1ZSH(1) General Commands Manual ZSH(1)
2
6 zsh - the Z shell
7
9 Because zsh contains many features, the zsh manual has been split into
10 a number of sections:
11 zsh Zsh overview (this section)
13 zshroadmap Informal introduction to the manual
14 zshmisc Anything not fitting into the other sections
15 zshexpn Zsh command and parameter expansion
16 zshparam Zsh parameters
17 zshoptions Zsh options
18 zshbuiltins Zsh built-in functions
19 zshzle Zsh command line editing
20 zshcompwid Zsh completion widgets
21 zshcompsys Zsh completion system
22 zshcompctl Zsh completion control
23 zshmodules Zsh loadable modules
24 zshcalsys Zsh built-in calendar functions
25 zshtcpsys Zsh built-in TCP functions
26 zshzftpsys Zsh built-in FTP client
27 zshcontrib Additional zsh functions and utilities
28 zshall Meta-man page containing all of the above
29
31 Zsh is a UNIX command interpreter (shell) usable as an interactive
32 login shell and as a shell script command processor. Of the standard
33 shells, zsh most closely resembles ksh but includes many enhancements.
34 Zsh has command line editing, builtin spelling correction, programmable
35 command completion, shell functions (with autoloading), a history mech‐
36 anism, and a host of other features.
37
39 Zsh was originally written by Paul Falstad <pf@zsh.org>. Zsh is now
40 maintained by the members of the zsh-workers mailing list <zsh-work‐
41 ers@zsh.org>. The development is currently coordinated by Peter
42 Stephenson <pws@zsh.org>. The coordinator can be contacted at <coordi‐
43 nator@zsh.org>, but matters relating to the code should generally go to
44 the mailing list.
45
47 Zsh is available from the following anonymous FTP sites. These mirror
48 sites are kept frequently up to date. The sites marked with (H) may be
49 mirroring ftp.cs.elte.hu instead of the primary site.
50 Primary site
52 ftp://ftp.zsh.org/pub/
53 http://www.zsh.org/pub/
54 Australia
56 ftp://ftp.zsh.org/pub/
57 http://www.zsh.org/pub/
58 http://mirror.dejanseo.com.au/pub/zsh/
59 Hungary
61 ftp://ftp.cs.elte.hu/pub/zsh/
62 http://www.cs.elte.hu/pub/zsh/
63 The up-to-date source code is available via anonymous CVS and
65 Git from Sourceforge. See http://sourceforge.net/projects/zsh/
66 for details. A summary of instructions for the CVS and Git ar‐
67 chives can be found at http://zsh.sourceforget.net/.
68
70 Zsh has 3 mailing lists:
71 <zsh-announce@zsh.org>
73 Announcements about releases, major changes in the shell and the
74 monthly posting of the Zsh FAQ. (moderated)
75 <zsh-users@zsh.org>
77 User discussions.
78 <zsh-workers@zsh.org>
80 Hacking, development, bug reports and patches.
81 To subscribe or unsubscribe, send mail to the associated administrative
83 address for the mailing list.
84 <zsh-announce-subscribe@zsh.org>
86 <zsh-users-subscribe@zsh.org>
87 <zsh-workers-subscribe@zsh.org>
88 <zsh-announce-unsubscribe@zsh.org>
89 <zsh-users-unsubscribe@zsh.org>
90 <zsh-workers-unsubscribe@zsh.org>
91 YOU ONLY NEED TO JOIN ONE OF THE MAILING LISTS AS THEY ARE NESTED. All
93 submissions to zsh-announce are automatically forwarded to zsh-users.
94 All submissions to zsh-users are automatically forwarded to zsh-work‐
95 ers.
96 If you have problems subscribing/unsubscribing to any of the mailing
98 lists, send mail to <listmaster@zsh.org>. The mailing lists are main‐
99 tained by Karsten Thygesen <karthy@kom.auc.dk>.
