1ZSHMODULES(1) General Commands Manual ZSHMODULES(1)
2
6 zshmodules - zsh loadable modules
7
9 Some optional parts of zsh are in modules, separate from the core of
10 the shell. Each of these modules may be linked in to the shell at
11 build time, or can be dynamically linked while the shell is running if
12 the installation supports this feature. Modules are linked at runtime
13 with the zmodload command, see zshbuiltins(1).
14 The modules that are bundled with the zsh distribution are:
16 zsh/attr
18 Builtins for manipulating extended attributes (xattr).
19 zsh/cap
21 Builtins for manipulating POSIX.1e (POSIX.6) capability (privi‐
22 lege) sets.
23 zsh/clone
25 A builtin that can clone a running shell onto another terminal.
26 zsh/compctl
28 The compctl builtin for controlling completion.
29 zsh/complete
31 The basic completion code.
32 zsh/complist
34 Completion listing extensions.
35 zsh/computil
37 A module with utility builtins needed for the shell function
38 based completion system.
39 zsh/curses
41 curses windowing commands
42 zsh/datetime
44 Some date/time commands and parameters.
45 zsh/db/gdbm
47 Builtins for managing associative array parameters tied to GDBM
48 databases.
49 zsh/deltochar
51 A ZLE function duplicating EMACS' zap-to-char.
52 zsh/example
54 An example of how to write a module.
55 zsh/files
57 Some basic file manipulation commands as builtins.
58 zsh/langinfo
60 Interface to locale information.
61 zsh/mapfile
63 Access to external files via a special associative array.
64 zsh/mathfunc
66 Standard scientific functions for use in mathematical evalua‐
67 tions.
68 zsh/newuser
70 Arrange for files for new users to be installed.
71 zsh/parameter
73 Access to internal hash tables via special associative arrays.
74 zsh/pcre
76 Interface to the PCRE library.
77 zsh/param/private
79 Builtins for managing private-scoped parameters in function con‐
80 text.
81 zsh/regex
83 Interface to the POSIX regex library.
84 zsh/sched
86 A builtin that provides a timed execution facility within the
87 shell.
88 zsh/net/socket
90 Manipulation of Unix domain sockets
91 zsh/stat
93 A builtin command interface to the stat system call.
94 zsh/system
96 A builtin interface to various low-level system features.
97 zsh/net/tcp
99 Manipulation of TCP sockets
100 zsh/termcap
102 Interface to the termcap database.
103 zsh/terminfo
105 Interface to the terminfo database.
106 zsh/zftp
108 A builtin FTP client.
109 zsh/zle
111 The Zsh Line Editor, including the bindkey and vared builtins.
112 zsh/zleparameter
114 Access to internals of the Zsh Line Editor via parameters.
115 zsh/zprof
117 A module allowing profiling for shell functions.
118 zsh/zpty
120 A builtin for starting a command in a pseudo-terminal.
121 zsh/zselect
123 Block and return when file descriptors are ready.
124 zsh/zutil
126 Some utility builtins, e.g. the one for supporting configuration
127 via styles.
128
130 The zsh/attr module is used for manipulating extended attributes. The
131 -h option causes all commands to operate on symbolic links instead of
132 their targets. The builtins in this module are:
133 zgetattr [ -h ] filename attribute [ parameter ]
135 Get the extended attribute attribute from the specified file‐
136 name. If the optional argument parameter is given, the attribute
137 is set on that parameter instead of being printed to stdout.
138 zsetattr [ -h ] filename attribute value
140 Set the extended attribute attribute on the specified filename
141 to value.
142 zdelattr [ -h ] filename attribute
144 Remove the extended attribute attribute from the specified file‐
145 name.
146 zlistattr [ -h ] filename [ parameter ]
148 List the extended attributes currently set on the specified
149 filename. If the optional argument parameter is given, the list
150 of attributes is set on that parameter instead of being printed
151 to stdout.
152 zgetattr and zlistattr allocate memory dynamically. If the attribute
154 or list of attributes grows between the allocation and the call to get
155 them, they return 2. On all other errors, 1 is returned. This allows
156 the calling function to check for this case and retry.
157
159 The zsh/cap module is used for manipulating POSIX.1e (POSIX.6) capabil‐
160 ity sets. If the operating system does not support this interface, the
161 builtins defined by this module will do nothing. The builtins in this
162 module are:
163 cap [ capabilities ]
165 Change the shell's process capability sets to the specified
166 capabilities, otherwise display the shell's current capabili‐
167 ties.
168 getcap filename ...
170 This is a built-in implementation of the POSIX standard utility.
171 It displays the capability sets on each specified filename.
172 setcap capabilities filename ...
174 This is a built-in implementation of the POSIX standard utility.
175 It sets the capability sets on each specified filename to the
176 specified capabilities.
177
179 The zsh/clone module makes available one builtin command:
180 clone tty
182 Creates a forked instance of the current shell, attached to the
183 specified tty. In the new shell, the PID, PPID and TTY special
184 parameters are changed appropriately. $! is set to zero in the
185 new shell, and to the new shell's PID in the original shell.
186 The return status of the builtin is zero in both shells if suc‐
188 cessful, and non-zero on error.
189 The target of clone should be an unused terminal, such as an
191 unused virtual console or a virtual terminal created by
192 xterm -e sh -c 'trap : INT QUIT TSTP; tty;
194 while :; do sleep 100000000; done'
195 Some words of explanation are warranted about this long xterm
197 command line: when doing clone on a pseudo-terminal, some other
198 session ("session" meant as a unix session group, or SID) is
199 already owning the terminal. Hence the cloned zsh cannot acquire
200 the pseudo-terminal as a controlling tty. That means two things:
201 · the job control signals will go to the
203 sh-started-by-xterm process group (that's why we disable
204 INT QUIT and TSTP with trap; otherwise the while loop
205 could get suspended or killed)
206 · the cloned shell will have job control disabled, and the
208 job control keys (control-C, control-\ and control-Z)
209 will not work.
210 This does not apply when cloning to an unused vc.
212 Cloning to a used (and unprepared) terminal will result in two
214 processes reading simultaneously from the same terminal, with
215 input bytes going randomly to either process.
216 clone is mostly useful as a shell built-in replacement for
218 openvt.
219
221 The zsh/compctl module makes available two builtin commands. compctl,
222 is the old, deprecated way to control completions for ZLE. See zshcom‐
223 pctl(1). The other builtin command, compcall can be used in
224 user-defined completion widgets, see zshcompwid(1).
225
227 The zsh/complete module makes available several builtin commands which
228 can be used in user-defined completion widgets, see zshcompwid(1).
229
231 The zsh/complist module offers three extensions to completion listings:
232 the ability to highlight matches in such a list, the ability to scroll
233 through long lists and a different style of menu completion.
234 Colored completion listings
236 Whenever one of the parameters ZLS_COLORS or ZLS_COLOURS is set and the
237 zsh/complist module is loaded or linked into the shell, completion
238 lists will be colored. Note, however, that complist will not automati‐
239 cally be loaded if it is not linked in: on systems with dynamic load‐
240 ing, `zmodload zsh/complist' is required.
241 The parameters ZLS_COLORS and ZLS_COLOURS describe how matches are
243 highlighted. To turn on highlighting an empty value suffices, in which
244 case all the default values given below will be used. The format of
245 the value of these parameters is the same as used by the GNU version of
246 the ls command: a colon-separated list of specifications of the form
247 `name=value'. The name may be one of the following strings, most of
248 which specify file types for which the value will be used. The strings
249 and their default values are:
250 no 0 for normal text (i.e. when displaying something other than a
252 matched file)
253 fi 0 for regular files
255 di 32 for directories
257 ln 36 for symbolic links. If this has the special value target, sym‐
259 bolic links are dereferenced and the target file used to deter‐
260 mine the display format.
261 pi 31 for named pipes (FIFOs)
263 so 33 for sockets
265 bd 44;37
267 for block devices
268 cd 44;37
270 for character devices
271 or none
273 for a symlink to nonexistent file (default is the value defined
274 for ln)
275 mi none
277 for a non-existent file (default is the value defined for fi);
278 this code is currently not used
279 su 37;41
281 for files with setuid bit set
282 sg 30;43
284 for files with setgid bit set
285 tw 30;42
287 for world writable directories with sticky bit set
288 ow 34;43
290 for world writable directories without sticky bit set
291 sa none
293 for files with an associated suffix alias; this is only tested
294 after specific suffixes, as described below
295 st 37;44
297 for directories with sticky bit set but not world writable
298 ex 35 for executable files
300 lc \e[ for the left code (see below)
302 rc m for the right code
304 tc 0 for the character indicating the file type printed after file‐
306 names if the LIST_TYPES option is set
307 sp 0 for the spaces printed after matches to align the next column
309 ec none
311 for the end code
312 Apart from these strings, the name may also be an asterisk (`*') fol‐
314 lowed by any string. The value given for such a string will be used for
315 all files whose name ends with the string. The name may also be an
316 equals sign (`=') followed by a pattern; the EXTENDED_GLOB option will
317 be turned on for evaluation of the pattern. The value given for this
318 pattern will be used for all matches (not just filenames) whose display
319 string are matched by the pattern. Definitions for the form with the
320 leading equal sign take precedence over the values defined for file
321 types, which in turn take precedence over the form with the leading
322 asterisk (file extensions).
323 The leading-equals form also allows different parts of the displayed
325 strings to be colored differently. For this, the pattern has to use
326 the `(#b)' globbing flag and pairs of parentheses surrounding the parts
327 of the strings that are to be colored differently. In this case the
328 value may consist of more than one color code separated by equal signs.
329 The first code will be used for all parts for which no explicit code is
330 specified and the following codes will be used for the parts matched by
331 the sub-patterns in parentheses. For example, the specification
332 `=(#b)(?)*(?)=0=3=7' will be used for all matches which are at least
333 two characters long and will use the code `3' for the first character,
334 `7' for the last character and `0' for the rest.
335 All three forms of name may be preceded by a pattern in parentheses.
337 If this is given, the value will be used only for matches in groups
338 whose names are matched by the pattern given in the parentheses. For
339 example, `(g*)m*=43' highlights all matches beginning with `m' in
340 groups whose names begin with `g' using the color code `43'. In case
341 of the `lc', `rc', and `ec' codes, the group pattern is ignored.
342 Note also that all patterns are tried in the order in which they appear
344 in the parameter value until the first one matches which is then used.
345 Patterns may be matched against completions, descriptions (possibly
346 with spaces appended for padding), or lines consisting of a completion
347 followed by a description. For consistent coloring it may be necessary
348 to use more than one pattern or a pattern with backreferences.
349 When printing a match, the code prints the value of lc, the value for
351 the file-type or the last matching specification with a `*', the value
352 of rc, the string to display for the match itself, and then the value
353 of ec if that is defined or the values of lc, no, and rc if ec is not
354 defined.
355 The default values are ISO 6429 (ANSI) compliant and can be used on
357 vt100 compatible terminals such as xterms. On monochrome terminals the
358 default values will have no visible effect. The colors function from
359 the contribution can be used to get associative arrays containing the
360 codes for ANSI terminals (see the section `Other Functions' in zshcon‐
361 trib(1)). For example, after loading colors, one could use
362 `$color[red]' to get the code for foreground color red and
363 `$color[bg-green]' for the code for background color green.
364 If the completion system invoked by compinit is used, these parameters
366 should not be set directly because the system controls them itself.
367 Instead, the list-colors style should be used (see the section `Comple‐
368 tion System Configuration' in zshcompsys(1)).
369 Scrolling in completion listings
371 To enable scrolling through a completion list, the LISTPROMPT parameter
372 must be set. Its value will be used as the prompt; if it is the empty
373 string, a default prompt will be used. The value may contain escapes
374 of the form `%x'. It supports the escapes `%B', `%b', `%S', `%s',
375 `%U', `%u', `%F', `%f', `%K', `%k' and `%{...%}' used also in shell
376 prompts as well as three pairs of additional sequences: a `%l' or `%L'
377 is replaced by the number of the last line shown and the total number
378 of lines in the form `number/total'; a `%m' or `%M' is replaced with
379 the number of the last match shown and the total number of matches; and
380 `%p' or `%P' is replaced with `Top', `Bottom' or the position of the
381 first line shown in percent of the total number of lines, respectively.
382 In each of these cases the form with the uppercase letter will be
383 replaced with a string of fixed width, padded to the right with spaces,
384 while the lowercase form will not be padded.
385 If the parameter LISTPROMPT is set, the completion code will not ask if
387 the list should be shown. Instead it immediately starts displaying the
388 list, stopping after the first screenful, showing the prompt at the
389 bottom, waiting for a keypress after temporarily switching to the
390 listscroll keymap. Some of the zle functions have a special meaning
391 while scrolling lists:
392 send-break
394 stops listing discarding the key pressed
395 accept-line, down-history, down-line-or-history
397 down-line-or-search, vi-down-line-or-history
398 scrolls forward one line
399 complete-word, menu-complete, expand-or-complete
401 expand-or-complete-prefix, menu-complete-or-expand
402 scrolls forward one screenful
403 accept-search
405 stop listing but take no other action
406 Every other character stops listing and immediately processes the key
408 as usual. Any key that is not bound in the listscroll keymap or that
409 is bound to undefined-key is looked up in the keymap currently
410 selected.
411 As for the ZLS_COLORS and ZLS_COLOURS parameters, LISTPROMPT should not
413 be set directly when using the shell function based completion system.
414 Instead, the list-prompt style should be used.
415 Menu selection
417 The zsh/complist module also offers an alternative style of selecting
418 matches from a list, called menu selection, which can be used if the
419 shell is set up to return to the last prompt after showing a completion
420 list (see the ALWAYS_LAST_PROMPT option in zshoptions(1)).
421 Menu selection can be invoked directly by the widget menu-select
423 defined by this module. This is a standard ZLE widget that can be
424 bound to a key in the usual way as described in zshzle(1).
425 Alternatively, the parameter MENUSELECT can be set to an integer, which
427 gives the minimum number of matches that must be present before menu
428 selection is automatically turned on. This second method requires that
429 menu completion be started, either directly from a widget such as
430 menu-complete, or due to one of the options MENU_COMPLETE or AUTO_MENU
431 being set. If MENUSELECT is set, but is 0, 1 or empty, menu selection
432 will always be started during an ambiguous menu completion.
433 When using the completion system based on shell functions, the MENUSE‐
435 LECT parameter should not be used (like the ZLS_COLORS and ZLS_COLOURS
436 parameters described above). Instead, the menu style should be used
437 with the select=... keyword.
438 After menu selection is started, the matches will be listed. If there
440 are more matches than fit on the screen, only the first screenful is
441 shown. The matches to insert into the command line can be selected
442 from this list. In the list one match is highlighted using the value
443 for ma from the ZLS_COLORS or ZLS_COLOURS parameter. The default value
444 for this is `7' which forces the selected match to be highlighted using
445 standout mode on a vt100-compatible terminal. If neither ZLS_COLORS
446 nor ZLS_COLOURS is set, the same terminal control sequence as for the
447 `%S' escape in prompts is used.
448 If there are more matches than fit on the screen and the parameter
450 MENUPROMPT is set, its value will be shown below the matches. It sup‐
451 ports the same escape sequences as LISTPROMPT, but the number of the
452 match or line shown will be that of the one where the mark is placed.
453 If its value is the empty string, a default prompt will be used.
454 The MENUSCROLL parameter can be used to specify how the list is
456 scrolled. If the parameter is unset, this is done line by line, if it
457 is set to `0' (zero), the list will scroll half the number of lines of
458 the screen. If the value is positive, it gives the number of lines to
459 scroll and if it is negative, the list will be scrolled the number of
460 lines of the screen minus the (absolute) value.
461 As for the ZLS_COLORS, ZLS_COLOURS and LISTPROMPT parameters, neither
463 MENUPROMPT nor MENUSCROLL should be set directly when using the shell
464 function based completion system. Instead, the select-prompt and
465 select-scroll styles should be used.
466 The completion code sometimes decides not to show all of the matches in
468 the list. These hidden matches are either matches for which the com‐
469 pletion function which added them explicitly requested that they not
470 appear in the list (using the -n option of the compadd builtin command)
471 or they are matches which duplicate a string already in the list
472 (because they differ only in things like prefixes or suffixes that are
473 not displayed). In the list used for menu selection, however, even
474 these matches are shown so that it is possible to select them. To
475 highlight such matches the hi and du capabilities in the ZLS_COLORS and
476 ZLS_COLOURS parameters are supported for hidden matches of the first
477 and second kind, respectively.
