A User's Guide to the Z-Shell

Peter Stephenson

2003/03/23

Table of Contents

Chapter 1: A short introduction

1.1: Other shells and other guides

1.2: Versions of zsh

1.3: Conventions

1.4: Acknowledgments

Chapter 2: What to put in your startup files

2.1: Types of shell: interactive and login shells

2.1.1: What is a login shell? Simple tests

2.2: All the startup files

2.3: Options

2.4: Parameters

2.4.1: Arrays

2.5: What to put in your startup files

2.5.1: Compatibility options: SH_WORD_SPLIT and others

2.5.2: Options for csh junkies

2.5.3: The history mechanism: types of history

2.5.4: Setting up history

2.5.5: History options

2.5.6: Prompts

2.5.7: Named directories

2.5.8: `Go faster' options for power users

2.5.9: aliases

2.5.10: Environment variables

2.5.11: Path

2.5.12: Mail

2.5.13: Other path-like things

2.5.14: Version-specific things

2.5.15: Everything else

Chapter 3: Dealing with basic shell syntax

3.1: External commands

3.2: Builtin commands

3.2.1: Builtins for printing

3.2.2: Other builtins just for speed

3.2.3: Builtins which change the shell's state

3.2.4: cd and friends

3.2.5: Command control and information commands

3.2.6: Parameter control

3.2.7: History control commands

3.2.8: Job control and process control

3.2.9: Terminals, users, etc.

3.2.10: Syntactic oddments

3.2.11: More precommand modifiers: exec, noglob

3.2.12: Testing things

3.2.13: Handling options to functions and scripts

3.2.14: Random file control things

3.2.15: Don't watch this space, watch some other

3.2.16: And also

3.3: Functions

3.3.1: Loading functions

3.3.2: Function parameters

3.3.3: Compiling functions

3.4: Aliases

3.5: Command summary

3.6: Expansions and quotes

3.6.1: History expansion

3.6.2: Alias expansion

3.6.3: Process, parameter, command, arithmetic and brace expansion

3.6.4: Filename Expansion

3.6.5: Filename Generation

3.7: Redirection: greater-thans and less-thans

3.7.1: Clobber

3.7.2: File descriptors

3.7.3: Appending, here documents, here strings, read write

3.7.4: Clever tricks: exec and other file descriptors

3.7.5: Multios

3.8: Shell syntax: loops, (sub)shells and so on

3.8.1: Logical command connectors

3.8.2: Structures

3.8.3: Subshells and current shell constructs

3.8.4: Subshells and current shells

3.9: Emulation and portability

3.9.1: Differences in detail

3.9.2: Making your own scripts and functions portable

3.10: Running scripts

Chapter 4: The Z-Shell Line Editor

4.1: Introducing zle

4.1.1: The simple facts

4.1.2: Vi mode

4.2: Basic editing

4.2.1: Moving

4.2.2: Deleting

4.2.3: More deletion

4.3: Fancier editing

4.3.1: Options controlling zle

4.3.2: The minibuffer and extended commands

4.3.3: Prefix (digit) arguments

4.3.4: Words, regions and marks

4.3.5: Regions and marks

4.4: History and searching

4.4.1: Moving through the history

4.4.2: Searching through the history

4.4.3: Extracting words from the history

4.5: Binding keys and handling keymaps

4.5.1: Simple key bindings

4.5.2: Removing key bindings

4.5.3: Function keys and so on

4.5.4: Binding strings instead of commands

4.5.5: Keymaps

4.6: Advanced editing

4.6.1: Multi-line editing

4.6.2: The builtin vared and the function zed

4.6.3: The buffer stack

4.7: Extending zle

4.7.1: Widgets

4.7.2: Executing other widgets

4.7.3: Some special builtin widgets and their uses

4.7.4: Special parameters: normal text

4.7.5: Other special parameters

4.7.6: Reading keys and using the minibuffer

4.7.7: Examples

Chapter 5: Substitutions

5.1: Quoting

5.1.1: Backslashes

5.1.2: Single quotes

5.1.3: POSIX quotes

5.1.4: Double quotes

5.1.5: Backquotes

5.2: Modifiers and what they modify

5.3: Process Substitution

5.4: Parameter substitution

5.4.1: Using arrays

5.4.2: Using associative arrays

5.4.3: Substituted substitutions, top- and tailing, etc.

5.4.4: Flags for options: splitting and joining

5.4.5: Flags for options: GLOB_SUBST and RC_EXPAND_PARAM

5.4.6: Yet more parameter flags

5.4.7: A couple of parameter substitution tricks

5.4.8: Nested parameter substitutions

5.5: That substitution again

5.6: Arithmetic Expansion

5.6.1: Entering and outputting bases

5.6.2: Parameter typing

5.7: Brace Expansion and Arrays

5.8: Filename Expansion

5.9: Filename Generation and Pattern Matching

5.9.1: Comparing patterns and regular expressions

5.9.2: Standard features

5.9.3: Extensions usually available

5.9.4: Extensions requiring EXTENDED_GLOB

5.9.5: Recursive globbing

5.9.6: Glob qualifiers

5.9.7: Globbing flags: alter the behaviour of matches

5.9.8: The function zmv

Chapter 6: Completion, old and new

6.1: Completion and expansion

6.2: Configuring completion using shell options

6.2.1: Ambiguous completions

6.2.2: ALWAYS_LAST_PROMPT

6.2.3: Menu completion and menu selection

6.2.4: Other ways of changing completion behaviour

6.2.5: Changing the way completions are displayed

6.3: Getting started with new completion

6.4: How the shell finds the right completions

6.4.1: Contexts

6.4.2: Tags

6.5: Configuring completion using styles

6.5.1: Specifying completers and their options

6.5.2: Changing the format of listings: groups etc.

6.5.3: Styles affecting particular completions

6.6: Command widgets

6.6.1: _complete_help

6.6.2: _correct_word, _correct_filename, _expand_word

6.6.3: _history_complete_word

6.6.4: _most_recent_file

6.6.5: _next_tags

6.6.6: _bash_completions

6.6.7: _read_comp

6.6.8: _generic

6.6.9: predict-on, incremental-complete-word

6.7: Matching control and controlling where things are inserted

6.7.1: Case-insensitive matching

6.7.2: Matching option names

6.7.3: Partial word completion

6.7.4: Substring completion

6.7.5: Partial words with capitals

6.7.6: Final notes

6.8: Tutorial

6.8.1: The dispatcher

6.8.2: Subcommand completion: _arguments

6.8.3: Completing particular argument types

6.8.4: The rest

6.9: Writing new completion functions and widgets

6.9.1: Loading completion functions: compdef

6.9.2: Adding a set of completions: compadd

6.9.3: Functions for generating filenames, etc.

6.9.4: The zsh/parameter module

6.9.5: Special completion parameters and compset

6.9.6: Fancier completion: using the tags and styles mechanism

6.9.7: Getting the work done for you: handling arguments etc.

6.9.8: More completion utility functions

6.10: Finally

Chapter 7: Modules and other bits and pieces Not written

7.1: Control over modules: zmodload

7.1.1: Modules defining parameters

7.1.2: Low-level system interaction

7.1.3: ZFTP

7.2: Contributed bits

7.2.1: Prompt themes

7.3: What's new in 4.1

Appendix 1: Obtaining zsh and getting more information Not written