'/%%}') to the interpolated values for use in the prompt is the responsibility of those hooks (jointly); when neither of those hooks is defined, vcs_info handles escaping by itself. We regret this coupling, but it was required for backwards compatibility.Quilt Support
Quilt is not a version control system, therefore this is not implemented as a backend. It can help keeping track of a series of patches. People use it to keep a set of changes they want to use on top of software packages (which is tightly integrated into the package build process - the Debian project does this for a large number of packages). Quilt can also help individual developers keep track of their own patches on top of real version control systems. The vcs_info integration tries to support both ways of using quilt by having two slightly different modes of operation: `addon' mode and `standalone' mode). Quilt integration is off by default; to enable it, set the use-quilt style, and add %Q to your formats or actionformats style:zstyle ':vcs_info:*' use-quilt true
Function Descriptions (Public API)
- vcs_info [user-context]
- The main function, that runs all backends and assembles all data into ${vcs_info_msg_*_}. This is the function you want to call from precmd if you want to include up-to-date information in your prompt (see Variable Description below). If an argument is given, that string will be used instead of default in the user-context field of the style context.
- vcs_info_hookadd
- Statically registers a number of functions to a given hook. The hook needs to be given as the first argument; what follows is a list of hook-function names to register to the hook. The ` +vi-' prefix needs to be left out here. See Hooks in vcs_info below for details.
- vcs_info_hookdel
- Remove hook-functions from a given hook. The hook needs to be given as the first non-option argument; what follows is a list of hook-function names to un-register from the hook. If ` -a' is used as the first argument, all occurrences of the functions are unregistered. Otherwise only the last occurrence is removed (if a function was registered to a hook more than once). The ` +vi-' prefix needs to be left out here. See Hooks in vcs_info below for details.
- vcs_info_lastmsg
- Outputs the current values of ${vcs_info_msg_*_}. Takes into account the value of the use-prompt-escapes style in ':vcs_info:formats:command:-all-'. It also only prints max-exports values.
- vcs_info_printsys [user-context]
- Prints a list of all supported version control systems. Useful to find out possible contexts (and which of them are enabled) or values for the disable style.
- vcs_info_setsys
- Initializes vcs_info's internal list of available backends. With this function, you can add support for new VCSs without restarting the shell.
Variable Description
- ${vcs_info_msg_N_} (Note the trailing underscore)
- Where N is an integer, e.g., vcs_info_msg_0_. These variables are the storage for the informational message the last vcs_info call has assembled. These are strongly connected to the formats, actionformats and nvcsformats styles described above. Those styles are lists. The first member of that list gets expanded into ${vcs_info_msg_0_}, the second into ${vcs_info_msg_1_} and the Nth into ${vcs_info_msg_N-1_}. (See the max-exports style above.)
Hooks in vcs_info
Hooks are places in vcs_info where you can run your own code. That code can communicate with the code that called it and through that, change the system's behaviour. For configuration, hooks change the style context::vcs_info:vcs-string+hook-name:user-context:repo-root-name
zstyle ':vcs_info:*+foo:*' hooks bar baz
+vi-git-myfirsthook(){ user_data[myval]=$myval } +vi-git-mysecondhook(){ # do something with ${user_data[myval]} }
- ret
- The return value that the hooks system will return to the caller. The default is an integer `zero'. If and how a changed ret value changes the execution of the caller depends on the specific hook. See the hook documentation below for details.
- hook_com
- An associated array which is used for bidirectional communication from the caller to hook functions. The used keys depend on the specific hook.
- context
- The active context of the hook. Functions that wish to change this variable should make it local scope first.
- vcs
- The current VCS after it was detected. The same values as in the enable/disable style are used. Available in all hooks except start-up.
- start-up
- Called after starting vcs_info but before the VCS in this directory is determined. It can be used to deactivate vcs_info temporarily if necessary. When ret is set to 1, vcs_info aborts and does nothing; when set to 2, vcs_info sets up everything as if no version control were active and exits.
- pre-get-data
- Same as start-up but after the VCS was detected.
- gen-hg-bookmark-string
- Called in the Mercurial backend when a bookmark string is generated; the get-revision and get-bookmarks styles must be true.
This hook gets the names of the Mercurial bookmarks that vcs_info
collected from `hg'.
If a bookmark is active, the key ${hook_com[hg-active-bookmark]} is set
to its name. The key is otherwise unset.
When setting ret to non-zero, the string in
${hook_com[hg-bookmark-string]} will be used in the %m escape in
formats and actionformats and will be available in the global
backend_misc array as ${backend_misc[bookmarks]}.
- gen-applied-string
- Called in the git (with stgit or during rebase or merge), and hg (with mq) backends and in quilt support when the applied-string is generated; the use-quilt zstyle must be true for quilt (the mq and stgit backends are active by default).
The arguments to this hook describe applied patches in the opposite order, which
means that the first argument is the top-most patch and so forth.
When the patches' log messages can be extracted, those are embedded within each
argument after a space, so each argument is of the form ` patch-name
first line of the log message', where patch-name contains no
whitespace. The mq backend passes arguments of the form ` patch
name', with possible embedded spaces, but without extracting the patch's
log message.
When setting ret to non-zero, the string in
${hook_com[applied-string]} will be available as %p in the
patch-format and nopatch-format styles. This hook is, in concert
with set-patch-format, responsible for %-escaping that value for
use in the prompt. (See the Oddities section.)
The quilt backend passes to this hook the inputs
${hook_com[quilt-patches-dir]} and, if it has been determined,
${hook_com[quilt-pc-dir]}.
- gen-unapplied-string
- Called in the git (with stgit or during rebase), and hg (with mq) backend and in quilt support when the unapplied-string is generated; the get-unapplied style must be true.
This hook gets the names of all unapplied patches which vcs_info in
order, which means that the first argument is the patch next-in-line to be
applied and so forth.
The format of each argument is as for gen-applied-string, above.
When setting ret to non-zero, the string in
${hook_com[unapplied-string]} will be available as %u in the
patch-format and nopatch-format styles. This hook is, in concert
with set-patch-format, responsible for %-escaping that value for
use in the prompt. (See the Oddities section.)
The quilt backend passes to this hook the inputs
${hook_com[quilt-patches-dir]} and, if it has been determined,
${hook_com[quilt-pc-dir]}.
- gen-mqguards-string
- Called in the hg backend when guards-string is generated; the get-mq style must be true (default).
This hook gets the names of any active mq guards.
When setting ret to non-zero, the string in
${hook_com[guards-string]} will be used in the %g escape in the
patch-format and nopatch-format styles.
- no-vcs
- This hooks is called when no version control system was detected.
The ` hook_com' parameter is not used.
- post-backend
- Called as soon as the backend has finished collecting information.
The ` hook_com' keys available are as for the set-message
hook.
- post-quilt
- Called after the quilt support is done. The following information is passed as arguments to the hook: 1. the quilt-support mode (`addon' or `standalone'); 2. the directory that contains the patch series; 3. the directory that holds quilt's status information (the `.pc' directory) or the string "-nopc-" if that directory wasn't found.
The `hook_com' parameter is not used.
- set-branch-format
- Called before `branchformat' is set. The only argument to the hook is the format that is configured at this point.
The ` hook_com' keys considered are `branch' and
`revision'. They are set to the values figured out so far by
vcs_info and any change will be used directly when the actual
replacement is done.
If ret is set to non-zero, the string in
${hook_com[branch-replace]} will be used unchanged as the ` %b'
replacement in the variables set by vcs_info.
- set-hgrev-format
- Called before a `hgrevformat' is set. The only argument to the hook is the format that is configured at this point.
The ` hook_com' keys considered are `hash' and `localrev'.
They are set to the values figured out so far by vcs_info and any
change will be used directly when the actual replacement is done.
If ret is set to non-zero, the string in ${hook_com[rev-replace]}
will be used unchanged as the ` %i' replacement in the variables set by
vcs_info.
- pre-addon-quilt
- This hook is used when vcs_info's quilt functionality is active in "addon" mode (quilt used on top of a real version control system). It is activated right before any quilt specific action is taken.
Setting the ` ret' variable in this hook to a non-zero value avoids any
quilt specific actions from being run at all.
- set-patch-format
- This hook is used to control some of the possible expansions in patch-format and nopatch-format styles with patch queue systems such as quilt, mqueue and the like.
This hook is used in the git, hg and quilt backends.
The hook allows the control of the %p (${hook_com[applied]}) and
%u ( ${hook_com[unapplied]}) expansion in all backends that use
the hook. With the mercurial backend, the %g
(${hook_com[guards]}) expansion is controllable in addition to that.
If ret is set to non-zero, the string in
${hook_com[patch-replace]} will be used unchanged instead of an
expanded format from patch-format or nopatch-format.
This hook is, in concert with the gen-applied-string or
gen-unapplied-string hooks if they are defined, responsible for
%-escaping the final patch-format value for use in the prompt.
(See the Oddities section.)
The quilt backend passes to this hook the inputs
${hook_com[quilt-patches-dir]} and, if it has been determined,
${hook_com[quilt-pc-dir]}.
- set-message
- Called each time before a `vcs_info_msg_N_' message is set. It takes two arguments; the first being the ` N' in the message variable name, the second is the currently configured formats or actionformats.
There are a number of ` hook_com' keys, that are used here: `
action', ` branch', `base', `base-name',
`subdir', ` staged', `unstaged', `revision',
`misc', ` vcs' and one ` miscN' entry for each
backend-specific data field ( N starting at zero). They are set to the
values figured out so far by vcs_info and any change will be used
directly when the actual replacement is done.
Since this hook is triggered multiple times (once for each configured
formats or actionformats), each of the `hook_com' keys
mentioned above (except for the miscN entries) has an `_orig'
counterpart, so even if you changed a value to your liking you can still get
the original value in the next run. Changing the ` _orig' values is
probably not a good idea.
If ret is set to non-zero, the string in ${hook_com[message]} will
be used unchanged as the message by vcs_info.
If all of this sounds rather confusing, take a look at the Examples
section below and also in the Misc/vcs_info-examples file in the Zsh
source. They contain some explanatory code.
