1ZSHALL(1) General Commands Manual ZSHALL(1)
2
6 zshall - the Z shell meta-man page
7
9 Because zsh contains many features, the zsh manual has been split into
10 a number of sections. This manual page includes all the separate man‐
11 ual pages in the following order:
12 zshroadmap Informal introduction to the manual
14 zshmisc Anything not fitting into the other sections
15 zshexpn Zsh command and parameter expansion
16 zshparam Zsh parameters
17 zshoptions Zsh options
18 zshbuiltins Zsh built-in functions
19 zshzle Zsh command line editing
20 zshcompwid Zsh completion widgets
21 zshcompsys Zsh completion system
22 zshcompctl Zsh completion control
23 zshmodules Zsh loadable modules
24 zshcalsys Zsh built-in calendar functions
25 zshtcpsys Zsh built-in TCP functions
26 zshzftpsys Zsh built-in FTP client
27 zshcontrib Additional zsh functions and utilities
28
30 Zsh is a UNIX command interpreter (shell) usable as an interactive
31 login shell and as a shell script command processor. Of the standard
32 shells, zsh most closely resembles ksh but includes many enhancements.
33 Zsh has command line editing, builtin spelling correction, programmable
34 command completion, shell functions (with autoloading), a history mech‐
35 anism, and a host of other features.
36
38 Zsh was originally written by Paul Falstad <pf@zsh.org>. Zsh is now
39 maintained by the members of the zsh-workers mailing list <zsh-work‐
40 ers@zsh.org>. The development is currently coordinated by Peter
41 Stephenson <pws@zsh.org>. The coordinator can be contacted at <coordi‐
42 nator@zsh.org>, but matters relating to the code should generally go to
43 the mailing list.
44
46 Zsh is available from the following anonymous FTP sites. These mirror
47 sites are kept frequently up to date. The sites marked with (H) may be
48 mirroring ftp.cs.elte.hu instead of the primary site.
49 Primary site
51 ftp://ftp.zsh.org/pub/
52 http://www.zsh.org/pub/
53 Australia
55 ftp://ftp.zsh.org/pub/
56 http://www.zsh.org/pub/
57 http://mirror.dejanseo.com.au/pub/zsh/
58 Hungary
60 ftp://ftp.cs.elte.hu/pub/zsh/
61 http://www.cs.elte.hu/pub/zsh/
62 The up-to-date source code is available via Git from Sourceforge. See
64 http://sourceforge.net/projects/zsh/ for details. A summary of
65 instructions for the archive can be found at http://zsh.source‐
66 forge.net/.
67
69 Zsh has 3 mailing lists:
70 <zsh-announce@zsh.org>
72 Announcements about releases, major changes in the shell and the
73 monthly posting of the Zsh FAQ. (moderated)
74 <zsh-users@zsh.org>
76 User discussions.
77 <zsh-workers@zsh.org>
79 Hacking, development, bug reports and patches.
80 To subscribe or unsubscribe, send mail to the associated administrative
82 address for the mailing list.
83 <zsh-announce-subscribe@zsh.org>
85 <zsh-users-subscribe@zsh.org>
86 <zsh-workers-subscribe@zsh.org>
87 <zsh-announce-unsubscribe@zsh.org>
88 <zsh-users-unsubscribe@zsh.org>
89 <zsh-workers-unsubscribe@zsh.org>
90 YOU ONLY NEED TO JOIN ONE OF THE MAILING LISTS AS THEY ARE NESTED. All
92 submissions to zsh-announce are automatically forwarded to zsh-users.
93 All submissions to zsh-users are automatically forwarded to zsh-work‐
94 ers.
95 If you have problems subscribing/unsubscribing to any of the mailing
97 lists, send mail to <listmaster@zsh.org>. The mailing lists are main‐
98 tained by Karsten Thygesen <karthy@kom.auc.dk>.
99 The mailing lists are archived; the archives can be accessed via the
101 administrative addresses listed above. There is also a hypertext ar‐
102 chive, maintained by Geoff Wing <gcw@zsh.org>, available at
103 http://www.zsh.org/mla/.
104
106 Zsh has a list of Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ), maintained by Peter
107 Stephenson <pws@zsh.org>. It is regularly posted to the newsgroup
108 comp.unix.shell and the zsh-announce mailing list. The latest version
109 can be found at any of the Zsh FTP sites, or at
110 http://www.zsh.org/FAQ/. The contact address for FAQ-related matters
111 is <faqmaster@zsh.org>.
112
114 Zsh has a web page which is located at http://www.zsh.org/. This is
115 maintained by Karsten Thygesen <karthy@zsh.org>, of SunSITE Denmark.
