zshmodules
(1)
Name
zshmodules - zsh loadable modules
Synopsis
Please see following description for synopsis
Description
User Commands ZSHMODULES(1)
NAME
zshmodules - zsh loadable modules
DESCRIPTION
Some optional parts of zsh are in modules, separate from the
core of the shell. Each of these modules may be linked in
to the shell at build time, or can be dynamically linked
while the shell is running if the installation supports this
feature. Modules are linked at runtime with the zmodload
command, see zshbuiltins(1).
The modules that are bundled with the zsh distribution are:
zsh/attr
Builtins for manipulating extended attributes (xattr).
zsh/cap
Builtins for manipulating POSIX.1e (POSIX.6) capability
(privilege) sets.
zsh/clone
A builtin that can clone a running shell onto another
terminal.
zsh/compctl
The compctl builtin for controlling completion.
zsh/complete
The basic completion code.
zsh/complist
Completion listing extensions.
zsh/computil
A module with utility builtins needed for the shell
function based completion system.
zsh/curses
curses windowing commands
zsh/datetime
Some date/time commands and parameters.
zsh/deltochar
A ZLE function duplicating EMACS' zap-to-char.
zsh/example
An example of how to write a module.
zsh/files
Some basic file manipulation commands as builtins.
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zsh/langinfo
Interface to locale information.
zsh/mapfile
Access to external files via a special associative
array.
zsh/mathfunc
Standard scientific functions for use in mathematical
evaluations.
zsh/newuser
Arrange for files for new users to be installed.
zsh/parameter
Access to internal hash tables via special associative
arrays.
zsh/pcre
Interface to the PCRE library.
zsh/regex
Interface to the POSIX regex library.
zsh/sched
A builtin that provides a timed execution facility
within the shell.
zsh/net/socket
Manipulation of Unix domain sockets
zsh/stat
A builtin command interface to the stat system call.
zsh/system
A builtin interface to various low-level system fea-
tures.
zsh/net/tcp
Manipulation of TCP sockets
zsh/termcap
Interface to the termcap database.
zsh/terminfo
Interface to the terminfo database.
zsh/zftp
A builtin FTP client.
zsh/zle
The Zsh Line Editor, including the bindkey and vared
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builtins.
zsh/zleparameter
Access to internals of the Zsh Line Editor via parame-
ters.
zsh/zprof
A module allowing profiling for shell functions.
zsh/zpty
A builtin for starting a command in a pseudo-terminal.
zsh/zselect
Block and return when file descriptors are ready.
zsh/zutil
Some utility builtins, e.g. the one for supporting con-
figuration via styles.
THE ZSH/ATTR MODULE
The zsh/attr module is used for manipulating extended
attributes. The -h option causes all commands to operate on
symbolic links instead of their targets. The builtins in
this module are:
zgetattr [ -h ] filename attribute [ parameter ]
Get the extended attribute attribute from the specified
filename. If the optional argument parameter is given,
the attribute is set on that parameter instead of being
printed to stdout.
zsetattr [ -h ] filename attribute value
Set the extended attribute attribute on the specified
filename to value.
zdelattr [ -h ] filename attribute
Remove the extended attribute attribute from the speci-
fied filename.
zlistattr [ -h ] filename [ parameter ]
List the extended attributes currently set on the spec-
ified filename. If the optional argument parameter is
given, the list of attributes is set on that parameter
instead of being printed to stdout.
zgetattr and zlistattr allocate memory dynamically. If the
attribute or list of attributes grows between the allocation
and the call to get them, they return 2. On all other
errors, 1 is returned. This allows the calling function to
check for this case and retry.
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THE ZSH/CAP MODULE
The zsh/cap module is used for manipulating POSIX.1e
(POSIX.6) capability sets. If the operating system does not
support this interface, the builtins defined by this module
will do nothing. The builtins in this module are:
cap [ capabilities ]
Change the shell's process capability sets to the spec-
ified capabilities, otherwise display the shell's cur-
rent capabilities.
getcap filename ...
This is a built-in implementation of the POSIX standard
utility. It displays the capability sets on each spec-
ified filename.
setcap capabilities filename ...
This is a built-in implementation of the POSIX standard
utility. It sets the capability sets on each specified
filename to the specified capabilities.
THE ZSH/CLONE MODULE
The zsh/clone module makes available one builtin command:
clone tty
Creates a forked instance of the current shell,
attached to the specified tty. In the new shell, the
PID, PPID and TTY special parameters are changed appro-
priately. $! is set to zero in the new shell, and to
the new shell's PID in the original shell.
The return status of the builtin is zero in both shells
if successful, and non-zero on error.
The target of clone should be an unused terminal, such
as an unused virtual console or a virtual terminal cre-
ated by
xterm -e sh -c 'trap : INT QUIT TSTP; tty; while :; do
sleep 100000000; done'
Some words of explanation are warranted about this long
xterm command line: when doing clone on a pseudo-termi-
nal, some other session ("session" meant as a unix ses-
sion group, or SID) is already owning the terminal.
Hence the cloned zsh cannot acquire the pseudo-terminal
as a controlling tty. That means two things:
the job control signals will go to the
sh-started-by-xterm process
group (that's why we disable INT QUIT and TSTP
with trap; otherwise
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the while loop could get suspended or killed)
the cloned shell will have job control disabled, and
the job
control keys (control-C, control-\ and control-Z)
will not work.
This does not apply when cloning to an unused vc.
Cloning to a used (and unprepared) terminal will result
in two processes reading simultaneously from the same
terminal, with input bytes going randomly to either
process.
clone is mostly useful as a shell built-in replacement
for openvt.
THE ZSH/COMPCTL MODULE
The zsh/compctl module makes available two builtin commands.
compctl, is the old, deprecated way to control completions
for ZLE. See zshcompctl(1). The other builtin command,
compcall can be used in user-defined completion widgets, see
zshcompwid(1).
THE ZSH/COMPLETE MODULE
The zsh/complete module makes available several builtin com-
mands which can be used in user-defined completion widgets,
see zshcompwid(1).
THE ZSH/COMPLIST MODULE
The zsh/complist module offers three extensions to comple-
tion listings: the ability to highlight matches in such a
list, the ability to scroll through long lists and a differ-
ent style of menu completion.
Colored completion listings
Whenever one of the parameters ZLS_COLORS or ZLS_COLOURS is
set and the zsh/complist module is loaded or linked into the
shell, completion lists will be colored. Note, however,
that complist will not automatically be loaded if it is not
linked in: on systems with dynamic loading, `zmodload
zsh/complist' is required.
The parameters ZLS_COLORS and ZLS_COLOURS describe how
matches are highlighted. To turn on highlighting an empty
value suffices, in which case all the default values given
below will be used. The format of the value of these param-
eters is the same as used by the GNU version of the ls com-
mand: a colon-separated list of specifications of the form
`name=value'. The name may be one of the following strings,
most of which specify file types for which the value will be
used. The strings and their default values are:
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no 0 for normal text (i.e. when displaying something other
than a matched file)
fi 0 for regular files
di 32
for directories
ln 36
for symbolic links. If this has the special value tar-
get, symbolic links are dereferenced and the target
file used to determine the display format.
pi 31
for named pipes (FIFOs)
so 33
for sockets
bd 44;37
for block devices
cd 44;37
for character devices
or none
for a symlink to nonexistent file (default is the value
defined for ln)
mi none
for a non-existent file (default is the value defined
for fi); this code is currently not used
su 37;41
for files with setuid bit set
sg 30;43
for files with setgid bit set
tw 30;42
for world writable directories with sticky bit set
ow 34;43
for world writable directories without sticky bit set
sa none
for files with an associated suffix alias; this is only
tested after specific suffixes, as described below
st 37;44
for directories with sticky bit set but not world
writable
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ex 35
for executable files
lc \e[
for the left code (see below)
rc m for the right code
tc 0 for the character indicating the file type printed
after filenames if the LIST_TYPES option is set
sp 0 for the spaces printed after matches to align the next
column
ec none
for the end code
Apart from these strings, the name may also be an asterisk
(`*') followed by any string. The value given for such a
string will be used for all files whose name ends with the
string. The name may also be an equals sign (`=') followed
by a pattern; the EXTENDED_GLOB option will be turned on for
evaluation of the pattern. The value given for this pattern
will be used for all matches (not just filenames) whose dis-
play string are matched by the pattern. Definitions for the
form with the leading equal sign take precedence over the
values defined for file types, which in turn take precedence
over the form with the leading asterisk (file extensions).
The leading-equals form also allows different parts of the
displayed strings to be colored differently. For this, the
pattern has to use the `(#b)' globbing flag and pairs of
parentheses surrounding the parts of the strings that are to
be colored differently. In this case the value may consist
of more than one color code separated by equal signs. The
first code will be used for all parts for which no explicit
code is specified and the following codes will be used for
the parts matched by the sub-patterns in parentheses. For
example, the specification `=(#b)(?)*(?)=0=3=7' will be used
for all matches which are at least two characters long and
will use the code `3' for the first character, `7' for the
last character and `0' for the rest.
All three forms of name may be preceded by a pattern in
parentheses. If this is given, the value will be used only
for matches in groups whose names are matched by the pattern
given in the parentheses. For example, `(g*)m*=43' high-
lights all matches beginning with `m' in groups whose names
begin with `g' using the color code `43'. In case of the
`lc', `rc', and `ec' codes, the group pattern is ignored.
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Note also that all patterns are tried in the order in which
they appear in the parameter value until the first one
matches which is then used.
When printing a match, the code prints the value of lc, the
value for the file-type or the last matching specification
with a `*', the value of rc, the string to display for the
match itself, and then the value of ec if that is defined or
the values of lc, no, and rc if ec is not defined.
The default values are ISO 6429 (ANSI) compliant and can be
used on vt100 compatible terminals such as xterms. On mono-
chrome terminals the default values will have no visible
effect. The colors function from the contribution can be
used to get associative arrays containing the codes for ANSI
terminals (see the section `Other Functions' in zshcon-
trib(1)). For example, after loading colors, one could use
`$colors[red]' to get the code for foreground color red and
`$colors[bg-green]' for the code for background color green.
If the completion system invoked by compinit is used, these
parameters should not be set directly because the system
controls them itself. Instead, the list-colors style should
be used (see the section `Completion System Configuration'
in zshcompsys(1)).
Scrolling in completion listings
To enable scrolling through a completion list, the LIST-
PROMPT parameter must be set. Its value will be used as the
prompt; if it is the empty string, a default prompt will be
used. The value may contain escapes of the form `%x'. It
supports the escapes `%B', `%b', `%S', `%s', `%U', `%u',
`%F', `%f', `%K', `%k' and `%{...%}' used also in shell
prompts as well as three pairs of additional sequences: a
`%l' or `%L' is replaced by the number of the last line
shown and the total number of lines in the form `num-
ber/total'; a `%m' or `%M' is replaced with the number of
the last match shown and the total number of matches; and
`%p' or `%P' is replaced with `Top', `Bottom' or the posi-
tion of the first line shown in percent of the total number
of lines, respectively. In each of these cases the form
with the uppercase letter will be replaced with a string of
fixed width, padded to the right with spaces, while the low-
ercase form will not be padded.
If the parameter LISTPROMPT is set, the completion code will
not ask if the list should be shown. Instead it immediately
starts displaying the list, stopping after the first screen-
ful, showing the prompt at the bottom, waiting for a key-
press after temporarily switching to the listscroll keymap.
Some of the zle functions have a special meaning while
scrolling lists:
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send-break
stops listing discarding the key pressed
accept-line, down-history, down-line-or-history
down-line-or-search, vi-down-line-or-history
scrolls forward one line
complete-word, menu-complete, expand-or-complete
expand-or-complete-prefix, menu-complete-or-expand
scrolls forward one screenful
accept-search
stop listing but take no other action
Every other character stops listing and immediately pro-
cesses the key as usual. Any key that is not bound in the
listscroll keymap or that is bound to undefined-key is
looked up in the keymap currently selected.
As for the ZLS_COLORS and ZLS_COLOURS parameters, LISTPROMPT
should not be set directly when using the shell function
based completion system. Instead, the list-prompt style
should be used.
Menu selection
The zsh/complist module also offers an alternative style of
selecting matches from a list, called menu selection, which
can be used if the shell is set up to return to the last
prompt after showing a completion list (see the
ALWAYS_LAST_PROMPT option in zshoptions(1)).
Menu selection can be invoked directly by the widget
menu-select defined by this module. This is a standard ZLE
widget that can be bound to a key in the usual way as
described in zshzle(1).
Alternatively, the parameter MENUSELECT can be set to an
integer, which gives the minimum number of matches that must
be present before menu selection is automatically turned on.
This second method requires that menu completion be started,
either directly from a widget such as menu-complete, or due
to one of the options MENU_COMPLETE or AUTO_MENU being set.
If MENUSELECT is set, but is 0, 1 or empty, menu selection
will always be started during an ambiguous menu completion.
When using the completion system based on shell functions,
the MENUSELECT parameter should not be used (like the
ZLS_COLORS and ZLS_COLOURS parameters described above).
Instead, the menu style should be used with the select=...
keyword.