Examples
Don't use vcs_info at all (even though it's in your prompt):zstyle ':vcs_info:*' enable NONE
zstyle ':vcs_info:*' disable bzr svk
zstyle ':vcs_info:*' enable bzr svk
zstyle ':vcs_info:git:*' formats ' GIT, BABY! [%b]' zstyle ':vcs_info:git:*' actionformats ' GIT ACTION! [%b|%a]'
zstyle ':vcs_info:bzr:*' use-simple true
zstyle ':vcs_info:(svn|bzr):*' \ branchformat '%b%%F{yellow}:%r'
zstyle ':vcs_info:(svn|bzr):*' \ branchformat '%b%{'${fg[yellow]}'%}:%r'
vcsi() { vcs_info interactive; vcs_info_lastmsg }
zstyle ':vcs_info:*+set-message:*' hooks svn2subversion
zstyle ':vcs_info:*+*:*' debug true
zstyle ':vcs_info:*+*:*' debug false
function +vi-svn2subversion() { [[ ${hook_com[vcs_orig]} == svn ]] && hook_com[vcs]=subversion }
zstyle ':vcs_info:svn+set-message:*' hooks svn2subversion
function +vi-svn2subversion() { hook_com[vcs]=subversion }
zstyle ':vcs_info:hg+gen-hg-bookmark-string:*' hooks hgbookmarks
function +vi-hgbookmarks() { # The default is to connect all bookmark names by # commas. This mixes things up a little. # Imagine, there's one type of bookmarks that is # special to you. Say, because it's *your* work. # Those bookmarks look always like this: "sh/*" # (because your initials are sh, for example). # This makes the bookmarks string use only those # bookmarks. If there's more than one, it # concatenates them using commas. # The bookmarks returned by `hg' are available in # the function's positional parameters. local s="${(Mj:,:)@:#sh/*}" # Now, the communication with the code that calls # the hook functions is done via the hook_com[] # hash. The key at which the `gen-hg-bookmark-string' # hook looks is `hg-bookmark-string'. So: hook_com[hg-bookmark-string]=$s # And to signal that we want to use the string we # just generated, set the special variable `ret' to # something other than the default zero: ret=1 return 0 }
PROMPT THEMES
Installation
You should make sure all the functions from the Functions/Prompts directory of the source distribution are available; they all begin with the string ` prompt_' except for the special function `promptinit'. You also need the ` colors' and `add-zsh-hook' functions from Functions/Misc. All these functions may already be installed on your system; if not, you will need to find them and copy them. The directory should appear as one of the elements of the fpath array (this should already be the case if they were installed), and at least the function promptinit should be autoloaded; it will autoload the rest. Finally, to initialize the use of the system you need to call the promptinit function. The following code in your .zshrc will arrange for this; assume the functions are stored in the directory ~/myfns:fpath=(~/myfns $fpath) autoload -U promptinit promptinit
Theme Selection
Use the prompt command to select your preferred theme. This command may be added to your .zshrc following the call to promptinit in order to start zsh with a theme already selected.- prompt [ -c | -l ]
- prompt [ -p | -h ] [ theme ... ]
- prompt [ -s ] theme [ arg ... ]
- Set or examine the prompt theme. With no options and a theme argument, the theme with that name is set as the current theme. The available themes are determined at run time; use the -l option to see a list. The special theme `random' selects at random one of the available themes and sets your prompt to that.
In some cases the theme may be modified by one or more arguments, which
should be given after the theme name. See the help for each theme for
descriptions of these arguments.
Options are:
- -c
- Show the currently selected theme and its parameters, if any.
- -l
- List all available prompt themes.
- -p
- Preview the theme named by theme, or all themes if no theme is given.
- -h
- Show help for the theme named by theme, or for the prompt function if no theme is given.
- -s
- Set theme as the current theme and save state.
- prompt_theme_setup
- Each available theme has a setup function which is called by the prompt function to install that theme. This function may define other functions as necessary to maintain the prompt, including functions used to preview the prompt or provide help for its use. You should not normally call a theme's setup function directly.
Utility Themes
- prompt off
- The theme `off' sets all the prompt variables to minimal values with no special effects.
- prompt default
- The theme `default' sets all prompt variables to the same state as if an interactive zsh was started with no initialization files.
- prompt restore
- The special theme `restore' erases all theme settings and sets prompt variables to their state before the first time the ` prompt' function was run, provided each theme has properly defined its cleanup (see below).
Note that you can undo ` prompt off' and `prompt default' with `
prompt restore', but a second restore does not undo the first.
Writing Themes
The first step for adding your own theme is to choose a name for it, and create a file ` prompt_name_setup' in a directory in your fpath, such as ~/myfns in the example above. The file should at minimum contain assignments for the prompt variables that your theme wishes to modify. By convention, themes use PS1 , PS2, RPS1, etc., rather than the longer PROMPT and RPROMPT. The file is autoloaded as a function in the current shell context, so it may contain any necessary commands to customize your theme, including defining additional functions. To make some complex tasks easier, your setup function may also do any of the following:- Assign prompt_opts
- The array prompt_opts may be assigned any of "bang", "cr", "percent", "sp", and/or "subst" as values. The corresponding setopts ( promptbang, etc.) are turned on, all other prompt-related options are turned off. The prompt_opts array preserves setopts even beyond the scope of localoptions, should your function need that.
- Modify hooks
- Use of add-zsh-hook and add-zle-hook-widget is recommended (see the Manipulating Hook Functions section above). All hooks that follow the naming pattern prompt_theme_ hook are automatically removed when the prompt theme changes or is disabled.
- Declare cleanup
- If your function makes any other changes that should be undone when the theme is disabled, your setup function may call
prompt_cleanup command
- Define preview
- Define or autoload a function prompt_name_preview to display a simulated version of your prompt. A simple default previewer is defined by promptinit for themes that do not define their own. This preview function is called by ` prompt -p'.
- Provide help
- Define or autoload a function prompt_name_help to display documentation or help text for your theme. This help function is called by ` prompt -h'.
ZLE FUNCTIONS
Widgets
These functions all implement user-defined ZLE widgets (see zshzle(1)) which can be bound to keystrokes in interactive shells. To use them, your .zshrc should contain lines of the formautoload function zle -N function
- bash-style word functions
- If you are looking for functions to implement moving over and editing words in the manner of bash, where only alphanumeric characters are considered word characters, you can use the functions described in the next section. The following is sufficient:
autoload -U select-word-style select-word-style bash
- forward-word-match, backward-word-match
- kill-word-match, backward-kill-word-match
- transpose-words-match, capitalize-word-match
- up-case-word-match, down-case-word-match
- delete-whole-word-match, select-word-match
- select-word-style, match-word-context, match-words-by-style
- The first eight `-match' functions are drop-in replacements for the builtin widgets without the suffix. By default they behave in a similar way. However, by the use of styles and the function select-word-style, the way words are matched can be altered. select-word-match is intended to be used as a text object in vi mode but with custom word styles. For comparison, the widgets described in zshzle(1) under Text Objects use fixed definitions of words, compatible with the vim editor.
The simplest way of configuring the functions is to use
select-word-style, which can either be called as a normal function with
the appropriate argument, or invoked as a user-defined widget that will prompt
for the first character of the word style to be used. The first time it is
invoked, the first eight -match functions will automatically replace
the builtin versions, so they do not need to be loaded explicitly.
The word styles available are as follows. Only the first character is examined.
has been set, and transpose-words-match is called with the cursor on the
X of fooXbar, where X can be any character,
then the resulting expression is barXfoo.
Finer grained control can be obtained by setting the style word-context
to an array of pairs of entries. Each pair of entries consists of a
pattern and a subcontext. The shell argument the cursor is on is
matched against each pattern in turn until one matches; if it does, the
context is extended by a colon and the corresponding subcontext. Note
that the test is made against the original word on the line, with no stripping
of quotes. Special handling is done between words: the current context is
examined and if it contains the string between the word is set to a
single space; else if it is contains the string back, the word before
the cursor is considered, else the word after cursor is considered. Some
examples are given below.
The style skip-whitespace-first is only used with the forward-word
widget. If it is set to true, then forward-word skips any
non-word-characters, followed by any non-word-characters: this is similar to
the behaviour of other word-orientated widgets, and also that used by other
editors, however it differs from the standard zsh behaviour. When using
select-word-style the widget is set in the context :zle:* to
true if the word style is bash and false otherwise. It
may be overridden by setting it in the more specific context
:zle:forward-word*.
It is possible to create widgets with specific behaviour by defining a new
widget implemented by the appropriate generic function, then setting a style
for the context of the specific widget. For example, the following defines a
widget backward-kill-space-word using backward-kill-word-match,
the generic widget implementing backward-kill-word behaviour, and
ensures that the new widget always implements space-delimited behaviour.
The widget backward-kill-space-word can now be bound to a key.
Here are some further examples of use of the styles, actually taken from the
simplified interface in select-word-style:
Implements bash-style word handling for all widgets, i.e. only alphanumerics are
word characters; equivalent to setting the parameter WORDCHARS empty
for the given context.
Uses space-delimited words for widgets with the word `kill' in the name. Neither
of the styles word-chars nor word-class is used in this case.
Here are some examples of use of the word-context style to extend the
context.
This provides two different ways of using transpose-words depending on
whether the cursor is on whitespace between words or on a filename, here any
word containing a /. On whitespace, complete arguments as defined by
standard shell rules will be transposed. In a filename, only alphanumerics
will be transposed. Elsewhere, words will be transposed using the default
style for :zle:transpose-words.
The word matching and all the handling of zstyle settings is actually
implemented by the function match-words-by-style. This can be used to
create new user-defined widgets. The calling function should set the local
parameter curcontext to :zle:widget, create the local
parameter matched_words and call match-words-by-style with no
arguments. On return, matched_words will be set to an array with the
elements: (1) the start of the line (2) the word before the cursor (3) any
non-word characters between that word and the cursor (4) any non-word
character at the cursor position plus any remaining non-word characters before
the next word, including all characters specified by the skip-chars
style, (5) the word at or following the cursor (6) any non-word characters
following that word (7) the remainder of the line. Any of the elements may be
an empty string; the calling function should test for this to decide whether
it can perform its function.
If the variable matched_words is defined by the caller to
match-words-by-style as an associative array ( local -A
matched_words), then the seven values given above should be retrieved
from it as elements named start, word-before-cursor,
ws-before-cursor, ws-after-cursor, word-after-cursor,
ws-after-word, and end. In addition the element
is-word-start is 1 if the cursor is on the start of a word or subword,
or on white space before it (the cases can be distinguished by testing the
ws-after-cursor element) and 0 otherwise. This form is recommended for
future compatibility.
It is possible to pass options with arguments to match-words-by-style to
override the use of styles. The options are:
- bash
- Word characters are alphanumeric characters only.
- normal
- As in normal shell operation: word characters are alphanumeric characters plus any characters present in the string given by the parameter $WORDCHARS.
- shell
- Words are complete shell command arguments, possibly including complete quoted strings, or any tokens special to the shell.
- whitespace
- Words are any set of characters delimited by whitespace.
- default
- Restore the default settings; this is usually the same as `normal'.
- normal
- Use the standard shell rules, i.e. alphanumerics and $WORDCHARS, unless overridden by the styles word-chars or word-class.
- specified
- Similar to normal, but only the specified characters, and not also alphanumerics, are considered word characters.
- unspecified
- The negation of specified. The given characters are those which will not be considered part of a word.
- shell
- Words are obtained by using the syntactic rules for generating shell command arguments. In addition, special tokens which are never command arguments such as ` ()' are also treated as words.
- whitespace
- Words are whitespace-delimited strings of characters.
zstyle ':zle:transpose-words' skip-chars 1
zle -N backward-kill-space-word backward-kill-word-match zstyle :zle:backward-kill-space-word word-style space
zstyle ':zle:*' word-style standard zstyle ':zle:*' word-chars ''
style ':zle:*kill*' word-style space
zstyle ':zle:*' word-context \ "*/*" filename "[[:space:]]" whitespace zstyle ':zle:transpose-words:whitespace' word-style shell zstyle ':zle:transpose-words:filename' word-style normal zstyle ':zle:transpose-words:filename' word-chars ''
- -w
- word-style
- -s
- skip-chars
- -c
- word-class
- -C
- word-chars
- -r
- subword-range
- bracketed-paste-magic
- The bracketed-paste widget (see the subsection `Miscellaneous' in zshzle(1)) inserts pasted text literally into the editor buffer rather than interpret it as keystrokes. This disables some common usages where the self-insert widget is replaced in order to accomplish some extra processing. An example is the contributed url-quote-magic widget described below.
