ZSHALL(1)
NAME
zshall - the Z shell meta-man page
SYNOPSIS
DESCRIPTION
Zsh is a UNIX command interpreter (shell) usable as an
interactive login shell and as a shell script command pro-
cessor. Of the standard shells, zsh most closely resem-
bles ksh but includes many enhancements. Zsh has comand
line editing, builtin spelling correction, programmable
command completion, shell functions (with autoloading), a
history mechanism, and a host of other features.
This manual page includes all the separate manual pages in
the following order: zshmisc (general information), zsh-
expn (command and parameter expansion), zshbuiltins
(built-in functions), zshcompctl (completion control via
the compctl built-in), zshparam (shell parameters), zshzle
(command line editing) and zshoptions (shell options).
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NAME
zshmisc - Everything and then some
SYNOPSIS
Everything I haven't put somewhere else
SHELL GRAMMAR
A simple command is a sequence of optional parameter
assignments followed by blank-separated words, with
optional redirections interspersed. The first word is the
command to be executed, and the remaining words, if any,
are arguments to the command. If a command name is given,
the parameter assignments modify the environment of the
command when it is executed. The value of a simple com-
mand is its exit status, or 128 plus the signal number if
terminated by a signal.
A pipeline is a sequence of one or more commands separated
by | or |&. |& is shorthand for 2>>&1 |. The standard
output of each command is connected to the standard input
of the next command in the pipeline. If a pipeline is
preceded by coproc, it is executed as a coprocess; a two-
way pipe is established between it and the parent shell.
The shell can read from or write to the coprocess by means
of the >>&p and <<&p redirection operators. The value of a
pipeline is the value of the last command. If a pipeline
is preceded by a !, the value of that pipeline is the log-
ical NOT of the value of the last command.
A sublist is a sequence of one or more pipelines separated
by && or ||. If two pipelines are separated by &&, the
second pipeline is executed only if the first is success-
ful (returns a zero value). If two pipelines are sepa-
rated by ||, the second is executed only if the first is
unsuccessful (returns a nonzero value). Both operators
have equal precedence and are left associative.
A list is a sequence of zero or more sublists separated
by, and optionally terminated by, ;, &, &|, &! or a new-
line. Normally the shell waits for each list to finish
before executing the next one. If a list is terminated by
&, &| or &!, the shell executes it in the background, and
does not wait for it to finish.
PRECOMMAND MODIFIERS
A simple command may be preceded by a precommand modifier
which will alter how the command is interpreted. These
modifiers are shell builtin commands with the exception of
nocorrect which is a reserved word.
- The command is executed with a - prepended to its
argv[0] string.
noglob Filename generation (globbing) is not performed on
any of the words.
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nocorrect
Spelling correction is not done on any of the
words.
exec The command is executed in the parent shell without
forking.
command
The command word is taken to be the name of an
external command, rather than a shell function or
builtin.
COMPLEX COMMANDS
A complex command in zsh is one of the following:
if list then list [ elif list then list ] ... [ else list
] fi
The if list is executed, and, if it returns a zero
exit status, the then list is executed. Otherwise,
the elif list is executed and, if its value is
zero, the then list is executed. If each elif list
returns nonzero, the else list is executed.
for name [ in word ... term ] do list done
where term is one ore more newline or ;. Expand
the list of words, and set the parameter name to
each of them in turn, executing list each time. If
the in word is omitted, use the positional parame-
ters instead of the words.
while list do list done
Execute the do list as long as the while list
returns a zero exit status.
until list do list done
Execute the do list as long as until list returns a
nonzero exit status.
repeat word do list done
word is expanded and treated as an arithmetic
expression, which must evaluate to a number n.
list is then executed n times.
case word in [ [(] pattern [ | pattern ] ... ) list ;; ]
... esac
Execute the list associated with the first pattern
that matches word, if any. The form of the pat-
terns is the same as that used for filename genera-
tion. See Filename Generation below.
select name [ in word ... term ] do list done
where term is one ore more newline or ;. Print the
set of words, each preceded by a number. If the in
word is omitted, use the positional parameters.
The PROMPT3 prompt is printed and a line is read
from standard input. If this line consists of the
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number of one of the listed words, then the parame-
ter name is set to the word corresponding to this
number. If this line is empty, the selection list
is printed again. Otherwise, the value of the
parameter name is set to null. The contents of the
line read from standard input is saved in the
parameter REPLY. list is executed for each selec-
tion until a break or end-of-file is encountered.
( list )
Execute list in a subshell. Traps set by the trap
builtin are reset to their default values while
executing list.
{ list }
Execute list.
function word ... [ () ] [ term ] { list }
word ... () [ term ] { list }
word ... () [ term ] command
where term is one ore more newline or ;. Define a
function which is referenced by any one of word.
Normally, only one word is provided; multiple words
are usually only useful for setting traps. The
body of the function is the list between the { and
}. See FUNCTIONS below.
time [ pipeline ]
The pipeline is executed, and timing statistics are
reported on the standard error in the form speci-
fied by the TIMEFMT parameter. If pipeline is
omitted, print statistics about the shell process
and its children.
[[ exp ]]
Evaluates the conditional expression exp and return
a zero exit status if it is true. See Conditional
Expressions below for a description of exp.
ALTERNATE FORMS FOR COMPLEX COMMANDS
Many of zsh's complex commands have alternate forms.
These particular versions of complex commands should be
considered deprecated and may be removed in the future.
The versions in the previous section should be preferred
instead. The short versions below only work if sublist is
of the form { list } or if the NO_SHORT_LOOPS option is
not set.
if list { list } [ elif list { list } ] ... [ else { list
} ]
An alternate form of if.
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if list sublist
A short form of previous one.
for name ( word ... ) sublist
A short form of for.
for name [ in word ... term ] sublist
where term is one ore more newline or ;. Another
short form of for.
foreach name ( word ... ) list end
Another form of for.
while list { list }
An alternative form of while.
until list { list }
An alternative form of until.
repeat word sublist
This is a short form of repeat.
case word { [ [(] pattern [ | pattern ] ... ) list ;; ]
... }
An alternative form of case.
select name [ in word term ] sublist
where term is one ore more newline or ;. A short
form of select.
RESERVED WORDS
The following words are recognized as reserved words when
used as the first word of a command unless quoted or dis-
abled using disable -r:
do done esac then elif else fi for case if while
function repeat time until select coproc nocorrect
foreach end ! [[ { }
Additionally } is recognized in any position if the
IGNORE_BRACES option is not set.
COMMENTS
In noninteractive shells, or in interactive shells with
the INTERACTIVE_COMMENTS option set, a word beginning with
the third character of the histchars parameter (`#' by
default) causes that word and all the following characters
up to a newline to be ignored.