116 The contact address for web-related matters is <webmaster@zsh.org>.
117
119 A userguide is currently in preparation. It is intended to complement
120 the manual, with explanations and hints on issues where the manual can
121 be cabbalistic, hierographic, or downright mystifying (for example, the
122 word `hierographic' does not exist). It can be viewed in its current
123 state at http://zsh.sourceforge.net/Guide/. At the time of writing,
124 chapters dealing with startup files and their contents and the new com‐
125 pletion system were essentially complete.
126
128 A `wiki' website for zsh has been created at http://www.zshwiki.org/.
129 This is a site which can be added to and modified directly by users
130 without any special permission. You can add your own zsh tips and con‐
131 figurations.
132
134 The following flags are interpreted by the shell when invoked to deter‐
135 mine where the shell will read commands from:
136 -c Take the first argument as a command to execute, rather than
138 reading commands from a script or standard input. If any fur‐
139 ther arguments are given, the first one is assigned to $0,
140 rather than being used as a positional parameter.
141 -i Force shell to be interactive. It is still possible to specify
143 a script to execute.
144 -s Force shell to read commands from the standard input. If the -s
146 flag is not present and an argument is given, the first argument
147 is taken to be the pathname of a script to execute.
148 If there are any remaining arguments after option processing, and nei‐
150 ther of the options -c or -s was supplied, the first argument is taken
151 as the file name of a script containing shell commands to be executed.
152 If the option PATH_SCRIPT is set, and the file name does not contain a
153 directory path (i.e. there is no `/' in the name), first the current
154 directory and then the command path given by the variable PATH are
155 searched for the script. If the option is not set or the file name
156 contains a `/' it is used directly.
157 After the first one or two arguments have been appropriated as
159 described above, the remaining arguments are assigned to the positional
160 parameters.
161 For further options, which are common to invocation and the set
163 builtin, see zshoptions(1).
164 The long option `--emulate' followed (in a separate word) by an emula‐
166 tion mode may be passed to the shell. The emulation modes are those
167 described for the emulate builtin, see zshbuiltins(1). The `--emulate'
168 option must precede any other options (which might otherwise be over‐
169 ridden), but following options are honoured, so may be used to modify
170 the requested emulation mode. Note that certain extra steps are taken
171 to ensure a smooth emulation when this option is used compared with the
172 emulate command within the shell: for example, variables that conflict
173 with POSIX usage such as path are not defined within the shell.
174 Options may be specified by name using the -o option. -o acts like a
176 single-letter option, but takes a following string as the option name.
177 For example,
178 zsh -x -o shwordsplit scr
180 runs the script scr, setting the XTRACE option by the corresponding
182 letter `-x' and the SH_WORD_SPLIT option by name. Options may be
183 turned off by name by using +o instead of -o. -o can be stacked up
184 with preceding single-letter options, so for example `-xo shwordsplit'
185 or `-xoshwordsplit' is equivalent to `-x -o shwordsplit'.
186 Options may also be specified by name in GNU long option style,
188 `--option-name'. When this is done, `-' characters in the option name
189 are permitted: they are translated into `_', and thus ignored. So, for
190 example, `zsh --sh-word-split' invokes zsh with the SH_WORD_SPLIT
191 option turned on. Like other option syntaxes, options can be turned
192 off by replacing the initial `-' with a `+'; thus `+-sh-word-split' is
193 equivalent to `--no-sh-word-split'. Unlike other option syntaxes,
194 GNU-style long options cannot be stacked with any other options, so for
195 example `-x-shwordsplit' is an error, rather than being treated like
196 `-x --shwordsplit'.
197 The special GNU-style option `--version' is handled; it sends to stan‐
199 dard output the shell's version information, then exits successfully.
200 `--help' is also handled; it sends to standard output a list of options
201 that can be used when invoking the shell, then exits successfully.
202 Option processing may be finished, allowing following arguments that
204 start with `-' or `+' to be treated as normal arguments, in two ways.
205 Firstly, a lone `-' (or `+') as an argument by itself ends option pro‐
206 cessing. Secondly, a special option `--' (or `+-'), which may be spec‐
207 ified on its own (which is the standard POSIX usage) or may be stacked
208 with preceding options (so `-x-' is equivalent to `-x --'). Options
209 are not permitted to be stacked after `--' (so `-x-f' is an error), but
210 note the GNU-style option form discussed above, where `--shwordsplit'
211 is permitted and does not end option processing.