The bracketed-paste-magic widget is meant to replace
bracketed-paste with a wrapper that re-enables these self-insert
actions, and other actions as selected by zstyles. Therefore this widget is
installed with
Other than enabling some widget processing, bracketed-paste-magic
attempts to replicate bracketed-paste as faithfully as possible.
The following zstyles may be set to control processing of pasted text. All are
looked up in the context ` :bracketed-paste-magic'.
autoload -Uz bracketed-paste-magic zle -N bracketed-paste bracketed-paste-magic
- active-widgets
- A list of patterns matching widget names that should be activated during the paste. All other key sequences are processed as self-insert-unmeta. The default is ` self-*' so any user-defined widgets named with that prefix are active along with the builtin self-insert.
If this style is not set (explicitly deleted) or set to an empty value, no
widgets are active and the pasted text is inserted literally. If the value
includes ` undefined-key', any unknown sequences are discarded from the
pasted text.
- inactive-keys
- The inverse of active-widgets, a list of key sequences that always use self-insert-unmeta even when bound to an active widget. Note that this is a list of literal key sequences, not patterns.
- paste-init
- A list of function names, called in widget context (but not as widgets). The functions are called in order until one of them returns a non-zero status. The parameter ` PASTED' contains the initial state of the pasted text. All other ZLE parameters such as ` BUFFER' have their normal values and side-effects, and full history is available, so for example paste-init functions may move words from BUFFER into PASTED to make those words visible to the active-widgets.
A non-zero return from a paste-init function does not prevent the
paste itself from proceeding.
Loading bracketed-paste-magic defines backward-extend-paste, a
helper function for use in paste-init.
When a paste would insert into the middle of a word or append text to a word
already on the line, backward-extend-paste moves the prefix from
LBUFFER into PASTED so that the active-widgets see the
full word so far. This may be useful with url-quote-magic.
zstyle :bracketed-paste-magic paste-init \ backward-extend-paste
- paste-finish
- Another list of function names called in order until one returns non-zero. These functions are called after the pasted text has been processed by the active-widgets, but before it is inserted into ` BUFFER'. ZLE parameters have their normal values and side-effects.
A non-zero return from a paste-finish function does not prevent
the paste itself from proceeding.
Loading bracketed-paste-magic also defines quote-paste, a helper
function for use in paste-finish.
When the pasted text is inserted into BUFFER, it is quoted per the
quote-style value. To forcibly turn off the built-in numeric prefix
quoting of bracketed-paste, use:
Important: During active-widgets processing of the paste (after
paste-init and before paste-finish), BUFFER starts empty
and history is restricted, so cursor motions, etc., may not pass outside of
the pasted content. Text assigned to BUFFER by the active widgets is
copied back into PASTED before paste-finish.zstyle :bracketed-paste-magic paste-finish \ quote-paste zstyle :bracketed-paste-magic:finish quote-style \ qqq
zstyle :bracketed-paste-magic:finish quote-style \ none
- copy-earlier-word
- This widget works like a combination of insert-last-word and copy-prev-shell-word. Repeated invocations of the widget retrieve earlier words on the relevant history line. With a numeric argument N, insert the Nth word from the history line; N may be negative to count from the end of the line.
If insert-last-word has been used to retrieve the last word on a previous
history line, repeated invocations will replace that word with earlier words
from the same line.
Otherwise, the widget applies to words on the line currently being edited. The
widget style can be set to the name of another widget that should be
called to retrieve words. This widget must accept the same three arguments as
insert-last-word.
- cycle-completion-positions
- After inserting an unambiguous string into the command line, the new function based completion system may know about multiple places in this string where characters are missing or differ from at least one of the possible matches. It will then place the cursor on the position it considers to be the most interesting one, i.e. the one where one can disambiguate between as many matches as possible with as little typing as possible.
This widget allows the cursor to be easily moved to the other interesting spots.
It can be invoked repeatedly to cycle between all positions reported by the
completion system.
- delete-whole-word-match
- This is another function which works like the -match functions described immediately above, i.e. using styles to decide the word boundaries. However, it is not a replacement for any existing function.
The basic behaviour is to delete the word around the cursor. There is no numeric
argument handling; only the single word around the cursor is considered. If
the widget contains the string kill, the removed text will be placed in
the cutbuffer for future yanking. This can be obtained by defining
kill-whole-word-match as follows:
and then binding the widget kill-whole-word-match.
zle -N kill-whole-word-match delete-whole-word-match
- up-line-or-beginning-search, down-line-or-beginning-search
- These widgets are similar to the builtin functions up-line-or-search and down-line-or-search: if in a multiline buffer they move up or down within the buffer, otherwise they search for a history line matching the start of the current line. In this case, however, they search for a line which matches the current line up to the current cursor position, in the manner of history-beginning-search-backward and -forward, rather than the first word on the line.
- edit-command-line
- Edit the command line using your visual editor, as in ksh.
bindkey -M vicmd v edit-command-line
zstyle :zle:edit-command-line editor gvim -f
- expand-absolute-path
- Expand the file name under the cursor to an absolute path, resolving symbolic links. Where possible, the initial path segment is turned into a named directory or reference to a user's home directory.
- history-search-end
- This function implements the widgets history-beginning-search-backward-end and history-beginning-search-forward-end. These commands work by first calling the corresponding builtin widget (see `History Control' in zshzle(1)) and then moving the cursor to the end of the line. The original cursor position is remembered and restored before calling the builtin widget a second time, so that the same search is repeated to look farther through the history.
Although you autoload only one function, the commands to use it are
slightly different because it implements two widgets.
zle -N history-beginning-search-backward-end \ history-search-end zle -N history-beginning-search-forward-end \ history-search-end bindkey '\e^P' history-beginning-search-backward-end bindkey '\e^N' history-beginning-search-forward-end
- history-beginning-search-menu
- This function implements yet another form of history searching. The text before the cursor is used to select lines from the history, as for history-beginning-search-backward except that all matches are shown in a numbered menu. Typing the appropriate digits inserts the full history line. Note that leading zeroes must be typed (they are only shown when necessary for removing ambiguity). The entire history is searched; there is no distinction between forwards and backwards.
With a numeric argument, the search is not anchored to the start of the line;
the string typed by the use may appear anywhere in the line in the history.
If the widget name contains ` -end' the cursor is moved to the end of the
line inserted. If the widget name contains ` -space' any space in the
text typed is treated as a wildcard and can match anything (hence a leading
space is equivalent to giving a numeric argument). Both forms can be combined,
for example:
zle -N history-beginning-search-menu-space-end \ history-beginning-search-menu
- history-pattern-search
- The function history-pattern-search implements widgets which prompt for a pattern with which to search the history backwards or forwards. The pattern is in the usual zsh format, however the first character may be ^ to anchor the search to the start of the line, and the last character may be $ to anchor the search to the end of the line. If the search was not anchored to the end of the line the cursor is positioned just after the pattern found.
The commands to create bindable widgets are similar to those in the example
immediately above:
autoload -U history-pattern-search zle -N history-pattern-search-backward history-pattern-search zle -N history-pattern-search-forward history-pattern-search
- incarg
- Typing the keystrokes for this widget with the cursor placed on or to the left of an integer causes that integer to be incremented by one. With a numeric argument, the number is incremented by the amount of the argument (decremented if the numeric argument is negative). The shell parameter incarg may be set to change the default increment to something other than one.
bindkey '^X+' incarg
- incremental-complete-word
- This allows incremental completion of a word. After starting this command, a list of completion choices can be shown after every character you type, which you can delete with ^H or DEL. Pressing return accepts the completion so far and returns you to normal editing (that is, the command line is not immediately executed). You can hit TAB to do normal completion, ^G to abort back to the state when you started, and ^D to list the matches.
This works only with the new function based completion system.
bindkey '^Xi' incremental-complete-word
- insert-composed-char
- This function allows you to compose characters that don't appear on the keyboard to be inserted into the command line. The command is followed by two keys corresponding to ASCII characters (there is no prompt). For accented characters, the two keys are a base character followed by a code for the accent, while for other special characters the two characters together form a mnemonic for the character to be inserted. The two-character codes are a subset of those given by RFC 1345 (see for example http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc1345.html).
The function may optionally be followed by up to two characters which replace
one or both of the characters read from the keyboard; if both characters are
supplied, no input is read. For example, insert-composed-char a: can be
used within a widget to insert an a with umlaut into the command line. This
has the advantages over use of a literal character that it is more portable.
For best results zsh should have been built with support for multibyte
characters (configured with --enable-multibyte); however, the function
works for the limited range of characters available in single-byte character
sets such as ISO-8859-1.
The character is converted into the local representation and inserted into the
command line at the cursor position. (The conversion is done within the shell,
using whatever facilities the C library provides.) With a numeric argument,
the character and its code are previewed in the status line
The function may be run outside zle in which case it prints the character
(together with a newline) to standard output. Input is still read from
keystrokes.
See insert-unicode-char for an alternative way of inserting Unicode
characters using their hexadecimal character number.
The set of accented characters is reasonably complete up to Unicode character
U+0180, the set of special characters less so. However, it is very sporadic
from that point. Adding new characters is easy, however; see the function
define-composed-chars. Please send any additions to
[email protected].
The codes for the second character when used to accent the first are as follows.
Note that not every character can take every accent.
- !
- Grave.
- '
- Acute.
- >
- Circumflex.
- ?
- Tilde. (This is not ~ as RFC 1345 does not assume that character is present on the keyboard.)
- -
- Macron. (A horizontal bar over the base character.)
- (
- Breve. (A shallow dish shape over the base character.)
- .
- Dot above the base character, or in the case of i no dot, or in the case of L and l a centered dot.
- :
- Diaeresis (Umlaut).
- c
- Cedilla.
- _
- Underline, however there are currently no underlined characters.
- /
- Stroke through the base character.
- "
- Double acute (only supported on a few letters).
- ;
- Ogonek. (A little forward facing hook at the bottom right of the character.)
- <
- Caron. (A little v over the letter.)
- 0
- Circle over the base character.
- 2
- Hook over the base character.
- 9
- Horn over the base character.
- ASCII characters
- These are already present on most keyboards:
- <(
- Left square bracket
- //
- Backslash (solidus)
- )>
- Right square bracket
- (!
- Left brace (curly bracket)
- !!
- Vertical bar (pipe symbol)
- !)
- Right brace (curly bracket)
- '?
- Tilde
- Special letters
- Characters found in various variants of the Latin alphabet:
- ss
- Eszett (scharfes S)
- D-, d-
- Eth
- TH, th
- Thorn
- kk
- Kra
- 'n
- 'n
- NG, ng
- Ng
- OI, oi
- Oi
- yr
- yr
- ED
- ezh
- Currency symbols
- Ct
- Cent
- Pd
- Pound sterling (also lira and others)
- Cu
- Currency
- Ye
- Yen
- Eu
- Euro (N.B. not in RFC 1345)
- Punctuation characters
- References to "right" quotes indicate the shape (like a 9 rather than 6) rather than their grammatical use. (For example, a "right" low double quote is used to open quotations in German.)