478 Selecting matches is done by moving the mark around using the zle move‐
480 ment functions. When not all matches can be shown on the screen at the
481 same time, the list will scroll up and down when crossing the top or
482 bottom line. The following zle functions have special meaning during
483 menu selection. Note that the following always perform the same task
484 within the menu selection map and cannot be replaced by user defined
485 widgets, nor can the set of functions be extended:
486 accept-line, accept-search
488 accept the current match and leave menu selection (but do not
489 cause the command line to be accepted)
490 send-break
492 leaves menu selection and restores the previous contents of the
493 command line
494 redisplay, clear-screen
496 execute their normal function without leaving menu selection
497 accept-and-hold, accept-and-menu-complete
499 accept the currently inserted match and continue selection
500 allowing to select the next match to insert into the line
501 accept-and-infer-next-history
503 accepts the current match and then tries completion with menu
504 selection again; in the case of files this allows one to select
505 a directory and immediately attempt to complete files in it; if
506 there are no matches, a message is shown and one can use undo to
507 go back to completion on the previous level, every other key
508 leaves menu selection (including the other zle functions which
509 are otherwise special during menu selection)
510 undo removes matches inserted during the menu selection by one of the
512 three functions before
513 down-history, down-line-or-history
515 vi-down-line-or-history, down-line-or-search
516 moves the mark one line down
517 up-history, up-line-or-history
519 vi-up-line-or-history, up-line-or-search
520 moves the mark one line up
521 forward-char, vi-forward-char
523 moves the mark one column right
524 backward-char, vi-backward-char
526 moves the mark one column left
527 forward-word, vi-forward-word
529 vi-forward-word-end, emacs-forward-word
530 moves the mark one screenful down
531 backward-word, vi-backward-word, emacs-backward-word
533 moves the mark one screenful up
534 vi-forward-blank-word, vi-forward-blank-word-end
536 moves the mark to the first line of the next group of matches
537 vi-backward-blank-word
539 moves the mark to the last line of the previous group of matches
540 beginning-of-history
542 moves the mark to the first line
543 end-of-history
545 moves the mark to the last line
546 beginning-of-buffer-or-history, beginning-of-line
548 beginning-of-line-hist, vi-beginning-of-line
549 moves the mark to the leftmost column
550 end-of-buffer-or-history, end-of-line
552 end-of-line-hist, vi-end-of-line
553 moves the mark to the rightmost column
554 complete-word, menu-complete, expand-or-complete
556 expand-or-complete-prefix, menu-expand-or-complete
557 moves the mark to the next match
558 reverse-menu-complete
560 moves the mark to the previous match
561 vi-insert
563 this toggles between normal and interactive mode; in interactive
564 mode the keys bound to self-insert and self-insert-unmeta insert
565 into the command line as in normal editing mode but without
566 leaving menu selection; after each character completion is tried
567 again and the list changes to contain only the new matches; the
568 completion widgets make the longest unambiguous string be
569 inserted in the command line and undo and backward-delete-char
570 go back to the previous set of matches
571 history-incremental-search-forward
573 history-incremental-search-backward
574 this starts incremental searches in the list of completions dis‐
575 played; in this mode, accept-line only leaves incremental
576 search, going back to the normal menu selection mode
577 All movement functions wrap around at the edges; any other zle function
579 not listed leaves menu selection and executes that function. It is
580 possible to make widgets in the above list do the same by using the
581 form of the widget with a `.' in front. For example, the widget
582 `.accept-line' has the effect of leaving menu selection and accepting
583 the entire command line.
584 During this selection the widget uses the keymap menuselect. Any key
586 that is not defined in this keymap or that is bound to undefined-key is
587 looked up in the keymap currently selected. This is used to ensure
588 that the most important keys used during selection (namely the cursor
589 keys, return, and TAB) have sensible defaults. However, keys in the
590 menuselect keymap can be modified directly using the bindkey builtin
591 command (see zshmodules(1)). For example, to make the return key leave
592 menu selection without accepting the match currently selected one could
593 call
594 bindkey -M menuselect '^M' send-break
596 after loading the zsh/complist module.
598
600 The zsh/computil module adds several builtin commands that are used by
601 some of the completion functions in the completion system based on
602 shell functions (see zshcompsys(1) ). Except for compquote these
603 builtin commands are very specialised and thus not very interesting
604 when writing your own completion functions. In summary, these builtin
605 commands are:
606 comparguments
608 This is used by the _arguments function to do the argument and
609 command line parsing. Like compdescribe it has an option -i to
610 do the parsing and initialize some internal state and various
611 options to access the state information to decide what should be
612 completed.
613 compdescribe
615 This is used by the _describe function to build the displays for
616 the matches and to get the strings to add as matches with their
617 options. On the first call one of the options -i or -I should
618 be supplied as the first argument. In the first case, display
619 strings without the descriptions will be generated, in the sec‐
620 ond case, the string used to separate the matches from their
621 descriptions must be given as the second argument and the
622 descriptions (if any) will be shown. All other arguments are
623 like the definition arguments to _describe itself.
624 Once compdescribe has been called with either the -i or the -I
626 option, it can be repeatedly called with the -g option and the
627 names of four parameters as its arguments. This will step
628 through the different sets of matches and store the value of
629 compstate[list] in the first scalar, the options for compadd in
630 the second array, the matches in the third array, and the
631 strings to be displayed in the completion listing in the fourth
632 array. The arrays may then be directly given to compadd to reg‐
633 ister the matches with the completion code.
634 compfiles
636 Used by the _path_files function to optimize complex recursive
637 filename generation (globbing). It does three things. With the
638 -p and -P options it builds the glob patterns to use, including
639 the paths already handled and trying to optimize the patterns
640 with respect to the prefix and suffix from the line and the
641 match specification currently used. The -i option does the
642 directory tests for the ignore-parents style and the -r option
643 tests if a component for some of the matches are equal to the
644 string on the line and removes all other matches if that is
645 true.
646 compgroups
648 Used by the _tags function to implement the internals of the
649 group-order style. This only takes its arguments as names of
650 completion groups and creates the groups for it (all six types:
651 sorted and unsorted, both without removing duplicates, with
652 removing all duplicates and with removing consecutive dupli‐
653 cates).
654 compquote [ -p ] names ...
656 There may be reasons to write completion functions that have to
657 add the matches using the -Q option to compadd and perform quot‐
658 ing themselves. Instead of interpreting the first character of
659 the all_quotes key of the compstate special association and
660 using the q flag for parameter expansions, one can use this
661 builtin command. The arguments are the names of scalar or array
662 parameters and the values of these parameters are quoted as
663 needed for the innermost quoting level. If the -p option is
664 given, quoting is done as if there is some prefix before the
665 values of the parameters, so that a leading equal sign will not
666 be quoted.
667 The return status is non-zero in case of an error and zero oth‐
669 erwise.
670 comptags
672 comptry
673 These implement the internals of the tags mechanism.
674 compvalues
676 Like comparguments, but for the _values function.
677
679 The zsh/curses module makes available one builtin command and various
680 parameters.
681 Builtin
683 zcurses init
684 zcurses end
685 zcurses addwin targetwin nlines ncols begin_y begin_x [ parentwin ]
686 zcurses delwin targetwin
687 zcurses refresh [ targetwin ... ]
688 zcurses touch targetwin ...
689 zcurses move targetwin new_y new_x
690 zcurses clear targetwin [ redraw | eol | bot ]
691 zcurses position targetwin array
692 zcurses char targetwin character
693 zcurses string targetwin string
694 zcurses border targetwin border
695 zcurses attr targetwin [ [+|-]attribute | fg_col/bg_col ] [...]
696 zcurses bg targetwin [ [+|-]attribute | fg_col/bg_col | @char ] [...]
697 zcurses scroll targetwin [ on | off | [+|-]lines ]
698 zcurses input targetwin [ param [ kparam [ mparam ] ] ]
699 zcurses mouse [ delay num | [+|-]motion ]
700 zcurses timeout targetwin intval
701 zcurses querychar targetwin [ param ]
702 zcurses resize height width [ endwin | nosave | endwin_nosave ]
703 Manipulate curses windows. All uses of this command should be
704 bracketed by `zcurses init' to initialise use of curses, and
705 `zcurses end' to end it; omitting `zcurses end' can cause the
706 terminal to be in an unwanted state.
707 The subcommand addwin creates a window with nlines lines and
709 ncols columns. Its upper left corner will be placed at row
710 begin_y and column begin_x of the screen. targetwin is a string
711 and refers to the name of a window that is not currently
712 assigned. Note in particular the curses convention that verti‐
713 cal values appear before horizontal values.
714 If addwin is given an existing window as the final argument, the
716 new window is created as a subwindow of parentwin. This differs
717 from an ordinary new window in that the memory of the window
718 contents is shared with the parent's memory. Subwindows must be
719 deleted before their parent. Note that the coordinates of sub‐
720 windows are relative to the screen, not the parent, as with
721 other windows.
722 Use the subcommand delwin to delete a window created with
724 addwin. Note that end does not implicitly delete windows, and
725 that delwin does not erase the screen image of the window.
726 The window corresponding to the full visible screen is called
728 stdscr; it always exists after `zcurses init' and cannot be
729 delete with delwin.
730 The subcommand refresh will refresh window targetwin; this is
732 necessary to make any pending changes (such as characters you
733 have prepared for output with char) visible on the screen.
734 refresh without an argument causes the screen to be cleared and
735 redrawn. If multiple windows are given, the screen is updated
736 once at the end.
737 The subcommand touch marks the targetwins listed as changed.
739 This is necessary before refreshing windows if a window that was
740 in front of another window (which may be stdscr) is deleted.
741 The subcommand move moves the cursor position in targetwin to
743 new coordinates new_y and new_x. Note that the subcommand
744 string (but not the subcommand char) advances the cursor posi‐
745 tion over the characters added.
746 The subcommand clear erases the contents of targetwin. One (and
748 no more than one) of three options may be specified. With the
749 option redraw, in addition the next refresh of targetwin will
750 cause the screen to be cleared and repainted. With the option
751 eol, targetwin is only cleared to the end of the current cursor
752 line. With the option bot, targetwin is cleared to the end of
753 the window, i.e everything to the right and below the cursor is
754 cleared.
755 The subcommand position writes various positions associated with
757 targetwin into the array named array. These are, in order:
758 - The y and x coordinates of the cursor relative to the top
759 left of targetwin
760 - The y and x coordinates of the top left of targetwin on
761 the screen
762 - The size of targetwin in y and x dimensions.
763 Outputting characters and strings are achieved by char and
765 string respectively.
766 To draw a border around window targetwin, use border. Note that
768 the border is not subsequently handled specially: in other
769 words, the border is simply a set of characters output at the
770 edge of the window. Hence it can be overwritten, can scroll off
771 the window, etc.
772 The subcommand attr will set targetwin's attributes or fore‐
774 ground/background color pair for any successive character out‐
775 put. Each attribute given on the line may be prepended by a +
776 to set or a - to unset that attribute; + is assumed if absent.
777 The attributes supported are blink, bold, dim, reverse, stand‐
778 out, and underline.
779 Each fg_col/bg_col attribute (to be read as `fg_col on bg_col')
781 sets the foreground and background color for character output.
782 The color default is sometimes available (in particular if the
783 library is ncurses), specifying the foreground or background
784 color with which the terminal started. The color pair
785 default/default is always available. To use more than the 8
786 named colors (red, green, etc.) construct the fg_col/bg_col
787 pairs where fg_col and bg_col are decimal integers, e.g 128/200.
788 The maximum color value is 254 if the terminal supports 256 col‐
789 ors.
790 bg overrides the color and other attributes of all characters in
792 the window. Its usual use is to set the background initially,
793 but it will overwrite the attributes of any characters at the
794 time when it is called. In addition to the arguments allowed
795 with attr, an argument @char specifies a character to be shown
796 in otherwise blank areas of the window. Owing to limitations of
797 curses this cannot be a multibyte character (use of ASCII char‐
798 acters only is recommended). As the specified set of attributes
799 override the existing background, turning attributes off in the
800 arguments is not useful, though this does not cause an error.
801 The subcommand scroll can be used with on or off to enabled or
803 disable scrolling of a window when the cursor would otherwise
804 move below the window due to typing or output. It can also be
805 used with a positive or negative integer to scroll the window up
806 or down the given number of lines without changing the current
807 cursor position (which therefore appears to move in the opposite
808 direction relative to the window). In the second case, if
809 scrolling is off it is temporarily turned on to allow the window
810 to be scrolled.
811 The subcommand input reads a single character from the window
813 without echoing it back. If param is supplied the character is
814 assigned to the parameter param, else it is assigned to the
815 parameter REPLY.
816 If both param and kparam are supplied, the key is read in `key‐
818 pad' mode. In this mode special keys such as function keys and
819 arrow keys return the name of the key in the parameter kparam.
820 The key names are the macros defined in the curses.h or
821 ncurses.h with the prefix `KEY_' removed; see also the descrip‐
822 tion of the parameter zcurses_keycodes below. Other keys cause
823 a value to be set in param as before. On a successful return
824 only one of param or kparam contains a non-empty string; the
825 other is set to an empty string.
826 If mparam is also supplied, input attempts to handle mouse
828 input. This is only available with the ncurses library; mouse
829 handling can be detected by checking for the exit status of
830 `zcurses mouse' with no arguments. If a mouse button is clicked
831 (or double- or triple-clicked, or pressed or released with a
832 configurable delay from being clicked) then kparam is set to the
833 string MOUSE, and mparam is set to an array consisting of the
834 following elements:
835 - An identifier to discriminate different input devices;
836 this is only rarely useful.
837 - The x, y and z coordinates of the mouse click relative to
838 the full screen, as three elements in that order (i.e.
839 the y coordinate is, unusually, after the x coordinate).
840 The z coordinate is only available for a few unusual
841 input devices and is otherwise set to zero.
842 - Any events that occurred as separate items; usually there
843 will be just one. An event consists of PRESSED,
844 RELEASED, CLICKED, DOUBLE_CLICKED or TRIPLE_CLICKED fol‐
845 lowed immediately (in the same element) by the number of
846 the button.
847 - If the shift key was pressed, the string SHIFT.
848 - If the control key was pressed, the string CTRL.
849 - If the alt key was pressed, the string ALT.
850 Not all mouse events may be passed through to the terminal win‐
852 dow; most terminal emulators handle some mouse events them‐
853 selves. Note that the ncurses manual implies that using input
854 both with and without mouse handling may cause the mouse cursor
855 to appear and disappear.
856 The subcommand mouse can be used to configure the use of the
858 mouse. There is no window argument; mouse options are global.
859 `zcurses mouse' with no arguments returns status 0 if mouse han‐
860 dling is possible, else status 1. Otherwise, the possible argu‐
861 ments (which may be combined on the same command line) are as
862 follows. delay num sets the maximum delay in milliseconds
863 between press and release events to be considered as a click;
864 the value 0 disables click resolution, and the default is one
865 sixth of a second. motion proceeded by an optional `+' (the
866 default) or - turns on or off reporting of mouse motion in addi‐
867 tion to clicks, presses and releases, which are always reported.
868 However, it appears reports for mouse motion are not currently
869 implemented.
870 The subcommand timeout specifies a timeout value for input from
872 targetwin. If intval is negative, `zcurses input' waits indefi‐
873 nitely for a character to be typed; this is the default. If
874 intval is zero, `zcurses input' returns immediately; if there is
875 typeahead it is returned, else no input is done and status 1 is
876 returned. If intval is positive, `zcurses input' waits intval
877 milliseconds for input and if there is none at the end of that
878 period returns status 1.
879 The subcommand querychar queries the character at the current
881 cursor position. The return values are stored in the array
882 named param if supplied, else in the array reply. The first
883 value is the character (which may be a multibyte character if
884 the system supports them); the second is the color pair in the
885 usual fg_col/bg_col notation, or 0 if color is not supported.
886 Any attributes other than color that apply to the character, as
887 set with the subcommand attr, appear as additional elements.