ALIASING
Every token in the shell input is checked to see if there
is an alias defined for it. If so, it is replaced by the
text of the alias if it is in command position (if it
could be the first word of a simple command), or if the
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alias is global. If the text ends with a space, the next
word in the shell input is treated as though it were in
command position for purposes of alias expansion. An
alias is defined using the alias builtin; global aliases
may be defined using the -g option to that builtin.
Alias substitution is done on the shell input before any
other substitution except history substitution. There-
fore, if an alias is defined for the word foo, alias sub-
stitution may be avoided by quoting part of the word, e.g.
\foo. But there is nothing to prevent an alias being
defined for \foo as well.
QUOTING
A character may be quoted (that is, made to stand for
itself) by preceding it with a \. \ followed by a newline
is ignored. All characters enclosed between a pair of
single quotes ('') are quoted. A single quote cannot
appear within single quotes. Inside double quotes (""),
parameter and command substitution occurs, and \ quotes
the characters \, `, ", and $.
REDIRECTION
Before a command is executed, its input and output may be
redirected. The following may appear anywhere in a simple
command or may precede or follow a complex command. Sub-
stitution occurs before word or digit is used except as
noted below. If the result of substitution on word pro-
duces more than one filename, redirection occurs for each
separate filename in turn.
<<word Open file word as standard input.
<<>>word Open file word for reading and writing as standard
input. If the file does not exist then it is cre-
ated.
>>word Open file word as standard output. If the file
does not exist then it is created. If the file
exists, and the CLOBBER option is unset, this
causes an error; otherwise, it is truncated to zero
length.
>>| word
>>! word
Same as >>, except that the file is truncated to
zero length if it exists, even if CLOBBER is unset.
>>>>word Open file word as standard output. If the file
exists then output is appended to it. If the file
does not exist, and the CLOBBER option is unset,
this causes an error; otherwise, the file is cre-
ated.
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>>>>| word
>>>>! word
Same as >>>>, except that the file is created if it
does not exist, even if CLOBBER is unset.
<<<<[-] word
The shell input is read up to a line that is the
same as word, or to an end-of-file. No parameter
substitution, command substitution or filename gen-
eration is performed on word. The resulting docu-
ment, called a here-document, becomes the standard
input. If any character of word is quoted with
single or double quotes or a \, no interpretation
is placed upon the characters of the document.
Otherwise, parameter and command substitution
occurs, \ followed by a newline is removed, and \
must be used to quote the characters \, $, `, and
the first character of word. If <<- is used, then
all leading tabs are stripped from word and from
the document.
<<<<<<word
Perform shell expansion on word and pass the result
to standard input.
<<&digit
The standard input is duplicated from file descrip-
tor digit (see dup(2)). Similarly for standard
output using >>&digit.
>>&word Same as >>word 2>>&1.
>>>>&word
Same as >>>>word 2>>&1.
<<&- Close the standard input.
>>&- Close the standard output.
<<&p The input from the coprocess is moved to the stan-
dard input.
>>&p The output to the coprocess is moved to the stan-
dard output.
If one of the above is preceded by a digit, then the file
descriptor referred to is that specified by the digit
(instead of the default 0 or 1). The order in which redi-
rections are specified is significant. The shell evalu-
ates each redirection in terms of the (file descriptor,
file) association at the time of evaluation. For example:
... 1>fname 2>&1
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first associates file descriptor 1 with file fname. It
then associates file descriptor 2 with the file associated
with file descriptor 1 (that is, fname). If the order of
redirections were reversed, file descriptor 2 would be
associated with the terminal (assuming file descriptor 1
had been) and then file descriptor 1 would be associated
with file fname.
If the user tries to open a file descriptor for writing
more than once, the shell opens the file descriptor as a
pipe to a process that copies its input to all the speci-
fied outputs, similar to tee(1), provided the MULTIOS
option is set. Thus:
date >>foo >>bar
writes the date to two files, named "foo" and "bar". Note
that a pipe is an implicit indirection; thus
date >>foo | cat
writes the date to the file "foo", and also pipes it to
cat.
If the MULTIOS option is set, the word after a redirection
operator is also subjected to filename generation (glob-
bing). Thus
: >> *
will truncate all files in the current directory, assuming
there's at least one. (Without the MULTIOS option, it
would create an empty file called "*".)
If the user tries to open a file descriptor for reading
more than once, the shell opens the file descriptor as a
pipe to a process that copies all the specified inputs to
its output in the order specified, similar to cat(1), pro-
vided the MULTIOS option is set. Thus
sort <<foo <<fubar
or even
sort <<f{oo,ubar}
is equivalent to "cat foo fubar | sort". Similarly, you
can do
echo exit 0 >>>> *.sh
Note that a pipe is in implicit indirection; thus
cat bar | sort <<foo
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is equivalent to "cat bar foo | sort" (note the order of
the inputs).
If the MULTIOS option is unset, each redirection replaces
the previous redirection for that file descriptor. How-
ever, all files redirected to are actually opened, so
echo foo >> bar >> baz
when MULTIOS is unset will truncate bar, and write "foo"
into baz.
If a simple command consists of one or more redirection
operators and zero or more parameter assignments, but no
command name, the command cat is assumed. Thus
<< file
prints the contents of file.
If a command is followed by & and job control is not
active, then the default standard input for the command is
the empty file /dev/null. Otherwise, the environment for
the execution of a command contains the file descriptors
of the invoking shell as modified by input/output specifi-
cations.
COMMAND EXECUTION
If a command name contains no slashes, the shell attempts
to locate it. If there exists a shell function by that
name, the function is invoked as described below in FUNC-
TIONS. If there exists a shell builtin by that name, the
builtin is invoked.
Otherwise, the shell searches each element of path for a
directory containing an executable file by that name. If
the search is unsuccessful, the shell prints an error mes-
sage and returns a nonzero exit status.
If execution fails because the file is not in executable
format, and the file is not a directory, it is assumed to
be a shell script. /bin/sh is spawned to execute it. If
the program is a file beginning with #!, the remainder of
the first line specifies an interpreter for the program.
The shell will execute the specified interpreter on oper-
ating systems that do not handle this executable format in
the kernel.
FUNCTIONS
The function reserved word is used to define shell func-
tions. Shell functions are read in and stored internally.
Alias names are resolved when the function is read. Func-
tions are executed like commands with the arguments passed
as positional parameters. (See Execution below).
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Functions execute in the same process as the caller and
share all files and present working directory with the
caller. A trap on EXIT set inside a function is executed
after the function completes in the environment of the
caller.
The return builtin is used to return from function calls.
Function identifiers can be listed with the functions
builtin. Functions can be undefined with the unfunction
builtin.