- !I
- Inverted exclamation mark
- BB
- Broken vertical bar
- SE
- Section
- Co
- Copyright
- -a
- Spanish feminine ordinal indicator
- <<
- Left guillemet
- --
- Soft hyphen
- Rg
- Registered trade mark
- PI
- Pilcrow (paragraph)
- -o
- Spanish masculine ordinal indicator
- >>
- Right guillemet
- ?I
- Inverted question mark
- -1
- Hyphen
- -N
- En dash
- -M
- Em dash
- -3
- Horizontal bar
- :3
- Vertical ellipsis
- .3
- Horizontal midline ellipsis
- !2
- Double vertical line
- =2
- Double low line
- '6
- Left single quote
- '9
- Right single quote
- .9
- "Right" low quote
- 9'
- Reversed "right" quote
- "6
- Left double quote
- "9
- Right double quote
- :9
- "Right" low double quote
- 9"
- Reversed "right" double quote
- /-
- Dagger
- /=
- Double dagger
- Mathematical symbols
- DG
- Degree
- -2, +-, -+
- - sign, +/- sign, -/+ sign
- 2S
- Superscript 2
- 3S
- Superscript 3
- 1S
- Superscript 1
- My
- Micro
- .M
- Middle dot
- 14
- Quarter
- 12
- Half
- 34
- Three quarters
- *X
- Multiplication
- -:
- Division
- %0
- Per mille
- FA, TE, /0
- For all, there exists, empty set
- dP, DE, NB
- Partial derivative, delta (increment), del (nabla)
- (-, -)
- Element of, contains
- *P, +Z
- Product, sum
- *-, Ob, Sb
- Asterisk, ring, bullet
- RT, 0(, 00
- Root sign, proportional to, infinity
- Other symbols
- cS, cH, cD, cC
- Card suits: spades, hearts, diamonds, clubs
- Md, M8, M2, Mb, Mx, MX
- Musical notation: crotchet (quarter note), quaver (eighth note), semiquavers (sixteenth notes), flag sign, natural sign, sharp sign
- Fm, Ml
- Female, male
- Accents on their own
- '>
- Circumflex (same as caret, ^)
- '!
- Grave (same as backtick, `)
- ',
- Cedilla
- ':
- Diaeresis (Umlaut)
- 'm
- Macron
- ''
- Acute
- insert-files
- This function allows you type a file pattern, and see the results of the expansion at each step. When you hit return, all expansions are inserted into the command line.
bindkey '^Xf' insert-files
- insert-unicode-char
- When first executed, the user inputs a set of hexadecimal digits. This is terminated with another call to insert-unicode-char. The digits are then turned into the corresponding Unicode character. For example, if the widget is bound to ^XU, the character sequence ` ^XU 4 c ^XU' inserts L (Unicode U+004c).
See insert-composed-char for a way of inserting characters using a
two-character mnemonic.
- narrow-to-region [ -p pre ] [ -P post ]
- [ -S statepm | -R statepm | [ -l lbufvar ] [ -r rbufvar ] ]
- [ -n ] [ start end ]
- narrow-to-region-invisible
- Narrow the editable portion of the buffer to the region between the cursor and the mark, which may be in either order. The region may not be empty.
narrow-to-region may be used as a widget or called as a function from a
user-defined widget; by default, the text outside the editable area remains
visible. A recursive-edit is performed and the original widening status
is then restored. Various options and arguments are available when it is
called as a function.
The options -p pretext and -P posttext may be used
to replace the text before and after the display for the duration of the
function; either or both may be an empty string.
If the option -n is also given, pretext or posttext will
only be inserted if there is text before or after the region respectively
which will be made invisible.
Two numeric arguments may be given which will be used instead of the cursor and
mark positions.
The option -S statepm is used to narrow according to the other
options while saving the original state in the parameter with name
statepm, while the option -R statepm is used to restore
the state from the parameter; note in both cases the name of the
parameter is required. In the second case, other options and arguments are
irrelevant. When this method is used, no recursive-edit is performed;
the calling widget should call this function with the option -S,
perform its own editing on the command line or pass control to the user via `
zle recursive-edit', then call this function with the option -R.
The argument statepm must be a suitable name for an ordinary parameter,
except that parameters beginning with the prefix _ntr_ are reserved for
use within narrow-to-region. Typically the parameter will be local to
the calling function.
The options -l lbufvar and -r rbufvar may be used to
specify parameters where the widget will store the resulting text from the
operation. The parameter lbufvar will contain LBUFFER and
rbufvar will contain RBUFFER. Neither of these two options may
be used with -S or -R.
narrow-to-region-invisible is a simple widget which calls
narrow-to-region with arguments which replace any text outside the
region with ` ...'. It does not take any arguments.
The display is restored (and the widget returns) upon any zle command which
would usually cause the line to be accepted or aborted. Hence an additional
such command is required to accept or abort the current line.
The return status of both widgets is zero if the line was accepted, else
non-zero.
Here is a trivial example of a widget using this feature.
local state narrow-to-region -p $'Editing restricted region\n' \ -P '' -S state zle recursive-edit narrow-to-region -R state
- predict-on
- This set of functions implements predictive typing using history search. After predict-on, typing characters causes the editor to look backward in the history for the first line beginning with what you have typed so far. After predict-off, editing returns to normal for the line found. In fact, you often don't even need to use predict-off, because if the line doesn't match something in the history, adding a key performs standard completion, and then inserts itself if no completions were found. However, editing in the middle of a line is liable to confuse prediction; see the toggle style below.
With the function based completion system (which is needed for this), you should
be able to type TAB at almost any point to advance the cursor to the
next ``interesting'' character position (usually the end of the current word,
but sometimes somewhere in the middle of the word). And of course as soon as
the entire line is what you want, you can accept with return, without needing
to move the cursor to the end first.
The first time predict-on is used, it creates several additional widget
functions:
- delete-backward-and-predict
- Replaces the backward-delete-char widget. You do not need to bind this yourself.
- insert-and-predict
- Implements predictive typing by replacing the self-insert widget. You do not need to bind this yourself.
- predict-off
- Turns off predictive typing.
zle -N predict-on zle -N predict-off bindkey '^X^Z' predict-on bindkey '^Z' predict-off
- read-from-minibuffer
- This is most useful when called as a function from inside a widget, but will work correctly as a widget in its own right. It prompts for a value below the current command line; a value may be input using all of the standard zle operations (and not merely the restricted set available when executing, for example, execute-named-cmd). The value is then returned to the calling function in the parameter $REPLY and the editing buffer restored to its previous state. If the read was aborted by a keyboard break (typically ^G), the function returns status 1 and $REPLY is not set.
If one argument is supplied to the function it is taken as a prompt, otherwise `
? ' is used. If two arguments are supplied, they are the prompt and the
initial value of $LBUFFER, and if a third argument is given it is the
initial value of $RBUFFER. This provides a default value and starting
cursor placement. Upon return the entire buffer is the value of $REPLY.
One option is available: ` -k num' specifies that num
characters are to be read instead of a whole line. The line editor is not
invoked recursively in this case, so depending on the terminal settings the
input may not be visible, and only the input keys are placed in $REPLY,
not the entire buffer. Note that unlike the read builtin num
must be given; there is no default.
The name is a slight misnomer, as in fact the shell's own minibuffer is not
used. Hence it is still possible to call executed-named-cmd and similar
functions while reading a value.
- replace-argument, replace-argument-edit
- The function replace-argument can be used to replace a command line argument in the current command line or, if the current command line is empty, in the last command line executed (the new command line is not executed). Arguments are as delimited by standard shell syntax,
If a numeric argument is given, that specifies the argument to be replaced. 0
means the command name, as in history expansion. A negative numeric argument
counts backward from the last word.
If no numeric argument is given, the current argument is replaced; this is the
last argument if the previous history line is being used.
The function prompts for a replacement argument.
If the widget contains the string edit, for example is defined as
then the function presents the current value of the argument for editing,
otherwise the editing buffer for the replacement is initially empty.
zle -N replace-argument-edit replace-argument
- replace-string, replace-pattern
- replace-string-again, replace-pattern-again
- The function replace-string implements three widgets. If defined under the same name as the function, it prompts for two strings; the first (source) string will be replaced by the second everywhere it occurs in the line editing buffer.
If the widget name contains the word ` pattern', for example by defining
the widget using the command ` zle -N replace-pattern
replace-string', then the matching is performed using zsh patterns. All
zsh extended globbing patterns can be used in the source string; note that
unlike filename generation the pattern does not need to match an entire word,
nor do glob qualifiers have any effect. In addition, the replacement string
can contain parameter or command substitutions. Furthermore, a ` &'
in the replacement string will be replaced with the matched source string, and
a backquoted digit ` \N' will be replaced by the Nth
parenthesised expression matched. The form ` \{N}' may be
used to protect the digit from following digits.
If the widget instead contains the word ` regex' (or `regexp'),
then the matching is performed using regular expressions, respecting the
setting of the option RE_MATCH_PCRE (see the description of the
function regexp-replace below). The special replacement facilities
described above for pattern matching are available.
By default the previous source or replacement string will not be offered for
editing. However, this feature can be activated by setting the style
edit-previous in the context :zle:widget (for example,
:zle:replace-string) to true. In addition, a positive numeric
argument forces the previous values to be offered, a negative or zero argument
forces them not to be.
The function replace-string-again can be used to repeat the previous
replacement; no prompting is done. As with replace-string, if the name
of the widget contains the word ` pattern' or `regex', pattern
or regular expression matching is performed, else a literal string
replacement. Note that the previous source and replacement text are the same
whether pattern, regular expression or string matching is used.
In addition, replace-string shows the previous replacement above the
prompt, so long as there was one during the current session; if the source
string is empty, that replacement will be repeated without the widget
prompting for a replacement string.
For example, starting from the line:
and invoking replace-pattern with the source string ` f(?)n' and
the replacement string ` c\1r' produces the not very useful line:
The range of the replacement string can be limited by using the
narrow-to-region-invisible widget. One limitation of the current
version is that undo will cycle through changes to the replacement and
source strings before undoing the replacement itself.
print This line contains fan and fond
print This line contains car and cord
- send-invisible
- This is similar to read-from-minibuffer in that it may be called as a function from a widget or as a widget of its own, and interactively reads input from the keyboard. However, the input being typed is concealed and a string of asterisks (` *') is shown instead. The value is saved in the parameter $INVISIBLE to which a reference is inserted into the editing buffer at the restored cursor position. If the read was aborted by a keyboard break (typically ^G) or another escape from editing such as push-line, $INVISIBLE is set to empty and the original buffer is restored unchanged.
If one argument is supplied to the function it is taken as a prompt, otherwise `
Non-echoed text: ' is used (as in emacs). If a second and third
argument are supplied they are used to begin and end the reference to
$INVISIBLE that is inserted into the buffer. The default is to open
with ${, then INVISIBLE, and close with }, but many other
effects are possible.
- smart-insert-last-word
- This function may replace the insert-last-word widget, like so:
zle -N insert-last-word smart-insert-last-word
zle -N insert-last-assignment smart-insert-last-word zstyle :insert-last-assignment match '[[:alpha:]][][[:alnum:]]#=*' bindkey '\e=' insert-last-assignment
- transpose-lines
- Only useful with a multi-line editing buffer; the lines here are lines within the current on-screen buffer, not history lines. The effect is similar to the function of the same name in Emacs.
Transpose the current line with the previous line and move the cursor to the
start of the next line. Repeating this (which can be done by providing a
positive numeric argument) has the effect of moving the line above the cursor
down by a number of lines.
With a negative numeric argument, requires two lines above the cursor. These two
lines are transposed and the cursor moved to the start of the previous line.
Using a numeric argument less than -1 has the effect of moving the line above
the cursor up by minus that number of lines.