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After menu selection is started, the matches will be listed.
If there are more matches than fit on the screen, only the
first screenful is shown. The matches to insert into the
command line can be selected from this list. In the list
one match is highlighted using the value for ma from the
ZLS_COLORS or ZLS_COLOURS parameter. The default value for
this is `7' which forces the selected match to be high-
lighted using standout mode on a vt100-compatible terminal.
If neither ZLS_COLORS nor ZLS_COLOURS is set, the same ter-
minal control sequence as for the `%S' escape in prompts is
used.
If there are more matches than fit on the screen and the
parameter MENUPROMPT is set, its value will be shown below
the matches. It supports the same escape sequences as LIST-
PROMPT, but the number of the match or line shown will be
that of the one where the mark is placed. If its value is
the empty string, a default prompt will be used.
The MENUSCROLL parameter can be used to specify how the list
is scrolled. If the parameter is unset, this is done line
by line, if it is set to `0' (zero), the list will scroll
half the number of lines of the screen. If the value is
positive, it gives the number of lines to scroll and if it
is negative, the list will be scrolled the number of lines
of the screen minus the (absolute) value.
As for the ZLS_COLORS, ZLS_COLOURS and LISTPROMPT parame-
ters, neither MENUPROMPT nor MENUSCROLL should be set
directly when using the shell function based completion sys-
tem. Instead, the select-prompt and select-scroll styles
should be used.
The completion code sometimes decides not to show all of the
matches in the list. These hidden matches are either
matches for which the completion function which added them
explicitly requested that they not appear in the list (using
the -n option of the compadd builtin command) or they are
matches which duplicate a string already in the list
(because they differ only in things like prefixes or suf-
fixes that are not displayed). In the list used for menu
selection, however, even these matches are shown so that it
is possible to select them. To highlight such matches the
hi and du capabilities in the ZLS_COLORS and ZLS_COLOURS
parameters are supported for hidden matches of the first and
second kind, respectively.
Selecting matches is done by moving the mark around using
the zle movement functions. When not all matches can be
shown on the screen at the same time, the list will scroll
up and down when crossing the top or bottom line. The fol-
lowing zle functions have special meaning during menu
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selection. Note that the following always perform the same
task within the menu selection map and cannot be replaced by
user defined widgets, nor can the set of functions be
extended:
accept-line, accept-search
accept the current match and leave menu selection (but
do not cause the command line to be accepted)
send-break
leaves menu selection and restores the previous con-
tents of the command line
redisplay, clear-screen
execute their normal function without leaving menu
selection
accept-and-hold, accept-and-menu-complete
accept the currently inserted match and continue selec-
tion allowing to select the next match to insert into
the line
accept-and-infer-next-history
accepts the current match and then tries completion
with menu selection again; in the case of files this
allows one to select a directory and immediately
attempt to complete files in it; if there are no
matches, a message is shown and one can use undo to go
back to completion on the previous level, every other
key leaves menu selection (including the other zle
functions which are otherwise special during menu
selection)
undo removes matches inserted during the menu selection by
one of the three functions before
down-history, down-line-or-history
vi-down-line-or-history, down-line-or-search
moves the mark one line down
up-history, up-line-or-history
vi-up-line-or-history, up-line-or-search
moves the mark one line up
forward-char, vi-forward-char
moves the mark one column right
backward-char, vi-backward-char
moves the mark one column left
forward-word, vi-forward-word
vi-forward-word-end, emacs-forward-word
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moves the mark one screenful down
backward-word, vi-backward-word, emacs-backward-word
moves the mark one screenful up
vi-forward-blank-word, vi-forward-blank-word-end
moves the mark to the first line of the next group of
matches
vi-backward-blank-word
moves the mark to the last line of the previous group
of matches
beginning-of-history
moves the mark to the first line
end-of-history
moves the mark to the last line
beginning-of-buffer-or-history, beginning-of-line
beginning-of-line-hist, vi-beginning-of-line
moves the mark to the leftmost column
end-of-buffer-or-history, end-of-line
end-of-line-hist, vi-end-of-line
moves the mark to the rightmost column
complete-word, menu-complete, expand-or-complete
expand-or-complete-prefix, menu-expand-or-complete
moves the mark to the next match
reverse-menu-complete
moves the mark to the previous match
vi-insert
this toggles between normal and interactive mode; in
interactive mode the keys bound to self-insert and
self-insert-unmeta insert into the command line as in
normal editing mode but without leaving menu selection;
after each character completion is tried again and the
list changes to contain only the new matches; the com-
pletion widgets make the longest unambiguous string be
inserted in the command line and undo and back-
ward-delete-char go back to the previous set of matches
history-incremental-search-forward
history-incremental-search-backward
this starts incremental searches in the list of comple-
tions displayed; in this mode, accept-line only leaves
incremental search, going back to the normal menu
selection mode
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All movement functions wrap around at the edges; any other
zle function not listed leaves menu selection and executes
that function. It is possible to make widgets in the above
list do the same by using the form of the widget with a `.'
in front. For example, the widget `.accept-line' has the
effect of leaving menu selection and accepting the entire
command line.
During this selection the widget uses the keymap menuselect.
Any key that is not defined in this keymap or that is bound
to undefined-key is looked up in the keymap currently
selected. This is used to ensure that the most important
keys used during selection (namely the cursor keys, return,
and TAB) have sensible defaults. However, keys in the
menuselect keymap can be modified directly using the bindkey
builtin command (see zshmodules(1)). For example, to make
the return key leave menu selection without accepting the
match currently selected one could call
bindkey -M menuselect '^M' send-break
after loading the zsh/complist module.
THE ZSH/COMPUTIL MODULE
The zsh/computil module adds several builtin commands that
are used by some of the completion functions in the comple-
tion system based on shell functions (see zshcompsys(1) ).
Except for compquote these builtin commands are very spe-
cialised and thus not very interesting when writing your own
completion functions. In summary, these builtin commands
are:
comparguments
This is used by the _arguments function to do the argu-
ment and command line parsing. Like compdescribe it
has an option -i to do the parsing and initialize some
internal state and various options to access the state
information to decide what should be completed.
compdescribe
This is used by the _describe function to build the
displays for the matches and to get the strings to add
as matches with their options. On the first call one
of the options -i or -I should be supplied as the first
argument. In the first case, display strings without
the descriptions will be generated, in the second case,
the string used to separate the matches from their
descriptions must be given as the second argument and
the descriptions (if any) will be shown. All other
arguments are like the definition arguments to
_describe itself.
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Once compdescribe has been called with either the -i or
the -I option, it can be repeatedly called with the -g
option and the names of five arrays as its arguments.
This will step through the different sets of matches
and store the options in the first array, the strings
with descriptions in the second, the matches for these
in the third, the strings without descriptions in the
fourth, and the matches for them in the fifth array.
These are then directly given to compadd to register
the matches with the completion code.
compfiles
Used by the _path_files function to optimize complex
recursive filename generation (globbing). It does
three things. With the -p and -P options it builds the
glob patterns to use, including the paths already han-
dled and trying to optimize the patterns with respect
to the prefix and suffix from the line and the match
specification currently used. The -i option does the
directory tests for the ignore-parents style and the -r
option tests if a component for some of the matches are
equal to the string on the line and removes all other
matches if that is true.
compgroups
Used by the _tags function to implement the internals
of the group-order style. This only takes its argu-
ments as names of completion groups and creates the
groups for it (all six types: sorted and unsorted, both
without removing duplicates, with removing all dupli-
cates and with removing consecutive duplicates).
compquote [ -p ] names ...
There may be reasons to write completion functions that
have to add the matches using the -Q option to compadd
and perform quoting themselves. Instead of interpret-
ing the first character of the all_quotes key of the
compstate special association and using the q flag for
parameter expansions, one can use this builtin command.
The arguments are the names of scalar or array parame-
ters and the values of these parameters are quoted as
needed for the innermost quoting level. If the -p
option is given, quoting is done as if there is some
prefix before the values of the parameters, so that a
leading equal sign will not be quoted.
The return status is non-zero in case of an error and
zero otherwise.
comptags
comptry
These implement the internals of the tags mechanism.
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compvalues
Like comparguments, but for the _values function.
THE ZSH/CURSES MODULE
The zsh/curses module makes available one builtin command
and various parameters.
Builtin
zcurses init
zcurses end
]
zcurses addwin targetwin nlines ncols begin_y begin_x [ par-
entwin
zcurses delwin targetwin
zcurses refresh [ targetwin ... ]
zcurses touch targetwin ...
zcurses move targetwin new_y new_x
zcurses clear targetwin [ redraw | eol | bot ]
zcurses position targetwin array
zcurses char targetwin character
zcurses string targetwin string
zcurses border targetwin border
zcurses attr targetwin [ {+/-}attribute | fg_col/bg_col ]
[...]
[...]
zcurses bg targetwin [ {+/-}attribute | fg_col/bg_col |
@char ]
zcurses scroll targetwin [ on | off | {+/-}lines ]
zcurses input targetwin [ param [ kparam [ mparam ] ] ]
zcurses mouse [ delay num | {+/-}motion ]
zcurses timeout targetwin intval
zcurses querychar targetwin [ param ]
Manipulate curses windows. All uses of this command
should be bracketed by `zcurses init' to initialise use
of curses, and `zcurses end' to end it; omitting
`zcurses end' can cause the terminal to be in an
unwanted state.
The subcommand addwin creates a window with nlines
lines and ncols columns. Its upper left corner will be
placed at row begin_y and column begin_x of the screen.
targetwin is a string and refers to the name of a win-
dow that is not currently assigned. Note in particular
the curses convention that vertical values appear
before horizontal values.
If addwin is given an existing window as the final
argument, the new window is created as a subwindow of
parentwin. This differs from an ordinary new window in
that the memory of the window contents is shared with
the parent's memory. Subwindows must be deleted before
their parent. Note that the coordinates of subwindows
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are relative to the screen, not the parent, as with
other windows.
Use the subcommand delwin to delete a window created
with addwin. Note that end does not implicitly delete
windows, and that delwin does not erase the screen
image of the window.
The window corresponding to the full visible screen is
called stdscr; it always exists after `zcurses init'
and cannot be delete with delwin.
The subcommand refresh will refresh window targetwin;
this is necessary to make any pending changes (such as
characters you have prepared for output with char) vis-
ible on the screen. refresh without an argument causes
the screen to be cleared and redrawn. If multiple win-
dows are given, the screen is updated once at the end.
The subcommand touch marks the targetwins listed as
changed. This is necessary before refreshing windows
if a window that was in front of another window (which
may be stdscr) is deleted.
The subcommand move moves the cursor position in tar-
getwin to new coordinates new_y and new_x. Note that
the subcommand string (but not the subcommand char)
advances the cursor position over the characters added.
The subcommand clear erases the contents of targetwin.
One (and no more than one) of three options may be
specified. With the option redraw, in addition the
next refresh of targetwin will cause the screen to be
cleared and repainted. With the option eol, targetwin
is only cleared to the end of the current cursor line.
With the option bot, targetwin is cleared to the end of
the window, i.e everything to the right and below the
cursor is cleared.
The subcommand position writes various positions asso-
ciated with targetwin into the array named array.
These are, in order:
- The y and x coordinates of the cursor relative to
the top left of targetwin
- The y and x coordinates of the top left of tar-
getwin on the screen
- The size of targetwin in y and x dimensions.
Outputting characters and strings are achieved by char
and string respectively.
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To draw a border around window targetwin, use border.
Note that the border is not subsequently handled spe-
cially: in other words, the border is simply a set of
characters output at the edge of the window. Hence it
can be overwritten, can scroll off the window, etc.
The subcommand attr will set targetwin's attributes or
foreground/background color pair for any successive
character output. Each attribute given on the line may
be prepended by a + to set or a - to unset that
attribute; + is assumed if absent. The attributes sup-
ported are blink, bold, dim, reverse, standout, and
underline.
Each fg_col/bg_col attribute (to be read as `fg_col on
bg_col') sets the foreground and background color for
character output. The color default is sometimes
available (in particular if the library is ncurses),
specifying the foreground or background color with
which the terminal started. The color pair
default/default is always available.
bg overrides the color and other attributes of all
characters in the window. Its usual use is to set the
background initially, but it will overwrite the
attributes of any characters at the time when it is
called. In addition to the arguments allowed with
attr, an argument @char specifies a character to be
shown in otherwise blank areas of the window. Owing to
limitations of curses this cannot be a multibyte char-
acter (use of ASCII characters only is recommended).
As the specified set of attributes override the exist-
ing background, turning attributes off in the arguments
is not useful, though this does not cause an error.
The subcommand scroll can be used with on or off to
enabled or disable scrolling of a window when the cur-
sor would otherwise move below the window due to typing
or output. It can also be used with a positive or neg-
ative integer to scroll the window up or down the given
number of lines without changing the current cursor
position (which therefore appears to move in the oppo-
site direction relative to the window). In the second
case, if scrolling is off it is temporarily turned on
to allow the window to be scrolled.
The subcommand input reads a single character from the
window without echoing it back. If param is supplied
the character is assigned to the parameter param, else
it is assigned to the parameter REPLY.
