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Z-Shell (zsh) FAQ changes this month
- X-seq: zsh-announce 95
- From: Peter Stephenson <pws@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: zsh-announce@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Subject: Z-Shell (zsh) FAQ changes this month
- Date: Mon, 24 May 1999 11:42:21 +0200
- Mailing-list: contact zsh-announce-help@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx; run by ezmlm
This file contains general information on how to find out about zsh,
(the first part of the FAQ up to item 1.1), then any other items which
have changed since last month's posting, then the differences in the
text version of the FAQ. If you would like a complete individual
copy, email me and I will add you to the list.
Changes since issue posted April 1999:
*.* Orthography for option names standardised.
1.4 don't change config.h.in, change acconfig.h
1.6 email zefram@xxxxxxx
2.4 new widget version of tcsh run-fg-editor
3.23 new: describe PROMPT_CR option.
3.7 should have mentioned PRINT_EIGHT_BIT is new in 3.1
5.1 Description of LIST_AMBIGUOUS corrected.
This document contains a list of frequently-asked (or otherwise
significant) questions concerning the Z-shell, a command interpreter
for many UNIX systems which is freely available to anyone with FTP
access. Zsh is among the most powerful freely available Bourne-like
shell for interactive use.
If you have never heard of `sh', `csh' or `ksh', then you are
probably better off to start by reading a general introduction to UNIX
rather than this document.
If you just want to know how to get your hands on the latest version,
skip to question 1.6; if you want to know what to do with
insoluble problems, go to 5.2.
Notation: Quotes `like this' are ordinary textual quotation
marks. Other uses of quotation marks are input to the shell.
Contents:
Chapter 1: Introducing zsh and how to install it
1.1. Sources of information
1.2. What is it?
1.3. What is it good at?
1.4. On what machines will it run? (Plus important compilation notes)
1.5. What's the latest version?
1.6. Where do I get it?
1.7. I don't have root access: how do I make zsh my login shell?
Chapter 2: How does zsh differ from...?
2.1. sh and ksh?
2.2. csh?
2.3. Why do my csh aliases not work? (Plus other alias pitfalls.)
2.4. tcsh?
2.5. bash?
2.6. Shouldn't zsh be more/less like ksh/(t)csh?
Chapter 3: How to get various things to work
3.1. Why does `$var' where `var="foo bar"' not do what I expect?
3.2. In which startup file do I put...?
3.3. What is the difference between `export' and the ALL_EXPORT option?
3.4. How do I turn off spelling correction/globbing for a single command?
3.5. How do I get the meta key to work on my xterm?
3.6. How do I automatically display the directory in my xterm title bar?
3.7. How do I make the completion list use eight bit characters?
3.8. Why do the cursor (arrow) keys not work?
3.9. Why does my terminal act funny in some way?
3.10. Why does zsh not work in an Emacs shell mode any more?
3.11. Why do my autoloaded functions not autoload [the first time]?
3.12. How does base arithmetic work?
3.13. How do I get a newline in my prompt?
3.14. Why does `bindkey ^a command-name' or 'stty intr ^-' do something funny?
3.15. Why can't I bind \C-s and \C-q any more?
3.16. How do I execute command `foo' within function `foo'?
3.17. Why do history substitutions with single bangs do something funny?
3.18. Why does zsh kill off all my background jobs when I logout?
3.19. How do I list all my history entries?
3.20. How does the alternative loop syntax, e.g. `while {...} {...}' work?
3.21. Why is my history not being saved?
3.22. How do I get a variable's value to be evaluated as another variable?
3.23. How do I prevent the prompt overwriting output when there is no newline?
Chapter 4: The mysteries of completion
4.1. What is completion?
4.2. What sorts of things can be completed?
4.3. How does zsh deal with ambiguous completions?
4.4. How do I complete in the middle of words / just what's before the cursor?
4.5. How do I get started with programmable completion?
4.6. And if programmable completion isn't good enough?
Chapter 5: The future of zsh
5.1. What bugs are currently known and unfixed? (Plus recent important changes)
5.2. Where do I report bugs, get more info / who's working on zsh?
5.3. What's on the wish-list?
5.4. Will zsh have problems in the year 2000?
Acknowledgments
Copyright
--- End of Contents ---
Chapter 1: Introducing zsh and how to install it
1.1: Sources of information
Information on zsh is available via the World Wide Web. The URL
is http://sunsite.auc.dk/zsh/ (note the change of address from the
end of April 1998). The server provides this FAQ and much else and is
now maintained by Karsten Thygesen and others (mail zsh@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
with any related messages). The FAQ is at http://sunsite.auc.dk/zsh/FAQ/ .
The site also contains some contributed zsh scripts and functions;
we are delighted to add more, or simply links to your own collection.
This document was originally written in YODL, allowing it to be converted
easily into various other formats. The master source file lives at
http://sunsite.auc.dk/zsh/FAQ/zshfaq.yo and the plain text version
can be found at http://sunsite.auc.dk/zsh/FAQ/zshfaq.txt .
Another useful source of information is the collection of FAQ articles
posted frequently to the Usenet news groups comp.unix.questions,
comp.unix.shells and comp.answers with answers to general questions
about UNIX. The fifth of the seven articles deals with shells,
including zsh, with a brief description of differences. There is
also a separate FAQ on shell differences and how to change your
shell. Usenet FAQs are available via FTP from rtfm.mit.edu and
mirrors and also on the World Wide Web; see
USA http://www.cis.ohio-state.edu/hypertext/faq/usenet/top.html
UK http://www.lib.ox.ac.uk/internet/news/faq/comp.unix.shell.html
Netherlands http://www.cs.uu.nl/wais/html/na-dir/unix-faq/shell/.html
You can also get it via email by emailing mail-server@xxxxxxxxxxxx
with, in the body of the message, `send faqs/unix-faq/shell/zsh'.