- url-quote-magic
- This widget replaces the built-in self-insert to make it easier to type URLs as command line arguments. As you type, the input character is analyzed and, if it may need quoting, the current word is checked for a URI scheme. If one is found and the current word is not already in quotes, a backslash is inserted before the input character.
Styles to control quoting behavior:
- url-metas
- This style is looked up in the context `:url-quote-magic: scheme' (where scheme is that of the current URL, e.g. " ftp"). The value is a string listing the characters to be treated as globbing metacharacters when appearing in a URL using that scheme. The default is to quote all zsh extended globbing characters, excluding ' <' and ' >' but including braces (as in brace expansion). See also url-seps.
- url-seps
- Like url-metas, but lists characters that should be considered command separators, redirections, history references, etc. The default is to quote the standard set of shell separators, excluding those that overlap with the extended globbing characters, but including ' <' and ' >' and the first character of $histchars.
- url-globbers
- This style is looked up in the context `:url-quote-magic'. The values form a list of command names that are expected to do their own globbing on the URL string. This implies that they are aliased to use the ` noglob' modifier. When the first word on the line matches one of the values and the URL refers to a local file (see url-local-schema), only the url-seps characters are quoted; the url-metas are left alone, allowing them to affect command-line parsing, completion, etc. The default values are a literal ` noglob' plus (when the zsh/parameter module is available) any commands aliased to the helper function ` urlglobber' or its alias ` globurl'.
- url-local-schema
- This style is always looked up in the context `:urlglobber', even though it is used by both url-quote-magic and urlglobber. The values form a list of URI schema that should be treated as referring to local files by their real local path names, as opposed to files which are specified relative to a web-server-defined document root. The defaults are " ftp" and "file".
- url-other-schema
- Like url-local-schema, but lists all other URI schema upon which urlglobber and url-quote-magic should act. If the URI on the command line does not have a scheme appearing either in this list or in url-local-schema, it is not magically quoted. The default values are " http", "https", and " ftp". When a scheme appears both here and in url-local-schema, it is quoted differently depending on whether the command name appears in url-globbers.
- vi-pipe
- This function reads a movement command from the keyboard and then prompts for an external command. The part of the buffer covered by the movement is piped to the external command and then replaced by the command's output. If the movement command is bound to vi-pipe, the current line is used.
The function serves as an example for reading a vi movement command from within
a user-defined widget.
- which-command
- This function is a drop-in replacement for the builtin widget which-command. It has enhanced behaviour, in that it correctly detects whether or not the command word needs to be expanded as an alias; if so, it continues tracing the command word from the expanded alias until it reaches the command that will be executed.
The style whence is available in the context :zle:$WIDGET; this
may be set to an array to give the command and options that will be used to
investigate the command word found. The default is whence -c.
- zcalc-auto-insert
- This function is useful together with the zcalc function described in the section `Mathematical Functions'. It should be bound to a key representing a binary operator such as ` +', `-', ` *' or `/'. When running in zcalc, if the key occurs at the start of the line or immediately following an open parenthesis, the text "ans " is inserted before the representation of the key itself. This allows easy use of the answer from the previous calculation in the current line. The text to be inserted before the symbol typed can be modified by setting the variable ZCALC_AUTO_INSERT_PREFIX.
Hence, for example, typing ` +12' followed by return adds 12 to the
previous result.
If zcalc is in RPN mode ( -r option) the effect of this binding is
automatically suppressed as operators alone on a line are meaningful.
When not in zcalc, the key simply inserts the symbol itself.
Utility Functions
These functions are useful in constructing widgets. They should be loaded with ` autoload -U function' and called as indicated from user-defined widgets.- split-shell-arguments
- This function splits the line currently being edited into shell arguments and whitespace. The result is stored in the array reply. The array contains all the parts of the line in order, starting with any whitespace before the first argument, and finishing with any whitespace after the last argument. Hence (so long as the option KSH_ARRAYS is not set) whitespace is given by odd indices in the array and arguments by even indices. Note that no stripping of quotes is done; joining together all the elements of reply in order is guaranteed to produce the original line.
The parameter REPLY is set to the index of the word in reply which
contains the character after the cursor, where the first element has index 1.
The parameter REPLY2 is set to the index of the character under the
cursor in that word, where the first character has index 1.
Hence reply, REPLY and REPLY2 should all be made local to
the enclosing function.
See the function modify-current-argument, described below, for an example
of how to call this function.
- modify-current-argument [ expr-using-$ARG | func ]
- This function provides a simple method of allowing user-defined widgets to modify the command line argument under the cursor (or immediately to the left of the cursor if the cursor is between arguments).
The argument can be an expression which when evaluated operates on the shell
parameter ARG, which will have been set to the command line argument
under the cursor. The expression should be suitably quoted to prevent it being
evaluated too early.
Alternatively, if the argument does not contain the string ARG, it is
assumed to be a shell function, to which the current command line argument is
passed as the only argument. The function should set the variable REPLY
to the new value for the command line argument. If the function returns
non-zero status, so does the calling function.
For example, a user-defined widget containing the following code converts the
characters in the argument under the cursor into all upper case:
The following strips any quoting from the current word (whether backslashes or
one of the styles of quotes), and replaces it with single quoting throughout:
The following performs directory expansion on the command line argument and
replaces it by the absolute path:
In practice the function expand-dir would probably not be defined within
the widget where modify-current-argument is called.
modify-current-argument '${(U)ARG}'
modify-current-argument '${(qq)${(Q)ARG}}'
expand-dir() { REPLY=${~1} REPLY=${REPLY:a} } modify-current-argument expand-dir
Styles
The behavior of several of the above widgets can be controlled by the use of the zstyle mechanism. In particular, widgets that interact with the completion system pass along their context to any completions that they invoke.- break-keys
- This style is used by the incremental-complete-word widget. Its value should be a pattern, and all keys matching this pattern will cause the widget to stop incremental completion without the key having any further effect. Like all styles used directly by incremental-complete-word, this style is looked up using the context ` :incremental'.
- completer
- The incremental-complete-word and insert-and-predict widgets set up their top-level context name before calling completion. This allows one to define different sets of completer functions for normal completion and for these widgets. For example, to use completion, approximation and correction for normal completion, completion and correction for incremental completion and only completion for prediction one could use:
zstyle ':completion:*' completer \ _complete _correct _approximate zstyle ':completion:incremental:*' completer \ _complete _correct zstyle ':completion:predict:*' completer \ _complete
- cursor
- The insert-and-predict widget uses this style, in the context ` :predict', to decide where to place the cursor after completion has been tried. Values are:
- complete
- The cursor is left where it was when completion finished, but only if it is after a character equal to the one just inserted by the user. If it is after another character, this value is the same as ` key'.
- key
- The cursor is left after the nth occurrence of the character just inserted, where n is the number of times that character appeared in the word before completion was attempted. In short, this has the effect of leaving the cursor after the character just typed even if the completion code found out that no other characters need to be inserted at that position.
- list
- When using the incremental-complete-word widget, this style says if the matches should be listed on every key press (if they fit on the screen). Use the context prefix ` :completion:incremental'.
The insert-and-predict widget uses this style to decide if the completion
should be shown even if there is only one possible completion. This is done if
the value of this style is the string always. In this case the context
is ` :predict' (not `:completion:predict').
- match
- This style is used by smart-insert-last-word to provide a pattern (using full EXTENDED_GLOB syntax) that matches an interesting word. The context is the name of the widget to which smart-insert-last-word is bound (see above). The default behavior of smart-insert-last-word is equivalent to:
zstyle :insert-last-word match '*[[:alpha:]/\\]*'
zstyle :insert-last-word match '*[[:alpha:][:space:]/\\]*'
zstyle :insert-last-word match '*([[:digit:]]?|[[:alpha:]/\\])*'
- prompt
- The incremental-complete-word widget shows the value of this style in the status line during incremental completion. The string value may contain any of the following substrings in the manner of the PS1 and other prompt parameters:
- %c
- Replaced by the name of the completer function that generated the matches (without the leading underscore).
- %l
- When the list style is set, replaced by ` ...' if the list of matches is too long to fit on the screen and with an empty string otherwise. If the list style is `false' or not set, ` %l' is always removed.
- %n
- Replaced by the number of matches generated.
- %s
- Replaced by `-no match-', `-no prefix-', or an empty string if there is no completion matching the word on the line, if the matches have no common prefix different from the word on the line, or if there is such a common prefix, respectively.
- %u
- Replaced by the unambiguous part of all matches, if there is any, and if it is different from the word on the line.
- stop-keys
- This style is used by the incremental-complete-word widget. Its value is treated similarly to the one for the break-keys style (and uses the same context: ` :incremental'). However, in this case all keys matching the pattern given as its value will stop incremental completion and will then execute their usual function.
- toggle
- This boolean style is used by predict-on and its related widgets in the context ` :predict'. If set to one of the standard `true' values, predictive typing is automatically toggled off in situations where it is unlikely to be useful, such as when editing a multi-line buffer or after moving into the middle of a line and then deleting a character. The default is to leave prediction turned on until an explicit call to predict-off.
- verbose
- This boolean style is used by predict-on and its related widgets in the context ` :predict'. If set to one of the standard `true' values, these widgets display a message below the prompt when the predictive state is toggled. This is most useful in combination with the toggle style. The default does not display these messages.
- widget
- This style is similar to the command style: For widget functions that use zle to call other widgets, this style can sometimes be used to override the widget which is called. The context for this style is the name of the calling widget ( not the name of the calling function, because one function may be bound to multiple widget names).
zstyle :copy-earlier-word widget smart-insert-last-word
EXCEPTION HANDLING
Two functions are provided to enable zsh to provide exception handling in a form that should be familiar from other languages.- throw exception
- The function throw throws the named exception. The name is an arbitrary string and is only used by the throw and catch functions. An exception is for the most part treated the same as a shell error, i.e. an unhandled exception will cause the shell to abort all processing in a function or script and to return to the top level in an interactive shell.
- catch exception-pattern
- The function catch returns status zero if an exception was thrown and the pattern exception-pattern matches its name. Otherwise it returns status 1. exception-pattern is a standard shell pattern, respecting the current setting of the EXTENDED_GLOB option. An alias catch is also defined to prevent the argument to the function from matching filenames, so patterns may be used unquoted. Note that as exceptions are not fundamentally different from other shell errors it is possible to catch shell errors by using an empty string as the exception name. The shell variable CAUGHT is set by catch to the name of the exception caught. It is possible to rethrow an exception by calling the throw function again once an exception has been caught.
{ # "try" block # ... nested code here calls "throw MyExcept" } always { # "always" block if catch MyExcept; then print "Caught exception MyExcept" elif catch ''; then print "Caught a shell error. Propagating..." throw '' fi # Other exceptions are not handled but may be caught further # up the call stack. }
{ # ... nested code here throws an exception } always { if catch *; then case $CAUGHT in (MyExcept) print "Caught my own exception" ;; (*) print "Caught some other exception" ;; esac fi }
MIME FUNCTIONS
Three functions are available to provide handling of files recognised by extension, for example to dispatch a file text.ps when executed as a command to an appropriate viewer.- zsh-mime-setup [ -fv ] [ -l [ suffix ... ] ]
- zsh-mime-handler [ -l ] command argument ...