212 Except when the sh/ksh emulation single-letter options are in effect,
214 the option `-b' (or `+b') ends option processing. `-b' is like `--',
215 except that further single-letter options can be stacked after the `-b'
216 and will take effect as normal.
217
219 Zsh tries to emulate sh or ksh when it is invoked as sh or ksh respec‐
220 tively; more precisely, it looks at the first letter of the name by
221 which it was invoked, excluding any initial `r' (assumed to stand for
222 `restricted'), and if that is `b', `s' or `k' it will emulate sh or
223 ksh. Furthermore, if invoked as su (which happens on certain systems
224 when the shell is executed by the su command), the shell will try to
225 find an alternative name from the SHELL environment variable and per‐
226 form emulation based on that.
227 In sh and ksh compatibility modes the following parameters are not spe‐
229 cial and not initialized by the shell: ARGC, argv, cdpath, fignore,
230 fpath, HISTCHARS, mailpath, MANPATH, manpath, path, prompt, PROMPT,
231 PROMPT2, PROMPT3, PROMPT4, psvar, status, watch.
232 The usual zsh startup/shutdown scripts are not executed. Login shells
234 source /etc/profile followed by $HOME/.profile. If the ENV environment
235 variable is set on invocation, $ENV is sourced after the profile
236 scripts. The value of ENV is subjected to parameter expansion, command
237 substitution, and arithmetic expansion before being interpreted as a
238 pathname. Note that the PRIVILEGED option also affects the execution
239 of startup files.
240 The following options are set if the shell is invoked as sh or ksh:
242 NO_BAD_PATTERN, NO_BANG_HIST, NO_BG_NICE, NO_EQUALS, NO_FUNC‐
243 TION_ARGZERO, GLOB_SUBST, NO_GLOBAL_EXPORT, NO_HUP, INTERACTIVE_COM‐
244 MENTS, KSH_ARRAYS, NO_MULTIOS, NO_NOMATCH, NO_NOTIFY, POSIX_BUILTINS,
245 NO_PROMPT_PERCENT, RM_STAR_SILENT, SH_FILE_EXPANSION, SH_GLOB,
246 SH_OPTION_LETTERS, SH_WORD_SPLIT. Additionally the BSD_ECHO and
247 IGNORE_BRACES options are set if zsh is invoked as sh. Also, the
248 KSH_OPTION_PRINT, LOCAL_OPTIONS, PROMPT_BANG, PROMPT_SUBST and SIN‐
249 GLE_LINE_ZLE options are set if zsh is invoked as ksh.
250
252 When the basename of the command used to invoke zsh starts with the
253 letter `r' or the `-r' command line option is supplied at invocation,
254 the shell becomes restricted. Emulation mode is determined after
255 stripping the letter `r' from the invocation name. The following are
256 disabled in restricted mode:
257 · changing directories with the cd builtin
259 · changing or unsetting the EGID, EUID, GID, HISTFILE, HISTSIZE,
261 IFS, LD_AOUT_LIBRARY_PATH, LD_AOUT_PRELOAD, LD_LIBRARY_PATH,
262 LD_PRELOAD, MODULE_PATH, module_path, PATH, path, SHELL, UID and
263 USERNAME parameters
264 · specifying command names containing /
266 · specifying command pathnames using hash
268 · redirecting output to files
270 · using the exec builtin command to replace the shell with another
272 command
273 · using jobs -Z to overwrite the shell process' argument and envi‐
275 ronment space
276 · using the ARGV0 parameter to override argv[0] for external com‐
278 mands
279 · turning off restricted mode with set +r or unsetopt RESTRICTED
281 These restrictions are enforced after processing the startup files.
283 The startup files should set up PATH to point to a directory of com‐
284 mands which can be safely invoked in the restricted environment. They
285 may also add further restrictions by disabling selected builtins.
286 Restricted mode can also be activated any time by setting the
288 RESTRICTED option. This immediately enables all the restrictions
289 described above even if the shell still has not processed all startup
290 files.
291
293 Commands are first read from /etc/zshenv; this cannot be overridden.
294 Subsequent behaviour is modified by the RCS and GLOBAL_RCS options; the
295 former affects all startup files, while the second only affects global
296 startup files (those shown here with an path starting with a /). If
297 one of the options is unset at any point, any subsequent startup
298 file(s) of the corresponding type will not be read. It is also possi‐
299 ble for a file in $ZDOTDIR to re-enable GLOBAL_RCS. Both RCS and
300 GLOBAL_RCS are set by default.
301 Commands are then read from $ZDOTDIR/.zshenv. If the shell is a login
303 shell, commands are read from /etc/zprofile and then $ZDOTDIR/.zpro‐
304 file. Then, if the shell is interactive, commands are read from
305 /etc/zshrc and then $ZDOTDIR/.zshrc. Finally, if the shell is a login
306 shell, /etc/zlogin and $ZDOTDIR/.zlogin are read.