The following functions, if defined, have special meaning
to the shell:
chpwd Executed whenever the current working directory is
changed.
precmd Executed before each prompt.
periodic
If the parameter PERIOD is set, this function is
executed every PERIOD seconds, just before a
prompt.
TRAPxxx
If defined and non-null, this function will be exe-
cuted whenever the shell catches a signal SIGxxx,
where xxx is a signal name as specified for the
kill builtin (see below). The signal number will
be passed as the first parameter to the function.
In addition, TRAPZERR is executed whenever a com-
mand has a non-zero exit status, TRAPDEBUG is exe-
cuted after each command, and TRAPEXIT is executed
when the shell exits, or when the current function
exits if defined inside a function. If a function
of this form is defined and null, the shell and
processes spawned by it will ignore SIGxxx.
JOBS
If the MONITOR option is set, an interactive shell associ-
ates a job with each pipeline. It keeps a table of cur-
rent jobs, printed by the jobs command, and assigns them
small integer numbers. When a job is started asyn-
chronously with &, the shell prints a line which looks
like:
[1] 1234
indicating that the job which was started asynchronously
was job number 1 and had one (top-level) process, whose
process id was 1234.
If a job is started with &| or &!, then that job is imme-
diately disowned. After startup, it does not have a place
in the job table, and is not subject to the job control
features described here.
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If you are running a job and wish to do something else you
may hit the key ^Z (control-Z) which sends a TSTP signal
to the current job. The shell will then normally indicate
that the job has been `suspended', and print another
prompt. You can then manipulate the state of this job,
putting it in the background with the bg command, or run
some other commands and then eventually bring the job back
into the foreground with the foreground command fg. A ^Z
takes effect immediately and is like an interrupt in that
pending output and unread input are discarded when it is
typed.
A job being run in the background will suspend if it tries
to read from the terminal. Background jobs are normally
allowed to produce output, but this can be disabled by
giving the command ``stty tostop''. If you set this tty
option, then background jobs will suspend when they try to
produce output like they do when they try to read input.
There are several ways to refer to jobs in the shell. A
job can be referred to by the process id of any process of
the job or by one of the following:
%number
The job with the given number.
%string
Any job whose command line begins with string.
%?string
Any job whose command line contains string.
%% Current job.
%+ Equivalent to %%.
%- Previous job.
The shell learns immediately whenever a process changes
state. It normally informs you whenever a job becomes
blocked so that no further progress is possible. If
notify is not set, it waits until just before it prints a
prompt before it informs you.
When the monitor mode is on, each background job that com-
pletes triggers any trap set for CHLD.
When you try to leave the shell while jobs are running or
suspended, you will be warned that `You have suspended
(running) jobs.' You may use the jobs command to see what
they are. If you do this or immediately try to exit
again, the shell will not warn you a second time; the sus-
pended jobs will be terminated, and the running jobs will
be sent a SIGHUP signal. To avoid having the shell termi-
nate the running jobs, either use the nohup(1) command or
the disown builtin (see below).
SIGNALS
The INT and QUIT signals for an invoked command are
ignored if the command is followed by & and the job
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MONITOR option is not active. Otherwise, signals have the
values inherited by the shell from its parent (but see the
TRAPxxx special function above).
ARITHMETIC EVALUATION
An ability to perform integer arithmetic is provided with
the builtin let. Evaluations are performed using long
arithmetic. A leading 0x or 0X denotes hexadecimal. Oth-
erwise, numbers are of the form [base#]n where base is a
decimal number between two and thirty-six representing the
arithmetic base and n is a number in that base (for exam-
ple, `16#ff' is 255 in hexadecimal). If base is omitted
then base 10 is used. For backwards compatibility the
form `[16]ff' is also accepted.
An arithmetic expression uses nearly the same syntax,
precedence, and associativity of expressions in C. The
following operators are supported (listed in decreasing
order of precedence):
+ - ! ~ ++ --
unary plus/minus, logical NOT, complement,
{pre,post}{in,de}crement
<<<< >>>> bitwise shift left, right
& bitwise AND
^ bitwise XOR
| bitwise OR
** exponentiation
* / % multiplication, division, modulus (remain-
der)
+ - addition, subtraction
<< >> <<= >>=
comparison
== != equality and inequality
&& logical AND
|| ^^ logical OR, XOR
? : ternary operator
= += -= *= /= %= &= ^= |= <<<<= >>>>= &&= ||= ^^= **=
assignment
, comma operator
The operators &&, ||, &&=, and ||= are short-circuiting,
and only one of the latter two expressions in a ternary
operator is evaluated. Note the precedence of the bitwise
AND, OR, and XOR operators.
An expression of the form #\x where x is any character
gives the ascii value of this character and an expression
of the form #foo gives the ascii value of the first char-
acter of the value of the parameter foo.
Named parameters and subscripted arrays can be referenced
by name within an arithmetic expression without using the
parameter substitution syntax.
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An internal integer representation of a named parameter
can be specified with the integer builtin. Arithmetic
evaluation is performed on the value of each assignment to
a named parameter declared integer in this manner.
Since many of the arithmetic operators require quoting, an
alternative form of the let command is provided. For any
command which begins with a ((, all the characters until a
matching )) are treated as a quoted expression. More pre-
cisely, ((...)) is equivalent to let "...".
CONDITIONAL EXPRESSIONS
A conditional expression is used with the [[ compound com-
mand to test attributes of files and to compare strings.
Each expression can be constructed from one or more of the
following unary or binary expressions:
-a file
true if file exists.
-b file
true if file exists and is a block special file.
-c file
true if file exists and is a character special
file.
-d file
true if file exists and is a directory.
-e file
true if file exists.
-f file
true if file exists and is an ordinary file.
-g file
true if file exists and has its setgid bit set.
-h file
true if file exists and is a symbolic link.
-k file
true if file exists and has its sticky bit set.
-n string
true if length of string is non-zero.
-o option
true if option named option is on. option may be a
single character, in which case it is a single let-
ter option name. (See the SPECIFYING OPTIONS sec-
tion of the zshoptions(1) man page.)
-p file
true if file exists and is a fifo special file or a
pipe.
-r file
true if file exists and is readable by current pro-
cess.
-s file
true if file exists and has size greater than zero.
-t fd true if file descriptor number fd is open and asso-
ciated with a terminal device. (note: fd is not
optional)
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-u file
true if file exists and has its setuid bit set.
-w file
true if file exists and is writable by current pro-
cess.
-x file
true if file exists and is executable by current
process. If file exists and is a directory, then
the current process has permission to search in the
directory.
-z string
true if length of string is zero.
-L file
true if file exists and is a symbolic link.
-O file
true if file exists and is owned by the effective
user id of this process.
-G file
true if file exists and its group matches the
effective group id of this process.
-S file
true if file exists and is a socket.