888 The subcommand resize resizes stdscr and all windows to given
890 dimensions (windows that stick out from the new dimensions are
891 resized down). The underlying curses extension (resize_term
892 call) can be unavailable. To verify, zeroes can be used for
893 height and width. If the result of the subcommand is 0,
894 resize_term is available (2 otherwise). Tests show that resizing
895 can be normally accomplished by calling zcurses end and zcurses
896 refresh. The resize subcommand is provided for versatility. Mul‐
897 tiple system configurations have been checked and zcurses end
898 and zcurses refresh are still needed for correct terminal state
899 after resize. To invoke them with resize, use endwin argument.
900 Using nosave argument will cause new terminal state to not be
901 saved internally by zcurses. This is also provided for versatil‐
902 ity and should normally be not needed.
903 Parameters
905 ZCURSES_COLORS
906 Readonly integer. The maximum number of colors the terminal
907 supports. This value is initialised by the curses library and
908 is not available until the first time zcurses init is run.
909 ZCURSES_COLOR_PAIRS
911 Readonly integer. The maximum number of color pairs
912 fg_col/bg_col that may be defined in `zcurses attr' commands;
913 note this limit applies to all color pairs that have been used
914 whether or not they are currently active. This value is ini‐
915 tialised by the curses library and is not available until the
916 first time zcurses init is run.
917 zcurses_attrs
919 Readonly array. The attributes supported by zsh/curses; avail‐
920 able as soon as the module is loaded.
921 zcurses_colors
923 Readonly array. The colors supported by zsh/curses; available
924 as soon as the module is loaded.
925 zcurses_keycodes
927 Readonly array. The values that may be returned in the second
928 parameter supplied to `zcurses input' in the order in which they
929 are defined internally by curses. Not all function keys are
930 listed, only F0; curses reserves space for F0 up to F63.
931 zcurses_windows
933 Readonly array. The current list of windows, i.e. all windows
934 that have been created with `zcurses addwin' and not removed
935 with `zcurses delwin'.
936
938 The zsh/datetime module makes available one builtin command:
939 strftime [ -s scalar ] format epochtime
941 strftime -r [ -q ] [ -s scalar ] format timestring
942 Output the date denoted by epochtime in the format specified.
943 See strftime(3) for details. The zsh extensions described in
944 the section EXPANSION OF PROMPT SEQUENCES in zshmisc(1) are also
945 available.
946 -q Run quietly; suppress printing of all error messages
948 described below. Errors for invalid epochtime values are
949 always printed.
950 -r With the option -r (reverse), use format to parse the
952 input string timestring and output the number of seconds
953 since the epoch at which the time occurred. The parsing
954 is implemented by the system function strptime; see strp‐
955 time(3). This means that zsh format extensions are not
956 available, but for reverse lookup they are not required.
957 In most implementations of strftime any timezone in the
959 timestring is ignored and the local timezone declared by
960 the TZ environment variable is used; other parameters are
961 set to zero if not present.
962 If timestring does not match format the command returns
964 status 1 and prints an error message. If timestring
965 matches format but not all characters in timestring were
966 used, the conversion succeeds but also prints an error
967 message.
968 If either of the system functions strptime or mktime is
970 not available, status 2 is returned and an error message
971 is printed.
972 -s scalar
974 Assign the date string (or epoch time in seconds if -r is
975 given) to scalar instead of printing it.
976 Note that depending on the system's declared integral time type,
978 strftime may produce incorrect results for epoch times greater
979 than 2147483647 which corresponds to 2038-01-19 03:14:07 +0000.
980 The zsh/datetime module makes available several parameters; all are
982 readonly:
983 EPOCHREALTIME
985 A floating point value representing the number of seconds since
986 the epoch. The notional accuracy is to nanoseconds if the
987 clock_gettime call is available and to microseconds otherwise,
988 but in practice the range of double precision floating point and
989 shell scheduling latencies may be significant effects.
990 EPOCHSECONDS
992 An integer value representing the number of seconds since the
993 epoch.
994 epochtime
996 An array value containing the number of seconds since the epoch
997 in the first element and the remainder of the time since the
998 epoch in nanoseconds in the second element. To ensure the two
999 elements are consistent the array should be copied or otherwise
1000 referenced as a single substitution before the values are used.
1001 The following idiom may be used:
1002 for secs nsecs in $epochtime; do
1004 ...
1005 done
1006
1008 The zsh/db/gdbm module is used to create "tied" associative arrays that
1009 interface to database files. If the GDBM interface is not available,
1010 the builtins defined by this module will report an error. This module
1011 is also intended as a prototype for creating additional database inter‐
1012 faces, so the ztie builtin may move to a more generic module in the
1013 future.
1014 The builtins in this module are:
1016 ztie -d db/gdbm -f filename [ -r ] arrayname
1018 Open the GDBM database identified by filename and, if success‐
1019 ful, create the associative array arrayname linked to the file.
1020 To create a local tied array, the parameter must first be
1021 declared, so commands similar to the following would be executed
1022 inside a function scope:
1023 local -A sampledb
1025 ztie -d db/gdbm -f sample.gdbm sampledb
1026 The -r option opens the database file for reading only, creating
1028 a parameter with the readonly attribute. Without this option,
1029 using `ztie' on a file for which the user does not have write
1030 permission is an error. If writable, the database is opened
1031 synchronously so fields changed in arrayname are immediately
1032 written to filename.
1033 Changes to the file modes filename after it has been opened do
1035 not alter the state of arrayname, but `typeset -r arrayname'
1036 works as expected.
1037 zuntie [ -u ] arrayname ...
1039 Close the GDBM database associated with each arrayname and then
1040 unset the parameter. The -u option forces an unset of parame‐
1041 ters made readonly with `ztie -r'.
1042 This happens automatically if the parameter is explicitly unset
1044 or its local scope (function) ends. Note that a readonly param‐
1045 eter may not be explicitly unset, so the only way to unset a
1046 global parameter created with `ztie -r' is to use `zuntie -u'.
1047 zgdbmpath parametername
1049 Put path to database file assigned to parametername into REPLY
1050 scalar.
1051 zgdbm_tied
1053 Array holding names of all tied parameters.
1054 The fields of an associative array tied to GDBM are neither cached nor
1056 otherwise stored in memory, they are read from or written to the data‐
1057 base on each reference. Thus, for example, the values in a readonly
1058 array may be changed by a second writer of the same database file.
1059
1061 The zsh/deltochar module makes available two ZLE functions:
1062 delete-to-char
1064 Read a character from the keyboard, and delete from the cursor
1065 position up to and including the next (or, with repeat count n,
1066 the nth) instance of that character. Negative repeat counts
1067 mean delete backwards.
1068 zap-to-char
1070 This behaves like delete-to-char, except that the final occur‐
1071 rence of the character itself is not deleted.
1072
1074 The zsh/example module makes available one builtin command:
1075 example [ -flags ] [ args ... ]
1077 Displays the flags and arguments it is invoked with.
1078 The purpose of the module is to serve as an example of how to write a
1080 module.
1081
1083 The zsh/files module makes available some common commands for file
1084 manipulation as builtins; these commands are probably not needed for
1085 many normal situations but can be useful in emergency recovery situa‐
1086 tions with constrained resources. The commands do not implement all
1087 features now required by relevant standards committees.
1088 For all commands, a variant beginning zf_ is also available and loaded
1090 automatically. Using the features capability of zmodload will let you
1091 load only those names you want. Note that it's possible to load only
1092 the builtins with zsh-specific names using the following command:
1093 zmodload -m -F zsh/files b:zf_\*
1095 The commands loaded by default are:
1097 chgrp [ -hRs ] group filename ...
1099 Changes group of files specified. This is equivalent to chown
1100 with a user-spec argument of `:group'.
1101 chown [ -hRs ] user-spec filename ...
1103 Changes ownership and group of files specified.
1104 The user-spec can be in four forms:
1106 user change owner to user; do not change group
1108 user:: change owner to user; do not change group
1109 user: change owner to user; change group to user's primary
1110 group
1111 user:group
1112 change owner to user; change group to group
1113 :group do not change owner; change group to group
1114 In each case, the `:' may instead be a `.'. The rule is that if
1116 there is a `:' then the separator is `:', otherwise if there is
1117 a `.' then the separator is `.', otherwise there is no separa‐
1118 tor.
1119 Each of user and group may be either a username (or group name,
1121 as appropriate) or a decimal user ID (group ID). Interpretation
1122 as a name takes precedence, if there is an all-numeric username
1123 (or group name).
1124 If the target is a symbolic link, the -h option causes chown to
1126 set the ownership of the link instead of its target.
1127 The -R option causes chown to recursively descend into directo‐
1129 ries, changing the ownership of all files in the directory after
1130 changing the ownership of the directory itself.
1131 The -s option is a zsh extension to chown functionality. It
1133 enables paranoid behaviour, intended to avoid security problems
1134 involving a chown being tricked into affecting files other than
1135 the ones intended. It will refuse to follow symbolic links, so
1136 that (for example) ``chown luser /tmp/foo/passwd'' can't acci‐
1137 dentally chown /etc/passwd if /tmp/foo happens to be a link to
1138 /etc. It will also check where it is after leaving directories,
1139 so that a recursive chown of a deep directory tree can't end up
1140 recursively chowning /usr as a result of directories being moved
1141 up the tree.
1142 ln [ -dfhins ] filename dest
1144 ln [ -dfhins ] filename ... dir
1145 Creates hard (or, with -s, symbolic) links. In the first form,
1146 the specified destination is created, as a link to the specified
1147 filename. In the second form, each of the filenames is taken in
1148 turn, and linked to a pathname in the specified directory that
1149 has the same last pathname component.
1150 Normally, ln will not attempt to create hard links to directo‐
1152 ries. This check can be overridden using the -d option. Typi‐
1153 cally only the super-user can actually succeed in creating hard
1154 links to directories. This does not apply to symbolic links in
1155 any case.
1156 By default, existing files cannot be replaced by links. The -i
1158 option causes the user to be queried about replacing existing
1159 files. The -f option causes existing files to be silently
1160 deleted, without querying. -f takes precedence.
1161 The -h and -n options are identical and both exist for compati‐
1163 bility; either one indicates that if the target is a symlink
1164 then it should not be dereferenced. Typically this is used in
1165 combination with -sf so that if an existing link points to a
1166 directory then it will be removed, instead of followed. If this
1167 option is used with multiple filenames and the target is a sym‐
1168 bolic link pointing to a directory then the result is an error.
1169 mkdir [ -p ] [ -m mode ] dir ...
1171 Creates directories. With the -p option, non-existing parent
1172 directories are first created if necessary, and there will be no
1173 complaint if the directory already exists. The -m option can be
1174 used to specify (in octal) a set of file permissions for the
1175 created directories, otherwise mode 777 modified by the current
1176 umask (see umask(2)) is used.
1177 mv [ -fi ] filename dest
1179 mv [ -fi ] filename ... dir
1180 Moves files. In the first form, the specified filename is moved
1181 to the specified destination. In the second form, each of the
1182 filenames is taken in turn, and moved to a pathname in the spec‐
1183 ified directory that has the same last pathname component.
1184 By default, the user will be queried before replacing any file
1186 that the user cannot write to, but writable files will be
1187 silently removed. The -i option causes the user to be queried
1188 about replacing any existing files. The -f option causes any
1189 existing files to be silently deleted, without querying. -f
1190 takes precedence.
1191 Note that this mv will not move files across devices. Histori‐
1193 cal versions of mv, when actual renaming is impossible, fall
1194 back on copying and removing files; if this behaviour is
1195 desired, use cp and rm manually. This may change in a future
1196 version.
1197 rm [ -dfirs ] filename ...
1199 Removes files and directories specified.
1200 Normally, rm will not remove directories (except with the -r
1202 option). The -d option causes rm to try removing directories
1203 with unlink (see unlink(2)), the same method used for files.
1204 Typically only the super-user can actually succeed in unlinking
1205 directories in this way. -d takes precedence over -r.
1206 By default, the user will be queried before removing any file
1208 that the user cannot write to, but writable files will be
1209 silently removed. The -i option causes the user to be queried
1210 about removing any files. The -f option causes files to be
1211 silently deleted, without querying, and suppresses all error
1212 indications. -f takes precedence.
1213 The -r option causes rm to recursively descend into directories,
1215 deleting all files in the directory before removing the direc‐
1216 tory with the rmdir system call (see rmdir(2)).
1217 The -s option is a zsh extension to rm functionality. It
1219 enables paranoid behaviour, intended to avoid common security
1220 problems involving a root-run rm being tricked into removing
1221 files other than the ones intended. It will refuse to follow
1222 symbolic links, so that (for example) ``rm /tmp/foo/passwd''
1223 can't accidentally remove /etc/passwd if /tmp/foo happens to be
1224 a link to /etc. It will also check where it is after leaving
1225 directories, so that a recursive removal of a deep directory
1226 tree can't end up recursively removing /usr as a result of
1227 directories being moved up the tree.
1228 rmdir dir ...
1230 Removes empty directories specified.
1231 sync Calls the system call of the same name (see sync(2)), which
1233 flushes dirty buffers to disk. It might return before the I/O
1234 has actually been completed.
1235
1237 The zsh/langinfo module makes available one parameter:
1238 langinfo
1240 An associative array that maps langinfo elements to their val‐
1241 ues.
1242 Your implementation may support a number of the following keys:
1244 CODESET, D_T_FMT, D_FMT, T_FMT, RADIXCHAR, THOUSEP, YESEXPR,
1246 NOEXPR, CRNCYSTR, ABDAY_{1..7}, DAY_{1..7}, ABMON_{1..12},
1247 MON_{1..12}, T_FMT_AMPM, AM_STR, PM_STR, ERA, ERA_D_FMT,
1248 ERA_D_T_FMT, ERA_T_FMT, ALT_DIGITS
1249
1251 The zsh/mapfile module provides one special associative array parameter
1252 of the same name.
1253 mapfile
1255 This associative array takes as keys the names of files; the
1256 resulting value is the content of the file. The value is
1257 treated identically to any other text coming from a parameter.
1258 The value may also be assigned to, in which case the file in
1259 question is written (whether or not it originally existed); or
1260 an element may be unset, which will delete the file in question.
1261 For example, `vared mapfile[myfile]' works as expected, editing
1262 the file `myfile'.
1263 When the array is accessed as a whole, the keys are the names of
1265 files in the current directory, and the values are empty (to
1266 save a huge overhead in memory). Thus ${(k)mapfile} has the
1267 same affect as the glob operator *(D), since files beginning
1268 with a dot are not special. Care must be taken with expressions
1269 such as rm ${(k)mapfile}, which will delete every file in the
1270 current directory without the usual `rm *' test.
1271 The parameter mapfile may be made read-only; in that case, files
1273 referenced may not be written or deleted.
1274 A file may conveniently be read into an array as one line per
1276 element with the form `array=("${(f@)mapfile[filename]}")'. The
1277 double quotes and the `@' are necessary to prevent empty lines
1278 from being removed. Note that if the file ends with a newline,
1279 the shell will split on the final newline, generating an addi‐
1280 tional empty field; this can be suppressed by using
1281 `array=("${(f@)${mapfile[filename]%$'\n'}}")'.
1282 Limitations
1284 Although reading and writing of the file in question is efficiently
1285 handled, zsh's internal memory management may be arbitrarily baroque;
1286 however, mapfile is usually very much more efficient than anything
1287 involving a loop. Note in particular that the whole contents of the
1288 file will always reside physically in memory when accessed (possibly
1289 multiple times, due to standard parameter substitution operations). In
1290 particular, this means handling of sufficiently long files (greater
1291 than the machine's swap space, or than the range of the pointer type)
1292 will be incorrect.
1293 No errors are printed or flagged for non-existent, unreadable, or
1295 unwritable files, as the parameter mechanism is too low in the shell
1296 execution hierarchy to make this convenient.
1297 It is unfortunate that the mechanism for loading modules does not yet
1299 allow the user to specify the name of the shell parameter to be given
1300 the special behaviour.
1301
1303 The zsh/mathfunc module provides standard mathematical functions for
1304 use when evaluating mathematical formulae. The syntax agrees with nor‐
1305 mal C and FORTRAN conventions, for example,
1306 (( f = sin(0.3) ))
1308 assigns the sine of 0.3 to the parameter f.
