1ZSH(1) General Commands Manual ZSH(1)
2
6 zsh - the Z shell
7
9 Because zsh contains many features, the zsh manual has been split into
10 a number of sections:
11 zsh Zsh overview (this section)
13 zshmisc Anything not fitting into the other sections
14 zshexpn Zsh command and parameter expansion
15 zshparam Zsh parameters
16 zshoptions Zsh options
17 zshbuiltins Zsh built-in functions
18 zshzle Zsh command line editing
19 zshcompwid Zsh completion widgets
20 zshcompsys Zsh completion system
21 zshcompctl Zsh completion control
22 zshmodules Zsh loadable modules
23 zshzftpsys Zsh built-in FTP client
24 zshall Meta-man page containing all of the above
25
27 Zsh is a UNIX command interpreter (shell) usable as an interactive
28 login shell and as a shell script command processor. Of the standard
29 shells, zsh most closely resembles ksh but includes many enhancements.
30 Zsh has command line editing, builtin spelling correction, programmable
31 command completion, shell functions (with autoloading), a history mech‐
32 anism, and a host of other features.
33
35 Zsh was originally written by Paul Falstad <pf@zsh.org>. Zsh is now
36 maintained by the members of the zsh-workers mailing list <zsh-work‐
37 ers@sunsite.dk>. The development is currently coordinated by Peter
38 Stephenson <pws@zsh.org>. The coordinator can be contacted at <coordi‐
39 nator@zsh.org>, but matters relating to the code should generally go to
40 the mailing list.
41
43 Zsh is available from the following anonymous FTP sites. These mirror
44 sites are kept frequently up to date. The sites marked with (H) may be
45 mirroring ftp.cs.elte.hu instead of the primary site.
46 Primary site
48 ftp://ftp.zsh.org/pub/zsh/
49 http://www.zsh.org/pub/zsh/
50 Australia
52 ftp://ftp.zsh.org/pub/zsh/
53 http://www.zsh.org/pub/zsh/
54 Denmark
56 ftp://sunsite.dk/pub/unix/shells/zsh/
57 Finland
59 ftp://ftp.funet.fi/pub/unix/shells/zsh/
60 Germany
62 ftp://ftp.fu-berlin.de/pub/unix/shells/zsh/ (H)
63 ftp://ftp.gmd.de/packages/zsh/
64 ftp://ftp.uni-trier.de/pub/unix/shell/zsh/
65 Hungary
67 ftp://ftp.cs.elte.hu/pub/zsh/
68 http://www.cs.elte.hu/pub/zsh/
69 ftp://ftp.kfki.hu/pub/packages/zsh/
70 Israel
72 ftp://ftp.math.technion.ac.il/pub/zsh/
73 http://www.math.technion.ac.il/pub/zsh/
74 Japan
76 ftp://ftp.win.ne.jp/pub/shell/zsh/
77 ftp://ftp.ayamura.org/pub/zsh/
78 Korea
80 ftp://linux.sarang.net/mirror/system/shell/zsh/
81 Netherlands
83 ftp://ftp.demon.nl/pub/mirrors/zsh/
84 Norway
86 ftp://ftp.uit.no/pub/unix/shells/zsh/
87 Poland
89 ftp://sunsite.icm.edu.pl/pub/unix/shells/zsh/
90 Romania
92 ftp://ftp.roedu.net/pub/mirrors/ftp.zsh.org/pub/zsh/
93 ftp://ftp.kappa.ro/pub/mirrors/ftp.zsh.org/pub/zsh/
94 Slovenia
96 ftp://ftp.siol.net/mirrors/zsh/
97 Sweden
99 ftp://ftp.lysator.liu.se/pub/unix/zsh/
100 UK
102 ftp://ftp.net.lut.ac.uk/zsh/
103 ftp://sunsite.org.uk/packages/zsh/
104 USA
106 ftp://uiarchive.uiuc.edu/mirrors/ftp/ftp.zsh.org/pub/
107 ftp://ftp.rge.com/pub/shells/zsh/
108 http://zsh.disillusion.org/
109 http://foad.org/zsh/
110 The up-to-date source code is available via anonymous CVS from Source‐
112 forge. See http://sourceforge.net/projects/zsh/ for details.