-N file
true if file exists and its access time is not
newer than its modification time.
file1 -nt file2
true if file1 exists and is newer than file2.
file1 -ot file2
true if file1 exists and is older than file2.
file1 -ef file2
true if file1 and file2 exist and refer to the same
file.
string == pattern
string = pattern
true if string matches pattern. The first form is
the preferred one. The other form is for backward
compatibility and should be considered obsolete.
string != pattern
true if string does not match pattern.
string1 << string2
true if string1 comes before string2 based on ASCII
value of their characters.
string1 >> string2
true if string1 comes after string2 based on ASCII
value of their characters.
exp1 -eq exp2
true if exp1 is equal to exp2.
exp1 -ne exp2
true if exp1 is not equal to exp2.
exp1 -lt exp2
true if exp1 is less than exp2.
exp1 -gt exp2
true if exp1 is greater than exp2.
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exp1 -le exp2
true if exp1 is less than or equal to exp2.
exp1 -ge exp2
true if exp1 is greater than or equal to exp2.
( exp )
true if exp is true.
! exp true if exp is false.
exp1 && exp2
true if exp1 and exp2 are both true.
exp1 || exp2
true if either exp1 or exp2 is true.
In each of the above expressions, if file is of the form
/dev/fd/n, where n is an integer, then the test applied to
the open file whose descriptor number is n, even if the
underlying system does not support the /dev/fd directory.
COMPATIBILITY
Zsh tries to emulate sh or ksh when it is invoked as sh or
ksh respectively. In this mode the following parameters
are not special and not initialized by the shell: ARGC,
argv, cdpath, fignore, fpath, HISTCHARS, mailpath, MAN-
PATH, manpath, path, prompt, PROMPT, PROMPT2, PROMPT3,
PROMPT4, psvar, status, watch.
The usual zsh starup/shutdown scripts are not executed.
Login shells source /etc/profile followed by $HOME/.pro-
file. If the ENV environment variable is set on invoca-
tion, $ENV is sourced after the profile scripts. The
value of ENV is subjected to parameter expansion, command
substitution, and arithmetic expansion before being inter-
preted as a pathname. Note that the PRIVILEGED option
also affects the execution of startup files. See zshop-
tions(1) for more details.
The following options are set if the shell is invoked as
sh or ksh: NO_BAD_PATTERN, NO_BANG_HIST, NO_BG_NICE,
NO_EQUALS, NO_FUNCTION_ARGZERO, GLOB_SUBST, NO_HUP, INTER-
ACTIVE_COMMENTS, KSH_ARRAYS, NO_MULTIOS, NO_NOMATCH,
RM_STAR_SILENT, POSIX_BUILTINS, SH_FILE_EXPANSION,
SH_GLOB, SH_OPTION_LETTERS, SH_WORD_SPLIT. Additionally
the BSD_ECHO and the IGNORE_BRACES options are set if zsh
is invoked as sh and the KSH_OPTION_PRINT, LOCAL_OPTIONS,
PROMPT_SUBST and SINGLE_LINE_ZLE options are set if zsh is
invoked as ksh.
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ZSHEXPN(1) ZSHEXPN(1)
NAME
zshexpn - zsh command and parameter expansion
DESCRIPTION
The types of expansions performed are history expansion,
alias expansion, process substitution, parameter expan-
sion, command substitution, arithmetic expansion, brace
expansion, filename expansion, and filename generation.
Exansion is done in the above specified order in five
steps. The first is History expansion which is only per-
formed in interactive shells. The next step is alias
expansion which is done right before the command line is
parsed. They are followed by process substitution, param-
eter expansion, command substitution, arithmetic expansion
and brace expansion which are preformed in one step in
left-to-right fashion. After these expansions, all
unquoted occurrences of the characters \, ', and " are
removed and the result is subjected to filename expansion
followed by filename generation.
If the SH_FILE_EXPANSION option is set, the order of
expansion is modified for compatibility with sh and ksh.
Filename expansion is performed immediately after alias
substitution, preceding the set of five substitutions men-
tioned above.
FILENAME EXPANSION
Each word is checked to see if it begins with an unquoted
~. If it does, then the word up to a /, or the end of the
word if there is no /, is checked to see if it can be sub-
stituted in one of the ways described here. If so, then
the ~ and the checked portion are replaced with the appro-
priate substitute value.
A ~ by itself is replaced by the value of the HOME parame-
ter. A ~ followed by a + or a - is replaced by the value
of PWD or OLDPWD, respectively.
A ~ followed by a number is replaced by the directory at
that position in the directory stack. ~0 is equivalent to
~+, and ~1 is the top of the stack. ~+ followed by a num-
ber is replaced by the directory at that position in the
directory stack. ~+0 is equivalent to ~+, and ~+1 is the
top of the stack. ~- followed by a number is replaced by
the directory that many positions from the bottom of the
stack. ~-0 is the bottom of the stack. The PUSHD_MINUS
option exchanges the effects of ~+ and ~- where they are
followed by a number.
A ~ followed by anything not already covered is looked up
as a named directory, and replaced by the value of that
named directory if found. Named directories are typically
home directories for users on the system. They may also
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be defined if the text after the ~ is the name of a string
shell parameter whose value begins with a /. It is also
possible to define directory names using the `-d' option
to the hash builtin.
In certain circumstances (in prompts, for instance), when
the shell prints a path, the path is checked to see if it
has a named directory as its prefix. If so, then the pre-
fix portion is replaced with a ~ followed by the name of
the directory. The shortest way of referring to the
directory is used, with ties broken in favour of using a
named directory, except when the directory is /.
If a word begins with an unquoted = and the EQUALS option
is set, the remainder of the word is taken as the name of
a command or alias. If a command exists by that name, the
word is replaced by the full pathname of the command. If
an alias exists by that name, the word is replaced with
the text of the alias.
Filename expansion is performed on the right hand side of
a parameter assignment, including those appearing after
commands of the typeset family. In this case, the right
hand side will be treated as a colon-separated list in the
manner of PATH so that a ~ or an = following a : is eligi-
ble for expansion. All such behavior can be disabled by
quoting the ~, the =, or the whole expression (but not
simply the colon); the EQUALS option is also respected.
If the option MAGIC_EQUAL_SUBST is set, any unquoted shell
argument in the form identifier=expression becomes eligi-
ble for file expansion as described in the previous para-
graph. Quoting the first = also inhibits this.