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If both param and kparam are supplied, the key is read
in `keypad' mode. In this mode special keys such as
function keys and arrow keys return the name of the key
in the parameter kparam. The key names are the macros
defined in the curses.h or ncurses.h with the prefix
`KEY_' removed; see also the description of the parame-
ter zcurses_keycodes below. Other keys cause a value
to be set in param as before. On a successful return
only one of param or kparam contains a non-empty
string; the other is set to an empty string.
If mparam is also supplied, input attempts to handle
mouse input. This is only available with the ncurses
library; mouse handling can be detected by checking for
the exit status of `zcurses mouse' with no arguments.
If a mouse button is clicked (or double- or
triple-clicked, or pressed or released with a config-
urable delay from being clicked) then kparam is set to
the string MOUSE, and mparam is set to an array con-
sisting of the following elements:
- An identifier to discriminate different input
devices; this is only rarely useful.
- The x, y and z coordinates of the mouse click rel-
ative to the full screen, as three elements in
that order (i.e. the y coordinate is, unusually,
after the x coordinate). The z coordinate is only
available for a few unusual input devices and is
otherwise set to zero.
- Any events that occurred as separate items; usu-
ally there will be just one. An event consists of
PRESSED, RELEASED, CLICKED, DOUBLE_CLICKED or
TRIPLE_CLICKED followed immediately (in the same
element) by the number of the button.
- If the shift key was pressed, the string SHIFT.
- If the control key was pressed, the string CTRL.
- If the alt key was pressed, the string ALT.
Not all mouse events may be passed through to the ter-
minal window; most terminal emulators handle some mouse
events themselves. Note that the ncurses manual
implies that using input both with and without mouse
handling may cause the mouse cursor to appear and dis-
appear.
The subcommand mouse can be used to configure the use
of the mouse. There is no window argument; mouse
options are global. `zcurses mouse' with no arguments
returns status 0 if mouse handling is possible, else
status 1. Otherwise, the possible arguments (which may
be combined on the same command line) are as follows.
delay num sets the maximum delay in milliseconds
between press and release events to be considered as a
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click; the value 0 disables click resolution, and the
default is one sixth of a second. motion proceeded by
an optional `+' (the default) or - turns on or off
reporting of mouse motion in addition to clicks,
presses and releases, which are always reported. How-
ever, it appears reports for mouse motion are not cur-
rently implemented.
The subcommand timeout specifies a timeout value for
input from targetwin. If intval is negative, `zcurses
input' waits indefinitely for a character to be typed;
this is the default. If intval is zero, `zcurses
input' returns immediately; if there is typeahead it is
returned, else no input is done and status 1 is
returned. If intval is positive, `zcurses input' waits
intval milliseconds for input and if there is none at
the end of that period returns status 1.
The subcommand querychar queries the character at the
current cursor position. The return values are stored
in the array named param if supplied, else in the array
reply. The first value is the character (which may be
a multibyte character if the system supports them); the
second is the color pair in the usual fg_col/bg_col
notation, or 0 if color is not supported. Any
attributes other than color that apply to the charac-
ter, as set with the subcommand attr, appear as addi-
tional elements.
Parameters
ZCURSES_COLORS
Readonly integer. The maximum number of colors the
terminal supports. This value is initialised by the
curses library and is not available until the first
time zcurses init is run.
ZCURSES_COLOR_PAIRS
Readonly integer. The maximum number of color pairs
fg_col/bg_col that may be defined in `zcurses attr'
commands; note this limit applies to all color pairs
that have been used whether or not they are currently
active. This value is initialised by the curses
library and is not available until the first time
zcurses init is run.
zcurses_attrs
Readonly array. The attributes supported by
zsh/curses; available as soon as the module is loaded.
zcurses_colors
Readonly array. The colors supported by zsh/curses;
available as soon as the module is loaded.
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zcurses_keycodes
Readonly array. The values that may be returned in the
second parameter supplied to `zcurses input' in the
order in which they are defined internally by curses.
Not all function keys are listed, only F0; curses
reserves space for F0 up to F63.
zcurses_windows
Readonly array. The current list of windows, i.e. all
windows that have been created with `zcurses addwin'
and not removed with `zcurses delwin'.
THE ZSH/DATETIME MODULE
The zsh/datetime module makes available one builtin command:
strftime [ -s scalar ] format epochtime
strftime -r [ -q ] [ -s scalar ] format timestring
Output the date denoted by epochtime in the format
specified.
With the option -r (reverse), use the format format to
parse the input string timestring and output the number
of seconds since the epoch at which the time occurred.
If no timezone is parsed, the current timezone is used;
other parameters are set to zero if not present. If
timestring does not match format the command returns
status 1; it will additionally print an error message
unless the option -q (quiet) is given. If timestring
matches format but not all characters in timestring
were used, the conversion succeeds; however, a warning
is issued unless the option -q is given. The matching
is implemented by the system function strptime; see
strptime(3). This means that zsh format extensions are
not available, however for reverse lookup they are not
required. If the function is not implemented, the com-
mand returns status 2 and (unless -q is given) prints a
message.
If -s scalar is given, assign the date string (or epoch
time in seconds if -r is given) to scalar instead of
printing it.
The zsh/datetime module makes available several parameters;
all are readonly:
EPOCHREALTIME
A floating point value representing the number of sec-
onds since the epoch. The notional accuracy is to
nanoseconds if the clock_gettime call is available and
to microseconds otherwise, but in practice the range of
double precision floating point and shell scheduling
latencies may be significant effects.
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EPOCHSECONDS
An integer value representing the number of seconds
since the epoch.
epochtime
An array value containing the number of seconds since
the epoch in the first element and the remainder of the
time since the epoch in nanoseconds in the second ele-
ment. To ensure the two elements are consistent the
array should be copied or otherwise referenced as a
single substitution before the values are used. The
following idiom may be used:
for secs nsecs in $epochtime; do
...
done
THE ZSH/DELTOCHAR MODULE
The zsh/deltochar module makes available two ZLE functions:
delete-to-char
Read a character from the keyboard, and delete from the
cursor position up to and including the next (or, with
repeat count n, the nth) instance of that character.
Negative repeat counts mean delete backwards.
zap-to-char
This behaves like delete-to-char, except that the final
occurrence of the character itself is not deleted.
THE ZSH/EXAMPLE MODULE
The zsh/example module makes available one builtin command:
example [ -flags ] [ args ... ]
Displays the flags and arguments it is invoked with.
The purpose of the module is to serve as an example of how
to write a module.
THE ZSH/FILES MODULE
The zsh/files module makes available some common commands
for file manipulation as builtins; these commands are proba-
bly not needed for many normal situations but can be useful
in emergency recovery situations with constrained resources.
The commands do not implement all features now required by
relevant standards committees.
For all commands, a variant beginning zf_ is also available
and loaded automatically. Using the features capability of
zmodload will let you load only those names you want.
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The commands loaded by default are:
chgrp [ -hRs ] group filename ...
Changes group of files specified. This is equivalent
to chown with a user-spec argument of `:group'.
chown [ -hRs ] user-spec filename ...
Changes ownership and group of files specified.
The user-spec can be in four forms:
user change owner to user; do not change group
user::
change owner to user; do not change group
user:
change owner to user; change group to user's pri-
mary group
user:group
change owner to user; change group to group
:group
do not change owner; change group to group
In each case, the `:' may instead be a `.'. The rule
is that if there is a `:' then the separator is `:',
otherwise if there is a `.' then the separator is `.',
otherwise there is no separator.
Each of user and group may be either a username (or
group name, as appropriate) or a decimal user ID (group
ID). Interpretation as a name takes precedence, if
there is an all-numeric username (or group name).
If the target is a symbolic link, the -h option causes
chown to set the ownership of the link instead of its
target.
The -R option causes chown to recursively descend into
directories, changing the ownership of all files in the
directory after changing the ownership of the directory
itself.
The -s option is a zsh extension to chown functional-
ity. It enables paranoid behaviour, intended to avoid
security problems involving a chown being tricked into
affecting files other than the ones intended. It will
refuse to follow symbolic links, so that (for example)
``chown luser /tmp/foo/passwd'' can't accidentally
chown /etc/passwd if /tmp/foo happens to be a link to
/etc. It will also check where it is after leaving
directories, so that a recursive chown of a deep direc-
tory tree can't end up recursively chowning /usr as a
result of directories being moved up the tree.
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ln [ -dfhins ] filename dest
ln [ -dfhins ] filename ... dir
Creates hard (or, with -s, symbolic) links. In the
first form, the specified destination is created, as a
link to the specified filename. In the second form,
each of the filenames is taken in turn, and linked to a
pathname in the specified directory that has the same
last pathname component.
Normally, ln will not attempt to create hard links to
directories. This check can be overridden using the -d
option. Typically only the super-user can actually
succeed in creating hard links to directories. This
does not apply to symbolic links in any case.
By default, existing files cannot be replaced by links.
The -i option causes the user to be queried about
replacing existing files. The -f option causes exist-
ing files to be silently deleted, without querying. -f
takes precedence.
The -h and -n options are identical and both exist for
compatibility; either one indicates that if the target
is a symlink then it should not be dereferenced. Typi-
cally this is used in combination with -sf so that if
an existing link points to a directory then it will be
removed, instead of followed. If this option is used
with multiple filenames and the target is a symbolic
link pointing to a directory then the result is an
error.
mkdir [ -p ] [ -m mode ] dir ...
Creates directories. With the -p option, non-existing
parent directories are first created if necessary, and
there will be no complaint if the directory already
exists. The -m option can be used to specify (in
octal) a set of file permissions for the created direc-
tories, otherwise mode 777 modified by the current
umask (see umask(2)) is used.
mv [ -fi ] filename dest
mv [ -fi ] filename ... dir
Moves files. In the first form, the specified filename
is moved to the specified destination. In the second
form, each of the filenames is taken in turn, and moved
to a pathname in the specified directory that has the
same last pathname component.
By default, the user will be queried before replacing
any file that the user cannot write to, but writable
files will be silently removed. The -i option causes
the user to be queried about replacing any existing
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files. The -f option causes any existing files to be
silently deleted, without querying. -f takes prece-
dence.
Note that this mv will not move files across devices.
Historical versions of mv, when actual renaming is
impossible, fall back on copying and removing files; if
this behaviour is desired, use cp and rm manually.
This may change in a future version.
rm [ -dfirs ] filename ...
Removes files and directories specified.
Normally, rm will not remove directories (except with
the -r option). The -d option causes rm to try remov-
ing directories with unlink (see unlink(2)), the same
method used for files. Typically only the super-user
can actually succeed in unlinking directories in this
way. -d takes precedence over -r.
By default, the user will be queried before removing
any file that the user cannot write to, but writable
files will be silently removed. The -i option causes
the user to be queried about removing any files. The
-f option causes files to be silently deleted, without
querying, and suppresses all error indications. -f
takes precedence.
The -r option causes rm to recursively descend into
directories, deleting all files in the directory before
removing the directory with the rmdir system call (see
rmdir(2)).
The -s option is a zsh extension to rm functionality.
It enables paranoid behaviour, intended to avoid common
security problems involving a root-run rm being tricked
into removing files other than the ones intended. It
will refuse to follow symbolic links, so that (for
example) ``rm /tmp/foo/passwd'' can't accidentally
remove /etc/passwd if /tmp/foo happens to be a link to
/etc. It will also check where it is after leaving
directories, so that a recursive removal of a deep
directory tree can't end up recursively removing /usr
as a result of directories being moved up the tree.
rmdir dir ...
Removes empty directories specified.
sync Calls the system call of the same name (see sync(2)),
which flushes dirty buffers to disk. It might return
before the I/O has actually been completed.
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THE ZSH/LANGINFO MODULE
The zsh/langinfo module makes available one parameter:
langinfo
An associative array that maps langinfo elements to
their values.
Your implementation may support a number of the follow-
ing keys:
CODESET, D_T_FMT, D_FMT, T_FMT, RADIXCHAR, THOUSEP,
YESEXPR, NOEXPR, CRNCYSTR, ABDAY_{1..7}, DAY_{1..7},
ABMON_{1..12}, MON_{1..12}, T_FMT_AMPM, AM_STR, PM_STR,
ERA, ERA_D_FMT, ERA_D_T_FMT, ERA_T_FMT, ALT_DIGITS
THE ZSH/MAPFILE MODULE
The zsh/mapfile module provides one special associative
array parameter of the same name.
mapfile
This associative array takes as keys the names of
files; the resulting value is the content of the file.
The value is treated identically to any other text com-
ing from a parameter. The value may also be assigned
to, in which case the file in question is written
(whether or not it originally existed); or an element
may be unset, which will delete the file in question.
For example, `vared mapfile[myfile]' works as expected,
editing the file `myfile'.
When the array is accessed as a whole, the keys are the
names of files in the current directory, and the values
are empty (to save a huge overhead in memory). Thus
${(k)mapfile} has the same affect as the glob operator
*(D), since files beginning with a dot are not special.
Care must be taken with expressions such as rm
${(k)mapfile}, which will delete every file in the cur-
rent directory without the usual `rm *' test.