307 When a login shell exits, the files $ZDOTDIR/.zlogout and then
309 /etc/zlogout are read. This happens with either an explicit exit via
310 the exit or logout commands, or an implicit exit by reading end-of-file
311 from the terminal. However, if the shell terminates due to exec'ing
312 another process, the logout files are not read. These are also
313 affected by the RCS and GLOBAL_RCS options. Note also that the RCS
314 option affects the saving of history files, i.e. if RCS is unset when
315 the shell exits, no history file will be saved.
316 If ZDOTDIR is unset, HOME is used instead. Files listed above as being
318 in /etc may be in another directory, depending on the installation.
319 As /etc/zshenv is run for all instances of zsh, it is important that it
321 be kept as small as possible. In particular, it is a good idea to put
322 code that does not need to be run for every single shell behind a test
323 of the form `if [[ -o rcs ]]; then ...' so that it will not be executed
324 when zsh is invoked with the `-f' option.
325 Any of these files may be pre-compiled with the zcompile builtin com‐
327 mand (see zshbuiltins(1)). If a compiled file exists (named for the
328 original file plus the .zwc extension) and it is newer than the origi‐
329 nal file, the compiled file will be used instead.
330ZSHROADMAP(1) General Commands Manual ZSHROADMAP(1)
332
336 zshroadmap - informal introduction to the zsh manual The Zsh Manual,
337 like the shell itself, is large and often complicated. This section of
338 the manual provides some pointers to areas of the shell that are likely
339 to be of particular interest to new users, and indicates where in the
340 rest of the manual the documentation is to be found.
341
343 When it starts, the shell reads commands from various files. These can
344 be created or edited to customize the shell. See the section
345 Startup/Shutdown Files in zsh(1).
346 If no personal initialization files exist for the current user, a func‐
348 tion is run to help you change some of the most common settings. It
349 won't appear if your administrator has disabled the zsh/newuser module.
350 The function is designed to be self-explanatory. You can run it by
351 hand with `autoload -Uz zsh-newuser-install; zsh-newuser-install -f'.
352 See also the section User Configuration Functions in zshcontrib(1).
353
355 Interaction with the shell uses the builtin Zsh Line Editor, ZLE. This
356 is described in detail in zshzle(1).
357 The first decision a user must make is whether to use the Emacs or Vi
359 editing mode as the keys for editing are substantially different.
360 Emacs editing mode is probably more natural for beginners and can be
361 selected explicitly with the command bindkey -e.
362 A history mechanism for retrieving previously typed lines (most simply
364 with the Up or Down arrow keys) is available; note that, unlike other
365 shells, zsh will not save these lines when the shell exits unless you
366 set appropriate variables, and the number of history lines retained by
367 default is quite small (30 lines). See the description of the shell
368 variables (referred to in the documentation as parameters) HISTFILE,
369 HISTSIZE and SAVEHIST in zshparam(1). Note that it's currently only
370 possible to read and write files saving history when the shell is
371 interactive, i.e. it does not work from scripts.
372 The shell now supports the UTF-8 character set (and also others if sup‐
374 ported by the operating system). This is (mostly) handled transpar‐
375 ently by the shell, but the degree of support in terminal emulators is
376 variable. There is some discussion of this in the shell FAQ,
377 http://www.zsh.org/FAQ/. Note in particular that for combining charac‐
378 ters to be handled the option COMBINING_CHARS needs to be set. Because
379 the shell is now more sensitive to the definition of the character set,
380 note that if you are upgrading from an older version of the shell you
381 should ensure that the appropriate variable, either LANG (to affect all
382 aspects of the shell's operation) or LC_CTYPE (to affect only the han‐
383 dling of character sets) is set to an appropriate value. This is true
384 even if you are using a single-byte character set including extensions
385 of ASCII such as ISO-8859-1 or ISO-8859-15. See the description of
386 LC_CTYPE in zshparam(1).
387 Completion
389 Completion is a feature present in many shells. It allows the user to
390 type only a part (usually the prefix) of a word and have the shell fill
391 in the rest. The completion system in zsh is programmable. For exam‐
392 ple, the shell can be set to complete email addresses in arguments to
393 the mail command from your ~/.abook/addressbook; usernames, hostnames,
394 and even remote paths in arguments to scp, and so on. Anything that
395 can be written in or glued together with zsh can be the source of what
396 the line editor offers as possible completions.