PROCESS SUBSTITUTION
Each command argument of the form <<(list) or >>(list) or
=(list) is subject to process substitution. In the case
of the << or >> forms, the shell will run process list asyn-
chronously connected to a named pipe (FIFO). The name of
this pipe will become the argument to the command. If the
form with >> is selected then writing on this file will
provide input for list. If << is used, then the file
passed as an argument will be a named pipe connected to
the output of the list process. For example,
paste <<(cut -f1 file1) <<(cut -f3 file2) | tee
>>(process1) >>(process2) >/dev/null
cuts fields 1 and 3 from the files file1 and file2 respec-
tively, pastes the results together, and sends it to the
processes process1 and process2. Note that the file,
which is passed as an argument to the command, is a system
pipe so programs that expect to lseek(2) on the file will
not work. Also note that the previous example can be more
zsh version 3.0 June 26, 1996 2
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compactly and efficiently written as:
paste <<(cut -f1 file1) <<(cut -f3 file2) >> >>(pro-
cess1) >> >>(process2)
The shell uses pipes instead of FIFOs to implement the
latter two process substitutions in the above example.
If = is used, then the file passed as an argument will be
the name of a temporary file containing the output of the
list process. This may be used instead of the << form for
a program that expects to lseek(2) on the input file.
PARAMETER EXPANSION
The character $ is used to introduce parameter expansions.
See PARAMETERS below for a description of parameters. In
the expansions discussed below that require a pattern, the
form of the pattern is the same as that used for filename
generation; see Filename Generation.
${name}
The value, if any, of the parameter name is
substituted. The braces are required if
name is followed by a letter, digit, or
underscore that is not to be interpreted as
part of its name. If name is an array
parameter, then the values of each element
of name is substituted, one element per
word. Otherwise, the expansion results in
one word only; no word splitting is done on
the result.
${+name}
If name is the name of a set parameter `1'
is substituted, otherwise `0' is substi-
tuted.
${name:-word}
If name is set and is non-null then substi-
tute its value; otherwise substitute word.
If name is missing, substitute word.
${name:=word}
If name is unset or is null then set it to
word; the value of the parameter is then
substituted.
${name::=word}
Set name to word; the value of the parameter
is then substituted.
${name:?word}
If name is set and is non-null, then substi-
tute its value; otherwise, print word and
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exit from the shell. If word is omitted,
then a standard message is printed.
${name:+word}
If name is set and is non-null then substi-
tute word; otherwise substitute nothing.
${name#pattern}
${name##pattern}
If the pattern matches the beginning of the
value of name, then substitute the value of
name with the matched portion deleted; oth-
erwise, just substitute the value of name.
In the first form, the smallest matching
pattern is preferred; in the second form,
the largest matching pattern is preferred.
If name is an array and the substitution is
not quoted or the @ flag or the name[@] syn-
tax is used, matching is performed on each
array elements separately.
${name%pattern}
${name%%pattern}
If the pattern matches the end of the value
of name, then substitute the value of name
with the matched portion deleted; otherwise,
just substitute the value of name. In the
first form, the smallest matching pattern is
preferred; in the second form, the largest
matching pattern is preferred. If name is an
array and the substitution is not quoted or
the @ flag or the name[@] syntax is used,
matching is performed on each array elements
separately.
${name:#pattern}
If the pattern matches the value of name,
then substitute the empty string; otherwise,
just substitute the value of name. If name
is an array and the substitution is not
quoted or the @ flag or the name[@] syntax
is used, matching is performed on each array
elements separately, and the matched array
elements are removed (use the M flag to
remove the non-matched elements).
${#spec}
If spec is one of the above substitutions,
substitute the length in characters of the
result instead of the result itself. If
spec is an array expression, substitute the
number of elements of the result.
${^spec}
Turn on the RC_EXPAND_PARAM option for the
evaluation of spec; if the ^ is doubled,
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turn it off. When this option is set, array
expansions of the form foo${xx}bar, where
the parameter xx is set to (a b c), are sub-
stituted with fooabar foobbar foocbar
instead of the default fooa b cbar.
${=spec}
Turn on the SH_WORD_SPLIT option for the
evaluation of spec; if the = is doubled,
turn it off. When this option is set,
parameter values are split into separate
words using IFS as a delimiter before sub-
stitution. This is done by default in most
other shells.
${~spec}
Turn on the GLOB_SUBST option for the evalu-
ation of spec; if the ~ is doubled, turn it
off. When this option is set, any pattern
characters resulting from the substitution
become eligible for file expansion and file-
name generation.
If the colon is omitted from one of the above expressions
containing a colon, then the shell only checks whether
name is set or not, not whether it is null.
If a ${...} type parameter expression or a $(...) type
command substitution is used in place of name above, it is
substituted first and the result is used as it were the
value of name.
If the opening brace is directly followed by an opening
parentheses the string up to the matching closing paren-
theses will be taken as a list of flags. Where arguments
are valid, any character, or the matching pairs `(...)',
`{...}', `[...]', or `<...>', may be used in place of the
colon as delimiters. The following flags are supported:
A Create an array parameter with ${...:=...}
or ${...::=...}. Assignment is made before
sorting or padding.
@ In double quotes, array elements are put
into separate words. Eg. "${(@)foo}" is
equivalent to "${foo[@]}" and
"${(@)foo[1,2]}" is the same as "$foo[1]"
"$foo[2]".
e Perform parameter expansion, command substi-
tution and arithmetic expansion on the
result. Such expansions can be nested but
too deep recursion may have unpredictable
effects.
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o Sort the resulting words in ascending order.
O Sort the resulting words in descending
order.
i With o or O, sort case-independently.
L Convert all letters in the result to lower
case.
U Convert all letters in the result to upper
case.
C Capitalize the resulting words.
c With ${#name}, count the total number of
characters in an array, as if the elements
were concatenated with spaces between them.
w With ${#name}, count words in arrays or
strings; the s flag may be used to set a
word delimiter.
W Similar to w with the difference that empty
words between repeated delimiters are also
counted.
p Recognize the same escape sequences as the
print builtin in string arguments to subse-
quent flags.
l:expr::string1::string2:
Pad the resulting words on the left. Each
word will be truncated if required and
placed in a field expr characters wide. The
space to the left will be filled with
string1 (concatenated as often as needed) or
spaces if string1 is not given. If both
string1 and string2 are given, this string
will be placed exactly once directly to the
left of the resulting word.
r:expr::string1::string2:
As l..., but pad the words on the right.
j:string:
Join the words of arrays together using
string as a separator. Note that this
occurs before word splitting by the
SH_WORD_SPLIT option.
F Join the words of arrays together using new-
line as a separator. This is a shorthand
for pj:\n:.
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s:string:
Force word splitting (see the option
SH_WORD_SPLIT) at the separator string.
Splitting only occurs in places where an
array value is valid.
f Split the result of the expansion to lines.
This is a shorthand for ps:\n:.
S (This and all remaining flags are used with
the ${...#...} or ${...%...} forms): search
substrings as well as beginnings or ends.
I:expr:
Search the expr'th match (where expr evalu-
ates to a number).
M Include the matched portion in the result.
R Include the unmatched portion in the result
(the Rest).