The parameter mapfile may be made read-only; in that
case, files referenced may not be written or deleted.
A file may conveniently be read into an array as one
line per element with the form `array=("${(f@)map-
file[filename]}")'. The double quotes and the `@' are
necessary to prevent empty lines from being removed.
Note that if the file ends with a newline, the shell
will split on the final newline, generating an addi-
tional empty field; this can be suppressed by using
`array=("${(f@)${mapfile[filename]%$'\n'}}")'.
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Limitations
Although reading and writing of the file in question is
efficiently handled, zsh's internal memory management may be
arbitrarily baroque; however, mapfile is usually very much
more efficient than anything involving a loop. Note in par-
ticular that the whole contents of the file will always
reside physically in memory when accessed (possibly multiple
times, due to standard parameter substitution operations).
In particular, this means handling of sufficiently long
files (greater than the machine's swap space, or than the
range of the pointer type) will be incorrect.
No errors are printed or flagged for non-existent, unread-
able, or unwritable files, as the parameter mechanism is too
low in the shell execution hierarchy to make this conve-
nient.
It is unfortunate that the mechanism for loading modules
does not yet allow the user to specify the name of the shell
parameter to be given the special behaviour.
THE ZSH/MATHFUNC MODULE
The zsh/mathfunc module provides standard mathematical func-
tions for use when evaluating mathematical formulae. The
syntax agrees with normal C and FORTRAN conventions, for
example,
(( f = sin(0.3) ))
assigns the sine of 0.3 to the parameter f.
Most functions take floating point arguments and return a
floating point value. However, any necessary conversions
from or to integer type will be performed automatically by
the shell. Apart from atan with a second argument and the
abs, int and float functions, all functions behave as noted
in the manual page for the corresponding C function, except
that any arguments out of range for the function in question
will be detected by the shell and an error reported.
The following functions take a single floating point argu-
ment: acos, acosh, asin, asinh, atan, atanh, cbrt, ceil,
cos, cosh, erf, erfc, exp, expm1, fabs, floor, gamma, j0,
j1, lgamma, log, log10, log1p, logb, sin, sinh, sqrt, tan,
tanh, y0, y1. The atan function can optionally take a sec-
ond argument, in which case it behaves like the C function
atan2. The ilogb function takes a single floating point
argument, but returns an integer.
The function signgam takes no arguments, and returns an
integer, which is the C variable of the same name, as
described in gamma(3). Note that it is therefore only
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useful immediately after a call to gamma or lgamma. Note
also that `signgam()' and `signgam' are distinct expres-
sions.
The following functions take two floating point arguments:
copysign, fmod, hypot, nextafter.
The following take an integer first argument and a floating
point second argument: jn, yn.
The following take a floating point first argument and an
integer second argument: ldexp, scalb.
The function abs does not convert the type of its single
argument; it returns the absolute value of either a floating
point number or an integer. The functions float and int
convert their arguments into a floating point or integer
value (by truncation) respectively.
Note that the C pow function is available in ordinary math
evaluation as the `**' operator and is not provided here.
The function rand48 is available if your system's mathemati-
cal library has the function erand48(3). It returns a
pseudo-random floating point number between 0 and 1. It
takes a single string optional argument.
If the argument is not present, the random number seed is
initialised by three calls to the rand(3) function --- this
produces the same random numbers as the next three values of
$RANDOM.
If the argument is present, it gives the name of a scalar
parameter where the current random number seed will be
stored. On the first call, the value must contain at least
twelve hexadecimal digits (the remainder of the string is
ignored), or the seed will be initialised in the same manner
as for a call to rand48 with no argument. Subsequent calls
to rand48(param) will then maintain the seed in the parame-
ter param as a string of twelve hexadecimal digits, with no
base signifier. The random number sequences for different
parameters are completely independent, and are also indepen-
dent from that used by calls to rand48 with no argument.
For example, consider
print $(( rand48(seed) ))
print $(( rand48() ))
print $(( rand48(seed) ))
Assuming $seed does not exist, it will be initialised by the
first call. In the second call, the default seed is
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initialised; note, however, that because of the properties
of rand() there is a correlation between the seeds used for
the two initialisations, so for more secure uses, you should
generate your own 12-byte seed. The third call returns to
the same sequence of random numbers used in the first call,
unaffected by the intervening rand48().
THE ZSH/NEWUSER MODULE
The zsh/newuser module is loaded at boot if it is available,
the RCS option is set, and the PRIVILEGED option is not set
(all three are true by default). This takes place immedi-
ately after commands in the global zshenv file (typically
/etc/zshenv), if any, have been executed. If the module is
not available it is silently ignored by the shell; the mod-
ule may safely be removed from $MODULE_PATH by the adminis-
trator if it is not required.
On loading, the module tests if any of the start-up files
.zshenv, .zprofile, .zshrc or .zlogin exist in the directory
given by the environment variable ZDOTDIR, or the user's
home directory if that is not set. The test is not per-
formed and the module halts processing if the shell was in
an emulation mode (i.e. had been invoked as some other shell
than zsh).
If none of the start-up files were found, the module then
looks for the file newuser first in a sitewide directory,
usually the parent directory of the site-functions direc-
tory, and if that is not found the module searches in a ver-
sion-specific directory, usually the parent of the functions
directory containing version-specific functions. (These
directories can be configured when zsh is built using the
--enable-site-scriptdir=dir and --enable-scriptdir=dir flags
to configure, respectively; the defaults are pre-
fix/share/zsh and prefix/share/zsh/$ZSH_VERSION where the
default prefix is /usr/local.)
If the file newuser is found, it is then sourced in the same
manner as a start-up file. The file is expected to contain
code to install start-up files for the user, however any
valid shell code will be executed.
The zsh/newuser module is then unconditionally unloaded.
Note that it is possible to achieve exactly the same effect
as the zsh/newuser module by adding code to /etc/zshenv.
The module exists simply to allow the shell to make arrange-
ments for new users without the need for intervention by
package maintainers and system administrators.
The script supplied with the module invokes the shell func-
tion zsh-newuser-install. This may be invoked directly by
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the user even if the zsh/newuser module is disabled. Note,
however, that if the module is not installed the function
will not be installed either. The function is documented in
the section User Configuration Functions in zshcontrib(1).
THE ZSH/PARAMETER MODULE
The zsh/parameter module gives access to some of the inter-
nal hash tables used by the shell by defining some special
parameters.
options
The keys for this associative array are the names of
the options that can be set and unset using the setopt
and unsetopt builtins. The value of each key is either
the string on if the option is currently set, or the
string off if the option is unset. Setting a key to
one of these strings is like setting or unsetting the
option, respectively. Unsetting a key in this array is
like setting it to the value off.
commands
This array gives access to the command hash table. The
keys are the names of external commands, the values are
the pathnames of the files that would be executed when
the command would be invoked. Setting a key in this
array defines a new entry in this table in the same way
as with the hash builtin. Unsetting a key as in `unset
"commands[foo]"' removes the entry for the given key
from the command hash table.
functions
This associative array maps names of enabled functions
to their definitions. Setting a key in it is like
defining a function with the name given by the key and
the body given by the value. Unsetting a key removes
the definition for the function named by the key.
dis_functions
Like functions but for disabled functions.
builtins
This associative array gives information about the
builtin commands currently enabled. The keys are the
names of the builtin commands and the values are either
`undefined' for builtin commands that will automati-
cally be loaded from a module if invoked or `defined'
for builtin commands that are already loaded.
dis_builtins
Like builtins but for disabled builtin commands.
reswords
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This array contains the enabled reserved words.
dis_reswords
Like reswords but for disabled reserved words.
patchars
This array contains the enabled pattern characters.
dis_patchars
Like patchars but for disabled pattern characters.
aliases
This maps the names of the regular aliases currently
enabled to their expansions.
dis_aliases
Like aliases but for disabled regular aliases.
galiases
Like aliases, but for global aliases.
dis_galiases
Like galiases but for disabled global aliases.
saliases
Like raliases, but for suffix aliases.
dis_saliases
Like saliases but for disabled suffix aliases.
parameters
The keys in this associative array are the names of the
parameters currently defined. The values are strings
describing the type of the parameter, in the same for-
mat used by the t parameter flag, see zshexpn(1) .
Setting or unsetting keys in this array is not possi-
ble.
modules
An associative array giving information about modules.
The keys are the names of the modules loaded, regis-
tered to be autoloaded, or aliased. The value says
which state the named module is in and is one of the
strings `loaded', `autoloaded', or `alias:name', where
name is the name the module is aliased to.
Setting or unsetting keys in this array is not possi-
ble.
dirstack
A normal array holding the elements of the directory
stack. Note that the output of the dirs builtin command
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includes one more directory, the current working direc-
tory.
history
This associative array maps history event numbers to
the full history lines.
historywords
A special array containing the words stored in the his-
tory.
jobdirs
This associative array maps job numbers to the directo-
ries from which the job was started (which may not be
the current directory of the job).
The keys of the associative arrays are usually valid
job numbers, and these are the values output with, for
example, ${(k)jobdirs}. Non-numeric job references may
be used when looking up a value; for example, ${job-
dirs[%+]} refers to the current job.
jobtexts
This associative array maps job numbers to the texts of
the command lines that were used to start the jobs.
Handling of the keys of the associative array is as
described for jobdirs above.
jobstates
This associative array gives information about the
states of the jobs currently known. The keys are the
job numbers and the values are strings of the form
`job-state:mark:pid=state...'. The job-state gives the
state the whole job is currently in, one of `running',
`suspended', or `done'. The mark is `+' for the current
job, `-' for the previous job and empty otherwise. This
is followed by one `pid=state' for every process in the
job. The pids are, of course, the process IDs and the
state describes the state of that process.
Handling of the keys of the associative array is as
described for jobdirs above.
nameddirs
This associative array maps the names of named directo-
ries to the pathnames they stand for.
userdirs
This associative array maps user names to the pathnames
of their home directories.
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usergroups
This associative array maps names of system groups of
which the current user is a member to the corresponding
group identifiers. The contents are the same as the
groups output by the id command.
funcfiletrace
This array contains the absolute line numbers and cor-
responding file names for the point where the current
function, sourced file, or (if EVAL_LINENO is set) eval
command was called. The array is of the same length as
funcsourcetrace and functrace, but differs from func-
sourcetrace in that the line and file are the point of
call, not the point of definition, and differs from
functrace in that all values are absolute line numbers
in files, rather than relative to the start of a func-
tion, if any.
funcsourcetrace
This array contains the file names and line numbers of
the points where the functions, sourced files, and (if
EVAL_LINENO is set) eval commands currently being exe-
cuted were defined. The line number is the line where
the `function name' or `name ()' started. In the case
of an autoloaded function the line number is reported
as zero. The format of each element is file-
name:lineno. For functions autoloaded from a file in
native zsh format, where only the body of the function
occurs in the file, or for files that have been exe-
cuted by the source or `.' builtins, the trace informa-
tion is shown as filename:0, since the entire file is
the definition.
Most users will be interested in the information in the
funcfiletrace array instead.
funcstack
This array contains the names of the functions, sourced
files, and (if EVAL_LINENO is set) eval commands. cur-
rently being executed. The first element is the name of
the function using the parameter.
functrace
This array contains the names and line numbers of the
callers corresponding to the functions currently being
executed. The format of each element is name:lineno.
Callers are also shown for sourced files; the caller is
the point where the source or `.' command was executed.
THE ZSH/PCRE MODULE
The zsh/pcre module makes some commands available as
builtins:
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pcre_compile [ -aimxs ] PCRE
Compiles a perl-compatible regular expression.
Option -a will force the pattern to be anchored.
Option -i will compile a case-insensitive pattern.
Option -m will compile a multi-line pattern; that is, ^
and $ will match newlines within the pattern. Option
-x will compile an extended pattern, wherein whitespace
and # comments are ignored. Option -s makes the dot
metacharacter match all characters, including those
that indicate newline.
pcre_study
Studies the previously-compiled PCRE which may result
in faster matching.
pcre_match [ -v var ] [ -a arr ] [ -n offset ] [ -b ] string
Returns successfully if string matches the previ-
ously-compiled PCRE.
Upon successful match, if the expression captures sub-
strings within parentheses, pcre_match will set the
array $match to those substrings, unless the -a option
is given, in which case it will set the array arr.
Similarly, the variable MATCH will be set to the entire
matched portion of the string, unless the -v option is
given, in which case the variable var will be set. No
variables are altered if there is no successful match.
A -n option starts searching for a match from the byte
offset position in string. If the -b option is given,
the variable ZPCRE_OP will be set to an offset pair
string, representing the byte offset positions of the
entire matched portion within the string. For example,
a ZPCRE_OP set to "32 45" indicates that the matched
portion began on byte offset 32 and ended on byte off-
set 44. Here, byte offset position 45 is the position
directly after the matched portion. Keep in mind that
the byte position isn't necessarily the same as the
character position when UTF-8 characters are involved.
Consequently, the byte offset positions are only to be
relied on in the context of using them for subsequent
searches on string, using an offset position as an
argument to the -n option. This is mostly used to
implement the "find all non-overlapping matches" func-
tionality.