100 The mailing lists are archived; the archives can be accessed via the
102 administrative addresses listed above. There is also a hypertext ar‐
103 chive, maintained by Geoff Wing <gcw@zsh.org>, available at
104 http://www.zsh.org/mla/.
105
107 Zsh has a list of Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ), maintained by Peter
108 Stephenson <pws@zsh.org>. It is regularly posted to the newsgroup
109 comp.unix.shell and the zsh-announce mailing list. The latest version
110 can be found at any of the Zsh FTP sites, or at
111 http://www.zsh.org/FAQ/. The contact address for FAQ-related matters
112 is <faqmaster@zsh.org>.
113
115 Zsh has a web page which is located at http://www.zsh.org/. This is
116 maintained by Karsten Thygesen <karthy@zsh.org>, of SunSITE Denmark.
117 The contact address for web-related matters is <webmaster@zsh.org>.
118
120 A userguide is currently in preparation. It is intended to complement
121 the manual, with explanations and hints on issues where the manual can
122 be cabbalistic, hierographic, or downright mystifying (for example, the
123 word `hierographic' does not exist). It can be viewed in its current
124 state at http://zsh.sourceforge.net/Guide/. At the time of writing,
125 chapters dealing with startup files and their contents and the new com‐
126 pletion system were essentially complete.
127
129 A `wiki' website for zsh has been created at http://www.zshwiki.org/.
130 This is a site which can be added to and modified directly by users
131 without any special permission. You can add your own zsh tips and con‐
132 figurations.
133
135 The following flags are interpreted by the shell when invoked to deter‐
136 mine where the shell will read commands from:
137 -c Take the first argument as a command to execute, rather than
139 reading commands from a script or standard input. If any fur‐
140 ther arguments are given, the first one is assigned to $0,
141 rather than being used as a positional parameter.
142 -i Force shell to be interactive. It is still possible to specify
144 a script to execute.
145 -s Force shell to read commands from the standard input. If the -s
147 flag is not present and an argument is given, the first argument
148 is taken to be the pathname of a script to execute.
149 If there are any remaining arguments after option processing, and nei‐
151 ther of the options -c or -s was supplied, the first argument is taken
152 as the file name of a script containing shell commands to be executed.
153 If the option PATH_SCRIPT is set, and the file name does not contain a
154 directory path (i.e. there is no `/' in the name), first the current
155 directory and then the command path given by the variable PATH are
156 searched for the script. If the option is not set or the file name
157 contains a `/' it is used directly.
158 After the first one or two arguments have been appropriated as
160 described above, the remaining arguments are assigned to the positional
161 parameters.
162 For further options, which are common to invocation and the set
164 builtin, see zshoptions(1).
165 Options may be specified by name using the -o option. -o acts like a
167 single-letter option, but takes a following string as the option name.
168 For example,
169 zsh -x -o shwordsplit scr
171 runs the script scr, setting the XTRACE option by the corresponding
173 letter `-x' and the SH_WORD_SPLIT option by name. Options may be
174 turned off by name by using +o instead of -o. -o can be stacked up
175 with preceding single-letter options, so for example `-xo shwordsplit'
176 or `-xoshwordsplit' is equivalent to `-x -o shwordsplit'.
177 Options may also be specified by name in GNU long option style,
179 `--option-name'. When this is done, `-' characters in the option name
180 are permitted: they are translated into `_', and thus ignored. So, for
181 example, `zsh --sh-word-split' invokes zsh with the SH_WORD_SPLIT
182 option turned on. Like other option syntaxes, options can be turned
183 off by replacing the initial `-' with a `+'; thus `+-sh-word-split' is
184 equivalent to `--no-sh-word-split'. Unlike other option syntaxes,
185 GNU-style long options cannot be stacked with any other options, so for
186 example `-x-shwordsplit' is an error, rather than being treated like
187 `-x --shwordsplit'.
188 The special GNU-style option `--version' is handled; it sends to stan‐
190 dard output the shell's version information, then exits successfully.