B Include the index of the beginning of the
match in the result.
E Include the index of the end of the match in
the result.
N Include the length of the match in the
result.
COMMAND SUBSTITUTION
A command enclosed in parentheses preceded by a dollar
sign, like so: $(...) or quoted with grave accents: `...`
is replaced with its standard output, with any trailing
newlines deleted. If the substitution is not enclosed in
double quotes, the output is broken into words using the
IFS parameter. The substitution $(cat foo) may be
replaced by the equivalent but faster $(<<foo). In either
case, if the option GLOB_SUBST is set the output is eligi-
ble for filename generation.
ARITHMETIC EXPANSION
A string of the form $[exp] or $((exp)) is substituted
with the value of the arithmetic expression exp. exp is
subjected to parameter expansion, command substitution and
arithmetic expansion before it is evaluated. See ARITH-
METIC EVALUATION below.
BRACE EXPANSION
A string of the form foo{xx,yy,zz}bar is expanded to the
individual words fooxxbar, fooyybar, and foozzbar. Left-
to-right order is preserved. This construct may be
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nested. Commas may be quoted in order to include them
literally in a word.
An expression of the form {n1..n2}, where n1 and n2 are
integers, is expanded to every number between n1 and n2,
inclusive. If either number begins with a zero, all the
resulting numbers will be padded with leading zeroes to
that minimum width. If the numbers are in decreasing
order the resulting sequence will also be in decreasing
order.
If a brace expression matches none of the above forms, it
is left unchanged, unless the BRACE_CCL option is set. In
that case, it is expanded to a sorted list of the individ-
ual characters between the braces, in the manner of a
search set. `-' is treated specially as in a search set,
but `^' or `!' as the first character is treated normally.
FILENAME GENERATION (GLOBBING)
If a word contains an unquoted instance of one of the
characters *, |, <, [, or ?, it is regarded as a pattern
for filename generation, unless the GLOB option is unset.
If the EXTENDED_GLOB option is set, the ^, ~ and # char-
acters also denote a pattern; otherwise (except for an
initial ~, see Filename Expansion above) they are not
treated specially by the shell. The word is replaced with
a list of sorted filenames that match the pattern. If no
matching pattern is found, the shell gives an error mes-
sage, unless the NULL_GLOB option is set, in which case
the word is deleted; or unless the NOMATCH option is
unset, in which case the word is left unchanged. In file-
name generation, the character / must be matched explic-
itly; also, a . must be matched explicitly at the begin-
ning of a pattern or after a /, unless the GLOB_DOTS
option is set. No filename generation pattern matches the
files "." or "..". In other instances of pattern match-
ing, the / and . are not treated specially.
* matches any string, including the null
string.
? matches any character.
[...] matches any of the enclosed characters.
Ranges of characters can be specified by
separating two characters by a -. A - or ]
may be matched by including it as the first
character in the list.
[^...]
[!...] like [...], except that it matches any char-
acter which is not in the given set.
<<x-y>> matches any number in the range x to y,
inclusive. If x is omitted, the number must
be less than or equal to y. If y is omit-
ted, the number must be greater than or
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equal to x. A pattern of the form <<->>
matches any number.
^x matches anything except the pattern x.
x|y matches either x or y.
x# matches zero or more occurrences of the pat-
tern x.
x## matches one or more occurrences of the pat-
tern x.
Parentheses may be used for grouping. Note that the |
character must be within parentheses, so that the lexical
analyzer does not think it is a pipe character. Also note
that "/" has a higher precedence than "^"; that is:
ls ^foo/bar
will search directories in "." except "./foo" for a file
named bar.
A pathname component of the form (foo/)# matches a path
consisting of zero or more directories matching the pat-
tern foo. As a shorthand, **/ is equivalent to (*/)#.
Thus:
ls (*/)#bar
or
ls **/bar
does a recursive directory search for files named bar, not
following symbolic links. For this you can use the form
***/.
If used for filename generation, a pattern may contain an
exclusion specifier. Such patterns are of the form
pat1~pat2. This pattern will generate all files matching
pat1, but which do not match pat2. For example, *.c~lex.c
will match all files ending in .c, except the file lex.c.
This may appear inside parentheses. Note that "~" has a
higher precedence than "|", so that pat1|pat2~pat3 matches
any time that pat1 matches, or if pat2 matches while pat3
does not. Note also that "/" characters are not treated
specially in the exclusion specifier so that a "*" will
match multiple path segments if they appear in the pattern
to the left of the "~".
Patterns used for filename generation may also end in a
list of qualifiers enclosed in parentheses. The quali-
fiers specify which filenames that otherwise match the
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given pattern will be inserted in the argument list. A
qualifier may be any one of the following:
/ directories
. plain files
@ symbolic links
= sockets
p named pipes (FIFOs)
* executable plain files (0100)
% device files (character or block special)
%b block special files
%c character special files
r owner-readable files (0400)
w owner-writable files (0200)
x owner-executable files (0100)
A group-readable files (0040)
I group-writable files (0020)
E group-executable files (0010)
R world-readable files (0004)
W world-writable files (0002)
X world-executable files (0001)
s setuid files (04000)
S setgid files (02000)
t files with the sticky bit (01000)
ddev files on the device dev
l[-|+]ct
files having a link count less than ct (-),
greater than ct (+), or is equal to ct
U files owned by the effective user id
G files owned by the effective group id
uid files owned by user id id if it is a number,
if not, than the character after the u will
be used as a separator and the string
between it and the next matching separator
(`(', `[', `{', and `<' match `)', `]', `}',
and `>' respectively, any other character
matches itself) will be taken as a user name
and the user id of this user will be taken
(e.g. u:foo: or u[foo] for user foo)
gid like uid but with group ids or names
a[Mwhm][-|+]n
files accessed exactly n days ago. Files
accessed within the last n days are selected
using a negative value for n (-n). Files
accessed more than n days ago are selected
by a positive n value (+n). Optional unit
specifiers M, w, h, or m (e.g. ah5) cause
the check to be performed with months (of 30
days), weeks, hours, or minutes instead of
days, respectively. For instance, echo
*(ah-5) would echo files accessed within the
last five hours.
m[Mwhm][-|+]n
like the file access qualifier, except that
it uses the file modification time.
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c[Mwhm][-|+]n
like the file access qualifier, except that
it uses the file inode change time.
L[+|-]n
files less than n bytes (-), more than n
bytes (+), or exactly n bytes in length. If
this flag is directly followed by a k (K), m
(M), or p (P) (e.g. Lk+50) the check is per-
formed with kilobytes, megabytes, or blocks
(of 512 bytes) instead.