A simple example of "find all non-overlapping matches":
string="The following zip codes: 78884 90210 99513"
pcre_compile -m "\d{5}"
accum=()
pcre_match -b -- $string
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while [[ $? -eq 0 ]] do
b=($=ZPCRE_OP)
accum+=$MATCH
pcre_match -b -n $b[2] -- $string
done
print -l $accum
The zsh/pcre module makes available the following test con-
dition:
expr -pcre-match pcre
Matches a string against a perl-compatible regular
expression.
For example,
[[ "$text" -pcre-match ^d+$ ]] && print text variable
contains only "d's".
THE ZSH/REGEX MODULE
The zsh/regex module makes available the following test con-
dition:
expr -regex-match regex
Matches a string against a POSIX extended regular
expression. On successful match, matched portion of
the string will normally be placed in the MATCH vari-
able. If there are any capturing parentheses within
the regex, then the match array variable will contain
those. If the match is not successful, then the vari-
ables will not be altered.
For example,
[[ alphabetical -regex-match ^a([^a]+)a([^a]+)a ]] &&
print -l $MATCH X $match
If the option REMATCH_PCRE is not set, then the =~
operator will automatically load this module as needed
and will invoke the -regex-match operator.
If BASH_REMATCH is set, then the array BASH_REMATCH
will be set instead of MATCH and match.
THE ZSH/SCHED MODULE
The zsh/sched module makes available one builtin command and
one parameter.
sched [-o] [+]hh:mm[:ss] command ...
sched [-o] [+]seconds command ...
sched [ -item ]
Make an entry in the scheduled list of commands to exe-
cute. The time may be specified in either absolute or
relative time, and either as hours, minutes and
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(optionally) seconds separated by a colon, or seconds
alone. An absolute number of seconds indicates the
time since the epoch (1970/01/01 00:00); this is useful
in combination with the features in the zsh/datetime
module, see the zsh/datetime module entry in zshmod-
ules(1).
With no arguments, prints the list of scheduled com-
mands. If the scheduled command has the -o flag set,
this is shown at the start of the command.
With the argument `-item', removes the given item from
the list. The numbering of the list is continuous and
entries are in time order, so the numbering can change
when entries are added or deleted.
Commands are executed either immediately before a
prompt, or while the shell's line editor is waiting for
input. In the latter case it is useful to be able to
produce output that does not interfere with the line
being edited. Providing the option -o causes the shell
to clear the command line before the event and redraw
it afterwards. This should be used with any scheduled
event that produces visible output to the terminal; it
is not needed, for example, with output that updates a
terminal emulator's title bar.
The sched builtin is not made available by default when
the shell starts in a mode emulating another shell. It
can be made available with the command `zmodload -F
zsh/sched b:sched'.
zsh_scheduled_events
A readonly array corresponding to the events scheduled
by the sched builtin. The indices of the array corre-
spond to the numbers shown when sched is run with no
arguments (provided that the KSH_ARRAYS option is not
set). The value of the array consists of the scheduled
time in seconds since the epoch (see the section `The
zsh/datetime Module' for facilities for using this num-
ber), followed by a colon, followed by any options
(which may be empty but will be preceded by a `-' oth-
erwise), followed by a colon, followed by the command
to be executed.
The sched builtin should be used for manipulating the
events. Note that this will have an immediate effect
on the contents of the array, so that indices may
become invalid.
THE ZSH/NET/SOCKET MODULE
The zsh/net/socket module makes available one builtin
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command:
zsocket [ -altv ] [ -d fd ] [ args ]
zsocket is implemented as a builtin to allow full use
of shell command line editing, file I/O, and job con-
trol mechanisms.
Outbound Connections
zsocket [ -v ] [ -d fd ] filename
Open a new Unix domain connection to filename. The
shell parameter REPLY will be set to the file descrip-
tor associated with that connection. Currently, only
stream connections are supported.
If -d is specified, its argument will be taken as the
target file descriptor for the connection.
In order to elicit more verbose output, use -v.
Inbound Connections
zsocket -l [ -v ] [ -d fd ] filename
zsocket -l will open a socket listening on filename.
The shell parameter REPLY will be set to the file
descriptor associated with that listener.
If -d is specified, its argument will be taken as the
target file descriptor for the connection.
In order to elicit more verbose output, use -v.
zsocket -a [ -tv ] [ -d targetfd ] listenfd
zsocket -a will accept an incoming connection to the
socket associated with listenfd. The shell parameter
REPLY will be set to the file descriptor associated
with the inbound connection.
If -d is specified, its argument will be taken as the
target file descriptor for the connection.
If -t is specified, zsocket will return if no incoming
connection is pending. Otherwise it will wait for one.
In order to elicit more verbose output, use -v.
THE ZSH/STAT MODULE
The zsh/stat module makes available one builtin command
under two possible names:
] [ +element ] [ file ... ]
zstat [ -gnNolLtTrs ] [ -f fd ] [ -H hash ] [ -A array ] [
-F fmt
stat ...
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The command acts as a front end to the stat system call
(see stat(2)). The same command is provided with two
names; as the name stat is often used by an external
command it is recommended that only the zstat form of
the command is used. This can be arranged by loading
the module with the command `zmodload -F zsh/stat
b:zstat'.
If the stat call fails, the appropriate system error
message printed and status 1 is returned. The fields
of struct stat give information about the files pro-
vided as arguments to the command. In addition to
those available from the stat call, an extra element
`link' is provided. These elements are:
device
The number of the device on which the file
resides.
inode
The unique number of the file on this device
(`inode' number).
mode The mode of the file; that is, the file's type and
access permissions. With the -s option, this will
be returned as a string corresponding to the first
column in the display of the ls -l command.
nlink
The number of hard links to the file.
uid The user ID of the owner of the file. With the -s
option, this is displayed as a user name.
gid The group ID of the file. With the -s option,
this is displayed as a group name.
rdev The raw device number. This is only useful for
special devices.
size The size of the file in bytes.
atime
mtime
ctime
The last access, modification and inode change
times of the file, respectively, as the number of
seconds since midnight GMT on 1st January, 1970.
With the -s option, these are printed as strings
for the local time zone; the format can be altered
with the -F option, and with the -g option the
times are in GMT.
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blksize
The number of bytes in one allocation block on the
device on which the file resides.
block
The number of disk blocks used by the file.
link If the file is a link and the -L option is in
effect, this contains the name of the file linked
to, otherwise it is empty. Note that if this ele-
ment is selected (``zstat +link'') then the -L
option is automatically used.
A particular element may be selected by including its
name preceded by a `+' in the option list; only one
element is allowed. The element may be shortened to
any unique set of leading characters. Otherwise, all
elements will be shown for all files.
Options:
-A array
Instead of displaying the results on standard out-
put, assign them to an array, one struct stat ele-
ment per array element for each file in order. In
this case neither the name of the element nor the
name of the files appears in array unless the -t
or -n options were given, respectively. If -t is
given, the element name appears as a prefix to the
appropriate array element; if -n is given, the
file name appears as a separate array element pre-
ceding all the others. Other formatting options
are respected.
-H hash
Similar to -A, but instead assign the values to
hash. The keys are the elements listed above. If
the -n option is provided then the name of the
file is included in the hash with key name.
-f fd
Use the file on file descriptor fd instead of
named files; no list of file names is allowed in
this case.
-F fmt
Supplies a strftime (see strftime(3)) string for
the formatting of the time elements. The -s
option is implied.
-g Show the time elements in the GMT time zone. The
-s option is implied.
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-l List the names of the type elements (to standard
output or an array as appropriate) and return
immediately; options other than -A and arguments
are ignored.
-L Perform an lstat (see lstat(2)) rather than a stat
system call. In this case, if the file is a link,
information about the link itself rather than the
target file is returned. This option is required
to make the link element useful. It's important
to note that this is the exact opposite from
ls(1), etc.
-n Always show the names of files. Usually these are
only shown when output is to standard output and
there is more than one file in the list.
-N Never show the names of files.
-o If a raw file mode is printed, show it in octal,
which is more useful for human consumption than
the default of decimal. A leading zero will be
printed in this case. Note that this does not
affect whether a raw or formatted file mode is
shown, which is controlled by the -r and -s
options, nor whether a mode is shown at all.
-r Print raw data (the default format) alongside
string data (the -s format); the string data
appears in parentheses after the raw data.
-s Print mode, uid, gid and the three time elements
as strings instead of numbers. In each case the
format is like that of ls -l.
-t Always show the type names for the elements of
struct stat. Usually these are only shown when
output is to standard output and no individual
element has been selected.
-T Never show the type names of the struct stat ele-
ments.
THE ZSH/SYSTEM MODULE
The zsh/system module makes available various builtin com-
mands and parameters.
Builtins
syserror [ -e errvar ] [ -p prefix ] [ errno | errname ]
This command prints out the error message associated
with errno, a system error number, followed by a new-
line to standard error.
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Instead of the error number, a name errname, for exam-
ple ENOENT, may be used. The set of names is the same
as the contents of the array errnos, see below.
If the string prefix is given, it is printed in front
of the error message, with no intervening space.
If errvar is supplied, the entire message, without a
newline, is assigned to the parameter names errvar and
nothing is output.
A return status of 0 indicates the message was success-
fully printed (although it may not be useful if the
error number was out of the system's range), a return
status of 1 indicates an error in the parameters, and a
return status of 2 indicates the error name was not
recognised (no message is printed for this).
sysread [ -c countvar ] [ -i infd ] [ -o outfd ]
[ -s bufsize ] [ -t timeout ] [ param ]
Perform a single system read from file descriptor infd,
or zero if that is not given. The result of the read
is stored in param or REPLY if that is not given. If
countvar is given, the number of bytes read is assigned
to the parameter named by countvar.
The maximum number of bytes read is bufsize or 8192 if
that is not given, however the command returns as soon
as any number of bytes was successfully read.
If timeout is given, it specifies a timeout in seconds,
which may be zero to poll the file descriptor. This is
handled by the poll system call if available, otherwise
the select system call if available.
If outfd is given, an attempt is made to write all the
bytes just read to the file descriptor outfd. If this
fails, because of a system error other than EINTR or
because of an internal zsh error during an interrupt,
the bytes read but not written are stored in the param-
eter named by param if supplied (no default is used in
this case), and the number of bytes read but not writ-
ten is stored in the parameter named by countvar if
that is supplied. If it was successful, countvar con-
tains the full number of bytes transferred, as usual,
and param is not set.
The error EINTR (interrupted system call) is handled
internally so that shell interrupts are transparent to
the caller. Any other error causes a return.
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User Commands ZSHMODULES(1)
The possible return statuses are
0 At least one byte of data was successfully read
and, if appropriate, written.
1 There was an error in the parameters to the com-
mand. This is the only error for which a message
is printed to standard error.
2 There was an error on the read, or on polling the
input file descriptor for a timeout. The parame-
ter ERRNO gives the error.
3 Data were successfully read, but there was an
error writing them to outfd. The parameter ERRNO
gives the error.
4 The attempt to read timed out. Note this does not
set ERRNO as this is not a system error.
5 No system error occurred, but zero bytes were
read. This usually indicates end of file. The
parameters are set according to the usual rules;
no write to outfd is attempted.
syswrite [ -c countvar ] [ -o outfd ] data
The data (a single string of bytes) are written to the
file descriptor outfd, or 1 if that is not given, using
the write system call. Multiple write operations may
be used if the first does not write all the data.
If countvar is given, the number of byte written is
stored in the parameter named by countvar; this may not
be the full length of data if an error occurred.
The error EINTR (interrupted system call) is handled
internally by retrying; otherwise an error causes the
command to return. For example, if the file descriptor
is set to non-blocking output, an error EAGAIN (on some
systems, EWOULDBLOCK) may result in the command return-
ing early.
The return status may be 0 for success, 1 for an error
in the parameters to the command, or 2 for an error on
the write; no error message is printed in the last
case, but the parameter ERRNO will reflect the error
that occurred.
zsystem flock [ -t timeout ] [ -f var ] [-er] file
zsystem flock -u fd_expr
The builtin zsystem's subcommand flock performs advi-
sory file locking (via the fcntl(2) system call) over
the entire contents of the given file. This form of
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User Commands ZSHMODULES(1)
locking requires the processes accessing the file to
cooperate; its most obvious use is between two
instances of the shell itself.
In the first form the named file, which must already
exist, is locked by opening a file descriptor to the
file and applying a lock to the file descriptor. The
lock terminates when the shell process that created the
lock exits; it is therefore often convenient to create
file locks within subshells, since the lock is automat-
ically released when the subshell exits. Status 0 is
returned if the lock succeeds, else status 1.
In the second form the file descriptor given by the
arithmetic expression fd_expr is closed, releasing a
lock. The file descriptor can be queried by using the
`-f var' form during the lock; on a successful lock,
the shell variable var is set to the file descriptor
used for locking. The lock will be released if the
file descriptor is closed by any other means, for exam-
ple using `exec {var}>&-'; however, the form described
here performs a safety check that the file descriptor
is in use for file locking.