397 Zsh has two completion systems, an old, so called compctl completion
399 (named after the builtin command that serves as its complete and only
400 user interface), and a new one, referred to as compsys, organized as
401 library of builtin and user-defined functions. The two systems differ
402 in their interface for specifying the completion behavior. The new
403 system is more customizable and is supplied with completions for many
404 commonly used commands; it is therefore to be preferred.
405 The completion system must be enabled explicitly when the shell starts.
407 For more information see zshcompsys(1).
408 Extending the line editor
410 Apart from completion, the line editor is highly extensible by means of
411 shell functions. Some useful functions are provided with the shell;
412 they provide facilities such as:
413 insert-composed-char
415 composing characters not found on the keyboard
416 match-words-by-style
418 configuring what the line editor considers a word when moving or
419 deleting by word
420 history-beginning-search-backward-end, etc.
422 alternative ways of searching the shell history
423 replace-string, replace-pattern
425 functions for replacing strings or patterns globally in the com‐
426 mand line
427 edit-command-line
429 edit the command line with an external editor.
430 See the section `ZLE Functions' in zshcontrib(1) for descriptions of
432 these.
433
435 The shell has a large number of options for changing its behaviour.
436 These cover all aspects of the shell; browsing the full documentation
437 is the only good way to become acquainted with the many possibilities.
438 See zshoptions(1).
439
441 The shell has a rich set of patterns which are available for file
442 matching (described in the documentation as `filename generation' and
443 also known for historical reasons as `globbing') and for use when pro‐
444 gramming. These are described in the section `Filename Generation' in
445 zshexpn(1).
446 Of particular interest are the following patterns that are not commonly
448 supported by other systems of pattern matching:
449 ** for matching over multiple directories
451 | for matching either of two alternatives
453 ~, ^ the ability to exclude patterns from matching when the
455 EXTENDED_GLOB option is set
456 (...) glob qualifiers, included in parentheses at the end of the pat‐
458 tern, which select files by type (such as directories) or
459 attribute (such as size).
460
462 Although the syntax of zsh is in ways similar to the Korn shell, and
463 therefore more remotely to the original UNIX shell, the Bourne shell,
464 its default behaviour does not entirely correspond to those shells.
465 General shell syntax is introduced in the section `Shell Grammar' in
466 zshmisc(1).
467 One commonly encountered difference is that variables substituted onto
469 the command line are not split into words. See the description of the
470 shell option SH_WORD_SPLIT in the section `Parameter Expansion' in zsh‐
471 expn(1). In zsh, you can either explicitly request the splitting (e.g.
472 ${=foo}) or use an array when you want a variable to expand to more
473 than one word. See the section `Array Parameters' in zshparam(1).
474
476 The most convenient way of adding enhancements to the shell is typi‐
477 cally by writing a shell function and arranging for it to be
478 autoloaded. Functions are described in the section `Functions' in zsh‐
479 misc(1). Users changing from the C shell and its relatives should
480 notice that aliases are less used in zsh as they don't perform argument
481 substitution, only simple text replacement.
482 A few general functions, other than those for the line editor described
484 above, are provided with the shell and are described in zshcontrib(1).
485 Features include:
486 promptinit
488 a prompt theme system for changing prompts easily, see the sec‐
489 tion `Prompt Themes'
490 zsh-mime-setup
493 a MIME-handling system which dispatches commands according to
494 the suffix of a file as done by graphical file managers
495 zcalc a calculator
497 zargs a version of xargs that makes the find command redundant
499 zmv a command for renaming files by means of shell patterns.
501ZSHALL(1) General Commands Manual ZSHALL(1)
505
509 $ZDOTDIR/.zshenv
510 $ZDOTDIR/.zprofile
511 $ZDOTDIR/.zshrc
512 $ZDOTDIR/.zlogin
513 $ZDOTDIR/.zlogout
514 ${TMPPREFIX}* (default is /tmp/zsh*)
515 /etc/zshenv
516 /etc/zprofile
517 /etc/zshrc
518 /etc/zlogin
519 /etc/zlogout (installation-specific - /etc is the default)
520
522 sh(1), csh(1), tcsh(1), rc(1), bash(1), ksh(1)
523 IEEE Standard for information Technology - Portable Operating System
525 Interface (POSIX) - Part 2: Shell and Utilities, IEEE Inc, 1993, ISBN
526 1-55937-255-9.
527zsh 5.5.1 April 16, 2018 ZSHALL(1)