191 `--help' is also handled; it sends to standard output a list of options
192 that can be used when invoking the shell, then exits successfully.
193 Option processing may be finished, allowing following arguments that
195 start with `-' or `+' to be treated as normal arguments, in two ways.
196 Firstly, a lone `-' (or `+') as an argument by itself ends option pro‐
197 cessing. Secondly, a special option `--' (or `+-'), which may be spec‐
198 ified on its own (which is the standard POSIX usage) or may be stacked
199 with preceding options (so `-x-' is equivalent to `-x --'). Options
200 are not permitted to be stacked after `--' (so `-x-f' is an error), but
201 note the GNU-style option form discussed above, where `--shwordsplit'
202 is permitted and does not end option processing.
203 Except when the sh/ksh emulation single-letter options are in effect,
205 the option `-b' (or `+b') ends option processing. `-b' is like `--',
206 except that further single-letter options can be stacked after the `-b'
207 and will take effect as normal.
208
210 Zsh tries to emulate sh or ksh when it is invoked as sh or ksh respec‐
211 tively; more precisely, it looks at the first letter of the name by
212 which it was invoked, excluding any initial `r' (assumed to stand for
213 `restricted'), and if that is `b', `s' or `k' it will emulate sh or
214 ksh. Furthermore, if invoked as su (which happens on certain systems
215 when the shell is executed by the su command), the shell will try to
216 find an alternative name from the SHELL environment variable and per‐
217 form emulation based on that.
218 In sh and ksh compatibility modes the following parameters are not spe‐
220 cial and not initialized by the shell: ARGC, argv, cdpath, fignore,
221 fpath, HISTCHARS, mailpath, MANPATH, manpath, path, prompt, PROMPT,
222 PROMPT2, PROMPT3, PROMPT4, psvar, status, watch.
223 The usual zsh startup/shutdown scripts are not executed. Login shells
225 source /etc/profile followed by $HOME/.profile. If the ENV environment
226 variable is set on invocation, $ENV is sourced after the profile
227 scripts. The value of ENV is subjected to parameter expansion, command
228 substitution, and arithmetic expansion before being interpreted as a
229 pathname. Note that the PRIVILEGED option also affects the execution
230 of startup files.
231 The following options are set if the shell is invoked as sh or ksh:
233 NO_BAD_PATTERN, NO_BANG_HIST, NO_BG_NICE, NO_EQUALS, NO_FUNC‐
234 TION_ARGZERO, GLOB_SUBST, NO_GLOBAL_EXPORT, NO_HUP, INTERACTIVE_COM‐
235 MENTS, KSH_ARRAYS, NO_MULTIOS, NO_NOMATCH, NO_NOTIFY, POSIX_BUILTINS,
236 NO_PROMPT_PERCENT, RM_STAR_SILENT, SH_FILE_EXPANSION, SH_GLOB,
237 SH_OPTION_LETTERS, SH_WORD_SPLIT. Additionally the BSD_ECHO and
238 IGNORE_BRACES options are set if zsh is invoked as sh. Also, the
239 KSH_OPTION_PRINT, LOCAL_OPTIONS, PROMPT_BANG, PROMPT_SUBST and SIN‐
240 GLE_LINE_ZLE options are set if zsh is invoked as ksh.
241
243 When the basename of the command used to invoke zsh starts with the
244 letter `r' or the `-r' command line option is supplied at invocation,
245 the shell becomes restricted. Emulation mode is determined after
246 stripping the letter `r' from the invocation name. The following are
247 disabled in restricted mode:
248 · changing directories with the cd builtin
250 · changing or unsetting the PATH, path, MODULE_PATH, module_path,
252 SHELL, HISTFILE, HISTSIZE, GID, EGID, UID, EUID, USERNAME,
253 LD_LIBRARY_PATH, LD_AOUT_LIBRARY_PATH, LD_PRELOAD and
254 LD_AOUT_PRELOAD parameters
255 · specifying command names containing /
257 · specifying command pathnames using hash
259 · redirecting output to files
261 · using the exec builtin command to replace the shell with another
263 command
264 · using jobs -Z to overwrite the shell process' argument and envi‐
266 ronment space
267 · using the ARGV0 parameter to override argv[0] for external com‐
269 mands
270 · turning off restricted mode with set +r or unsetopt RESTRICTED
272 These restrictions are enforced after processing the startup files.
274 The startup files should set up PATH to point to a directory of com‐
275 mands which can be safely invoked in the restricted environment. They
276 may also add further restrictions by disabling selected builtins.