By default the shell waits indefinitely for the lock to
succeed. The option -t timeout specifies a timeout for
the lock in seconds; currently this must be an integer.
The shell will attempt to lock the file once a second
during this period. If the attempt times out, status 2
is returned.
If the option -e is given, the file descriptor for the
lock is preserved when the shell uses exec to start a
new process; otherwise it is closed at that point and
the lock released.
If the option -r is given, the lock is only for read-
ing, otherwise it is for reading and writing. The file
descriptor is opened accordingly.
zsystem supports subcommand
The builtin zsystem's subcommand supports tests whether
a given subcommand is supported. It returns status 0
if so, else status 1. It operates silently unless
there was a syntax error (i.e. the wrong number of
arguments), in which case status 255 is returned. Sta-
tus 1 can indicate one of two things: subcommand is
known but not supported by the current operating sys-
tem, or subcommand is not known (possibly because this
is an older version of the shell before it was imple-
mented).
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Parameters
errnos
A readonly array of the names of errors defined on the
system. These are typically macros defined in C by
including the system header file errno.h. The index of
each name (assuming the option KSH_ARRAYS is unset)
corresponds to the error number. Error numbers num
before the last known error which have no name are
given the name Enum in the array.
Note that aliases for errors are not handled; only the
canonical name is used.
sysparams
A readonly associative array. The keys are:
pid Returns the process ID of the current process, even in
subshells. Compare $$, which returns the process ID of
the main shell process.
ppid Returns the process ID of the parent of the current
process, even in subshells. Compare $PPID, which
returns the process ID of the parent of the main shell
process.
THE ZSH/NET/TCP MODULE
The zsh/net/tcp module makes available one builtin command:
ztcp [ -acflLtv ] [ -d fd ] [ args ]
ztcp is implemented as a builtin to allow full use of
shell command line editing, file I/O, and job control
mechanisms.
If ztcp is run with no options, it will output the con-
tents of its session table.
If it is run with only the option -L, it will output
the contents of the session table in a format suitable
for automatic parsing. The option is ignored if given
with a command to open or close a session. The output
consists of a set of lines, one per session, each con-
taining the following elements separated by spaces:
File descriptor
The file descriptor in use for the connection.
For normal inbound (I) and outbound (O) connec-
tions this may be read and written by the usual
shell mechanisms. However, it should only be
close with `ztcp -c'.
Connection type
A letter indicating how the session was created:
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User Commands ZSHMODULES(1)
Z A session created with the zftp command.
L A connection opened for listening with `ztcp
-l'.
I An inbound connection accepted with `ztcp
-a'.
O An outbound connection created with `ztcp
host ...'.
The local host
This is usually set to an all-zero IP address as
the address of the localhost is irrelevant.
The local port
This is likely to be zero unless the connection is
for listening.
The remote host
This is the fully qualified domain name of the
peer, if available, else an IP address. It is an
all-zero IP address for a session opened for lis-
tening.
The remote port
This is zero for a connection opened for listen-
ing.
Outbound Connections
ztcp [ -v ] [ -d fd ] host [ port ]
Open a new TCP connection to host. If the port is
omitted, it will default to port 23. The connection
will be added to the session table and the shell param-
eter REPLY will be set to the file descriptor associ-
ated with that connection.
If -d is specified, its argument will be taken as the
target file descriptor for the connection.
In order to elicit more verbose output, use -v.
Inbound Connections
ztcp -l [ -v ] [ -d fd ] port
ztcp -l will open a socket listening on TCP port. The
socket will be added to the session table and the shell
parameter REPLY will be set to the file descriptor
associated with that listener.
If -d is specified, its argument will be taken as the
target file descriptor for the connection.
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User Commands ZSHMODULES(1)
In order to elicit more verbose output, use -v.
ztcp -a [ -tv ] [ -d targetfd ] listenfd
ztcp -a will accept an incoming connection to the port
associated with listenfd. The connection will be added
to the session table and the shell parameter REPLY will
be set to the file descriptor associated with the
inbound connection.
If -d is specified, its argument will be taken as the
target file descriptor for the connection.
If -t is specified, ztcp will return if no incoming
connection is pending. Otherwise it will wait for one.
In order to elicit more verbose output, use -v.
Closing Connections
ztcp -cf [ -v ] [ fd ]
ztcp -c [ -v ] [ fd ]
ztcp -c will close the socket associated with fd. The
socket will be removed from the session table. If fd
is not specified, ztcp will close everything in the
session table.
Normally, sockets registered by zftp (see zshmodules(1)
) cannot be closed this way. In order to force such a
socket closed, use -f.
In order to elicit more verbose output, use -v.
Example
Here is how to create a TCP connection between two instances
of zsh. We need to pick an unassigned port; here we use the
randomly chosen 5123.
On host1,
zmodload zsh/net/tcp
ztcp -l 5123
listenfd=$REPLY
ztcp -a $listenfd
fd=$REPLY
The second from last command blocks until there is an incom-
ing connection.
Now create a connection from host2 (which may, of course, be
the same machine):
zmodload zsh/net/tcp
ztcp host1 5123
fd=$REPLY
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Now on each host, $fd contains a file descriptor for talking
to the other. For example, on host1:
print This is a message >&$fd
and on host2:
read -r line <&$fd; print -r - $line
prints `This is a message'.
To tidy up, on host1:
ztcp -c $listenfd
ztcp -c $fd
and on host2
ztcp -c $fd
THE ZSH/TERMCAP MODULE
The zsh/termcap module makes available one builtin command:
echotc cap [ arg ... ]
Output the termcap value corresponding to the capabil-
ity cap, with optional arguments.
The zsh/termcap module makes available one parameter:
termcap
An associative array that maps termcap capability codes
to their values.
THE ZSH/TERMINFO MODULE
The zsh/terminfo module makes available one builtin command:
echoti cap [ arg ]
Output the terminfo value corresponding to the capabil-
ity cap, instantiated with arg if applicable.
The zsh/terminfo module makes available one parameter:
terminfo
An associative array that maps terminfo capability
names to their values.
THE ZSH/ZFTP MODULE
The zsh/zftp module makes available one builtin command:
zftp subcommand [ args ]
The zsh/zftp module is a client for FTP (file transfer
protocol). It is implemented as a builtin to allow
full use of shell command line editing, file I/O, and
job control mechanisms. Often, users will access it
via shell functions providing a more powerful inter-
face; a set is provided with the zsh distribution and
is described in zshzftpsys(1). However, the zftp com-
mand is entirely usable in its own right.
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All commands consist of the command name zftp followed
by the name of a subcommand. These are listed below.
The return status of each subcommand is supposed to
reflect the success or failure of the remote operation.
See a description of the variable ZFTP_VERBOSE for more
information on how responses from the server may be
printed.
Subcommands
open host[:port] [ user [ password [ account ] ] ]
Open a new FTP session to host, which may be the name
of a TCP/IP connected host or an IP number in the stan-
dard dot notation. If the argument is in the form
host:port, open a connection to TCP port port instead
of the standard FTP port 21. This may be the name of a
TCP service or a number: see the description of
ZFTP_PORT below for more information.
If IPv6 addresses in colon format are used, the host
should be surrounded by quoted square brackets to dis-
tinguish it from the port, for example
'[fe80::203:baff:fe02:8b56]'. For consistency this is
allowed with all forms of host.
Remaining arguments are passed to the login subcommand.
Note that if no arguments beyond host are supplied,
open will not automatically call login. If no argu-
ments at all are supplied, open will use the parameters
set by the params subcommand.
After a successful open, the shell variables ZFTP_HOST,
ZFTP_PORT, ZFTP_IP and ZFTP_SYSTEM are available; see
`Variables' below.
login [ name [ password [ account ] ] ]
user [ name [ password [ account ] ] ]
Login the user name with parameters password and
account. Any of the parameters can be omitted, and
will be read from standard input if needed (name is
always needed). If standard input is a terminal, a
prompt for each one will be printed on standard error
and password will not be echoed. If any of the parame-
ters are not used, a warning message is printed.
After a successful login, the shell variables
ZFTP_USER, ZFTP_ACCOUNT and ZFTP_PWD are available; see
`Variables' below.
This command may be re-issued when a user is already
logged in, and the server will first be reinitialized
for a new user.
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params [ host [ user [ password [ account ] ] ] ]
params -
Store the given parameters for a later open command
with no arguments. Only those given on the command
line will be remembered. If no arguments are given,
the parameters currently set are printed, although the
password will appear as a line of stars; the return
status is one if no parameters were set, zero other-
wise.
Any of the parameters may be specified as a `?', which
may need to be quoted to protect it from shell expan-
sion. In this case, the appropriate parameter will be
read from stdin as with the login subcommand, including
special handling of password. If the `?' is followed
by a string, that is used as the prompt for reading the
parameter instead of the default message (any necessary
punctuation and whitespace should be included at the
end of the prompt). The first letter of the parameter
(only) may be quoted with a `\'; hence an argument
"\\$word" guarantees that the string from the shell
parameter $word will be treated literally, whether or
not it begins with a `?'.
If instead a single `-' is given, the existing parame-
ters, if any, are deleted. In that case, calling open
with no arguments will cause an error.
The list of parameters is not deleted after a close,
however it will be deleted if the zsh/zftp module is
unloaded.
For example,
zftp params ftp.elsewhere.xx juser '?Password for juser: '
will store the host ftp.elsewhere.xx and the user juser
and then prompt the user for the corresponding password
with the given prompt.
test Test the connection; if the server has reported that it
has closed the connection (maybe due to a timeout),
return status 2; if no connection was open anyway,
return status 1; else return status 0. The test sub-
command is silent, apart from messages printed by the
$ZFTP_VERBOSE mechanism, or error messages if the con-
nection closes. There is no network overhead for this
test.
The test is only supported on systems with either the
select(2) or poll(2) system calls; otherwise the mes-
sage `not supported on this system' is printed instead.
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The test subcommand will automatically be called at the
start of any other subcommand for the current session
when a connection is open.
cd directory
Change the remote directory to directory. Also alters
the shell variable ZFTP_PWD.
cdup Change the remote directory to the one higher in the
directory tree. Note that cd .. will also work cor-
rectly on non-UNIX systems.
dir [ args... ]
Give a (verbose) listing of the remote directory. The
args are passed directly to the server. The command's
behaviour is implementation dependent, but a UNIX
server will typically interpret args as arguments to
the ls command and with no arguments return the result
of `ls -l'. The directory is listed to standard output.
ls [ args ]
Give a (short) listing of the remote directory. With
no args, produces a raw list of the files in the direc-
tory, one per line. Otherwise, up to vagaries of the
server implementation, behaves similar to dir.
type [ type ]
Change the type for the transfer to type, or print the
current type if type is absent. The allowed values are
`A' (ASCII), `I' (Image, i.e. binary), or `B' (a syn-
onym for `I').
The FTP default for a transfer is ASCII. However, if
zftp finds that the remote host is a UNIX machine with
8-bit byes, it will automatically switch to using
binary for file transfers upon open. This can subse-
quently be overridden.
The transfer type is only passed to the remote host
when a data connection is established; this command
involves no network overhead.
ascii
The same as type A.
binary
The same as type I.
mode [ S | B ]
Set the mode type to stream (S) or block (B). Stream
mode is the default; block mode is not widely sup-
ported.
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remote files...
local [ files... ]
Print the size and last modification time of the remote
or local files. If there is more than one item on the
list, the name of the file is printed first. The first
number is the file size, the second is the last modifi-
cation time of the file in the format CCYYMMDDhhmmSS
consisting of year, month, date, hour, minutes and sec-
onds in GMT. Note that this format, including the
length, is guaranteed, so that time strings can be
directly compared via the [[ builtin's < and > opera-
tors, even if they are too long to be represented as
integers.
Not all servers support the commands for retrieving
this information. In that case, the remote command
will print nothing and return status 2, compared with
status 1 for a file not found.
The local command (but not remote) may be used with no
arguments, in which case the information comes from
examining file descriptor zero. This is the same file
as seen by a put command with no further redirection.
get file [...]
Retrieve all files from the server, concatenating them
and sending them to standard output.
put file [...]
For each file, read a file from standard input and send
that to the remote host with the given name.
append file [...]
As put, but if the remote file already exists, data is
appended to it instead of overwriting it.
getat file point
putat file point
appendat file point
Versions of get, put and append which will start the
transfer at the given point in the remote file. This
is useful for appending to an incomplete local file.
However, note that this ability is not universally sup-
ported by servers (and is not quite the behaviour spec-
ified by the standard).
delete file [...]
Delete the list of files on the server.
mkdir directory
Create a new directory directory on the server.
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rmdir directory
Delete the directory directory on the server.
rename old-name new-name
Rename file old-name to new-name on the server.
site args...
Send a host-specific command to the server. You will
probably only need this if instructed by the server to
use it.
quote args...