1310 Most functions take floating point arguments and return a floating
1312 point value. However, any necessary conversions from or to integer
1313 type will be performed automatically by the shell. Apart from atan
1314 with a second argument and the abs, int and float functions, all func‐
1315 tions behave as noted in the manual page for the corresponding C func‐
1316 tion, except that any arguments out of range for the function in ques‐
1317 tion will be detected by the shell and an error reported.
1318 The following functions take a single floating point argument: acos,
1320 acosh, asin, asinh, atan, atanh, cbrt, ceil, cos, cosh, erf, erfc, exp,
1321 expm1, fabs, floor, gamma, j0, j1, lgamma, log, log10, log1p, logb,
1322 sin, sinh, sqrt, tan, tanh, y0, y1. The atan function can optionally
1323 take a second argument, in which case it behaves like the C function
1324 atan2. The ilogb function takes a single floating point argument, but
1325 returns an integer.
1326 The function signgam takes no arguments, and returns an integer, which
1328 is the C variable of the same name, as described in gamma(3). Note
1329 that it is therefore only useful immediately after a call to gamma or
1330 lgamma. Note also that `signgam()' and `signgam' are distinct expres‐
1331 sions.
1332 The functions min, max, and sum are defined not in this module but in
1334 the zmathfunc autoloadable function, described in the section `Mathe‐
1335 matical Functions' in zshcontrib(1).
1336 The following functions take two floating point arguments: copysign,
1338 fmod, hypot, nextafter.
1339 The following take an integer first argument and a floating point sec‐
1341 ond argument: jn, yn.
1342 The following take a floating point first argument and an integer sec‐
1344 ond argument: ldexp, scalb.
1345 The function abs does not convert the type of its single argument; it
1347 returns the absolute value of either a floating point number or an
1348 integer. The functions float and int convert their arguments into a
1349 floating point or integer value (by truncation) respectively.
1350 Note that the C pow function is available in ordinary math evaluation
1352 as the `**' operator and is not provided here.
1353 The function rand48 is available if your system's mathematical library
1355 has the function erand48(3). It returns a pseudo-random floating point
1356 number between 0 and 1. It takes a single string optional argument.
1357 If the argument is not present, the random number seed is initialised
1359 by three calls to the rand(3) function --- this produces the same ran‐
1360 dom numbers as the next three values of $RANDOM.
1361 If the argument is present, it gives the name of a scalar parameter
1363 where the current random number seed will be stored. On the first
1364 call, the value must contain at least twelve hexadecimal digits (the
1365 remainder of the string is ignored), or the seed will be initialised in
1366 the same manner as for a call to rand48 with no argument. Subsequent
1367 calls to rand48(param) will then maintain the seed in the parameter
1368 param as a string of twelve hexadecimal digits, with no base signifier.
1369 The random number sequences for different parameters are completely
1370 independent, and are also independent from that used by calls to rand48
1371 with no argument.
1372 For example, consider
1374 print $(( rand48(seed) ))
1376 print $(( rand48() ))
1377 print $(( rand48(seed) ))
1378 Assuming $seed does not exist, it will be initialised by the first
1380 call. In the second call, the default seed is initialised; note, how‐
1381 ever, that because of the properties of rand() there is a correlation
1382 between the seeds used for the two initialisations, so for more secure
1383 uses, you should generate your own 12-byte seed. The third call
1384 returns to the same sequence of random numbers used in the first call,
1385 unaffected by the intervening rand48().
1386
1388 The zsh/newuser module is loaded at boot if it is available, the RCS
1389 option is set, and the PRIVILEGED option is not set (all three are true
1390 by default). This takes place immediately after commands in the global
1391 zshenv file (typically /etc/zshenv), if any, have been executed. If
1392 the module is not available it is silently ignored by the shell; the
1393 module may safely be removed from $MODULE_PATH by the administrator if
1394 it is not required.
1395 On loading, the module tests if any of the start-up files .zshenv,
1397 .zprofile, .zshrc or .zlogin exist in the directory given by the envi‐
1398 ronment variable ZDOTDIR, or the user's home directory if that is not
1399 set. The test is not performed and the module halts processing if the
1400 shell was in an emulation mode (i.e. had been invoked as some other
1401 shell than zsh).
1402 If none of the start-up files were found, the module then looks for the
1404 file newuser first in a sitewide directory, usually the parent direc‐
1405 tory of the site-functions directory, and if that is not found the mod‐
1406 ule searches in a version-specific directory, usually the parent of the
1407 functions directory containing version-specific functions. (These
1408 directories can be configured when zsh is built using the
1409 --enable-site-scriptdir=dir and --enable-scriptdir=dir flags to config‐
1410 ure, respectively; the defaults are prefix/share/zsh and pre‐
1411 fix/share/zsh/$ZSH_VERSION where the default prefix is /usr/local.)
1412 If the file newuser is found, it is then sourced in the same manner as
1414 a start-up file. The file is expected to contain code to install
1415 start-up files for the user, however any valid shell code will be exe‐
1416 cuted.
1417 The zsh/newuser module is then unconditionally unloaded.
1419 Note that it is possible to achieve exactly the same effect as the
1421 zsh/newuser module by adding code to /etc/zshenv. The module exists
1422 simply to allow the shell to make arrangements for new users without
1423 the need for intervention by package maintainers and system administra‐
1424 tors.
1425 The script supplied with the module invokes the shell function
1427 zsh-newuser-install. This may be invoked directly by the user even if
1428 the zsh/newuser module is disabled. Note, however, that if the module
1429 is not installed the function will not be installed either. The func‐
1430 tion is documented in the section User Configuration Functions in zsh‐
1431 contrib(1).
1432
1434 The zsh/parameter module gives access to some of the internal hash
1435 tables used by the shell by defining some special parameters.
1436 options
1438 The keys for this associative array are the names of the options
1439 that can be set and unset using the setopt and unsetopt
1440 builtins. The value of each key is either the string on if the
1441 option is currently set, or the string off if the option is
1442 unset. Setting a key to one of these strings is like setting or
1443 unsetting the option, respectively. Unsetting a key in this
1444 array is like setting it to the value off.
1445 commands
1447 This array gives access to the command hash table. The keys are
1448 the names of external commands, the values are the pathnames of
1449 the files that would be executed when the command would be
1450 invoked. Setting a key in this array defines a new entry in this
1451 table in the same way as with the hash builtin. Unsetting a key
1452 as in `unset "commands[foo]"' removes the entry for the given
1453 key from the command hash table.
1454 functions
1456 This associative array maps names of enabled functions to their
1457 definitions. Setting a key in it is like defining a function
1458 with the name given by the key and the body given by the value.
1459 Unsetting a key removes the definition for the function named by
1460 the key.
1461 dis_functions
1463 Like functions but for disabled functions.
1464 functions_source
1466 This readonly associative array maps names of enabled functions
1467 to the name of the file containing the source of the function.
1468 For an autoloaded function that has already been loaded, or
1470 marked for autoload with an absolute path, or that has had its
1471 path resolved with `functions -r', this is the file found for
1472 autoloading, resolved to an absolute path.
1473 For a function defined within the body of a script or sourced
1475 file, this is the name of that file. In this case, this is the
1476 exact path originally used to that file, which may be a relative
1477 path.
1478 For any other function, including any defined at an interactive
1480 prompt or an autoload function whose path has not yet been
1481 resolved, this is the empty string. However, the hash element
1482 is reported as defined just so long as the function is present:
1483 the keys to this hash are the same as those to $funcions.
1484 dis_functions_source
1486 Like functions_source but for disabled functions.
1487 builtins
1489 This associative array gives information about the builtin com‐
1490 mands currently enabled. The keys are the names of the builtin
1491 commands and the values are either `undefined' for builtin com‐
1492 mands that will automatically be loaded from a module if invoked
1493 or `defined' for builtin commands that are already loaded.
1494 dis_builtins
1496 Like builtins but for disabled builtin commands.
1497 reswords
1499 This array contains the enabled reserved words.
1500 dis_reswords
1502 Like reswords but for disabled reserved words.
1503 patchars
1505 This array contains the enabled pattern characters.
1506 dis_patchars
1508 Like patchars but for disabled pattern characters.
1509 aliases
1511 This maps the names of the regular aliases currently enabled to
1512 their expansions.
1513 dis_aliases
1515 Like aliases but for disabled regular aliases.
1516 galiases
1518 Like aliases, but for global aliases.
1519 dis_galiases
1521 Like galiases but for disabled global aliases.
1522 saliases
1524 Like raliases, but for suffix aliases.
1525 dis_saliases
1527 Like saliases but for disabled suffix aliases.
1528 parameters
1530 The keys in this associative array are the names of the parame‐
1531 ters currently defined. The values are strings describing the
1532 type of the parameter, in the same format used by the t parame‐
1533 ter flag, see zshexpn(1) . Setting or unsetting keys in this
1534 array is not possible.
1535 modules
1537 An associative array giving information about modules. The keys
1538 are the names of the modules loaded, registered to be
1539 autoloaded, or aliased. The value says which state the named
1540 module is in and is one of the strings `loaded', `autoloaded',
1541 or `alias:name', where name is the name the module is aliased
1542 to.
1543 Setting or unsetting keys in this array is not possible.
1545 dirstack
1547 A normal array holding the elements of the directory stack. Note
1548 that the output of the dirs builtin command includes one more
1549 directory, the current working directory.
1550 history
1552 This associative array maps history event numbers to the full
1553 history lines. Although it is presented as an associative
1554 array, the array of all values (${history[@]}) is guaranteed to
1555 be returned in order from most recent to oldest history event,
1556 that is, by decreasing history event number.
1557 historywords
1559 A special array containing the words stored in the history.
1560 These also appear in most to least recent order.
1561 jobdirs
1563 This associative array maps job numbers to the directories from
1564 which the job was started (which may not be the current direc‐
1565 tory of the job).
1566 The keys of the associative arrays are usually valid job num‐
1568 bers, and these are the values output with, for example,
1569 ${(k)jobdirs}. Non-numeric job references may be used when
1570 looking up a value; for example, ${jobdirs[%+]} refers to the
1571 current job.
1572 jobtexts
1574 This associative array maps job numbers to the texts of the com‐
1575 mand lines that were used to start the jobs.
1576 Handling of the keys of the associative array is as described
1578 for jobdirs above.
1579 jobstates
1581 This associative array gives information about the states of the
1582 jobs currently known. The keys are the job numbers and the val‐
1583 ues are strings of the form `job-state:mark:pid=state...'. The
1584 job-state gives the state the whole job is currently in, one of
1585 `running', `suspended', or `done'. The mark is `+' for the cur‐
1586 rent job, `-' for the previous job and empty otherwise. This is
1587 followed by one `:pid=state' for every process in the job. The
1588 pids are, of course, the process IDs and the state describes the
1589 state of that process.
1590 Handling of the keys of the associative array is as described
1592 for jobdirs above.
1593 nameddirs
1595 This associative array maps the names of named directories to
1596 the pathnames they stand for.
1597 userdirs
1599 This associative array maps user names to the pathnames of their
1600 home directories.
1601 usergroups
1603 This associative array maps names of system groups of which the
1604 current user is a member to the corresponding group identifiers.
1605 The contents are the same as the groups output by the id com‐
1606 mand.
1607 funcfiletrace
1609 This array contains the absolute line numbers and corresponding
1610 file names for the point where the current function, sourced
1611 file, or (if EVAL_LINENO is set) eval command was called. The
1612 array is of the same length as funcsourcetrace and functrace,
1613 but differs from funcsourcetrace in that the line and file are
1614 the point of call, not the point of definition, and differs from
1615 functrace in that all values are absolute line numbers in files,
1616 rather than relative to the start of a function, if any.
1617 funcsourcetrace
1619 This array contains the file names and line numbers of the
1620 points where the functions, sourced files, and (if EVAL_LINENO
1621 is set) eval commands currently being executed were defined.
1622 The line number is the line where the `function name' or `name
1623 ()' started. In the case of an autoloaded function the line
1624 number is reported as zero. The format of each element is file‐
1625 name:lineno.
1626 For functions autoloaded from a file in native zsh format, where
1628 only the body of the function occurs in the file, or for files
1629 that have been executed by the source or `.' builtins, the trace
1630 information is shown as filename:0, since the entire file is the
1631 definition. The source file name is resolved to an absolute
1632 path when the function is loaded or the path to it otherwise
1633 resolved.
1634 Most users will be interested in the information in the func‐
1636 filetrace array instead.
1637 funcstack
1639 This array contains the names of the functions, sourced files,
1640 and (if EVAL_LINENO is set) eval commands. currently being exe‐
1641 cuted. The first element is the name of the function using the
1642 parameter.
1643 The standard shell array zsh_eval_context can be used to deter‐
1645 mine the type of shell construct being executed at each depth:
1646 note, however, that is in the opposite order, with the most
1647 recent item last, and it is more detailed, for example including
1648 an entry for toplevel, the main shell code being executed either
1649 interactively or from a script, which is not present in $func‐
1650 stack.
1651 functrace
1653 This array contains the names and line numbers of the callers
1654 corresponding to the functions currently being executed. The
1655 format of each element is name:lineno. Callers are also shown
1656 for sourced files; the caller is the point where the source or
1657 `.' command was executed.
1658
1660 The zsh/pcre module makes some commands available as builtins:
1661 pcre_compile [ -aimxs ] PCRE
1663 Compiles a perl-compatible regular expression.
1664 Option -a will force the pattern to be anchored. Option -i will
1666 compile a case-insensitive pattern. Option -m will compile a
1667 multi-line pattern; that is, ^ and $ will match newlines within
1668 the pattern. Option -x will compile an extended pattern,
1669 wherein whitespace and # comments are ignored. Option -s makes
1670 the dot metacharacter match all characters, including those that
1671 indicate newline.
1672 pcre_study
1674 Studies the previously-compiled PCRE which may result in faster
1675 matching.
1676 pcre_match [ -v var ] [ -a arr ] [ -n offset ] [ -b ] string
1678 Returns successfully if string matches the previously-compiled
1679 PCRE.
1680 Upon successful match, if the expression captures substrings
1682 within parentheses, pcre_match will set the array match to those
1683 substrings, unless the -a option is given, in which case it will
1684 set the array arr. Similarly, the variable MATCH will be set to
1685 the entire matched portion of the string, unless the -v option
1686 is given, in which case the variable var will be set. No vari‐
1687 ables are altered if there is no successful match. A -n option
1688 starts searching for a match from the byte offset position in
1689 string. If the -b option is given, the variable ZPCRE_OP will
1690 be set to an offset pair string, representing the byte offset
1691 positions of the entire matched portion within the string. For
1692 example, a ZPCRE_OP set to "32 45" indicates that the matched
1693 portion began on byte offset 32 and ended on byte offset 44.
1694 Here, byte offset position 45 is the position directly after the
1695 matched portion. Keep in mind that the byte position isn't nec‐
1696 essarily the same as the character position when UTF-8 charac‐
1697 ters are involved. Consequently, the byte offset positions are
1698 only to be relied on in the context of using them for subsequent
1699 searches on string, using an offset position as an argument to
1700 the -n option. This is mostly used to implement the "find all
1701 non-overlapping matches" functionality.
1702 A simple example of "find all non-overlapping matches":
1704 string="The following zip codes: 78884 90210 99513"
1706 pcre_compile -m "\d{5}"
1707 accum=()
1708 pcre_match -b -- $string
1709 while [[ $? -eq 0 ]] do
1710 b=($=ZPCRE_OP)
1711 accum+=$MATCH
1712 pcre_match -b -n $b[2] -- $string
1713 done
1714 print -l $accum
1715 The zsh/pcre module makes available the following test condition:
1717 expr -pcre-match pcre
1719 Matches a string against a perl-compatible regular expression.
1720 For example,
1722 [[ "$text" -pcre-match ^d+$ ]] &&
1724 print text variable contains only "d's".
1725 If the REMATCH_PCRE option is set, the =~ operator is equivalent
1727 to -pcre-match, and the NO_CASE_MATCH option may be used. Note
1728 that NO_CASE_MATCH never applies to the pcre_match builtin,
1729 instead use the -i switch of pcre_compile.
1730
1732 The zsh/param/private module is used to create parameters whose scope
1733 is limited to the current function body, and not to other functions
1734 called by the current function.