^ negates all qualifiers following it
- toggles between making the qualifiers work
on symbolic links (the default) and the
files they point to
M sets the MARK_DIRS option for the current
pattern
T appends a traling qualifier mark to the file
names, analogous to the LIST_TYPES option,
for the current pattern (overrides M)
N sets the NULL_GLOB option for the current
pattern
D sets the GLOB_DOTS option for the current
pattern
More than one of these lists can be combined, separated by
commas. The whole list matches if at least one of the sub-
lists matches (they are `or'ed', the qualifiers in the
sublists are `and'ed').
If a : appears in a qualifier list, the remainder of the
expression in parenthesis is interpreted as a modifier
(see the subsection Modifiers of the section HISTORY
EXPANSION). Note that each modifier must be introduced by
a separate :. Note also that the result after modifica-
tion does not have to be an existing file. The name of
any existing file can be followed by a modifier of the
form (:..) even if no filename generation is performed.
Thus:
ls *(-/)
lists all directories and symbolic links that point to
directories, and
ls *(%W)
lists all world-writable device files in the current
directory, and
ls *(W,X)
lists all files in the current directory that are world-
writable or world-executable, and
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echo /tmp/foo*(u0^@:t)
outputs the basename of all root-owned files beginning
with the string "foo" in /tmp, ignoring symlinks, and
ls *.*~(lex|parse).[ch](^D^l1)
lists all files having a link count of one whose names
contain a dot (but not those starting with a dot, since
GLOB_DOTS is explicitly switched off) except for lex.c,
lex.h, parse.c, and parse.h.
HISTORY EXPANSION
History substitution allows you to use words from previous
command lines in the command line you are typing. This
simplifies spelling corrections and the repetition of com-
plicated commands or arguments. Command lines are saved
in the history list, the size of which is controlled by
the HISTSIZE variable. The most recent command is
retained in any case. A history substitution begins with
the fist character of the histchars parameter which is !
by default and may occur anywhere on the command line;
history substitutions do not nest. The ! can be escaped
with \ or can be enclosed between a pair of single quotes
('') to suppress its special meaning. Double quotes will
not work for this.
Input lines containing history substitutions are echoed on
the terminal after being expanded, but before any other
substitutions take place or the command gets executed.
Event Designators
An event designator is a reference to a command-line entry
in the history list.
! Start a history substitution, except when
followed by a blank, newline, =, or (.
!! Refer to the previous command. By itself,
this substitution repeats the previous com-
mand.
!n Refer to command-line n.
!-n Refer to the current command-line minus n.
!str Refer to the most recent command starting
with str.
!?str[?]
Refer to the most recent command containing
str.
!# Refer to the current command line typed in
so far. The line is treated as if it were
complete up to and including the word before
the one with the !# reference.
!{...} Insulate a history reference from adjacent
characters (if necessary).
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Word Designators
A word designator indicates which word or words of a given
command line will be included in a history reference. A
`:' separates the event specification from the word desig-
nator. It can be omitted if the word designator begins
with a ^, $, *, - or %. Word designators include:
0 The first input word (command).
n The n'th argument.
^ The first argument, that is, 1.
$ The last argument.
% The word matched by (the most recent) ?str
search.
x-y A range of words; -y abbreviates 0-y.
* All the arguments, or a null value if there
is just one word in the event.
x* Abbreviates x-$.
x- Like x* but omitting word $.
Note that a `%' word designator will only work when used
as !%, !:%, !?str?:% and only when used after a !? substi-
tution. Anything else will result in an error, although
the error may not be the most obvious one.
Modifiers
After the optional word designator, you can add a sequence
of one or more of the following modifiers, each preceded
by a :. These modifiers also work on the result of file-
name and parameter expansion.
h Remove a trailing pathname component, leav-
ing the head.
r Remove a trailing suffix of the form `.xxx',
leaving the basename.
e Remove all but the suffix.
t Remove all leading pathname components,
leaving the tail.
& Repeat the previous substitution.
g Apply the change to the first occurrence of
a match in each word, by prefixing the above
(for example, g&).
p Print the new command but do not execute it.
q Quote the substituted words, escaping fur-
ther substitutions.
x Like q, but break into words at each blank.
l Convert the words to all lowercase.
u Convert the words to all uppercase.
f Repeats the immediately (without a colon)
following modifier until the resulting word
doesn't change any more. This and the fol-
lowing F, w and W modifier only work with
parameter and filename expansion.
F:expr:
Like f, but repeats only n times if the
expression expr evaluates to n. Any
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character can be used instead of the `:', if
any of `(', `[', or `{' is used as the open-
ing delimiter the second one has to be ')',
`]', or `}' respectively.
w Makes the immediately following modifier
work on each word in the string.
W:sep: Like w but words are considered to be the
parts of the string that are separated by
sep. Any character can be used instead of
the `:', opening parentheses are handled
specially, see above.
s/l/r[/]
Substitute r for l.
Unless preceded by a g, the substitution is done only for
the first string that matches l.
The left-hand side of substitutions are not regular
expressions, but character strings. Any character can be
used as the delimiter in place of /. A backslash quotes
the delimiter character. The character &, in the right
hand side, is replaced by the text from the left-hand-
side. The & can be quoted with a backslash. A null l
uses the previous string either from a l or from a contex-
tual scan string s from !?s. You can omit the rightmost
delimiter if a newline immediately follows r; the right-
most ? in a context scan can similarly be omitted.
By default, a history reference with no event specifica-
tion refers to the same line as the last history reference
on that command line, unless it is the first history ref-
erence in a command. In that case, a history reference
with no event specification always refers to the previous
command. However, if the option CSH_JUNKIE_HISTORY is
set, then history reference with no event specification
will always refer to the previous command. For example,
!!:1 will always refer to the first word of the previous
command and !!$ will always refer to the last word of the
previous command. And with CSH_JUNKIE_HISTORY set, then
!:1 and !$ will function in the same manner as !!:1 and
!!$, respectively. However, if CSH_JUNKIE_HISTORY is
unset, then !:1 and !$ will refer to the first and last
words respectively, of the last command referenced on the
current command line. However, if they are the first his-
tory reference on the command line, then they refer to the
previous command.
The character sequence ^foo^bar repeats the last command,
replacing the string "foo" with the string "bar".
If the shell encounters the character sequence !" in the
input, the history mechanism is temporarily disabled until
the current list is fully parsed. The !" is removed from
the input, and any subsequent ! characters have no
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special significance.
A less convenient but more comprehensible form of command
history support is provided by the fc builtin (see the
entry in the zshbuiltins manual).
zsh version 3.0 June 26, 1996 15
ZSHBUILTINS(1) ZSHBUILTINS(1)
NAME
zshbuiltins - zsh built-in functions
DESCRIPTIONS
- simple command
See the secion PRECOMMAND MODIFIERS in zshmisc(1).