277 Restricted mode can also be activated any time by setting the
279 RESTRICTED option. This immediately enables all the restrictions
280 described above even if the shell still has not processed all startup
281 files.
282
284 Commands are first read from /etc/zshenv; this cannot be overridden.
285 Subsequent behaviour is modified by the RCS and GLOBAL_RCS options; the
286 former affects all startup files, while the second only affects global
287 startup files (those shown here with an path starting with a /). If
288 one of the options is unset at any point, any subsequent startup
289 file(s) of the corresponding type will not be read. It is also possi‐
290 ble for a file in $ZDOTDIR to re-enable GLOBAL_RCS. Both RCS and
291 GLOBAL_RCS are set by default.
292 Commands are then read from $ZDOTDIR/.zshenv. If the shell is a login
294 shell, commands are read from /etc/zprofile and then $ZDOTDIR/.zpro‐
295 file. Then, if the shell is interactive, commands are read from
296 /etc/zshrc and then $ZDOTDIR/.zshrc. Finally, if the shell is a login
297 shell, /etc/zlogin and $ZDOTDIR/.zlogin are read.
298 When a login shell exits, the files $ZDOTDIR/.zlogout and then
300 /etc/zlogout are read. This happens with either an explicit exit via
301 the exit or logout commands, or an implicit exit by reading end-of-file
302 from the terminal. However, if the shell terminates due to exec'ing
303 another process, the logout files are not read. These are also
304 affected by the RCS and GLOBAL_RCS options. Note also that the RCS
305 option affects the saving of history files, i.e. if RCS is unset when
306 the shell exits, no history file will be saved.
307 If ZDOTDIR is unset, HOME is used instead. Files listed above as being
309 in /etc may be in another directory, depending on the installation.
310 As /etc/zshenv is run for all instances of zsh, it is important that it
312 be kept as small as possible. In particular, it is a good idea to put
313 code that does not need to be run for every single shell behind a test
314 of the form `if [[ -o rcs ]]; then ...' so that it will not be executed
315 when zsh is invoked with the `-f' option.
316 Any of these files may be pre-compiled with the zcompile builtin com‐
318 mand (see zshbuiltins(1)). If a compiled file exists (named for the
319 original file plus the .zwc extension) and it is newer than the origi‐
320 nal file, the compiled file will be used instead.
321
323 $ZDOTDIR/.zshenv
324 $ZDOTDIR/.zprofile
325 $ZDOTDIR/.zshrc
326 $ZDOTDIR/.zlogin
327 $ZDOTDIR/.zlogout
328 ${TMPPREFIX}* (default is /tmp/zsh*)
329 /etc/zshenv
330 /etc/zprofile
331 /etc/zshrc
332 /etc/zlogin
333 /etc/zlogout (installation-specific - /etc is the default)
334
336 sh(1), csh(1), tcsh(1), rc(1), bash(1), ksh(1), zshbuiltins(1), zshcom‐
337 pwid(1), zshcompsys(1), zshcompctl(1), zshexpn(1), zshmisc(1), zshmod‐
338 ules(1), zshoptions(1), zshparam(1), zshzle(1)
339 IEEE Standard for information Technology - Portable Operating System
341 Interface (POSIX) - Part 2: Shell and Utilities, IEEE Inc, 1993, ISBN
342 1-55937-255-9.
343zsh 5.0.2 December 21, 2012 ZSH(1)