1735 This module provides a single autoloaded builtin:
1737 private [ {+|-}AHUahlprtux ] [ {+|-}EFLRZi [ n ] ] [ name[=value] ... ]
1739 The private builtin accepts all the same options and arguments
1740 as local (zshbuiltins(1)) except for the `-T' option. Tied
1741 parameters may not be made private.
1742 If used at the top level (outside a function scope), private
1744 creates a normal parameter in the same manner as declare or
1745 typeset. A warning about this is printed if WARN_CREATE_GLOBAL
1746 is set (zshoptions(1)). Used inside a function scope, private
1747 creates a local parameter similar to one declared with local,
1748 except having special properties noted below.
1749 Special parameters which expose or manipulate internal shell
1751 state, such as ARGC, argv, COLUMNS, LINES, UID, EUID, IFS,
1752 PROMPT, RANDOM, SECONDS, etc., cannot be made private unless the
1753 `-h' option is used to hide the special meaning of the parame‐
1754 ter. This may change in the future.
1755 As with other typeset equivalents, private is both a builtin and a
1757 reserved word, so arrays may be assigned with parenthesized word list
1758 name=(value...) syntax. However, the reserved word `private' is not
1759 available until zsh/param/private is loaded, so care must be taken with
1760 order of execution and parsing for function definitions which use pri‐
1761 vate. To compensate for this, the module also adds the option `-P' to
1762 the `local' builtin to declare private parameters.
1763 For example, this construction fails if zsh/param/private has not yet
1765 been loaded when `bad_declaration' is defined:
1766 bad_declaration() {
1767 zmodload zsh/param/private
1768 private array=( one two three )
1769 }
1770 This construction works because local is already a keyword, and the
1772 module is loaded before the statement is executed:
1773 good_declaration() {
1774 zmodload zsh/param/private
1775 local -P array=( one two three )
1776 }
1777 The following is usable in scripts but may have trouble with autoload:
1779 zmodload zsh/param/private
1780 iffy_declaration() {
1781 private array=( one two three )
1782 }
1783 The private builtin may always be used with scalar assignments and for
1785 declarations without assignments.
1786 Parameters declared with private have the following properties:
1788 · Within the function body where it is declared, the parameter
1790 behaves as a local, except as noted above for tied or special
1791 parameters.
1792 · The type of a parameter declared private cannot be changed in
1794 the scope where it was declared, even if the parameter is unset.
1795 Thus an array cannot be assigned to a private scalar, etc.
1796 · Within any other function called by the declaring function, the
1798 private parameter does NOT hide other parameters of the same
1799 name, so for example a global parameter of the same name is vis‐
1800 ible and may be assigned or unset. This includes calls to
1801 anonymous functions, although that may also change in the
1802 future.
1803 · An exported private remains in the environment of inner scopes
1805 but appears unset for the current shell in those scopes. Gener‐
1806 ally, exporting private parameters should be avoided.
1807 Note that this differs from the static scope defined by compiled lan‐
1809 guages derived from C, in that the a new call to the same function cre‐
1810 ates a new scope, i.e., the parameter is still associated with the call
1811 stack rather than with the function definition. It differs from ksh
1812 `typeset -S' because the syntax used to define the function has no
1813 bearing on whether the parameter scope is respected.
1814
1816 The zsh/regex module makes available the following test condition:
1817 expr -regex-match regex
1819 Matches a string against a POSIX extended regular expression.
1820 On successful match, matched portion of the string will normally
1821 be placed in the MATCH variable. If there are any capturing
1822 parentheses within the regex, then the match array variable will
1823 contain those. If the match is not successful, then the vari‐
1824 ables will not be altered.
1825 For example,
1827 [[ alphabetical -regex-match ^a([^a]+)a([^a]+)a ]] &&
1829 print -l $MATCH X $match
1830 If the option REMATCH_PCRE is not set, then the =~ operator will
1832 automatically load this module as needed and will invoke the
1833 -regex-match operator.
1834 If BASH_REMATCH is set, then the array BASH_REMATCH will be set
1836 instead of MATCH and match.
1837
1839 The zsh/sched module makes available one builtin command and one param‐
1840 eter.
1841 sched [-o] [+]hh:mm[:ss] command ...
1843 sched [-o] [+]seconds command ...
1844 sched [ -item ]
1845 Make an entry in the scheduled list of commands to execute. The
1846 time may be specified in either absolute or relative time, and
1847 either as hours, minutes and (optionally) seconds separated by a
1848 colon, or seconds alone. An absolute number of seconds indi‐
1849 cates the time since the epoch (1970/01/01 00:00); this is use‐
1850 ful in combination with the features in the zsh/datetime module,
1851 see the zsh/datetime module entry in zshmodules(1).
1852 With no arguments, prints the list of scheduled commands. If
1854 the scheduled command has the -o flag set, this is shown at the
1855 start of the command.
1856 With the argument `-item', removes the given item from the list.
1858 The numbering of the list is continuous and entries are in time
1859 order, so the numbering can change when entries are added or
1860 deleted.
1861 Commands are executed either immediately before a prompt, or
1863 while the shell's line editor is waiting for input. In the lat‐
1864 ter case it is useful to be able to produce output that does not
1865 interfere with the line being edited. Providing the option -o
1866 causes the shell to clear the command line before the event and
1867 redraw it afterwards. This should be used with any scheduled
1868 event that produces visible output to the terminal; it is not
1869 needed, for example, with output that updates a terminal emula‐
1870 tor's title bar.
1871 To effect changes to the editor buffer when an event executes,
1873 use the `zle' command with no arguments to test whether the edi‐
1874 tor is active, and if it is, then use `zle widget' to access the
1875 editor via the named widget.
1876 The sched builtin is not made available by default when the
1878 shell starts in a mode emulating another shell. It can be made
1879 available with the command `zmodload -F zsh/sched b:sched'.
1880 zsh_scheduled_events
1882 A readonly array corresponding to the events scheduled by the
1883 sched builtin. The indices of the array correspond to the num‐
1884 bers shown when sched is run with no arguments (provided that
1885 the KSH_ARRAYS option is not set). The value of the array con‐
1886 sists of the scheduled time in seconds since the epoch (see the
1887 section `The zsh/datetime Module' for facilities for using this
1888 number), followed by a colon, followed by any options (which may
1889 be empty but will be preceded by a `-' otherwise), followed by a
1890 colon, followed by the command to be executed.
1891 The sched builtin should be used for manipulating the events.
1893 Note that this will have an immediate effect on the contents of
1894 the array, so that indices may become invalid.
1895
1897 The zsh/net/socket module makes available one builtin command:
1898 zsocket [ -altv ] [ -d fd ] [ args ]
1900 zsocket is implemented as a builtin to allow full use of shell
1901 command line editing, file I/O, and job control mechanisms.
1902 Outbound Connections
1904 zsocket [ -v ] [ -d fd ] filename
1905 Open a new Unix domain connection to filename. The shell param‐
1906 eter REPLY will be set to the file descriptor associated with
1907 that connection. Currently, only stream connections are sup‐
1908 ported.
1909 If -d is specified, its argument will be taken as the target
1911 file descriptor for the connection.
1912 In order to elicit more verbose output, use -v.
1914 File descriptors can be closed with normal shell syntax when no
1916 longer needed, for example:
1917 exec {REPLY}>&-
1919 Inbound Connections
1921 zsocket -l [ -v ] [ -d fd ] filename
1922 zsocket -l will open a socket listening on filename. The shell
1923 parameter REPLY will be set to the file descriptor associated
1924 with that listener.
1925 If -d is specified, its argument will be taken as the target
1927 file descriptor for the connection.
1928 In order to elicit more verbose output, use -v.
1930 zsocket -a [ -tv ] [ -d targetfd ] listenfd
1932 zsocket -a will accept an incoming connection to the socket
1933 associated with listenfd. The shell parameter REPLY will be set
1934 to the file descriptor associated with the inbound connection.
1935 If -d is specified, its argument will be taken as the target
1937 file descriptor for the connection.
1938 If -t is specified, zsocket will return if no incoming connec‐
1940 tion is pending. Otherwise it will wait for one.
1941 In order to elicit more verbose output, use -v.
1943
1945 The zsh/stat module makes available one builtin command under two pos‐
1946 sible names:
1947 zstat [ -gnNolLtTrs ] [ -f fd ] [ -H hash ] [ -A array ] [ -F fmt ]
1949 [ +element ] [ file ... ]
1950 stat ...
1951 The command acts as a front end to the stat system call (see
1952 stat(2)). The same command is provided with two names; as the
1953 name stat is often used by an external command it is recommended
1954 that only the zstat form of the command is used. This can be
1955 arranged by loading the module with the command `zmodload -F
1956 zsh/stat b:zstat'.
1957 If the stat call fails, the appropriate system error message
1959 printed and status 1 is returned. The fields of struct stat
1960 give information about the files provided as arguments to the
1961 command. In addition to those available from the stat call, an
1962 extra element `link' is provided. These elements are:
1963 device The number of the device on which the file resides.
1965 inode The unique number of the file on this device (`inode'
1967 number).
1968 mode The mode of the file; that is, the file's type and access
1970 permissions. With the -s option, this will be returned
1971 as a string corresponding to the first column in the dis‐
1972 play of the ls -l command.
1973 nlink The number of hard links to the file.
1975 uid The user ID of the owner of the file. With the -s
1977 option, this is displayed as a user name.
1978 gid The group ID of the file. With the -s option, this is
1980 displayed as a group name.
1981 rdev The raw device number. This is only useful for special
1983 devices.
1984 size The size of the file in bytes.
1986 atime
1988 mtime
1989 ctime The last access, modification and inode change times of
1990 the file, respectively, as the number of seconds since
1991 midnight GMT on 1st January, 1970. With the -s option,
1992 these are printed as strings for the local time zone; the
1993 format can be altered with the -F option, and with the -g
1994 option the times are in GMT.
1995 blksize
1997 The number of bytes in one allocation block on the device
1998 on which the file resides.
1999 block The number of disk blocks used by the file.
2001 link If the file is a link and the -L option is in effect,
2003 this contains the name of the file linked to, otherwise
2004 it is empty. Note that if this element is selected
2005 (``zstat +link'') then the -L option is automatically
2006 used.
2007 A particular element may be selected by including its name pre‐
2009 ceded by a `+' in the option list; only one element is allowed.
2010 The element may be shortened to any unique set of leading char‐
2011 acters. Otherwise, all elements will be shown for all files.
2012 Options:
2014 -A array
2016 Instead of displaying the results on standard output,
2017 assign them to an array, one struct stat element per
2018 array element for each file in order. In this case nei‐
2019 ther the name of the element nor the name of the files
2020 appears in array unless the -t or -n options were given,
2021 respectively. If -t is given, the element name appears
2022 as a prefix to the appropriate array element; if -n is
2023 given, the file name appears as a separate array element
2024 preceding all the others. Other formatting options are
2025 respected.
2026 -H hash
2028 Similar to -A, but instead assign the values to hash.
2029 The keys are the elements listed above. If the -n option
2030 is provided then the name of the file is included in the
2031 hash with key name.
2032 -f fd Use the file on file descriptor fd instead of named
2034 files; no list of file names is allowed in this case.
2035 -F fmt Supplies a strftime (see strftime(3)) string for the for‐
2037 matting of the time elements. The -s option is implied.
2038 -g Show the time elements in the GMT time zone. The -s
2040 option is implied.
2041 -l List the names of the type elements (to standard output
2043 or an array as appropriate) and return immediately; argu‐
2044 ments, and options other than -A, are ignored.
2045 -L Perform an lstat (see lstat(2)) rather than a stat system
2047 call. In this case, if the file is a link, information
2048 about the link itself rather than the target file is
2049 returned. This option is required to make the link ele‐
2050 ment useful. It's important to note that this is the
2051 exact opposite from ls(1), etc.
2052 -n Always show the names of files. Usually these are only
2054 shown when output is to standard output and there is more
2055 than one file in the list.
2056 -N Never show the names of files.
2058 -o If a raw file mode is printed, show it in octal, which is
2060 more useful for human consumption than the default of
2061 decimal. A leading zero will be printed in this case.
2062 Note that this does not affect whether a raw or formatted
2063 file mode is shown, which is controlled by the -r and -s
2064 options, nor whether a mode is shown at all.
2065 -r Print raw data (the default format) alongside string data
2067 (the -s format); the string data appears in parentheses
2068 after the raw data.
2069 -s Print mode, uid, gid and the three time elements as
2071 strings instead of numbers. In each case the format is
2072 like that of ls -l.
2073 -t Always show the type names for the elements of struct
2075 stat. Usually these are only shown when output is to
2076 standard output and no individual element has been
2077 selected.
2078 -T Never show the type names of the struct stat elements.
2080
2082 The zsh/system module makes available various builtin commands and
2083 parameters.
2084 Builtins
2086 syserror [ -e errvar ] [ -p prefix ] [ errno | errname ]
2087 This command prints out the error message associated with errno,
2088 a system error number, followed by a newline to standard error.
2089 Instead of the error number, a name errname, for example ENOENT,
2091 may be used. The set of names is the same as the contents of
2092 the array errnos, see below.
2093 If the string prefix is given, it is printed in front of the
2095 error message, with no intervening space.
2096 If errvar is supplied, the entire message, without a newline, is
2098 assigned to the parameter names errvar and nothing is output.
2099 A return status of 0 indicates the message was successfully
2101 printed (although it may not be useful if the error number was
2102 out of the system's range), a return status of 1 indicates an
2103 error in the parameters, and a return status of 2 indicates the
2104 error name was not recognised (no message is printed for this).
2105 sysopen [ -arw ] [ -m permissions ] [ -o options ]
2108 -u fd file
2109 This command opens a file. The -r, -w and -a flags indicate
2110 whether the file should be opened for reading, writing and
2111 appending, respectively. The -m option allows the initial per‐
2112 missions to use when creating a file to be specified in octal
2113 form. The file descriptor is specified with -u. Either an
2114 explicit file descriptor in the range 0 to 9 can be specified or
2115 a variable name can be given to which the file descriptor number
2116 will be assigned.
2117 The -o option allows various system specific options to be spec‐
2119 ified as a comma-separated list. The following is a list of pos‐
2120 sible options. Note that, depending on the system, some may not
2121 be available.
2122 cloexec
2123 mark file to be closed when other programs are executed
2124 create
2126 creat create file if it does not exist
2127 excl create file, error if it already exists
2129 noatime
2131 suppress updating of the file atime
2132 nofollow
2134 fail if file is a symbolic link
2135 sync request that writes wait until data has been physically
2137 written
2138 truncate
2140 trunc truncate file to size 0
2141 To close the file, use one of the following:
2143 exec {fd}<&-
2145 exec {fd}>&-
2146 sysread [ -c countvar ] [ -i infd ] [ -o outfd ]
2149 [ -s bufsize ] [ -t timeout ] [ param ]
2150 Perform a single system read from file descriptor infd, or zero
2151 if that is not given. The result of the read is stored in param
2152 or REPLY if that is not given. If countvar is given, the number
2153 of bytes read is assigned to the parameter named by countvar.
2154 The maximum number of bytes read is bufsize or 8192 if that is
2156 not given, however the command returns as soon as any number of
2157 bytes was successfully read.
2158 If timeout is given, it specifies a timeout in seconds, which
2160 may be zero to poll the file descriptor. This is handled by the
2161 poll system call if available, otherwise the select system call
2162 if available.
2163 If outfd is given, an attempt is made to write all the bytes
2165 just read to the file descriptor outfd. If this fails, because
2166 of a system error other than EINTR or because of an internal zsh
2167 error during an interrupt, the bytes read but not written are
2168 stored in the parameter named by param if supplied (no default
2169 is used in this case), and the number of bytes read but not
2170 written is stored in the parameter named by countvar if that is
2171 supplied. If it was successful, countvar contains the full num‐
2172 ber of bytes transferred, as usual, and param is not set.
2173 The error EINTR (interrupted system call) is handled internally
2175 so that shell interrupts are transparent to the caller. Any
2176 other error causes a return.
2177 The possible return statuses are
2179 0 At least one byte of data was successfully read and, if
2180 appropriate, written.
2181 1 There was an error in the parameters to the command.
2183 This is the only error for which a message is printed to
2184 standard error.