113
115 Zsh has 3 mailing lists:
116 <zsh-announce@sunsite.dk>
118 Announcements about releases, major changes in the shell and the
119 monthly posting of the Zsh FAQ. (moderated)
120 <zsh-users@sunsite.dk>
122 User discussions.
123 <zsh-workers@sunsite.dk>
125 Hacking, development, bug reports and patches.
126 To subscribe or unsubscribe, send mail to the associated administrative
128 address for the mailing list.
129 <zsh-announce-subscribe@sunsite.dk>
131 <zsh-users-subscribe@sunsite.dk>
132 <zsh-workers-subscribe@sunsite.dk>
133 <zsh-announce-unsubscribe@sunsite.dk>
134 <zsh-users-unsubscribe@sunsite.dk>
135 <zsh-workers-unsubscribe@sunsite.dk>
136 YOU ONLY NEED TO JOIN ONE OF THE MAILING LISTS AS THEY ARE NESTED. All
138 submissions to zsh-announce are automatically forwarded to zsh-users.
139 All submissions to zsh-users are automatically forwarded to zsh-work‐
140 ers.
141 If you have problems subscribing/unsubscribing to any of the mailing
143 lists, send mail to <listmaster@zsh.org>. The mailing lists are main‐
144 tained by Karsten Thygesen <karthy@kom.auc.dk>.
145 The mailing lists are archived; the archives can be accessed via the
147 administrative addresses listed above. There is also a hypertext ar‐
148 chive, maintained by Geoff Wing <gcw@zsh.org>, available at
149 http://www.zsh.org/mla/.
150
152 Zsh has a list of Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ), maintained by Peter
153 Stephenson <pws@zsh.org>. It is regularly posted to the newsgroup
154 comp.unix.shell and the zsh-announce mailing list. The latest version
155 can be found at any of the Zsh FTP sites, or at
156 http://www.zsh.org/FAQ/. The contact address for FAQ-related matters
157 is <faqmaster@zsh.org>.
158
160 Zsh has a web page which is located at http://www.zsh.org/. This is
161 maintained by Karsten Thygesen <karthy@zsh.org>, of SunSITE Denmark.
162 The contact address for web-related matters is <webmaster@zsh.org>.
163
165 A userguide is currently in preparation. It is intended to complement
166 the manual, with explanations and hints on issues where the manual can
167 be cabbalistic, hierographic, or downright mystifying (for example, the
168 word `hierographic' does not exist). It can be viewed in its current
169 state at http://zsh.sunsite.dk/Guide/. At the time of writing, chap‐
170 ters dealing with startup files and their contents and the new comple‐
171 tion system were essentially complete.
172
174 A `wiki' website for zsh has been created at http://www.zshwiki.org/.
175 This is a site which can be added to and modified directly by users
176 without any special permission. You can add your own zsh tips and con‐
177 figurations.
178
180 The following flags are interpreted by the shell when invoked to deter‐
181 mine where the shell will read commands from:
182 -c Take the first argument as a command to execute, rather than
184 reading commands from a script or standard input. If any fur‐
185 ther arguments are given, the first one is assigned to $0,
186 rather than being used as a positional parameter.
187 -i Force shell to be interactive.
189 -s Force shell to read commands from the standard input. If the -s
191 flag is not present and an argument is given, the first argument
192 is taken to be the pathname of a script to execute.
193 After the first one or two arguments have been appropriated as
195 described above, the remaining arguments are assigned to the positional
196 parameters.
197 For further options, which are common to invocation and the set
199 builtin, see zshoptions(1).
200 Options may be specified by name using the -o option. -o acts like a
202 single-letter option, but takes a following string as the option name.
203 For example,
204 zsh -x -o shwordsplit scr
206 runs the script scr, setting the XTRACE option by the corresponding
208 letter `-x' and the SH_WORD_SPLIT option by name. Options may be
209 turned off by name by using +o instead of -o. -o can be stacked up
210 with preceding single-letter options, so for example `-xo shwordsplit'
211 or `-xoshwordsplit' is equivalent to `-x -o shwordsplit'.