. file [ arg ... ]
Read commands from file and execute them in the
current shell environment. If file does not con-
tain a slash, or if PATH_DIRS is set, the shell
looks in the components of path to find the direc-
tory containing file. Files in the current direc-
tory are not read unless "." appears somewhere in
path. If any arguments arg are given, they become
the positional parameters; the old positional
parameters are restored when the file is done exe-
cuting. The exit status is the exit status of the
last command executed.
: [ arg ... ]
This command only expands parameters. A zero exit
code is returned.
alias [ -gmrL ] [ name[=value] ] ...
For each name with a corresponding value, define an
alias with that value. A trailing space in value
causes the next word to be checked for alias sub-
stitution. If the -g flag is present, define a
global alias; global aliases are expanded even if
they do not occur in command position. For each
name with no value, print the value of name, if
any. With no arguments, print all currently
defined aliases. If the -m flag is given the argu-
ments are taken as patterns (they should be quoted
to preserve them from being interpreted as glob
patterns) and the aliases matching these patterns
are printed. When printing aliases and the -g or
-r flags are present, then restrict the printing to
global or regular aliases, respectively. If the -L
flag is present, then print each alias in a manner
suitable for putting in a startup script. The exit
status is nonzero if a name (with no value) is
given for which no alias has been defined.
autoload [ name ... ]
For each of the names (which are names of func-
tions), create a function marked undefined. The
fpath variable will be searched to find the actual
function definition when the function is first ref-
erenced. The definition is contained in a file of
the same name as the function. If the file found
contains a standard definition for the function,
that is stored as the function; otherwise, the
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contents of the entire file are stored as the func-
tion. The latter format allows functions to be
used directly as scripts.
bg [ job ... ]
job ... &
Put each specified job in the background, or the
current job if none is specified.
bindkey -mevd
bindkey -r in-string ...
bindkey [ -a ] in-string [ command ] ...
bindkey -s [ -a ] in-string out-string ...
The -e and -v options put the keymaps in emacs mode
or vi mode respectively; they cannot be used simul-
taneously. The -d option resets all bindings to the
compiled-in settings. If not used with options -e
or -v, the maps will be left in emacs mode, or in
vi mode if the VISUAL or EDITOR variables exist and
contain the string "vi". Metafied characters are
bound to self-insert by default. The -m option
loads the compiled-in bindings of these characters
for the mode determined by the preceding options,
or the current mode if used alone. Any previous
bindings done by the user will be preserved. If the
-r option is given, remove any binding for each in-
string. If the -s option is not specified, bind
each in-string to a specified command. If no com-
mand is specified, print the binding of in-string
if it is bound, or return a nonzero exit code if it
is not bound. If the -s option is specified, bind
each in-string to each specified out-string. When
in-string is typed, out-string will be pushed back
and treated as input to the line editor. This pro-
cess is recursive but, to avoid infinite loops, the
shell will report an error if more than 20 consecu-
tive replacements happen. If the -a option is spec-
ified, bind the in-strings in the alternative
keymap instead of the standard one. The alterna-
tive keymap is used in vi command mode.
It's possible for an in-string to be bound to some-
thing and also be the beginning of a longer bound
string. In this case the shell will wait a certain
time to see if more characters are typed and if not
it will execute the binding. This timeout is
defined by the KEYTIMEOUT parameter; its default is
0.4 sec. No timeout is done if the prefix string is
not bound.
For either in-string or out-string, control charac-
ters may be specified in the form ^X, and the back-
slash may be used to introduce one of the following
escape sequences:
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\a bell character
\n linefeed (newline)
\b backspace
\t horizontal tab
\v vertical tab
\f form feed
\r carriage return
\e, \E escape
\NNN character code in octal
\xNN character code in hexadecimal
\M-xxx character or escape sequence with
meta bit set. The `-' after the `M'
is optional.
\C-X control character. The `-' after
the `C' is optional.
In all other cases, \ escapes the following charac-
ter. Delete is written as `^?'. Note that `\M^?'
and `^\M?' are not the same.
Multi-character in-strings cannot contain the null
character ("^@" or "^ "). If they appear in a bind-
key command, they will be silently translated to
"\M-^@". This restriction does not apply to out-
strings, single-character in-strings and the first
character of a multi-char in-string.
break [ n ]
Exit from an enclosing for, while, until, select,
or repeat loop. If n is specified, then break n
levels instead of just one.
builtin name [ args ] ...
Executes the builtin name, with the given args.
bye Same as exit.
cd [ arg ]
cd old new
cd +-n Change the current directory. In the first form,
change the current directory to arg, or to the
value of HOME if arg is not specified. If arg is
-, change to the value of OLDPWD, the previous
directory. If a directory named arg is not found
in the current directory and arg does not begin
with a slash, search each component of the shell
parameter cdpath. If the option CDABLEVARS is set,
and a parameter named arg exists whose value begins
with a slash, treat its value as the directory.
The second form of cd substitutes the string new
for the string old in the name of the current
directory, and tries to change to this new direc-
tory.
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The third form of cd extracts an entry from the
directory stack, and changes to that directory. An
argument of the form +n identifies a stack entry by
counting from the left of the list shown by the
dirs command, starting with zero. An argument of
the form -n counts from the right. If the
PUSHD_MINUS option is set, the meanings of + and -
in this context are swapped.
chdir Same as cd.
command simple command
See the secion PRECOMMAND MODIFIERS in zshmisc(1).
compctl
Compctl has it's own man page. Check zshcom-
pctl(1).
continue [ num ]
Resume the next iteration of the enclosing for,
while, until, select, or repeat loop. If n is
specified, break out of n - 1 loops and resume at
the nth enclosing loop.
declare [ arg ... ]
Same as typeset.
dirs [ -v ] [ arg ... ]
With no arguments, print the contents of the direc-
tory stack. If the -v option is given, number the
directories in the stack when printing. Directo-
ries are added to this stack with the pushd com-
mand, and removed with the cd or popd commands. If
arguments are specified, load them onto the direc-
tory stack, replacing anything that was there, and
push the current directory onto the stack.
disable [ -afmr ] arg ...
Disable the hash table element named arg temporar-
ily. The default is to disable builtin commands.
This allows you to use an external command with the
same name as a builtin command. The -a option
causes disable to act on aliases. The -f option
causes disable to act on shell functions. The -r
options causes disable to act on reserved words.
Without arguments all disabled hash table elements
from the corresponding hash table are printed.
With the -m flag the arguments are taken as pat-
terns (should be quoted to preserve them from being
taken as glob patterns) and all hash table elements
from the corresponding hash table matching these
patterns are disabled. Disabled objects can be
enabled with the enable command.
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disown [ job ... ]
job ... &|
job ... &!
Remove the specified jobs from the job table; the
shell will no longer report their status, and will
not complain if you try to exit an interactive
sh