2185 2 There was an error on the read, or on polling the input
2187 file descriptor for a timeout. The parameter ERRNO gives
2188 the error.
2189 3 Data were successfully read, but there was an error writ‐
2191 ing them to outfd. The parameter ERRNO gives the error.
2192 4 The attempt to read timed out. Note this does not set
2194 ERRNO as this is not a system error.
2195 5 No system error occurred, but zero bytes were read. This
2197 usually indicates end of file. The parameters are set
2198 according to the usual rules; no write to outfd is
2199 attempted.
2200 sysseek [ -u fd ] [ -w start|end|current ] offset
2202 The current file position at which future reads and writes will
2203 take place is adjusted to the specified byte offset. The offset
2204 is evaluated as a math expression. The -u option allows the file
2205 descriptor to be specified. By default the offset is specified
2206 relative to the start or the file but, with the -w option, it is
2207 possible to specify that the offset should be relative to the
2208 current position or the end of the file.
2209 syswrite [ -c countvar ] [ -o outfd ] data
2211 The data (a single string of bytes) are written to the file
2212 descriptor outfd, or 1 if that is not given, using the write
2213 system call. Multiple write operations may be used if the first
2214 does not write all the data.
2215 If countvar is given, the number of byte written is stored in
2217 the parameter named by countvar; this may not be the full length
2218 of data if an error occurred.
2219 The error EINTR (interrupted system call) is handled internally
2221 by retrying; otherwise an error causes the command to return.
2222 For example, if the file descriptor is set to non-blocking out‐
2223 put, an error EAGAIN (on some systems, EWOULDBLOCK) may result
2224 in the command returning early.
2225 The return status may be 0 for success, 1 for an error in the
2227 parameters to the command, or 2 for an error on the write; no
2228 error message is printed in the last case, but the parameter
2229 ERRNO will reflect the error that occurred.
2230 zsystem flock [ -t timeout ] [ -f var ] [-er] file
2232 zsystem flock -u fd_expr
2233 The builtin zsystem's subcommand flock performs advisory file
2234 locking (via the fcntl(2) system call) over the entire contents
2235 of the given file. This form of locking requires the processes
2236 accessing the file to cooperate; its most obvious use is between
2237 two instances of the shell itself.
2238 In the first form the named file, which must already exist, is
2240 locked by opening a file descriptor to the file and applying a
2241 lock to the file descriptor. The lock terminates when the shell
2242 process that created the lock exits; it is therefore often con‐
2243 venient to create file locks within subshells, since the lock is
2244 automatically released when the subshell exits. Status 0 is
2245 returned if the lock succeeds, else status 1.
2246 In the second form the file descriptor given by the arithmetic
2248 expression fd_expr is closed, releasing a lock. The file
2249 descriptor can be queried by using the `-f var' form during the
2250 lock; on a successful lock, the shell variable var is set to the
2251 file descriptor used for locking. The lock will be released if
2252 the file descriptor is closed by any other means, for example
2253 using `exec {var}>&-'; however, the form described here performs
2254 a safety check that the file descriptor is in use for file lock‐
2255 ing.
2256 By default the shell waits indefinitely for the lock to succeed.
2258 The option -t timeout specifies a timeout for the lock in sec‐
2259 onds; currently this must be an integer. The shell will attempt
2260 to lock the file once a second during this period. If the
2261 attempt times out, status 2 is returned.
2262 If the option -e is given, the file descriptor for the lock is
2264 preserved when the shell uses exec to start a new process; oth‐
2265 erwise it is closed at that point and the lock released.
2266 If the option -r is given, the lock is only for reading, other‐
2268 wise it is for reading and writing. The file descriptor is
2269 opened accordingly.
2270 zsystem supports subcommand
2272 The builtin zsystem's subcommand supports tests whether a given
2273 subcommand is supported. It returns status 0 if so, else status
2274 1. It operates silently unless there was a syntax error (i.e.
2275 the wrong number of arguments), in which case status 255 is
2276 returned. Status 1 can indicate one of two things: subcommand
2277 is known but not supported by the current operating system, or
2278 subcommand is not known (possibly because this is an older ver‐
2279 sion of the shell before it was implemented).
2280 Math Functions
2282 systell(fd)
2283 The systell math function returns the current file position for
2284 the file descriptor passed as an argument.
2285 Parameters
2287 errnos A readonly array of the names of errors defined on the system.
2288 These are typically macros defined in C by including the system
2289 header file errno.h. The index of each name (assuming the
2290 option KSH_ARRAYS is unset) corresponds to the error number.
2291 Error numbers num before the last known error which have no name
2292 are given the name Enum in the array.
2293 Note that aliases for errors are not handled; only the canonical
2295 name is used.
2296 sysparams
2298 A readonly associative array. The keys are:
2299 pid Returns the process ID of the current process, even in
2301 subshells. Compare $$, which returns the process ID of
2302 the main shell process.
2303 ppid Returns the process ID of the parent of the current
2305 process, even in subshells. Compare $PPID, which returns
2306 the process ID of the parent of the main shell process.
2307
2309 The zsh/net/tcp module makes available one builtin command:
2310 ztcp [ -acflLtv ] [ -d fd ] [ args ]
2312 ztcp is implemented as a builtin to allow full use of shell com‐
2313 mand line editing, file I/O, and job control mechanisms.
2314 If ztcp is run with no options, it will output the contents of
2316 its session table.
2317 If it is run with only the option -L, it will output the con‐
2319 tents of the session table in a format suitable for automatic
2320 parsing. The option is ignored if given with a command to open
2321 or close a session. The output consists of a set of lines, one
2322 per session, each containing the following elements separated by
2323 spaces:
2324 File descriptor
2326 The file descriptor in use for the connection. For nor‐
2327 mal inbound (I) and outbound (O) connections this may be
2328 read and written by the usual shell mechanisms. However,
2329 it should only be close with `ztcp -c'.
2330 Connection type
2332 A letter indicating how the session was created:
2333 Z A session created with the zftp command.
2335 L A connection opened for listening with `ztcp -l'.
2337 I An inbound connection accepted with `ztcp -a'.
2339 O An outbound connection created with `ztcp host
2341 ...'.
2342 The local host
2344 This is usually set to an all-zero IP address as the
2345 address of the localhost is irrelevant.
2346 The local port
2348 This is likely to be zero unless the connection is for
2349 listening.
2350 The remote host
2352 This is the fully qualified domain name of the peer, if
2353 available, else an IP address. It is an all-zero IP
2354 address for a session opened for listening.
2355 The remote port
2357 This is zero for a connection opened for listening.
2358 Outbound Connections
2360 ztcp [ -v ] [ -d fd ] host [ port ]
2361 Open a new TCP connection to host. If the port is omitted, it
2362 will default to port 23. The connection will be added to the
2363 session table and the shell parameter REPLY will be set to the
2364 file descriptor associated with that connection.
2365 If -d is specified, its argument will be taken as the target
2367 file descriptor for the connection.
2368 In order to elicit more verbose output, use -v.
2370 Inbound Connections
2372 ztcp -l [ -v ] [ -d fd ] port
2373 ztcp -l will open a socket listening on TCP port. The socket
2374 will be added to the session table and the shell parameter REPLY
2375 will be set to the file descriptor associated with that lis‐
2376 tener.
2377 If -d is specified, its argument will be taken as the target
2379 file descriptor for the connection.
2380 In order to elicit more verbose output, use -v.
2382 ztcp -a [ -tv ] [ -d targetfd ] listenfd
2384 ztcp -a will accept an incoming connection to the port associ‐
2385 ated with listenfd. The connection will be added to the session
2386 table and the shell parameter REPLY will be set to the file
2387 descriptor associated with the inbound connection.
2388 If -d is specified, its argument will be taken as the target
2390 file descriptor for the connection.
2391 If -t is specified, ztcp will return if no incoming connection
2393 is pending. Otherwise it will wait for one.
2394 In order to elicit more verbose output, use -v.
2396 Closing Connections
2398 ztcp -cf [ -v ] [ fd ]
2399 ztcp -c [ -v ] [ fd ]
2400 ztcp -c will close the socket associated with fd. The socket
2401 will be removed from the session table. If fd is not specified,
2402 ztcp will close everything in the session table.
2403 Normally, sockets registered by zftp (see zshmodules(1) ) cannot
2405 be closed this way. In order to force such a socket closed, use
2406 -f.
2407 In order to elicit more verbose output, use -v.
2409 Example
2411 Here is how to create a TCP connection between two instances of zsh.
2412 We need to pick an unassigned port; here we use the randomly chosen
2413 5123.
2414 On host1,
2416 zmodload zsh/net/tcp
2417 ztcp -l 5123
2418 listenfd=$REPLY
2419 ztcp -a $listenfd
2420 fd=$REPLY
2421 The second from last command blocks until there is an incoming connec‐
2422 tion.
2423 Now create a connection from host2 (which may, of course, be the same
2425 machine):
2426 zmodload zsh/net/tcp
2427 ztcp host1 5123
2428 fd=$REPLY
2429 Now on each host, $fd contains a file descriptor for talking to the
2431 other. For example, on host1:
2432 print This is a message >&$fd
2433 and on host2:
2434 read -r line <&$fd; print -r - $line
2435 prints `This is a message'.
2436 To tidy up, on host1:
2438 ztcp -c $listenfd
2439 ztcp -c $fd
2440 and on host2
2441 ztcp -c $fd
2442
2444 The zsh/termcap module makes available one builtin command:
2445 echotc cap [ arg ... ]
2447 Output the termcap value corresponding to the capability cap,
2448 with optional arguments.
2449 The zsh/termcap module makes available one parameter:
2451 termcap
2453 An associative array that maps termcap capability codes to their
2454 values.
2455
2457 The zsh/terminfo module makes available one builtin command:
2458 echoti cap [ arg ]
2460 Output the terminfo value corresponding to the capability cap,
2461 instantiated with arg if applicable.
2462 The zsh/terminfo module makes available one parameter:
2464 terminfo
2466 An associative array that maps terminfo capability names to
2467 their values.
2468
2470 The zsh/zftp module makes available one builtin command:
2471 zftp subcommand [ args ]
2473 The zsh/zftp module is a client for FTP (file transfer proto‐
2474 col). It is implemented as a builtin to allow full use of shell
2475 command line editing, file I/O, and job control mechanisms.
2476 Often, users will access it via shell functions providing a more
2477 powerful interface; a set is provided with the zsh distribution
2478 and is described in zshzftpsys(1). However, the zftp command is
2479 entirely usable in its own right.
2480 All commands consist of the command name zftp followed by the
2482 name of a subcommand. These are listed below. The return sta‐
2483 tus of each subcommand is supposed to reflect the success or
2484 failure of the remote operation. See a description of the vari‐
2485 able ZFTP_VERBOSE for more information on how responses from the
2486 server may be printed.
2487 Subcommands
2489 open host[:port] [ user [ password [ account ] ] ]
2490 Open a new FTP session to host, which may be the name of a
2491 TCP/IP connected host or an IP number in the standard dot nota‐
2492 tion. If the argument is in the form host:port, open a connec‐
2493 tion to TCP port port instead of the standard FTP port 21. This
2494 may be the name of a TCP service or a number: see the descrip‐
2495 tion of ZFTP_PORT below for more information.
2496 If IPv6 addresses in colon format are used, the host should be
2498 surrounded by quoted square brackets to distinguish it from the
2499 port, for example '[fe80::203:baff:fe02:8b56]'. For consistency
2500 this is allowed with all forms of host.
2501 Remaining arguments are passed to the login subcommand. Note
2503 that if no arguments beyond host are supplied, open will not
2504 automatically call login. If no arguments at all are supplied,
2505 open will use the parameters set by the params subcommand.
2506 After a successful open, the shell variables ZFTP_HOST,
2508 ZFTP_PORT, ZFTP_IP and ZFTP_SYSTEM are available; see `Vari‐
2509 ables' below.
2510 login [ name [ password [ account ] ] ]
2512 user [ name [ password [ account ] ] ]
2513 Login the user name with parameters password and account. Any
2514 of the parameters can be omitted, and will be read from standard
2515 input if needed (name is always needed). If standard input is a
2516 terminal, a prompt for each one will be printed on standard
2517 error and password will not be echoed. If any of the parameters
2518 are not used, a warning message is printed.
2519 After a successful login, the shell variables ZFTP_USER,
2521 ZFTP_ACCOUNT and ZFTP_PWD are available; see `Variables' below.
2522 This command may be re-issued when a user is already logged in,
2524 and the server will first be reinitialized for a new user.
2525 params [ host [ user [ password [ account ] ] ] ]
2527 params -
2528 Store the given parameters for a later open command with no
2529 arguments. Only those given on the command line will be remem‐
2530 bered. If no arguments are given, the parameters currently set
2531 are printed, although the password will appear as a line of
2532 stars; the return status is one if no parameters were set, zero
2533 otherwise.
2534 Any of the parameters may be specified as a `?', which may need
2536 to be quoted to protect it from shell expansion. In this case,
2537 the appropriate parameter will be read from stdin as with the
2538 login subcommand, including special handling of password. If
2539 the `?' is followed by a string, that is used as the prompt for
2540 reading the parameter instead of the default message (any neces‐
2541 sary punctuation and whitespace should be included at the end of
2542 the prompt). The first letter of the parameter (only) may be
2543 quoted with a `\'; hence an argument "\\$word" guarantees that
2544 the string from the shell parameter $word will be treated liter‐
2545 ally, whether or not it begins with a `?'.
2546 If instead a single `-' is given, the existing parameters, if
2548 any, are deleted. In that case, calling open with no arguments
2549 will cause an error.
2550 The list of parameters is not deleted after a close, however it
2552 will be deleted if the zsh/zftp module is unloaded.
2553 For example,
2555 zftp params ftp.elsewhere.xx juser '?Password for juser: '
2557 will store the host ftp.elsewhere.xx and the user juser and then
2559 prompt the user for the corresponding password with the given
2560 prompt.
2561 test Test the connection; if the server has reported that it has
2563 closed the connection (maybe due to a timeout), return status 2;
2564 if no connection was open anyway, return status 1; else return
2565 status 0. The test subcommand is silent, apart from messages
2566 printed by the $ZFTP_VERBOSE mechanism, or error messages if the
2567 connection closes. There is no network overhead for this test.
2568 The test is only supported on systems with either the select(2)
2570 or poll(2) system calls; otherwise the message `not supported on
2571 this system' is printed instead.
2572 The test subcommand will automatically be called at the start of
2574 any other subcommand for the current session when a connection
2575 is open.
2576 cd directory
2578 Change the remote directory to directory. Also alters the shell
2579 variable ZFTP_PWD.
2580 cdup Change the remote directory to the one higher in the directory
2582 tree. Note that cd .. will also work correctly on non-UNIX sys‐
2583 tems.
2584 dir [ arg ... ]
2586 Give a (verbose) listing of the remote directory. The args are
2587 passed directly to the server. The command's behaviour is imple‐
2588 mentation dependent, but a UNIX server will typically interpret
2589 args as arguments to the ls command and with no arguments return
2590 the result of `ls -l'. The directory is listed to standard out‐
2591 put.
2592 ls [ arg ... ]
2594 Give a (short) listing of the remote directory. With no arg,
2595 produces a raw list of the files in the directory, one per line.
2596 Otherwise, up to vagaries of the server implementation, behaves
2597 similar to dir.
2598 type [ type ]
2600 Change the type for the transfer to type, or print the current
2601 type if type is absent. The allowed values are `A' (ASCII), `I'
2602 (Image, i.e. binary), or `B' (a synonym for `I').
2603 The FTP default for a transfer is ASCII. However, if zftp finds
2605 that the remote host is a UNIX machine with 8-bit byes, it will
2606 automatically switch to using binary for file transfers upon
2607 open. This can subsequently be overridden.
2608 The transfer type is only passed to the remote host when a data
2610 connection is established; this command involves no network
2611 overhead.
2612 ascii The same as type A.
2614 binary The same as type I.
2616 mode [ S | B ]
2618 Set the mode type to stream (S) or block (B). Stream mode is
2619 the default; block mode is not widely supported.
2620 remote file ...
