A User's Guide to the Z-Shell

Peter Stephenson

1999/06/02

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 Not written
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: Getting started with new completion 6.3: How the shell finds the right completions 6.3.1: Contexts 6.3.2: Tags 6.4: Configuring completion using shell options 6.4.1: Ambiguous completions 6.4.2: ALWAYS_LAST_PROMPT 6.4.3: Menu completion and menu selection 6.4.4: Other ways of changing completion behaviour 6.4.5: Changing the way completions are displayed 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: Writing new completion functions and widgets 6.8.1: Loading completion functions: compdef 6.8.2: Adding a set of completions: compadd 6.8.3: Functions for generating filenames, etc. 6.8.4: The zsh/parameter module 6.8.5: Special completion parameters and compset 6.8.6: Fancier completion: using the tags and styles mechanism 6.8.7: Getting the work done for you: handling arguments etc. 6.8.8: More completion utility functions 6.9: Finally
Chapter 7: Modules and other bits and pieces Not written
Appendix A: Obtaining zsh and getting more information