212 Options may also be specified by name in GNU long option style,
214 `--option-name'. When this is done, `-' characters in the option name
215 are permitted: they are translated into `_', and thus ignored. So, for
216 example, `zsh --sh-word-split' invokes zsh with the SH_WORD_SPLIT
217 option turned on. Like other option syntaxes, options can be turned
218 off by replacing the initial `-' with a `+'; thus `+-sh-word-split' is
219 equivalent to `--no-sh-word-split'. Unlike other option syntaxes,
220 GNU-style long options cannot be stacked with any other options, so for
221 example `-x-shwordsplit' is an error, rather than being treated like
222 `-x --shwordsplit'.
223 The special GNU-style option `--version' is handled; it sends to stan‐
225 dard output the shell's version information, then exits successfully.
226 `--help' is also handled; it sends to standard output a list of options
227 that can be used when invoking the shell, then exits successfully.
228 Option processing may be finished, allowing following arguments that
230 start with `-' or `+' to be treated as normal arguments, in two ways.
231 Firstly, a lone `-' (or `+') as an argument by itself ends option pro‐
232 cessing. Secondly, a special option `--' (or `+-'), which may be spec‐
233 ified on its own (which is the standard POSIX usage) or may be stacked
234 with preceding options (so `-x-' is equivalent to `-x --'). Options
235 are not permitted to be stacked after `--' (so `-x-f' is an error), but
236 note the GNU-style option form discussed above, where `--shwordsplit'
237 is permitted and does not end option processing.
238 Except when the sh/ksh emulation single-letter options are in effect,
240 the option `-b' (or `+b') ends option processing. `-b' is like `--',
241 except that further single-letter options can be stacked after the `-b'
242 and will take effect as normal.
243
245 Zsh tries to emulate sh or ksh when it is invoked as sh or ksh respec‐
246 tively; more precisely, it looks at the first letter of the name by
247 which it was invoked, excluding any initial `r' (assumed to stand for
248 `restricted'), and if that is `s' or `k' it will emulate sh or ksh.
249 Furthermore, if invoked as su (which happens on certain systems when
250 the shell is executed by the su command), the shell will try to find an
251 alternative name from the SHELL environment variable and perform emula‐
252 tion based on that.
253 In sh and ksh compatibility modes the following parameters are not spe‐
255 cial and not initialized by the shell: ARGC, argv, cdpath, fignore,
256 fpath, HISTCHARS, mailpath, MANPATH, manpath, path, prompt, PROMPT,
257 PROMPT2, PROMPT3, PROMPT4, psvar, status, watch.
258 The usual zsh startup/shutdown scripts are not executed. Login shells
260 source /etc/profile followed by $HOME/.profile. If the ENV environment
261 variable is set on invocation, $ENV is sourced after the profile
262 scripts. The value of ENV is subjected to parameter expansion, command
263 substitution, and arithmetic expansion before being interpreted as a
264 pathname. Note that the PRIVILEGED option also affects the execution
265 of startup files.