2622 local [ file ... ]
2623 Print the size and last modification time of the remote or local
2624 files. If there is more than one item on the list, the name of
2625 the file is printed first. The first number is the file size,
2626 the second is the last modification time of the file in the for‐
2627 mat CCYYMMDDhhmmSS consisting of year, month, date, hour, min‐
2628 utes and seconds in GMT. Note that this format, including the
2629 length, is guaranteed, so that time strings can be directly com‐
2630 pared via the [[ builtin's < and > operators, even if they are
2631 too long to be represented as integers.
2632 Not all servers support the commands for retrieving this infor‐
2634 mation. In that case, the remote command will print nothing and
2635 return status 2, compared with status 1 for a file not found.
2636 The local command (but not remote) may be used with no argu‐
2638 ments, in which case the information comes from examining file
2639 descriptor zero. This is the same file as seen by a put command
2640 with no further redirection.
2641 get file ...
2643 Retrieve all files from the server, concatenating them and send‐
2644 ing them to standard output.
2645 put file ...
2647 For each file, read a file from standard input and send that to
2648 the remote host with the given name.
2649 append file ...
2651 As put, but if the remote file already exists, data is appended
2652 to it instead of overwriting it.
2653 getat file point
2655 putat file point
2656 appendat file point
2657 Versions of get, put and append which will start the transfer at
2658 the given point in the remote file. This is useful for append‐
2659 ing to an incomplete local file. However, note that this abil‐
2660 ity is not universally supported by servers (and is not quite
2661 the behaviour specified by the standard).
2662 delete file ...
2664 Delete the list of files on the server.
2665 mkdir directory
2667 Create a new directory directory on the server.
2668 rmdir directory
2670 Delete the directory directory on the server.
2671 rename old-name new-name
2673 Rename file old-name to new-name on the server.
2674 site arg ...
2676 Send a host-specific command to the server. You will probably
2677 only need this if instructed by the server to use it.
2678 quote arg ...
2680 Send the raw FTP command sequence to the server. You should be
2681 familiar with the FTP command set as defined in RFC959 before
2682 doing this. Useful commands may include STAT and HELP. Note
2683 also the mechanism for returning messages as described for the
2684 variable ZFTP_VERBOSE below, in particular that all messages
2685 from the control connection are sent to standard error.
2686 close
2688 quit Close the current data connection. This unsets the shell param‐
2689 eters ZFTP_HOST, ZFTP_PORT, ZFTP_IP, ZFTP_SYSTEM, ZFTP_USER,
2690 ZFTP_ACCOUNT, ZFTP_PWD, ZFTP_TYPE and ZFTP_MODE.
2691 session [ sessname ]
2693 Allows multiple FTP sessions to be used at once. The name of
2694 the session is an arbitrary string of characters; the default
2695 session is called `default'. If this command is called without
2696 an argument, it will list all the current sessions; with an
2697 argument, it will either switch to the existing session called
2698 sessname, or create a new session of that name.
2699 Each session remembers the status of the connection, the set of
2701 connection-specific shell parameters (the same set as are unset
2702 when a connection closes, as given in the description of close),
2703 and any user parameters specified with the params subcommand.
2704 Changing to a previous session restores those values; changing
2705 to a new session initialises them in the same way as if zftp had
2706 just been loaded. The name of the current session is given by
2707 the parameter ZFTP_SESSION.
2708 rmsession [ sessname ]
2710 Delete a session; if a name is not given, the current session is
2711 deleted. If the current session is deleted, the earliest exist‐
2712 ing session becomes the new current session, otherwise the cur‐
2713 rent session is not changed. If the session being deleted is
2714 the only one, a new session called `default' is created and
2715 becomes the current session; note that this is a new session
2716 even if the session being deleted is also called `default'. It
2717 is recommended that sessions not be deleted while background
2718 commands which use zftp are still active.
2719 Parameters
2721 The following shell parameters are used by zftp. Currently none of
2722 them are special.
2723 ZFTP_TMOUT
2725 Integer. The time in seconds to wait for a network operation to
2726 complete before returning an error. If this is not set when the
2727 module is loaded, it will be given the default value 60. A
2728 value of zero turns off timeouts. If a timeout occurs on the
2729 control connection it will be closed. Use a larger value if
2730 this occurs too frequently.
2731 ZFTP_IP
2733 Readonly. The IP address of the current connection in dot nota‐
2734 tion.
2735 ZFTP_HOST
2737 Readonly. The hostname of the current remote server. If the
2738 host was opened as an IP number, ZFTP_HOST contains that
2739 instead; this saves the overhead for a name lookup, as IP num‐
2740 bers are most commonly used when a nameserver is unavailable.
2741 ZFTP_PORT
2743 Readonly. The number of the remote TCP port to which the con‐
2744 nection is open (even if the port was originally specified as a
2745 named service). Usually this is the standard FTP port, 21.
2746 In the unlikely event that your system does not have the appro‐
2748 priate conversion functions, this appears in network byte order.
2749 If your system is little-endian, the port then consists of two
2750 swapped bytes and the standard port will be reported as 5376.
2751 In that case, numeric ports passed to zftp open will also need
2752 to be in this format.
2753 ZFTP_SYSTEM
2755 Readonly. The system type string returned by the server in
2756 response to an FTP SYST request. The most interesting case is a
2757 string beginning "UNIX Type: L8", which ensures maximum compati‐
2758 bility with a local UNIX host.
2759 ZFTP_TYPE
2761 Readonly. The type to be used for data transfers , either `A'
2762 or `I'. Use the type subcommand to change this.
2763 ZFTP_USER
2765 Readonly. The username currently logged in, if any.
2766 ZFTP_ACCOUNT
2768 Readonly. The account name of the current user, if any. Most
2769 servers do not require an account name.
2770 ZFTP_PWD
2772 Readonly. The current directory on the server.
2773 ZFTP_CODE
2775 Readonly. The three digit code of the last FTP reply from the
2776 server as a string. This can still be read after the connection
2777 is closed, and is not changed when the current session changes.
2778 ZFTP_REPLY
2780 Readonly. The last line of the last reply sent by the server.
2781 This can still be read after the connection is closed, and is
2782 not changed when the current session changes.
2783 ZFTP_SESSION
2785 Readonly. The name of the current FTP session; see the descrip‐
2786 tion of the session subcommand.
2787 ZFTP_PREFS
2789 A string of preferences for altering aspects of zftp's behav‐
2790 iour. Each preference is a single character. The following are
2791 defined:
2792 P Passive: attempt to make the remote server initiate data
2794 transfers. This is slightly more efficient than sendport
2795 mode. If the letter S occurs later in the string, zftp
2796 will use sendport mode if passive mode is not available.
2797 S Sendport: initiate transfers by the FTP PORT command.
2799 If this occurs before any P in the string, passive mode
2800 will never be attempted.
2801 D Dumb: use only the bare minimum of FTP commands. This
2803 prevents the variables ZFTP_SYSTEM and ZFTP_PWD from
2804 being set, and will mean all connections default to ASCII
2805 type. It may prevent ZFTP_SIZE from being set during a
2806 transfer if the server does not send it anyway (many
2807 servers do).
2808 If ZFTP_PREFS is not set when zftp is loaded, it will be set to
2810 a default of `PS', i.e. use passive mode if available, otherwise
2811 fall back to sendport mode.
2812 ZFTP_VERBOSE
2814 A string of digits between 0 and 5 inclusive, specifying which
2815 responses from the server should be printed. All responses go
2816 to standard error. If any of the numbers 1 to 5 appear in the
2817 string, raw responses from the server with reply codes beginning
2818 with that digit will be printed to standard error. The first
2819 digit of the three digit reply code is defined by RFC959 to cor‐
2820 respond to:
2821 1. A positive preliminary reply.
2823 2. A positive completion reply.
2825 3. A positive intermediate reply.
2827 4. A transient negative completion reply.
2829 5. A permanent negative completion reply.
2831 It should be noted that, for unknown reasons, the reply `Service
2833 not available', which forces termination of a connection, is
2834 classified as 421, i.e. `transient negative', an interesting
2835 interpretation of the word `transient'.
2836 The code 0 is special: it indicates that all but the last line
2838 of multiline replies read from the server will be printed to
2839 standard error in a processed format. By convention, servers
2840 use this mechanism for sending information for the user to read.
2841 The appropriate reply code, if it matches the same response,
2842 takes priority.
2843 If ZFTP_VERBOSE is not set when zftp is loaded, it will be set
2845 to the default value 450, i.e., messages destined for the user
2846 and all errors will be printed. A null string is valid and
2847 specifies that no messages should be printed.
2848 Functions
2850 zftp_chpwd
2851 If this function is set by the user, it is called every time the
2852 directory changes on the server, including when a user is logged
2853 in, or when a connection is closed. In the last case, $ZFTP_PWD
2854 will be unset; otherwise it will reflect the new directory.
2855 zftp_progress
2857 If this function is set by the user, it will be called during a
2858 get, put or append operation each time sufficient data has been
2859 received from the host. During a get, the data is sent to stan‐
2860 dard output, so it is vital that this function should write to
2861 standard error or directly to the terminal, not to standard out‐
2862 put.
2863 When it is called with a transfer in progress, the following
2865 additional shell parameters are set:
2866 ZFTP_FILE
2868 The name of the remote file being transferred from or to.
2869 ZFTP_TRANSFER
2871 A G for a get operation and a P for a put operation.
2872 ZFTP_SIZE
2874 The total size of the complete file being transferred:
2875 the same as the first value provided by the remote and
2876 local subcommands for a particular file. If the server
2877 cannot supply this value for a remote file being
2878 retrieved, it will not be set. If input is from a pipe
2879 the value may be incorrect and correspond simply to a
2880 full pipe buffer.
2881 ZFTP_COUNT
2883 The amount of data so far transferred; a number between
2884 zero and $ZFTP_SIZE, if that is set. This number is
2885 always available.
2886 The function is initially called with ZFTP_TRANSFER set appro‐
2888 priately and ZFTP_COUNT set to zero. After the transfer is fin‐
2889 ished, the function will be called one more time with
2890 ZFTP_TRANSFER set to GF or PF, in case it wishes to tidy up. It
2891 is otherwise never called twice with the same value of
2892 ZFTP_COUNT.
2893 Sometimes the progress meter may cause disruption. It is up to
2895 the user to decide whether the function should be defined and to
2896 use unfunction when necessary.
2897 Problems
2899 A connection may not be opened in the left hand side of a pipe as this
2900 occurs in a subshell and the file information is not updated in the
2901 main shell. In the case of type or mode changes or closing the connec‐
2902 tion in a subshell, the information is returned but variables are not
2903 updated until the next call to zftp. Other status changes in subshells
2904 will not be reflected by changes to the variables (but should be other‐
2905 wise harmless).
2906 Deleting sessions while a zftp command is active in the background can
2908 have unexpected effects, even if it does not use the session being
2909 deleted. This is because all shell subprocesses share information on
2910 the state of all connections, and deleting a session changes the order‐
2911 ing of that information.
2912 On some operating systems, the control connection is not valid after a
2914 fork(), so that operations in subshells, on the left hand side of a
2915 pipeline, or in the background are not possible, as they should be.
2916 This is presumably a bug in the operating system.
2917
2919 The zsh/zle module contains the Zsh Line Editor. See zshzle(1).
2920
2922 The zsh/zleparameter module defines two special parameters that can be
2923 used to access internal information of the Zsh Line Editor (see zsh‐
2924 zle(1)).
2925 keymaps
2927 This array contains the names of the keymaps currently defined.
2928 widgets
2930 This associative array contains one entry per widget. The name
2931 of the widget is the key and the value gives information about
2932 the widget. It is either
2933 the string `builtin' for builtin widgets,
2934 a string of the form `user:name' for user-defined widgets,
2935 where name is the name of the shell function implementing
2936 the widget,
2937 a string of the form `completion:type:name'
2938 for completion widgets,
2939 or a null value if the widget is not yet fully defined. In
2940 the penultimate case, type is the name of the builtin widget the
2941 completion widget imitates in its behavior and name is the name
2942 of the shell function implementing the completion widget.
2943
2945 When loaded, the zsh/zprof causes shell functions to be profiled. The
2946 profiling results can be obtained with the zprof builtin command made
2947 available by this module. There is no way to turn profiling off other
2948 than unloading the module.
2949 zprof [ -c ]
2951 Without the -c option, zprof lists profiling results to standard
2952 output. The format is comparable to that of commands like
2953 gprof.
2954 At the top there is a summary listing all functions that were
2956 called at least once. This summary is sorted in decreasing
2957 order of the amount of time spent in each. The lines contain
2958 the number of the function in order, which is used in other
2959 parts of the list in suffixes of the form `[num]', then the num‐
2960 ber of calls made to the function. The next three columns list
2961 the time in milliseconds spent in the function and its descen‐
2962 dants, the average time in milliseconds spent in the function
2963 and its descendants per call and the percentage of time spent in
2964 all shell functions used in this function and its descendants.
2965 The following three columns give the same information, but
2966 counting only the time spent in the function itself. The final
2967 column shows the name of the function.
2968 After the summary, detailed information about every function
2970 that was invoked is listed, sorted in decreasing order of the
2971 amount of time spent in each function and its descendants. Each
2972 of these entries consists of descriptions for the functions that
2973 called the function described, the function itself, and the
2974 functions that were called from it. The description for the
2975 function itself has the same format as in the summary (and shows
2976 the same information). The other lines don't show the number of
2977 the function at the beginning and have their function named
2978 indented to make it easier to distinguish the line showing the
2979 function described in the section from the surrounding lines.
2980 The information shown in this case is almost the same as in the
2982 summary, but only refers to the call hierarchy being displayed.
2983 For example, for a calling function the column showing the total
2984 running time lists the time spent in the described function and
2985 its descendants only for the times when it was called from that
2986 particular calling function. Likewise, for a called function,
2987 this columns lists the total time spent in the called function
2988 and its descendants only for the times when it was called from
2989 the function described.
2990 Also in this case, the column showing the number of calls to a
2992 function also shows a slash and then the total number of invoca‐
2993 tions made to the called function.
2994 As long as the zsh/zprof module is loaded, profiling will be
2996 done and multiple invocations of the zprof builtin command will
2997 show the times and numbers of calls since the module was loaded.
2998 With the -c option, the zprof builtin command will reset its
2999 internal counters and will not show the listing.
3000
3002 The zsh/zpty module offers one builtin:
3003 zpty [ -e ] [ -b ] name [ arg ... ]
3005 The arguments following name are concatenated with spaces
3006 between, then executed as a command, as if passed to the eval
3007 builtin. The command runs under a newly assigned pseudo-termi‐
3008 nal; this is useful for running commands non-interactively which
3009 expect an interactive environment. The name is not part of the
3010 command, but is used to refer to this command in later calls to
3011 zpty.
3012 With the -e option, the pseudo-terminal is set up so that input
3014 characters are echoed.
3015 With the -b option, input to and output from the pseudo-terminal
3017 are made non-blocking.
3018 The shell parameter REPLY is set to the file descriptor assigned
3020 to the master side of the pseudo-terminal. This allows the ter‐
3021 minal to be monitored with ZLE descriptor handlers (see zsh‐
3022 zle(1)) or manipulated with sysread and syswrite (see THE
3023 ZSH/SYSTEM MODULE in zshmodules(1)). Warning: Use of sysread
3024 and syswrite is not recommended, use zpty -r and zpty -w unless
3025 you know exactly what you are doing.
3026 zpty -d [ name ... ]
3028 The second form, with the -d option, is used to delete commands
3029 previously started, by supplying a list of their names. If no
3030 name is given, all commands are deleted. Deleting a command
3031 causes the HUP signal to be sent to the corresponding process.
3032 zpty -w [ -n ] name [ string ... ]
3034 The -w option can be used to send the to command name the given
3035 strings as input (separated by spaces). If the -n option is not
3036 given, a newline is added at the end.
3037 If no string is provided, the standard input is copied to the
3039 pseudo-terminal; this may stop before copying the full input if
3040 the pseudo-terminal is non-blocking.
3041 Note that the command under the pseudo-terminal sees this input
3043 as if it were typed, so beware when sending special tty driver
3044 characters such as word-erase, line-kill, and end-of-file.
3045 zpty -r [ -mt ] name [ param [ pattern ] ]
3047 The -r option can be used to read the output of the command
3048 name. With only a name argument, the output read is copied to
3049 the standard output. Unless the pseudo-terminal is non-block‐
3050 ing, copying continues until the command under the pseudo-termi‐
3051 nal exits; when non-blocking, only as much output as is immedi‐
3052 ately available is copied. The return status is zero if any
3053 output is copied.