Send the raw FTP command sequence to the server. You
should be familiar with the FTP command set as defined
in RFC959 before doing this. Useful commands may
include STAT and HELP. Note also the mechanism for
returning messages as described for the variable
ZFTP_VERBOSE below, in particular that all messages
from the control connection are sent to standard error.
close
quit Close the current data connection. This unsets the
shell parameters ZFTP_HOST, ZFTP_PORT, ZFTP_IP,
ZFTP_SYSTEM, ZFTP_USER, ZFTP_ACCOUNT, ZFTP_PWD,
ZFTP_TYPE and ZFTP_MODE.
session [ sessname ]
Allows multiple FTP sessions to be used at once. The
name of the session is an arbitrary string of charac-
ters; the default session is called `default'. If this
command is called without an argument, it will list all
the current sessions; with an argument, it will either
switch to the existing session called sessname, or cre-
ate a new session of that name.
Each session remembers the status of the connection,
the set of connection-specific shell parameters (the
same set as are unset when a connection closes, as
given in the description of close), and any user param-
eters specified with the params subcommand. Changing
to a previous session restores those values; changing
to a new session initialises them in the same way as if
zftp had just been loaded. The name of the current
session is given by the parameter ZFTP_SESSION.
rmsession [ sessname ]
Delete a session; if a name is not given, the current
session is deleted. If the current session is deleted,
the earliest existing session becomes the new current
session, otherwise the current session is not changed.
If the session being deleted is the only one, a new
session called `default' is created and becomes the
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current session; note that this is a new session even
if the session being deleted is also called `default'.
It is recommended that sessions not be deleted while
background commands which use zftp are still active.
Parameters
The following shell parameters are used by zftp. Currently
none of them are special.
ZFTP_TMOUT
Integer. The time in seconds to wait for a network
operation to complete before returning an error. If
this is not set when the module is loaded, it will be
given the default value 60. A value of zero turns off
timeouts. If a timeout occurs on the control connec-
tion it will be closed. Use a larger value if this
occurs too frequently.
ZFTP_IP
Readonly. The IP address of the current connection in
dot notation.
ZFTP_HOST
Readonly. The hostname of the current remote server.
If the host was opened as an IP number, ZFTP_HOST con-
tains that instead; this saves the overhead for a name
lookup, as IP numbers are most commonly used when a
nameserver is unavailable.
ZFTP_PORT
Readonly. The number of the remote TCP port to which
the connection is open (even if the port was originally
specified as a named service). Usually this is the
standard FTP port, 21.
In the unlikely event that your system does not have
the appropriate conversion functions, this appears in
network byte order. If your system is little-endian,
the port then consists of two swapped bytes and the
standard port will be reported as 5376. In that case,
numeric ports passed to zftp open will also need to be
in this format.
ZFTP_SYSTEM
Readonly. The system type string returned by the
server in response to an FTP SYST request. The most
interesting case is a string beginning "UNIX Type: L8",
which ensures maximum compatibility with a local UNIX
host.
ZFTP_TYPE
Readonly. The type to be used for data transfers ,
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either `A' or `I'. Use the type subcommand to change
this.
ZFTP_USER
Readonly. The username currently logged in, if any.
ZFTP_ACCOUNT
Readonly. The account name of the current user, if
any. Most servers do not require an account name.
ZFTP_PWD
Readonly. The current directory on the server.
ZFTP_CODE
Readonly. The three digit code of the last FTP reply
from the server as a string. This can still be read
after the connection is closed, and is not changed when
the current session changes.
ZFTP_REPLY
Readonly. The last line of the last reply sent by the
server. This can still be read after the connection is
closed, and is not changed when the current session
changes.
ZFTP_SESSION
Readonly. The name of the current FTP session; see the
description of the session subcommand.
ZFTP_PREFS
A string of preferences for altering aspects of zftp's
behaviour. Each preference is a single character. The
following are defined:
P Passive: attempt to make the remote server initi-
ate data transfers. This is slightly more effi-
cient than sendport mode. If the letter S occurs
later in the string, zftp will use sendport mode
if passive mode is not available.
S Sendport: initiate transfers by the FTP PORT com-
mand. If this occurs before any P in the string,
passive mode will never be attempted.
D Dumb: use only the bare minimum of FTP commands.
This prevents the variables ZFTP_SYSTEM and
ZFTP_PWD from being set, and will mean all connec-
tions default to ASCII type. It may prevent
ZFTP_SIZE from being set during a transfer if the
server does not send it anyway (many servers do).
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If ZFTP_PREFS is not set when zftp is loaded, it will
be set to a default of `PS', i.e. use passive mode if
available, otherwise fall back to sendport mode.
ZFTP_VERBOSE
A string of digits between 0 and 5 inclusive, specify-
ing which responses from the server should be printed.
All responses go to standard error. If any of the num-
bers 1 to 5 appear in the string, raw responses from
the server with reply codes beginning with that digit
will be printed to standard error. The first digit of
the three digit reply code is defined by RFC959 to cor-
respond to:
1. A positive preliminary reply.
2. A positive completion reply.
3. A positive intermediate reply.
4. A transient negative completion reply.
5. A permanent negative completion reply.
It should be noted that, for unknown reasons, the reply
`Service not available', which forces termination of a
connection, is classified as 421, i.e. `transient nega-
tive', an interesting interpretation of the word `tran-
sient'.
The code 0 is special: it indicates that all but the
last line of multiline replies read from the server
will be printed to standard error in a processed for-
mat. By convention, servers use this mechanism for
sending information for the user to read. The appro-
priate reply code, if it matches the same response,
takes priority.
If ZFTP_VERBOSE is not set when zftp is loaded, it will
be set to the default value 450, i.e., messages des-
tined for the user and all errors will be printed. A
null string is valid and specifies that no messages
should be printed.
Functions
zftp_chpwd
If this function is set by the user, it is called every
time the directory changes on the server, including
when a user is logged in, or when a connection is
closed. In the last case, $ZFTP_PWD will be unset;
otherwise it will reflect the new directory.
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zftp_progress
If this function is set by the user, it will be called
during a get, put or append operation each time suffi-
cient data has been received from the host. During a
get, the data is sent to standard output, so it is
vital that this function should write to standard error
or directly to the terminal, not to standard output.
When it is called with a transfer in progress, the fol-
lowing additional shell parameters are set:
ZFTP_FILE
The name of the remote file being transferred from
or to.
ZFTP_TRANSFER
A G for a get operation and a P for a put opera-
tion.
ZFTP_SIZE
The total size of the complete file being trans-
ferred: the same as the first value provided by
the remote and local subcommands for a particular
file. If the server cannot supply this value for
a remote file being retrieved, it will not be set.
If input is from a pipe the value may be incorrect
and correspond simply to a full pipe buffer.
ZFTP_COUNT
The amount of data so far transferred; a number
between zero and $ZFTP_SIZE, if that is set. This
number is always available.
The function is initially called with ZFTP_TRANSFER set
appropriately and ZFTP_COUNT set to zero. After the
transfer is finished, the function will be called one
more time with ZFTP_TRANSFER set to GF or PF, in case
it wishes to tidy up. It is otherwise never called
twice with the same value of ZFTP_COUNT.
Sometimes the progress meter may cause disruption. It
is up to the user to decide whether the function should
be defined and to use unfunction when necessary.
Problems
A connection may not be opened in the left hand side of a
pipe as this occurs in a subshell and the file information
is not updated in the main shell. In the case of type or
mode changes or closing the connection in a subshell, the
information is returned but variables are not updated until
the next call to zftp. Other status changes in subshells
will not be reflected by changes to the variables (but
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User Commands ZSHMODULES(1)
should be otherwise harmless).
Deleting sessions while a zftp command is active in the
background can have unexpected effects, even if it does not
use the session being deleted. This is because all shell
subprocesses share information on the state of all connec-
tions, and deleting a session changes the ordering of that
information.
On some operating systems, the control connection is not
valid after a fork(), so that operations in subshells, on
the left hand side of a pipeline, or in the background are
not possible, as they should be. This is presumably a bug
in the operating system.
THE ZSH/ZLE MODULE
The zsh/zle module contains the Zsh Line Editor. See zsh-
zle(1).
THE ZSH/ZLEPARAMETER MODULE
The zsh/zleparameter module defines two special parameters
that can be used to access internal information of the Zsh
Line Editor (see zshzle(1)).
keymaps
This array contains the names of the keymaps currently
defined.
widgets
This associative array contains one entry per widget
defined. The name of the widget is the key and the
value gives information about the widget. It is either
the string `builtin' for builtin widgets, a string of
the form `user:name' for user-defined widgets, where
name is the name of the shell function implementing the
widget, or it is a string of the form `comple-
tion:type:name', for completion widgets. In the last
case type is the name of the builtin widgets the com-
pletion widget imitates in its behavior and name is the
name of the shell function implementing the completion
widget.
THE ZSH/ZPROF MODULE
When loaded, the zsh/zprof causes shell functions to be pro-
filed. The profiling results can be obtained with the zprof
builtin command made available by this module. There is no
way to turn profiling off other than unloading the module.
zprof [ -c ]
Without the -c option, zprof lists profiling results to
standard output. The format is comparable to that of
commands like gprof.
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At the top there is a summary listing all functions
that were called at least once. This summary is sorted
in decreasing order of the amount of time spent in
each. The lines contain the number of the function in
order, which is used in other parts of the list in suf-
fixes of the form `[num]', then the number of calls
made to the function. The next three columns list the
time in milliseconds spent in the function and its
descendants, the average time in milliseconds spent in
the function and its descendants per call and the per-
centage of time spent in all shell functions used in
this function and its descendants. The following three
columns give the same information, but counting only
the time spent in the function itself. The final col-
umn shows the name of the function.
After the summary, detailed information about every
function that was invoked is listed, sorted in decreas-
ing order of the amount of time spent in each function
and its descendants. Each of these entries consists of
descriptions for the functions that called the function
described, the function itself, and the functions that
were called from it. The description for the function
itself has the same format as in the summary (and shows
the same information). The other lines don't show the
number of the function at the beginning and have their
function named indented to make it easier to distin-
guish the line showing the function described in the
section from the surrounding lines.
The information shown in this case is almost the same
as in the summary, but only refers to the call hierar-
chy being displayed. For example, for a calling func-
tion the column showing the total running time lists
the time spent in the described function and its
descendants only for the times when it was called from
that particular calling function. Likewise, for a
called function, this columns lists the total time
spent in the called function and its descendants only
for the times when it was called from the function
described.
Also in this case, the column showing the number of
calls to a function also shows a slash and then the
total number of invocations made to the called func-
tion.
As long as the zsh/zprof module is loaded, profiling
will be done and multiple invocations of the zprof
builtin command will show the times and numbers of
calls since the module was loaded. With the -c option,
the zprof builtin command will reset its internal
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counters and will not show the listing.
THE ZSH/ZPTY MODULE
The zsh/zpty module offers one builtin:
zpty [ -e ] [ -b ] name [ arg ... ]
The arguments following name are concatenated with spa-
ces between, then executed as a command, as if passed
to the eval builtin. The command runs under a newly
assigned pseudo-terminal; this is useful for running
commands non-interactively which expect an interactive
environment. The name is not part of the command, but
is used to refer to this command in later calls to
zpty.
With the -e option, the pseudo-terminal is set up so
that input characters are echoed.
With the -b option, input to and output from the
pseudo-terminal are made non-blocking.
zpty -d [ names ... ]
The second form, with the -d option, is used to delete
commands previously started, by supplying a list of
their names. If no names are given, all commands are
deleted. Deleting a command causes the HUP signal to
be sent to the corresponding process.
zpty -w [ -n ] name [ strings ... ]
The -w option can be used to send the to command name
the given strings as input (separated by spaces). If
the -n option is not given, a newline is added at the
end.
If no strings are provided, the standard input is
copied to the pseudo-terminal; this may stop before
copying the full input if the pseudo-terminal is
non-blocking.
Note that the command under the pseudo-terminal sees
this input as if it were typed, so beware when sending
special tty driver characters such as word-erase,
line-kill, and end-of-file.
zpty -r [ -mt ] name [ param [ pattern ] ]
The -r option can be used to read the output of the
command name. With only a name argument, the output
read is copied to the standard output. Unless the
pseudo-terminal is non-blocking, copying continues
until the command under the pseudo-terminal exits; when
non-blocking, only as much output as is immediately
available is copied. The return status is zero if any
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output is copied.
When also given a param argument, at most one line is
read and stored in the parameter named param. Less
than a full line may be read if the pseudo-terminal is
non-blocking. The return status is zero if at least
one character is stored in param.
If a pattern is given as well, output is read until the
whole string read matches the pattern, even in the
non-blocking case. The return status is zero if the
string read matches the pattern, or if the command has
exited but at least one character could still be read.
If the option -m is present, the return status is zero
only if the pattern matches. As of this writing, a
maximum of one megabyte of output can be consumed this
way; if a full megabyte is read without matching the
pattern, the return status is non-zero.
In all cases, the return status is non-zero if nothing
could be read, and is 2 if this is because the command
has finished.
If the -r option is combined with the -t option, zpty
tests whether output is available before trying to
read. If no output is available, zpty immediately
returns the status 1. When used with a pattern, the
behaviour on a failed poll is similar to when the com-
mand has exited: the return value is zero if at least
one character could still be read even if the pattern
failed to match.
zpty -t name
The -t option without the -r option can be used to test
whether the command name is still running. It returns
a zero status if the command is running and a non-zero
value otherwise.
zpty [ -L ]
The last form, without any arguments, is used to list
the commands currently defined. If the -L option is
given, this is done in the form of calls to the zpty
builtin.