266 The following options are set if the shell is invoked as sh or ksh:
268 NO_BAD_PATTERN, NO_BANG_HIST, NO_BG_NICE, NO_EQUALS, NO_FUNC‐
269 TION_ARGZERO, GLOB_SUBST, NO_GLOBAL_EXPORT, NO_HUP, INTERACTIVE_COM‐
270 MENTS, KSH_ARRAYS, NO_MULTIOS, NO_NOMATCH, NO_NOTIFY, POSIX_BUILTINS,
271 NO_PROMPT_PERCENT, RM_STAR_SILENT, SH_FILE_EXPANSION, SH_GLOB,
272 SH_OPTION_LETTERS, SH_WORD_SPLIT. Additionally the BSD_ECHO and
273 IGNORE_BRACES options are set if zsh is invoked as sh. Also, the
274 KSH_OPTION_PRINT, LOCAL_OPTIONS, PROMPT_BANG, PROMPT_SUBST and SIN‐
275 GLE_LINE_ZLE options are set if zsh is invoked as ksh.
276
278 When the basename of the command used to invoke zsh starts with the
279 letter `r' or the `-r' command line option is supplied at invocation,
280 the shell becomes restricted. Emulation mode is determined after
281 stripping the letter `r' from the invocation name. The following are
282 disabled in restricted mode:
283 · changing directories with the cd builtin
285 · changing or unsetting the PATH, path, MODULE_PATH, module_path,
287 SHELL, HISTFILE, HISTSIZE, GID, EGID, UID, EUID, USERNAME,
288 LD_LIBRARY_PATH, LD_AOUT_LIBRARY_PATH, LD_PRELOAD and
289 LD_AOUT_PRELOAD parameters
290 · specifying command names containing /
292 · specifying command pathnames using hash
294 · redirecting output to files
296 · using the exec builtin command to replace the shell with another
298 command
299 · using jobs -Z to overwrite the shell process' argument and envi‐
301 ronment space
302 · using the ARGV0 parameter to override argv[0] for external com‐
304 mands
305 · turning off restricted mode with set +r or unsetopt RESTRICTED
307 These restrictions are enforced after processing the startup files.
309 The startup files should set up PATH to point to a directory of com‐
310 mands which can be safely invoked in the restricted environment. They
311 may also add further restrictions by disabling selected builtins.
312 Restricted mode can also be activated any time by setting the
314 RESTRICTED option. This immediately enables all the restrictions
315 described above even if the shell still has not processed all startup
316 files.
317
319 Commands are first read from /etc/zshenv; this cannot be overridden.
320 Subsequent behaviour is modified by the RCS and GLOBAL_RCS options; the
321 former affects all startup files, while the second only affects those
322 in the /etc directory. If one of the options is unset at any point,
323 any subsequent startup file(s) of the corresponding type will not be
324 read. It is also possible for a file in $ZDOTDIR to re-enable
325 GLOBAL_RCS. Both RCS and GLOBAL_RCS are set by default.
326 Commands are then read from $ZDOTDIR/.zshenv. If the shell is a login
328 shell, commands are read from /etc/zprofile and then $ZDOTDIR/.zpro‐
329 file. Then, if the shell is interactive, commands are read from
330 /etc/zshrc and then $ZDOTDIR/.zshrc. Finally, if the shell is a login
331 shell, /etc/zlogin and $ZDOTDIR/.zlogin are read.
332 When a login shell exits, the files $ZDOTDIR/.zlogout and then
334 /etc/zlogout are read. This happens with either an explicit exit via
335 the exit or logout commands, or an implicit exit by reading end-of-file
336 from the terminal. However, if the shell terminates due to exec'ing
337 another process, the logout files are not read. These are also
338 affected by the RCS and GLOBAL_RCS options. Note also that the RCS
339 option affects the saving of history files, i.e. if RCS is unset when
340 the shell exits, no history file will be saved.
341 If ZDOTDIR is unset, HOME is used instead. Those files listed above as
343 being in /etc may be in another directory, depending on the installa‐
344 tion.
345 As /etc/zshenv is run for all instances of zsh, it is important that it
347 be kept as small as possible. In particular, it is a good idea to put
348 code that does not need to be run for every single shell behind a test
349 of the form `if [[ -o rcs ]]; then ...' so that it will not be executed
350 when zsh is invoked with the `-f' option.
351 Any of these files may be pre-compiled with the zcompile builtin com‐
353 mand (see zshbuiltins(1)). If a compiled file exists (named for the
354 original file plus the .zwc extension) and it is newer than the origi‐
355 nal file, the compiled file will be used instead.
356
358 $ZDOTDIR/.zshenv
359 $ZDOTDIR/.zprofile
360 $ZDOTDIR/.zshrc
361 $ZDOTDIR/.zlogin
362 $ZDOTDIR/.zlogout
363 ${TMPPREFIX}* (default is /tmp/zsh*)
364 /etc/zshenv
365 /etc/zprofile
366 /etc/zshrc
367 /etc/zlogin
368 /etc/zlogout (installation-specific - /etc is the default)
369
371 sh(1), csh(1), tcsh(1), rc(1), bash(1), ksh(1), zshbuiltins(1), zshcom‐
372 pwid(1), zshcompsys(1), zshcompctl(1), zshexpn(1), zshmisc(1), zshmod‐
373 ules(1), zshoptions(1), zshparam(1), zshzle(1)
374 IEEE Standard for information Technology - Portable Operating System
376 Interface (POSIX) - Part 2: Shell and Utilities, IEEE Inc, 1993, ISBN
377 1-55937-255-9.
378zsh 4.2.6 November 28, 2005 ZSH(1)