3054 When also given a param argument, at most one line is read and
3056 stored in the parameter named param. Less than a full line may
3057 be read if the pseudo-terminal is non-blocking. The return sta‐
3058 tus is zero if at least one character is stored in param.
3059 If a pattern is given as well, output is read until the whole
3061 string read matches the pattern, even in the non-blocking case.
3062 The return status is zero if the string read matches the pat‐
3063 tern, or if the command has exited but at least one character
3064 could still be read. If the option -m is present, the return
3065 status is zero only if the pattern matches. As of this writing,
3066 a maximum of one megabyte of output can be consumed this way; if
3067 a full megabyte is read without matching the pattern, the return
3068 status is non-zero.
3069 In all cases, the return status is non-zero if nothing could be
3071 read, and is 2 if this is because the command has finished.
3072 If the -r option is combined with the -t option, zpty tests
3074 whether output is available before trying to read. If no output
3075 is available, zpty immediately returns the status 1. When used
3076 with a pattern, the behaviour on a failed poll is similar to
3077 when the command has exited: the return value is zero if at
3078 least one character could still be read even if the pattern
3079 failed to match.
3080 zpty -t name
3082 The -t option without the -r option can be used to test whether
3083 the command name is still running. It returns a zero status if
3084 the command is running and a non-zero value otherwise.
3085 zpty [ -L ]
3087 The last form, without any arguments, is used to list the com‐
3088 mands currently defined. If the -L option is given, this is
3089 done in the form of calls to the zpty builtin.
3090
3092 The zsh/zselect module makes available one builtin command:
3093 zselect [ -rwe ] [ -t timeout ] [ -a array ] [ -A assoc ] [ fd ... ]
3095 The zselect builtin is a front-end to the `select' system call,
3096 which blocks until a file descriptor is ready for reading or
3097 writing, or has an error condition, with an optional timeout.
3098 If this is not available on your system, the command prints an
3099 error message and returns status 2 (normal errors return status
3100 1). For more information, see your systems documentation for
3101 select(3). Note there is no connection with the shell builtin
3102 of the same name.
3103 Arguments and options may be intermingled in any order.
3105 Non-option arguments are file descriptors, which must be decimal
3106 integers. By default, file descriptors are to be tested for
3107 reading, i.e. zselect will return when data is available to be
3108 read from the file descriptor, or more precisely, when a read
3109 operation from the file descriptor will not block. After a -r,
3110 -w and -e, the given file descriptors are to be tested for read‐
3111 ing, writing, or error conditions. These options and an arbi‐
3112 trary list of file descriptors may be given in any order.
3113 (The presence of an `error condition' is not well defined in the
3115 documentation for many implementations of the select system
3116 call. According to recent versions of the POSIX specification,
3117 it is really an exception condition, of which the only standard
3118 example is out-of-band data received on a socket. So zsh users
3119 are unlikely to find the -e option useful.)
3120 The option `-t timeout' specifies a timeout in hundredths of a
3122 second. This may be zero, in which case the file descriptors
3123 will simply be polled and zselect will return immediately. It
3124 is possible to call zselect with no file descriptors and a
3125 non-zero timeout for use as a finer-grained replacement for
3126 `sleep'; note, however, the return status is always 1 for a
3127 timeout.
3128 The option `-a array' indicates that array should be set to
3130 indicate the file descriptor(s) which are ready. If the option
3131 is not given, the array reply will be used for this purpose.
3132 The array will contain a string similar to the arguments for
3133 zselect. For example,
3134 zselect -t 0 -r 0 -w 1
3136 might return immediately with status 0 and $reply containing `-r
3138 0 -w 1' to show that both file descriptors are ready for the
3139 requested operations.
3140 The option `-A assoc' indicates that the associative array assoc
3142 should be set to indicate the file descriptor(s) which are
3143 ready. This option overrides the option -a, nor will reply be
3144 modified. The keys of assoc are the file descriptors, and the
3145 corresponding values are any of the characters `rwe' to indicate
3146 the condition.
3147 The command returns status 0 if some file descriptors are ready
3149 for reading. If the operation timed out, or a timeout of 0 was
3150 given and no file descriptors were ready, or there was an error,
3151 it returns status 1 and the array will not be set (nor modified
3152 in any way). If there was an error in the select operation the
3153 appropriate error message is printed.
3154
3156 The zsh/zutil module only adds some builtins:
3157 zstyle [ -L [ pattern [ style ] ] ]
3159 zstyle [ -e | - | -- ] pattern style string ...
3160 zstyle -d [ pattern [ style ... ] ]
3161 zstyle -g name [ pattern [ style ] ]
3162 zstyle -{a|b|s} context style name [ sep ]
3163 zstyle -{T|t} context style [ string ... ]
3164 zstyle -m context style pattern
3165 This builtin command is used to define and lookup styles.
3166 Styles are pairs of names and values, where the values consist
3167 of any number of strings. They are stored together with pat‐
3168 terns and lookup is done by giving a string, called the `con‐
3169 text', which is compared to the patterns. The definition stored
3170 for the first matching pattern will be returned.
3171 For ordering of comparisons, patterns are searched from most
3173 specific to least specific, and patterns that are equally spe‐
3174 cific keep the order in which they were defined. A pattern is
3175 considered to be more specific than another if it contains more
3176 components (substrings separated by colons) or if the patterns
3177 for the components are more specific, where simple strings are
3178 considered to be more specific than patterns and complex pat‐
3179 terns are considered to be more specific than the pattern `*'.
3180 The first form (without arguments) lists the definitions.
3182 Styles are shown in alphabetic order and patterns are shown in
3183 the order zstyle will test them.
3184 If the -L option is given, listing is done in the form of calls
3186 to zstyle. The optional first argument is a pattern which will
3187 be matched against the string supplied as the pattern for the
3188 context; note that this means, for example, `zstyle -L ":comple‐
3189 tion:*"' will match any supplied pattern beginning `:comple‐
3190 tion:', not just ":completion:*": use ":completion:\*" to match
3191 that. The optional second argument limits the output to a spe‐
3192 cific style (not a pattern). -L is not compatible with any
3193 other options.
3194 The other forms are the following:
3196 zstyle [ - | -- | -e ] pattern style string ...
3198 Defines the given style for the pattern with the strings
3199 as the value. If the -e option is given, the strings
3200 will be concatenated (separated by spaces) and the
3201 resulting string will be evaluated (in the same way as it
3202 is done by the eval builtin command) when the style is
3203 looked up. In this case the parameter `reply' must be
3204 assigned to set the strings returned after the evalua‐
3205 tion. Before evaluating the value, reply is unset, and
3206 if it is still unset after the evaluation, the style is
3207 treated as if it were not set.
3208 zstyle -d [ pattern [ style ... ] ]
3210 Delete style definitions. Without arguments all defini‐
3211 tions are deleted, with a pattern all definitions for
3212 that pattern are deleted and if any styles are given,
3213 then only those styles are deleted for the pattern.
3214 zstyle -g name [ pattern [ style ] ]
3216 Retrieve a style definition. The name is used as the name
3217 of an array in which the results are stored. Without any
3218 further arguments, all patterns defined are returned.
3219 With a pattern the styles defined for that pattern are
3220 returned and with both a pattern and a style, the value
3221 strings of that combination is returned.
3222 The other forms can be used to look up or test patterns.
3224 zstyle -s context style name [ sep ]
3226 The parameter name is set to the value of the style
3227 interpreted as a string. If the value contains several
3228 strings they are concatenated with spaces (or with the
3229 sep string if that is given) between them.
3230 zstyle -b context style name
3232 The value is stored in name as a boolean, i.e. as the
3233 string `yes' if the value has only one string and that
3234 string is equal to one of `yes', `true', `on', or `1'. If
3235 the value is any other string or has more than one
3236 string, the parameter is set to `no'.
3237 zstyle -a context style name
3239 The value is stored in name as an array. If name is
3240 declared as an associative array, the first, third, etc.
3241 strings are used as the keys and the other strings are
3242 used as the values.
3243 zstyle -t context style [ string ... ]
3245 zstyle -T context style [ string ... ]
3246 Test the value of a style, i.e. the -t option only
3247 returns a status (sets $?). Without any string the
3248 return status is zero if the style is defined for at
3249 least one matching pattern, has only one string in its
3250 value, and that is equal to one of `true', `yes', `on' or
3251 `1'. If any strings are given the status is zero if and
3252 only if at least one of the strings is equal to at least
3253 one of the strings in the value. If the style is defined
3254 but doesn't match, the return status is 1. If the style
3255 is not defined, the status is 2.
3256 The -T option tests the values of the style like -t, but
3258 it returns status zero (rather than 2) if the style is
3259 not defined for any matching pattern.
3260 zstyle -m context style pattern
3262 Match a value. Returns status zero if the pattern matches
3263 at least one of the strings in the value.
3264 zformat -f param format spec ...
3266 zformat -a array sep spec ...
3267 This builtin provides two different forms of formatting. The
3268 first form is selected with the -f option. In this case the for‐
3269 mat string will be modified by replacing sequences starting with
3270 a percent sign in it with strings from the specs. Each spec
3271 should be of the form `char:string' which will cause every
3272 appearance of the sequence `%char' in format to be replaced by
3273 the string. The `%' sequence may also contain optional minimum
3274 and maximum field width specifications between the `%' and the
3275 `char' in the form `%min.maxc', i.e. the minimum field width is
3276 given first and if the maximum field width is used, it has to be
3277 preceded by a dot. Specifying a minimum field width makes the
3278 result be padded with spaces to the right if the string is
3279 shorter than the requested width. Padding to the left can be
3280 achieved by giving a negative minimum field width. If a maximum
3281 field width is specified, the string will be truncated after
3282 that many characters. After all `%' sequences for the given
3283 specs have been processed, the resulting string is stored in the
3284 parameter param.
3285 The %-escapes also understand ternary expressions in the form
3287 used by prompts. The % is followed by a `(' and then an ordi‐
3288 nary format specifier character as described above. There may
3289 be a set of digits either before or after the `('; these specify
3290 a test number, which defaults to zero. Negative numbers are
3291 also allowed. An arbitrary delimiter character follows the for‐
3292 mat specifier, which is followed by a piece of `true' text, the
3293 delimiter character again, a piece of `false' text, and a clos‐
3294 ing parenthesis. The complete expression (without the digits)
3295 thus looks like `%(X.text1.text2)', except that the `.' charac‐
3296 ter is arbitrary. The value given for the format specifier in
3297 the char:string expressions is evaluated as a mathematical
3298 expression, and compared with the test number. If they are the
3299 same, text1 is output, else text2 is output. A parenthesis may
3300 be escaped in text2 as %). Either of text1 or text2 may contain
3301 nested %-escapes.
3302 For example:
3304 zformat -f REPLY "The answer is '%3(c.yes.no)'." c:3
3306 outputs "The answer is 'yes'." to REPLY since the value for the
3308 format specifier c is 3, agreeing with the digit argument to the
3309 ternary expression.
3310 The second form, using the -a option, can be used for aligning
3312 strings. Here, the specs are of the form `left:right' where
3313 `left' and `right' are arbitrary strings. These strings are
3314 modified by replacing the colons by the sep string and padding
3315 the left strings with spaces to the right so that the sep
3316 strings in the result (and hence the right strings after them)
3317 are all aligned if the strings are printed below each other.
3318 All strings without a colon are left unchanged and all strings
3319 with an empty right string have the trailing colon removed. In
3320 both cases the lengths of the strings are not used to determine
3321 how the other strings are to be aligned. The resulting strings
3322 are stored in the array.
3323 zregexparse
3325 This implements some internals of the _regex_arguments function.
3326 zparseopts [ -D -K -M -E ] [ -a array ] [ -A assoc ] [ - ] spec ...
3328 This builtin simplifies the parsing of options in positional
3329 parameters, i.e. the set of arguments given by $*. Each spec
3330 describes one option and must be of the form `opt[=array]'. If
3331 an option described by opt is found in the positional parameters
3332 it is copied into the array specified with the -a option; if the
3333 optional `=array' is given, it is instead copied into that
3334 array, which should be declared as a normal array and never as
3335 an associative array.
3336 Note that it is an error to give any spec without an `=array'
3338 unless one of the -a or -A options is used.
3339 Unless the -E option is given, parsing stops at the first string
3341 that isn't described by one of the specs. Even with -E, parsing
3342 always stops at a positional parameter equal to `-' or `--'.
3343 The opt description must be one of the following. Any of the
3345 special characters can appear in the option name provided it is
3346 preceded by a backslash.
3347 name
3349 name+ The name is the name of the option without the leading
3350 `-'. To specify a GNU-style long option, one of the
3351 usual two leading `-' must be included in name; for exam‐
3352 ple, a `--file' option is represented by a name of
3353 `-file'.
3354 If a `+' appears after name, the option is appended to
3356 array each time it is found in the positional parameters;
3357 without the `+' only the last occurrence of the option is
3358 preserved.
3359 If one of these forms is used, the option takes no argu‐
3361 ment, so parsing stops if the next positional parameter
3362 does not also begin with `-' (unless the -E option is
3363 used).
3364 name:
3366 name:-
3367 name:: If one or two colons are given, the option takes an argu‐
3368 ment; with one colon, the argument is mandatory and with
3369 two colons it is optional. The argument is appended to
3370 the array after the option itself.
3371 An optional argument is put into the same array element
3373 as the option name (note that this makes empty strings as
3374 arguments indistinguishable). A mandatory argument is
3375 added as a separate element unless the `:-' form is used,
3376 in which case the argument is put into the same element.
3377 A `+' as described above may appear between the name and
3379 the first colon.
3380 The options of zparseopts itself cannot be stacked because, for
3382 example, the stack `-DEK' is indistinguishable from a spec for
3383 the GNU-style long option `--DEK'. The options of zparseopts
3384 itself are:
3385 -a array
3387 As described above, this names the default array in which
3388 to store the recognised options.
3389 -A assoc
3391 If this is given, the options and their values are also
3392 put into an associative array with the option names as
3393 keys and the arguments (if any) as the values.
3394 -D If this option is given, all options found are removed
3396 from the positional parameters of the calling shell or
3397 shell function, up to but not including any not described
3398 by the specs. This is similar to using the shift
3399 builtin.
3400 -K With this option, the arrays specified with the -a option
3402 and with the `=array' forms are kept unchanged when none
3403 of the specs for them is used. Otherwise the entire
3404 array is replaced when any of the specs is used. Indi‐
3405 vidual elements of associative arrays specified with the
3406 -A option are preserved by -K. This allows assignment of
3407 default values to arrays before calling zparseopts.
3408 -M This changes the assignment rules to implement a map
3410 among equivalent option names. If any spec uses the
3411 `=array' form, the string array is interpreted as the
3412 name of another spec, which is used to choose where to
3413 store the values. If no other spec is found, the values
3414 are stored as usual. This changes only the way the val‐
3415 ues are stored, not the way $* is parsed, so results may
3416 be unpredictable if the `name+' specifier is used incon‐
3417 sistently.
3418 -E This changes the parsing rules to not stop at the first
3420 string that isn't described by one of the specs. It can
3421 be used to test for or (if used together with -D) extract
3422 options and their arguments, ignoring all other options
3423 and arguments that may be in the positional parameters.
3424 For example,
3426 set -- -a -bx -c y -cz baz -cend
3428 zparseopts a=foo b:=bar c+:=bar
3429 will have the effect of
3431 foo=(-a)
3433 bar=(-b x -c y -c z)
3434 The arguments from `baz' on will not be used.
3436 As an example for the -E option, consider:
3438 set -- -a x -b y -c z arg1 arg2
3440 zparseopts -E -D b:=bar
3441 will have the effect of
3443 bar=(-b y)
3445 set -- -a x -c z arg1 arg2
3446 I.e., the option -b and its arguments are taken from the posi‐
3448 tional parameters and put into the array bar.
3449 The -M option can be used like this:
3451 set -- -a -bx -c y -cz baz -cend
3453 zparseopts -A bar -M a=foo b+: c:=b
3454 to have the effect of
3456 foo=(-a)
3458 bar=(-a '' -b xyz)
3459zsh 5.5.1 April 16, 2018 ZSHMODULES(1)