- These two functions use the files ~/.mime.types and /etc/mime.types, which associate types and extensions, as well as ~/.mailcap and /etc/mailcap files, which associate types and the programs that handle them. These are provided on many systems with the Multimedia Internet Mail Extensions.
To enable the system, the function zsh-mime-setup should be autoloaded
and run. This allows files with extensions to be treated as executable; such
files be completed by the function completion system. The function
zsh-mime-handler should not need to be called by the user.
The system works by setting up suffix aliases with ` alias -s'. Suffix
aliases already installed by the user will not be overwritten.
For suffixes defined in lower case, upper case variants will also automatically
be handled (e.g. PDF is automatically handled if handling for the
suffix pdf is defined), but not vice versa.
Repeated calls to zsh-mime-setup do not override the existing mapping
between suffixes and executable files unless the option -f is given.
Note, however, that this does not override existing suffix aliases assigned to
handlers other than zsh-mime-handler.
Calling zsh-mime-setup with the option -l lists the existing
mappings without altering them. Suffixes to list (which may contain pattern
characters that should be quoted from immediate interpretation on the command
line) may be given as additional arguments, otherwise all suffixes are listed.
Calling zsh-mime-setup with the option -v causes verbose output to
be shown during the setup operation.
The system respects the mailcap flags needsterminal and
copiousoutput; see mailcap(4) or mailcap(5) (the man
page's name varies across platforms).
The functions use the following styles, which are defined with the zstyle
builtin command (see zshmodules(1)). They should be defined before
zsh-mime-setup is run. The contexts used all start with :mime:,
with additional components in some cases. It is recommended that a trailing
* (suitably quoted) be appended to style patterns in case the system is
extended in future. Some examples are given below.
For files that have multiple suffixes, e.g. .pdf.gz, where the context
includes the suffix it will be looked up starting with the longest possible
suffix until a match for the style is found. For example, if .pdf.gz
produces a match for the handler, that will be used; otherwise the handler for
.gz will be used. Note that, owing to the way suffix aliases work, it
is always required that there be a handler for the shortest possible suffix,
so in this example .pdf.gz can only be handled if .gz is also
handled (though not necessarily in the same way). Alternatively, if no
handling for .gz on its own is needed, simply adding the command
to the initialisation code is sufficient; .gz will not be handled on its
own, but may be in combination with other suffixes.
will ensure that any files found in that area will be executed as MIME types
even if they are executable. As this example shows, the complete file name is
matched against the pattern, regardless of how the file was passed to the
handler. The file is resolved to a full path using the :P modifier
described in the subsection `Modifiers' in zshexpn(1); this means that
symbolic links are resolved where possible, so that links into other file
systems behave in the correct fashion.
When zsh-mime-setup is subsequently run, it will look for mailcap
entries in the two files given. Files of suffix .txt will be handled by
running ` less file.txt'. The flag needsterminal is set
to show that this program must run attached to a terminal.
As there are several steps to dispatching a command, the following should be
checked if attempting to execute a file by extension .ext does
not have the expected effect.
The command ` alias -s ext' should show `
ps=zsh-mime-handler'. If it shows something else, another suffix alias
was already installed and was not overwritten. If it shows nothing, no handler
was installed: this is most likely because no handler was found in the
.mime.types and mailcap combination for .ext files. In
that case, appropriate handling should be added to ~/.mime.types and
mailcap.
If the extension is handled by zsh-mime-handler but the file is not
opened correctly, either the handler defined for the type is incorrect, or the
flags associated with it are in appropriate. Running zsh-mime-setup -l
will show the handler and, if there are any, the flags. A %s in the
handler is replaced by the file (suitably quoted if necessary). Check that the
handler program listed lists and can be run in the way shown. Also check that
the flags needsterminal or copiousoutput are set if the handler
needs to be run under a terminal; the second flag is used if the output should
be sent to a pager. An example of a suitable mailcap entry for such a
program is:
Running ` zsh-mime-handler -l command line' prints the command
line that would be executed, simplified to remove the effect of any flags, and
quoted so that the output can be run as a complete zsh command line. This is
used by the completion system to decide how to complete after a file handled
by zsh-mime-setup.
alias -s gz=zsh-mime-handler
- current-shell
- If this boolean style is true, the mailcap handler for the context in question is run using the eval builtin instead of by starting a new sh process. This is more efficient, but may not work in the occasional cases where the mailcap handler uses strict POSIX syntax.
- disown
- If this boolean style is true, mailcap handlers started in the background will be disowned, i.e. not subject to job control within the parent shell. Such handlers nearly always produce their own windows, so the only likely harmful side effect of setting the style is that it becomes harder to kill jobs from within the shell.
- execute-as-is
- This style gives a list of patterns to be matched against files passed for execution with a handler program. If the file matches the pattern, the entire command line is executed in its current form, with no handler. This is useful for files which might have suffixes but nonetheless be executable in their own right. If the style is not set, the pattern *(*) *(/) is used; hence executable files are executed directly and not passed to a handler, and the option AUTO_CD may be used to change to directories that happen to have MIME suffixes.
- execute-never
- This style is useful in combination with execute-as-is. It is set to an array of patterns corresponding to full paths to files that should never be treated as executable, even if the file passed to the MIME handler matches execute-as-is. This is useful for file systems that don't handle execute permission or that contain executables from another operating system. For example, if /mnt/windows is a Windows mount, then
zstyle ':mime:*' execute-never '/mnt/windows/*'
- file-path
- Used if the style find-file-in-path is true for the same context. Set to an array of directories that are used for searching for the file to be handled; the default is the command path given by the special parameter path. The shell option PATH_DIRS is respected; if that is set, the appropriate path will be searched even if the name of the file to be handled as it appears on the command line contains a ` /'. The full context is :mime:.suffix:, as described for the style handler.
- find-file-in-path
- If set, allows files whose names do not contain absolute paths to be searched for in the command path or the path specified by the file-path style. If the file is not found in the path, it is looked for locally (whether or not the current directory is in the path); if it is not found locally, the handler will abort unless the handle-nonexistent style is set. Files found in the path are tested as described for the style execute-as-is. The full context is :mime:. suffix:, as described for the style handler.
- flags
- Defines flags to go with a handler; the context is as for the handler style, and the format is as for the flags in mailcap.
- handle-nonexistent
- By default, arguments that don't correspond to files are not passed to the MIME handler in order to prevent it from intercepting commands found in the path that happen to have suffixes. This style may be set to an array of extended glob patterns for arguments that will be passed to the handler even if they don't exist. If it is not explicitly set it defaults to [[:alpha:]]#:/* which allows URLs to be passed to the MIME handler even though they don't exist in that format in the file system. The full context is :mime:.suffix:, as described for the style handler.
- handler
- Specifies a handler for a suffix; the suffix is given by the context as :mime:.suffix:, and the format of the handler is exactly that in mailcap. Note in particular the `.' and trailing colon to distinguish this use of the context. This overrides any handler specified by the mailcap files. If the handler requires a terminal, the flags style should be set to include the word needsterminal, or if the output is to be displayed through a pager (but not if the handler is itself a pager), it should include copiousoutput.
- mailcap
- A list of files in the format of ~/.mailcap and /etc/mailcap to be read during setup, replacing the default list which consists of those two files. The context is :mime:. A + in the list will be replaced by the default files.
- mailcap-priorities
- This style is used to resolve multiple mailcap entries for the same MIME type. It consists of an array of the following elements, in descending order of priority; later entries will be used if earlier entries are unable to resolve the entries being compared. If none of the tests resolve the entries, the first entry encountered is retained.
- files
- The order of files (entries in the mailcap style) read. Earlier files are preferred. (Note this does not resolve entries in the same file.)
- priority
- The priority flag from the mailcap entry. The priority is an integer from 0 to 9 with the default value being 5.
- flags
- The test given by the mailcap-prio-flags option is used to resolve entries.
- place
- Later entries are preferred; as the entries are strictly ordered, this test always succeeds.
- mailcap-prio-flags
- This style is used when the keyword flags is encountered in the list of tests specified by the mailcap-priorities style. It should be set to a list of patterns, each of which is tested against the flags specified in the mailcap entry (in other words, the sets of assignments found with some entries in the mailcap file). Earlier patterns in the list are preferred to later ones, and matched patterns are preferred to unmatched ones.
- mime-types
- A list of files in the format of ~/.mime.types and /etc/mime.types to be read during setup, replacing the default list which consists of those two files. The context is :mime:. A + in the list will be replaced by the default files.
- never-background
- If this boolean style is set, the handler for the given context is always run in the foreground, even if the flags provided in the mailcap entry suggest it need not be (for example, it doesn't require a terminal).
- pager
- If set, will be used instead of $PAGER or more to handle suffixes where the copiousoutput flag is set. The context is as for handler, i.e. :mime:.suffix: for handling a file with the given suffix.
zstyle ':mime:*' mailcap ~/.mailcap /usr/local/etc/mailcap zstyle ':mime:.txt:' handler less %s zstyle ':mime:.txt:' flags needsterminal
text/html; /usr/bin/lynx '%s'; needsterminal
- pick-web-browser
- This function is separate from the two MIME functions described above and can be assigned directly to a suffix:
autoload -U pick-web-browser alias -s html=pick-web-browser
- browser-style
- The value of the style is an array giving preferences in decreasing order for the type of browser to use. The values of elements may be
- running
- Use a GUI browser that is already running when an X Window display is available. The browsers listed in the x-browsers style are tried in order until one is found; if it is, the file will be displayed in that browser, so the user may need to check whether it has appeared. If no running browser is found, one is not started. Browsers other than Firefox, Opera and Konqueror are assumed to understand the Mozilla syntax for opening a URL remotely.
- x
- Start a new GUI browser when an X Window display is available. Search for the availability of one of the browsers listed in the x-browsers style and start the first one that is found. No check is made for an already running browser.
- tty
- Start a terminal-based browser. Search for the availability of one of the browsers listed in the tty-browsers style and start the first one that is found.
- x-browsers
- An array in decreasing order of preference of browsers to use when running under the X Window System. The array consists of the command name under which to start the browser. They are looked up in the context :mime: (which may be extended in future, so appending ` *' is recommended). For example,
zstyle ':mime:*' x-browsers opera konqueror firefox
- tty-browsers
- An array similar to x-browsers, except that it gives browsers to use when no X Window display is available. The default is elinks links lynx.
- command
- If it is set this style is used to pick the command used to open a page for a browser. The context is :mime:browser:new:$browser: to start a new browser or :mime:browser:running:$browser: to open a URL in a browser already running on the current X display, where $browser is the value matched in the x-browsers or tty-browsers style. The escape sequence %b in the style's value will be replaced by the browser, while %u will be replaced by the URL. If the style is not set, the default for all new instances is equivalent to %b %u and the defaults for using running browsers are equivalent to the values kfmclient openURL %u for Konqueror, firefox -new-tab %u for Firefox, opera -newpage %u for Opera, and %b -remote "openUrl(%u)" for all others.
MATHEMATICAL FUNCTIONS
- zcalc [ -erf ] [ expression ... ]
- A reasonably powerful calculator based on zsh's arithmetic evaluation facility. The syntax is similar to that of formulae in most programming languages; see the section `Arithmetic Evaluation' in zshmisc(1) for details.
Non-programmers should note that, as in many other programming languages,
expressions involving only integers (whether constants without a ` .',
variables containing such constants as strings, or variables declared to be
integers) are by default evaluated using integer arithmetic, which is not how
an ordinary desk calculator operates. To force floating point operation, pass
the option -f; see further notes below.