THE ZSH/ZSELECT MODULE
The zsh/zselect module makes available one builtin command:
zselect [ -rwe -t timeout -a array ] [ fd ... ]
The zselect builtin is a front-end to the `select' sys-
tem call, which blocks until a file descriptor is ready
for reading or writing, or has an error condition, with
an optional timeout. If this is not available on your
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system, the command prints an error message and returns
status 2 (normal errors return status 1). For more
information, see your systems documentation for
select(3). Note there is no connection with the shell
builtin of the same name.
Arguments and options may be intermingled in any order.
Non-option arguments are file descriptors, which must
be decimal integers. By default, file descriptors are
to be tested for reading, i.e. zselect will return when
data is available to be read from the file descriptor,
or more precisely, when a read operation from the file
descriptor will not block. After a -r, -w and -e, the
given file descriptors are to be tested for reading,
writing, or error conditions. These options and an
arbitrary list of file descriptors may be given in any
order.
(The presence of an `error condition' is not well
defined in the documentation for many implementations
of the select system call. According to recent ver-
sions of the POSIX specification, it is really an
exception condition, of which the only standard example
is out-of-band data received on a socket. So zsh users
are unlikely to find the -e option useful.)
The option `-t timeout' specifies a timeout in hun-
dredths of a second. This may be zero, in which case
the file descriptors will simply be polled and zselect
will return immediately. It is possible to call zse-
lect with no file descriptors and a non-zero timeout
for use as a finer-grained replacement for `sleep';
note, however, the return status is always 1 for a
timeout.
The option `-a array' indicates that array should be
set to indicate the file descriptor(s) which are ready.
If the option is not given, the array reply will be
used for this purpose. The array will contain a string
similar to the arguments for zselect. For example,
zselect -t 0 -r 0 -w 1
might return immediately with status 0 and $reply con-
taining `-r 0 -w 1' to show that both file descriptors
are ready for the requested operations.
The option `-A assoc' indicates that the associative
array assoc should be set to indicate the file descrip-
tor(s( which are ready. This option overrides the
option -a, nor will reply be modified. The keys of
assoc are the file descriptors, and the corresponding
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values are any of the characters `rwe' to indicate the
condition.
The command returns status 0 if some file descriptors
are ready for reading. If the operation timed out, or
a timeout of 0 was given and no file descriptors were
ready, or there was an error, it returns status 1 and
the array will not be set (nor modified in any way).
If there was an error in the select operation the
appropriate error message is printed.
THE ZSH/ZUTIL MODULE
The zsh/zutil module only adds some builtins:
zstyle [ -L [ pattern [ style ] ] ]
zstyle [ -e | - | -- ] pattern style strings ...
zstyle -d [ pattern [ styles ... ] ]
zstyle -g name [ pattern [ style ] ]
zstyle -abs context style name [ sep ]
zstyle -Tt context style [ strings ...]
zstyle -m context style pattern
This builtin command is used to define and lookup
styles. Styles are pairs of names and values, where
the values consist of any number of strings. They are
stored together with patterns and lookup is done by
giving a string, called the `context', which is com-
pared to the patterns. The definition stored for the
first matching pattern will be returned.
For ordering of comparisons, patterns are searched from
most specific to least specific, and patterns that are
equally specific keep the order in which they were
defined. A pattern is considered to be more specific
than another if it contains more components (substrings
separated by colons) or if the patterns for the compo-
nents are more specific, where simple strings are con-
sidered to be more specific than patterns and complex
patterns are considered to be more specific than the
pattern `*'.
The first form (without arguments) lists the defini-
tions. Styles are shown in alphabetic order and pat-
terns are shown in the order zstyle will test them.
If the -L option is given, listing is done in the form
of calls to zstyle. The optional first argument is a
pattern which will be matched against the string sup-
plied as the pattern for the context; note that this
means, for example, `zstyle -L ":completion:*"' will
match any supplied pattern beginning `:completion:',
not just ":completion:*": use ":completion:\*" to
match that. The optional second argument limits the
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output to a specific style (not a pattern). -L is not
compatible with any other options.
The other forms are the following:
zstyle [ - | -- | -e ] pattern style strings ...
Defines the given style for the pattern with the
strings as the value. If the -e option is given,
the strings will be concatenated (separated by
spaces) and the resulting string will be evaluated
(in the same way as it is done by the eval builtin
command) when the style is looked up. In this
case the parameter `reply' must be assigned to set
the strings returned after the evaluation. Before
evaluating the value, reply is unset, and if it is
still unset after the evaluation, the style is
treated as if it were not set.
zstyle -d [ pattern [ styles ... ] ]
Delete style definitions. Without arguments all
definitions are deleted, with a pattern all defi-
nitions for that pattern are deleted and if any
styles are given, then only those styles are
deleted for the pattern.
zstyle -g name [ pattern [ style ] ]
Retrieve a style definition. The name is used as
the name of an array in which the results are
stored. Without any further arguments, all pat-
terns defined are returned. With a pattern the
styles defined for that pattern are returned and
with both a pattern and a style, the value strings
of that combination is returned.
The other forms can be used to look up or test pat-
terns.
zstyle -s context style name [ sep ]
The parameter name is set to the value of the
style interpreted as a string. If the value con-
tains several strings they are concatenated with
spaces (or with the sep string if that is given)
between them.
zstyle -b context style name
The value is stored in name as a boolean, i.e. as
the string `yes' if the value has only one string
and that string is equal to one of `yes', `true',
`on', or `1'. If the value is any other string or
has more than one string, the parameter is set to
`no'.
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zstyle -a context style name
The value is stored in name as an array. If name
is declared as an associative array, the first,
third, etc. strings are used as the keys and the
other strings are used as the values.
zstyle -t context style [ strings ...]
zstyle -T context style [ strings ...]
Test the value of a style, i.e. the -t option only
returns a status (sets $?). Without any strings
the return status is zero if the style is defined
for at least one matching pattern, has only one
string in its value, and that is equal to one of
`true', `yes', `on' or `1'. If any strings are
given the status is zero if and only if at least
one of the strings is equal to at least one of the
strings in the value. If the style is defined but
doesn't match, the return status is 1. If the
style is not defined, the status is 2.
The -T option tests the values of the style like
-t, but it returns status zero (rather than 2) if
the style is not defined for any matching pattern.
zstyle -m context style pattern
Match a value. Returns status zero if the pattern
matches at least one of the strings in the value.
zformat -f param format specs ...
zformat -a array sep specs ...
This builtin provides two different forms of format-
ting. The first form is selected with the -f option. In
this case the format string will be modified by replac-
ing sequences starting with a percent sign in it with
strings from the specs. Each spec should be of the
form `char:string' which will cause every appearance of
the sequence `%char' in format to be replaced by the
string. The `%' sequence may also contain optional
minimum and maximum field width specifications between
the `%' and the `char' in the form `%min.maxc', i.e.
the minimum field width is given first and if the maxi-
mum field width is used, it has to be preceded by a
dot. Specifying a minimum field width makes the result
be padded with spaces to the right if the string is
shorter than the requested width. Padding to the left
can be achieved by giving a negative minimum field
width. If a maximum field width is specified, the
string will be truncated after that many characters.
After all `%' sequences for the given specs have been
processed, the resulting string is stored in the param-
eter param.
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The %-escapes also understand ternary expressions in
the form used by prompts. The % is followed by a `('
and then an ordinary format specifier character as
described above. There may be a set of digits either
before or after the `('; these specify a test number,
which defaults to zero. Negative numbers are also
allowed. An arbitrary delimiter character follows the
format specifier, which is followed by a piece of
`true' text, the delimiter character again, a piece of
`false' text, and a closing parenthesis. The complete
expression (without the digits) thus looks like
`%(X.text1.text2)', except that the `.' character is
arbitrary. The value given for the format specifier in
the char:string expressions is evaluated as a mathemat-
ical expression, and compared with the test number. If
they are the same, text1 is output, else text2 is out-
put. A parenthesis may be escaped in text2 as %).
Either of text1 or text2 may contain nested %-escapes.
For example:
zformat -f REPLY "The answer is '%3(c.yes.no)'." c:3
outputs "The answer is 'yes'." to REPLY since the value
for the format specifier c is 3, agreeing with the
digit argument to the ternary expression.
The second form, using the -a option, can be used for
aligning strings. Here, the specs are of the form
`left:right' where `left' and `right' are arbitrary
strings. These strings are modified by replacing the
colons by the sep string and padding the left strings
with spaces to the right so that the sep strings in the
result (and hence the right strings after them) are all
aligned if the strings are printed below each other.
All strings without a colon are left unchanged and all
strings with an empty right string have the trailing
colon removed. In both cases the lengths of the
strings are not used to determine how the other strings
are to be aligned. The resulting strings are stored in
the array.
zregexparse
This implements some internals of the _regex_arguments
function.
specs
zparseopts [ -D ] [ -K ] [ -M ] [ -E ] [ -a array ] [ -A
assoc ]
This builtin simplifies the parsing of options in posi-
tional parameters, i.e. the set of arguments given by
$*. Each spec describes one option and must be of the
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form `opt[=array]'. If an option described by opt is
found in the positional parameters it is copied into
the array specified with the -a option; if the optional
`=array' is given, it is instead copied into that
array.
Note that it is an error to give any spec without an
`=array' unless one of the -a or -A options is used.
Unless the -E option is given, parsing stops at the
first string that isn't described by one of the specs.
Even with -E, parsing always stops at a positional
parameter equal to `-' or `--'.
The opt description must be one of the following. Any
of the special characters can appear in the option name
provided it is preceded by a backslash.
name
name+
The name is the name of the option without the
leading `-'. To specify a GNU-style long option,
one of the usual two leading `-' must be included
in name; for example, a `--file' option is repre-
sented by a name of `-file'.
If a `+' appears after name, the option is
appended to array each time it is found in the
positional parameters; without the `+' only the
last occurrence of the option is preserved.
If one of these forms is used, the option takes no
argument, so parsing stops if the next positional
parameter does not also begin with `-' (unless the
-E option is used).
name:
name:-
name::
If one or two colons are given, the option takes
an argument; with one colon, the argument is
mandatory and with two colons it is optional. The
argument is appended to the array after the option
itself.
An optional argument is put into the same array
element as the option name (note that this makes
empty strings as arguments indistinguishable). A
mandatory argument is added as a separate element
unless the `:-' form is used, in which case the
argument is put into the same element.
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A `+' as described above may appear between the
name and the first colon.
The options of zparseopts itself are:
-a array
As described above, this names the default array in
which to store the recognised options.
-A assoc
If this is given, the options and their values are also
put into an associative array with the option names as
keys and the arguments (if any) as the values.
-D If this option is given, all options found are removed
from the positional parameters of the calling shell or
shell function, up to but not including any not
described by the specs. This is similar to using the
shift builtin.
-K With this option, the arrays specified with the -a and
-A options and with the `=array' forms are kept
unchanged when none of the specs for them is used.
This allows assignment of default values to them before
calling zparseopts.
-M This changes the assignment rules to implement a map
among equivalent option names. If any spec uses the
`=array' form, the string array is interpreted as the
name of another spec, which is used to choose where to
store the values. If no other spec is found, the val-
ues are stored as usual. This changes only the way the
values are stored, not the way $* is parsed, so results
may be unpredicable if the `name+' specifier is used
inconsistently.
-E This changes the parsing rules to not stop at the first
string that isn't described by one of the specs. It
can be used to test for or (if used together with -D)
extract options and their arguments, ignoring all other
options and arguments that may be in the positional
parameters.
For example,
set -- -a -bx -c y -cz baz -cend
zparseopts a=foo b:=bar c+:=bar
will have the effect of
foo=(-a)
bar=(-b x -c y -c z)
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The arguments from `baz' on will not be used.
As an example for the -E option, consider:
set -- -a x -b y -c z arg1 arg2
zparseopts -E -D b:=bar
will have the effect of
bar=(-b y)
set -- -a x -c z arg1 arg2
I.e., the option -b and its arguments are taken from the
positional parameters and put into the array bar.
The -M option can be used like this:
set -- -a -bx -c y -cz baz -cend
zparseopts -A bar -M a=foo b+: c:=b
to have the effect of
foo=(-a)
bar=(-a '' -b xyz)
ATTRIBUTES
See attributes(5) for descriptions of the following
attributes:
+---------------+------------------+
|ATTRIBUTE TYPE | ATTRIBUTE VALUE |
+---------------+------------------+
|Availability | shell/zsh |
+---------------+------------------+
|Stability | Volatile |
+---------------+------------------+
NOTES
This software was built from source available at
https://java.net/projects/solaris-userland. The original
community source was downloaded from http://down-
loads.source-
forge.net/project/zsh/zsh/5.0.5/zsh-5.0.5.tar.bz2
Further information about this software can be found on the
open source community website at http://www.zsh.org/.
zsh 5.0.5 Last change: January 5, 2014 67