If the file ~/.zcalcrc exists it will be sourced inside the function once
it is set up and about to process the command line. This can be used, for
example, to set shell options; emulate -L zsh and setopt
extendedglob are in effect at this point. Any failure to source the file
if it exists is treated as fatal. As with other initialisation files, the
directory $ZDOTDIR is used instead of $HOME if it is set.
The mathematical library zsh/mathfunc will be loaded if it is available;
see the section `The zsh/mathfunc Module' in zshmodules(1). The
mathematical functions correspond to the raw system libraries, so
trigonometric functions are evaluated using radians, and so on.
Each line typed is evaluated as an expression. The prompt shows a number, which
corresponds to a positional parameter where the result of that calculation is
stored. For example, the result of the calculation on the line preceded by `
4> ' is available as $4. The last value calculated is
available as ans. Full command line editing, including the history of
previous calculations, is available; the history is saved in the file
~/.zcalc_history. To exit, enter a blank line or type ` :q' on
its own (` q' is allowed for historical compatibility).
A line ending with a single backslash is treated in the same fashion as it is in
command line editing: the backslash is removed, the function prompts for more
input (the prompt is preceded by ` ...' to indicate this), and the
lines are combined into one to get the final result. In addition, if the input
so far contains more open than close parentheses zcalc will prompt for
more input.
If arguments are given to zcalc on start up, they are used to prime the
first few positional parameters. A visual indication of this is given when the
calculator starts.
The constants PI (3.14159...) and E (2.71828...) are provided.
Parameter assignment is possible, but note that all parameters will be put
into the global namespace unless the :local special command is used.
The function creates local variables whose names start with _, so users
should avoid doing so. The variables ans (the last answer) and
stack (the stack in RPN mode) may be referred to directly; stack
is an array but elements of it are numeric. Various other special variables
are used locally with their standard meaning, for example compcontext,
match, mbegin, mend, psvar.
The output base can be initialised by passing the option `
-#base', for example ` zcalc -#16' (the `#' may
have to be quoted, depending on the globbing options set).
If the option ` -e' is set, the function runs non-interactively: the
arguments are treated as expressions to be evaluated as if entered
interactively line by line.
If the option ` -f' is set, all numbers are treated as floating point,
hence for example the expression ` 3/4' evaluates to 0.75 rather than
0. Options must appear in separate words.
If the option ` -r' is set, RPN (Reverse Polish Notation) mode is
entered. This has various additional properties:
- Stack
- Evaluated values are maintained in a stack; this is contained in an array named stack with the most recent value in ${stack[1]}.
- Operators and functions
- If the line entered matches an operator (+, -, *, /, **, ^, | or &) or a function supplied by the zsh/mathfunc library, the bottom element or elements of the stack are popped to use as the argument or arguments. The higher elements of stack (least recent) are used as earlier arguments. The result is then pushed into ${stack[1]}.
- Expressions
- Other expressions are evaluated normally, printed, and added to the stack as numeric values. The syntax within expressions on a single line is normal shell arithmetic (not RPN).
- Stack listing
- If an integer follows the option -r with no space, then on every evaluation that many elements of the stack, where available, are printed instead of just the most recent result. Hence, for example, zcalc -r4 shows $stack[4] to $stack[1] each time results are printed.
- Duplication: =
- The pseudo-operator = causes the most recent element of the stack to be duplicated onto the stack.
- pop
- The pseudo-function pop causes the most recent element of the stack to be popped. A ` >' on its own has the same effect.
- >ident
- The expression > followed (with no space) by a shell identifier causes the most recent element of the stack to be popped and assigned to the variable with that name. The variable is local to the zcalc function.
- <ident
- The expression < followed (with no space) by a shell identifier causes the value of the variable with that name to be pushed onto the stack. ident may be an integer, in which case the previous result with that number (as shown before the > in the standard zcalc prompt) is put on the stack.
- Exchange: xy
- The pseudo-function xy causes the most recent two elements of the stack to be exchanged. ` <>' has the same effect.
- :norm
- The default output format. It corresponds to the printf %g specification. Typically this shows six decimal digits.
- :sci digits
- Scientific notation, corresponding to the printf %g output format with the precision given by digits. This produces either fixed point or exponential notation depending on the value output.
- :fix digits
- Fixed point notation, corresponding to the printf %f output format with the precision given by digits.
- :eng digits
- Exponential notation, corresponding to the printf %E output format with the precision given by digits.
- :raw
- Raw output: this is the default form of the output from a math evaluation. This may show more precision than the number actually possesses.
- :!line...
- Execute line... as a normal shell command line. Note that it is executed in the context of the function, i.e. with local variables. Space is optional after :!.
- :local arg ...
- Declare variables local to the function. Other variables may be used, too, but they will be taken from or put into the global scope.
- :function name [ body ]
- Define a mathematical function or (with no body) delete it. :function may be abbreviated to :func or simply :f. The name may contain the same characters as a shell function name. The function is defined using zmathfuncdef, see below.
Note that zcalc takes care of all quoting. Hence for example:
defines a function to cube the sole argument. Functions so defined, or indeed
any functions defined directly or indirectly using functions -M,
are available to execute by typing only the name on the line in RPN mode; this
pops the appropriate number of arguments off the stack to pass to the
function, i.e. 1 in the case of the example cube function. If there are
optional arguments only the mandatory arguments are supplied by this
means.
:f cube $1 * $1 * $1
- [#base]
- This is not a special command, rather part of normal arithmetic syntax; however, when this form appears on a line by itself the default output radix is set to base. Use, for example, `[#16]' to display hexadecimal output preceded by an indication of the base, or ` [##16]' just to display the raw number in the given base. Bases themselves are always specified in decimal. ` [#]' restores the normal output format. Note that setting an output base suppresses floating point output; use ` [#]' to return to normal operation.
- $var
- Print out the value of var literally; does not affect the calculation. To use the value of var, omit the leading ` $'.
- min(arg, ...)
- max(arg, ...)
- sum(arg, ...)
- zmathfunc
- The function zmathfunc defines the three mathematical functions min, max, and sum. The functions min and max take one or more arguments. The function sum takes zero or more arguments. Arguments can be of different types (ints and floats).
Not to be confused with the zsh/mathfunc module, described in the section
`The zsh/mathfunc Module' in zshmodules(1).
- zmathfuncdef [ mathfunc [ body ] ]
- A convenient front end to functions -M.
With two arguments, define a mathematical function named mathfunc which
can be used in any form of arithmetic evaluation. body is a
mathematical expression to implement the function. It may contain references
to position parameters $1, $2, ... to refer to mandatory
parameters and ${1:-defvalue} ... to refer to optional
parameters. Note that the forms must be strictly adhered to for the function
to calculate the correct number of arguments. The implementation is held in a
shell function named zsh_math_func_mathfunc; usually the user
will not need to refer to the shell function directly. Any existing function
of the same name is silently replaced.
With one argument, remove the mathematical function mathfunc as well as
the shell function implementation.
With no arguments, list all mathfunc functions in a form suitable for
restoring the definition. The functions have not necessarily been defined by
zmathfuncdef.
USER CONFIGURATION FUNCTIONS
The zsh/newuser module comes with a function to aid in configuring shell options for new users. If the module is installed, this function can also be run by hand. It is available even if the module's default behaviour, namely running the function for a new user logging in without startup files, is inhibited.- zsh-newuser-install [ -f ]
- The function presents the user with various options for customizing their initialization scripts. Currently only ~/.zshrc is handled. $ZDOTDIR/.zshrc is used instead if the parameter ZDOTDIR is set; this provides a way for the user to configure a file without altering an existing .zshrc.
By default the function exits immediately if it finds any of the files
.zshenv, .zprofile, .zshrc, or .zlogin in the
appropriate directory. The option -f is required in order to force the
function to continue. Note this may happen even if .zshrc itself does
not exist.
As currently configured, the function will exit immediately if the user has root
privileges; this behaviour cannot be overridden.
Once activated, the function's behaviour is supposed to be self-explanatory.
Menus are present allowing the user to alter the value of options and
parameters. Suggestions for improvements are always welcome.
When the script exits, the user is given the opportunity to save the new file or
not; changes are not irreversible until this point. However, the script is
careful to restrict changes to the file only to a group marked by the lines `
# Lines configured by zsh-newuser-install' and ` # End of lines
configured by zsh-newuser-install'. In addition, the old version of
.zshrc is saved to a file with the suffix .zni appended.
If the function edits an existing .zshrc, it is up to the user to ensure
that the changes made will take effect. For example, if control usually
returns early from the existing .zshrc the lines will not be executed;
or a later initialization file may override options or parameters, and so on.
The function itself does not attempt to detect any such conflicts.
OTHER FUNCTIONS
There are a large number of helpful functions in the Functions/Misc directory of the zsh distribution. Most are very simple and do not require documentation here, but a few are worthy of special mention.Descriptions
- colors
- This function initializes several associative arrays to map color names to (and from) the ANSI standard eight-color terminal codes. These are used by the prompt theme system (see above). You seldom should need to run colors more than once.
The eight base colors are: black, red, green,
yellow, blue, magenta, cyan, and white.
Each of these has codes for foreground and background. In addition there are
seven intensity attributes: bold, faint, standout,
underline, blink, reverse, and conceal. Finally,
there are seven codes used to negate attributes: none (reset all
attributes to the defaults), normal (neither bold nor faint),
no-standout, no-underline, no-blink, no-reverse,
and no-conceal.
Some terminals do not support all combinations of colors and intensities.
The associative arrays are:
- color
- colour
- Map all the color names to their integer codes, and integer codes to the color names. The eight base names map to the foreground color codes, as do names prefixed with ` fg-', such as `fg-red'. Names prefixed with ` bg-', such as `bg-blue', refer to the background codes. The reverse mapping from code to color yields base name for foreground codes and the bg- form for backgrounds.
Although it is a misnomer to call them `colors', these arrays also map the other
fourteen attributes from names to codes and codes to names.
- fg
- fg_bold
- fg_no_bold
- Map the eight basic color names to ANSI terminal escape sequences that set the corresponding foreground text properties. The fg sequences change the color without changing the eight intensity attributes.
- bg
- bg_bold
- bg_no_bold
- Map the eight basic color names to ANSI terminal escape sequences that set the corresponding background properties. The bg sequences change the color without changing the eight intensity attributes.
- fned [ -x num ] name
- Same as zed -f. This function does not appear in the zsh distribution, but can be created by linking zed to the name fned in some directory in your fpath.
- histed [ [ name ] size ]
- Same as zed -h. This function does not appear in the zsh distribution, but can be created by linking zed to the name histed in some directory in your fpath.
- is-at-least needed [ present ]
- Perform a greater-than-or-equal-to comparison of two strings having the format of a zsh version number; that is, a string of numbers and text with segments separated by dots or dashes. If the present string is not provided, $ZSH_VERSION is used. Segments are paired left-to-right in the two strings with leading non-number parts ignored. If one string has fewer segments than the other, the missing segments are considered zero.
This is useful in startup files to set options and other state that are not
available in all versions of zsh.
is-at-least 3.1.6-15 && setopt NO_GLOBAL_RCS is-at-least 3.1.0 && setopt HIST_REDUCE_BLANKS is-at-least 2.6-17 || print "You can't use is-at-least here."
- nslookup [ arg ... ]
- This wrapper function for the nslookup command requires the zsh/zpty module (see zshmodules(1)). It behaves exactly like the standard nslookup except that it provides customizable prompts (including a right-side prompt) and completion of nslookup commands, host names, etc. (if you use the function-based completion system). Completion styles may be set with the context prefix ` :completion:nslookup'.
See also the pager, prompt and rprompt styles below.
- regexp-replace var regexp replace
- Use regular expressions to perform a global search and replace operation on a variable. POSIX extended regular expressions (ERE) are used, unless the option RE_MATCH_PCRE has been set, in which case Perl-compatible regular expressions are used (this requires the shell to be linked against the pcre library).
var is the name of the variable containing the string to be matched. The
variable will be modified directly by the function. The variables
MATCH, MBEGIN, MEND, match, mbegin,
mend should be avoided as these are used by the regular expression
code.
regexp is the regular expression to match against the string.
replace is the replacement text. This can contain parameter, command and
arithmetic expressions which will be replaced: in particular, a reference to
$MATCH will be replaced by the text matched by the pattern.
The return status is 0 if at least one match was performed, else 1.
Note that if using POSIX EREs, the ^ or word boundary operators (where
available) may not work properly.
- run-help cmd
- This function is designed to be invoked by the run-help ZLE widget, in place of the default alias. See `Accessing On-Line Help' above for setup instructions.
In the discussion which follows, if cmd is a file system path, it is
first reduced to its rightmost component (the file name).
Help is first sought by looking for a file named cmd in the directory
named by the HELPDIR parameter. If no file is found, an assistant
function, alias, or command named run-help-cmd is
sought. If found, the assistant is executed with the rest of the
current command line (everything after the command name
cmd) as its arguments. When neither file nor assistant is
found, the external command `man cmd' is
run.
An example assistant for the "ssh" command:
Several of these assistants are provided in the Functions/Misc directory.
These must be autoloaded, or placed as executable scripts in your search path,
in order to be found and used by run-help.
run-help-ssh() { emulate -LR zsh local -a args # Delete the "-l username" option zparseopts -D -E -a args l: # Delete other options, leaving: host command args=(${@:#-*}) if [[ ${#args} -lt 2 ]]; then man ssh else run-help $args[2] fi }
- run-help-btrfs
- run-help-git
- run-help-ip
- run-help-openssl
- run-help-p4
- run-help-sudo
- run-help-svk
- run-help-svn
- Assistant functions for the btrfs, git, ip, openssl, p4, sudo, svk, and svn, commands.
- tetris
- Zsh was once accused of not being as complete as Emacs, because it lacked a Tetris game. This function was written to refute this vicious slander.
This function must be used as a ZLE widget:
To start a game, execute the widget by typing the keys. Whatever command
line you were editing disappears temporarily, and your keymap is also
temporarily replaced by the Tetris control keys. The previous editor state is
restored when you quit the game (by pressing ` q') or when you lose.
If you quit in the middle of a game, the next invocation of the tetris
widget will continue where you left off. If you lost, it will start a new
game.
autoload -U tetris zle -N tetris bindkey keys tetris
- tetriscurses
- This is a port of the above to zcurses. The input handling is improved a bit so that moving a block sideways doesn't automatically advance a timestep, and the graphics use unicode block graphics.
This version does not save the game state between invocations, and is not
invoked as a widget, but rather as:
autoload -U tetriscurses tetriscurses
- zargs [ option ... -- ] [ input ... ] [ -- command [ arg ... ] ]
- This function has a similar purpose to GNU xargs. Instead of reading lines of arguments from the standard input, it takes them from the command line. This is useful because zsh, especially with recursive glob operators, often can construct a command line for a shell function that is longer than can be accepted by an external command.
The option list represents options of the zargs command itself,
which are the same as those of xargs. The input list is the
collection of strings (often file names) that become the arguments of the
command, analogous to the standard input of xargs. Finally, the
arg list consists of those arguments (usually options) that are passed
to the command each time it runs. The arg list precedes the
elements from the input list in each run. If no command is
provided, then no arg list may be provided, and in that event the
default command is ` print' with arguments `-r --'.
For example, to get a long ls listing of all non-hidden plain files in
the current directory or its subdirectories:
The first and third occurrences of ` --' are used to mark the end
of options for zargs and ls respectively to guard against
filenames starting with ` -', while the second is used to separate the
list of files from the command to run (` ls -ld --').
The first ` --' would also be needed if there was a chance the
list might be empty as in:
In the event that the string ` --' is or may be an input,
the -e option may be used to change the end-of-inputs marker. Note that
this does not change the end-of-options marker. For example, to use `
..' as the marker:
This is a good choice in that example because no plain file can be named `
..', but the best end-marker depends on the circumstances.
The options -i, -I, -l, -L, and -n differ
slightly from their usage in xargs. There are no input lines for
zargs to count, so -l and -L count through the
input list, and -n counts the number of arguments passed to each
execution of command, including any arg list. Also, any
time -i or -I is used, each input is processed separately
as if by ` -L 1'.
For details of the other zargs options, see the xargs(1) man page
(but note the difference in function between zargs and xargs) or
run zargs with the --help option.
autoload -U zargs zargs -- **/*(.) -- ls -ld --
zargs -r -- ./*.back(#qN) -- rm -f
zargs -e.. -- **/*(.) .. ls -ld --
- zed [ -f [ -x num ] ] name
- zed [ -h [ name ] size ]
- zed -b
- This function uses the ZLE editor to edit a file or function.
Only one name argument is allowed. If the -f option is given, the
name is taken to be that of a function; if the function is marked for
autoloading, zed searches for it in the fpath and loads it. Note
that functions edited this way are installed into the current shell, but
not written back to the autoload file. In this case the -x
option specifies that leading tabs indenting the function according to syntax
should be converted into the given number of spaces; ` -x 2' is
consistent with the layout of functions distributed with the shell.
Without -f, name is the path name of the file to edit, which need
not exist; it is created on write, if necessary. With -h, the file is
presumed to contain history events.
When no file name is provided for -h the current shell history is edited
in place. The history is renumbered when zed exits successfully.
When editing history, multi-line events must have a trailing backslash on every
line before the last.
While editing, the function sets the main keymap to zed and the vi
command keymap to zed-vicmd. These will be copied from the existing
main and vicmd keymaps if they do not exist the first time
zed is run. They can be used to provide special key bindings used only
in zed.
If it creates the keymap, zed rebinds the return key to insert a line
break and ` ^X^W' to accept the edit in the zed keymap, and
binds ` ZZ' to accept the edit in the zed-vicmd keymap.
The bindings alone can be installed by running ` zed -b'. This is
suitable for putting into a startup file. Note that, if rerun, this will
overwrite the existing zed and zed-vicmd keymaps.
Completion is available, and styles may be set with the context prefix `
:completion:zed:'.
A zle widget zed-set-file-name is available. This can be called by name
from within zed using ` \ex zed-set-file-name' or can be bound to a key
in either of the zed or zed-vicmd keymaps after ` zed -b'
has been run. When the widget is called, it prompts for a new name for the
file being edited. When zed exits the file will be written under that name and
the original file will be left alone. The widget has no effect when invoked
from ` zed -f'. The completion context is changed to `
:completion:zed-set-file-name:'. When editing the current history with
` zed -h', the history is first updated and then the file is written,
but the global setting of HISTFILE is not altered.
While zed-set-file-name is running, zed uses the keymap
zed-normal-keymap, which is linked from the main keymap in effect at
the time zed initialised its bindings. (This is to make the return key operate
normally.) The result is that if the main keymap has been changed, the widget
won't notice. This is not a concern for most users.
- zcp [ -finqQvwW ] srcpat dest
- zln [ -finqQsvwW ] srcpat dest
- Same as zmv -C and zmv -L, respectively. These functions do not appear in the zsh distribution, but can be created by linking zmv to the names zcp and zln in some directory in your fpath.
- zkbd
- See `Keyboard Definition' above.
- zmv [ -finqQsvwW ] [ -C | -L | -M | -{p|P} program ] [ -o optstring ]
- srcpat dest
- Move (usually, rename) files matching the pattern srcpat to corresponding files having names of the form given by dest, where srcpat contains parentheses surrounding patterns which will be replaced in turn by $1, $2, ... in dest. For example,
zmv '(*).lis' '$1.txt'
- -f
- Force overwriting of destination files. Not currently passed down to the mv/cp/ln command due to vagaries of implementations (but you can use -o-f to do that).
- -i
- Interactive: show each line to be executed and ask the user whether to execute it. ` Y' or `y' will execute it, anything else will skip it. Note that you just need to type one character.
- -n
- No execution: print what would happen, but don't do it.
- -q
- Turn bare glob qualifiers off: now assumed by default, so this has no effect.
- -Q
- Force bare glob qualifiers on. Don't turn this on unless you are actually using glob qualifiers in a pattern.
- -s
- Symbolic, passed down to ln; only works with -L.
- -v
- Verbose: print each command as it's being executed.
- -w
- Pick out wildcard parts of the pattern, as described above, and implicitly add parentheses for referring to them.
- -W
- Just like -w, with the addition of turning wildcards in the replacement pattern into sequential ${1} .. ${N} references.
- -C
- -L
- -M
- Force cp, ln or mv, respectively, regardless of the name of the function.
- -p program
- Call program instead of cp, ln or mv. Whatever it does, it should at least understand the form ` program -- oldname newname' where oldname and newname are filenames generated by zmv. program will be split into words, so might be e.g. the name of an archive tool plus a copy or rename subcommand.
- -P program
- As -p program, except that program does not accept a following -- to indicate the end of options. In this case filenames must already be in a sane form for the program in question.
- -o optstring
- The optstring is split into words and passed down verbatim to the cp, ln or mv command called to perform the work. It should probably begin with a ` -'.
zmv -v '(* *)' '${1// /_}'
zmv -v '* *' '${f// /_}'
- zrecompile
- See `Recompiling Functions' above.
- zstyle+ context style value [ + subcontext style value ... ]
- This makes defining styles a bit simpler by using a single ` +' as a special token that allows you to append a context name to the previously used context name. Like this:
zstyle+ ':foo:bar' style1 value1 \ +':baz' style2 value2 \ +':frob' style3 value3
Styles
- insert-tab
- The zed function sets this style in context `:completion:zed:*' to turn off completion when TAB is typed at the beginning of a line. You may override this by setting your own value for this context and style.
- pager
- The nslookup function looks up this style in the context ` :nslookup' to determine the program used to display output that does not fit on a single screen.
- prompt
- rprompt
- The nslookup function looks up this style in the context ` :nslookup' to set the prompt and the right-side prompt, respectively. The usual expansions for the PS1 and RPS1 parameters may be used (see EXPANSION OF PROMPT SEQUENCES in zshmisc(1)).
FILES
- $ZDOTDIR/.zshenv
- $ZDOTDIR/.zprofile
- $ZDOTDIR/.zshrc
- $ZDOTDIR/.zlogin
- $ZDOTDIR/.zlogout
- ${TMPPREFIX}* (default is /tmp/zsh*)
- /etc/zsh/zshenv
- /etc/zsh/zprofile
- /etc/zsh/zshrc
- /etc/zsh/zlogin
- /etc/zsh/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 Operating System Interface (POSIX) - Part 2: Shell and Utilities, IEEE Inc, 1993, ISBN 1-55937-255-9.May 14, 2022 | zsh 5.9 |