The latest version of this FAQ is also available directly from any
of the zsh archive sites listed in question 1.6.
There is now a preliminary version of a reference card for
zsh 3.0, which you can find (while it's being developed) at
http://www.ifh.de/~pws/computing/refcard.ps
This is optimised for A4 paper. The LaTeX source is in the
same place with the extension .tex. It is not a good place
from which to learn zsh for the first time.
(As a method of reading the following in Emacs, you can type \M-2
\C-x $ to make all the indented text vanish, then \M-0 \C-x $
when you are on the title you want.)
For any more eclectic information, you should contact the mailing
list: see question 5.2.
--- End of general information, changed items follow in full ---
1.4: On what machines will it run?
From version 3.0, zsh uses GNU autoconf as the installation
mechanism. This considerably increases flexibility over the old
`buildzsh' mechanism. Consequently, zsh should compile and run on
any modern version of UNIX, and a great many not-so-modern versions
too. The file Etc/MACHINES in the distribution has more details.
There are also now separate ports for Windows and OS/2, see `Where
do I get it' below.
If you need to change something to support a new machine, it would be
appreciated if you could add any necessary preprocessor code and
alter configure.in and acconfig.h to configure zsh automatically,
then send the required context diffs to the list (see question
5.2). Changes based on version 2.5 are very unlikely to
be useful.
To get it to work, retrieve the source distribution (see question
1.6), un-gzip it, un-tar it and read the INSTALL file in the top
directory. Also read the Etc/MACHINES file for up-to-date
information on compilation on certain architectures.
*Note for users of nawk* (The following information comes from Zoltan
Hidvegi): On some systems nawk is broken and produces an incorrect
signames.h file. This makes the signals code unusable. This often happens
on Ultrix, HP-UX, IRIX (?). Install gawk if you experience such problems.
1.6: Where do I get it?
The archive is now run by Andrew Main <zefram@xxxxxxx>.
The following are known mirrors (kept frequently up to date); the
first is the official archive site, currently in Australia. All are
available by anonymous FTP. The major sites keep test versions in
the 'testing' subdirectory: such up-to-the-minute development
versions should only be retrieved if you actually plan to help test
the latest version of the shell. The following list also appears
on the WWW at http://www.zsh.org .
Home site ftp://ftp.zsh.org
Australia ftp://ftp.ips.gov.au/mirror/zsh/
Denmark ftp://sunsite.auc.dk/pub/unix/shells/zsh
Finland ftp://ftp.funet.fi/pub/unix/shells/zsh/
France ftp://ftp.cenatls.cena.dgac.fr/pub/shells/zsh/
Germany ftp://ftp.fu-berlin.de/pub/unix/shells/zsh/
ftp://ftp.gmd.de/packages/zsh/
ftp://ftp.uni-trier.de/pub/unix/shell/zsh/
Hungary ftp://ftp.cs.elte.hu/pub/zsh/
(also http://www.cs.elte.hu/pub/zsh/ )
Israel ftp://ftp.math.technion.ac.il/mirror/ftp.zsh.org/pub/zsh/
http://www.math.technion.ac.il/mirror/ftp.zsh.org/pub/zsh/
Japan ftp://ftp.tohoku.ac.jp/mirror/zsh/
ftp://ftp.nis.co.jp/pub/shells/zsh/
ftp://ftp.win.ne.jp/pub/shell/zsh/
Norway ftp://ftp.uit.no/pub/unix/shells/zsh/
Romania ftp://ftp.roedu.net/pub/mirrors/ftp.zsh.org/pub/zsh/
Slovenia ftp://ftp.siol.net/pub/unix/shells/zsh/
Sweden ftp://ftp.lysator.liu.se/pub/unix/zsh/
UK ftp://ftp.net.lut.ac.uk/zsh/
(also by FSP at port 21)
ftp://src.doc.ic.ac.uk/packages/unix/shells/zsh/
USA ftp://ftp.math.gatech.edu/pub/zsh/
ftp://uiarchive.uiuc.edu/pub/packages/shells/zsh/
ftp://ftp.sterling.com/zsh/
ftp://ftp.rge.com/pub/shells/zsh/
The Windows port mentioned above is maintained separately by Amol
Deshpande <amold@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>; please mail Amol directly about any
Windows-specific problems. This is quite new, so don't expect it to
be perfect. You can get it from:
ftp://ftp.blarg.net/users/amol/zsh
Likewise the OS/2 port is available from TAMURA Kent
<kent@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> at
http://cgi.din.or.jp/~tkent/tmp/zsh-3.0.0-os2-a01.zip
Starting from mid-October 1997, there is an archive of patches sent
to the maintainers' mailing list. Note that these may not all be
added to the shell, and some may already have been; you simply have
to search for something you might want which is not in the version
you have. Also, there may be some prerequisites earlier in the
archive. It can be found on the zsh WWW pages (as described in
1.1) at:
http://sunsite.auc.dk/zsh/Patches/
2.4: Similarities with tcsh
(The sections on csh apply too, of course.) Certain features have
been borrowed from tcsh, including $watch, run-help, $savehist,
$histlit, periodic commands etc., extended prompts, sched
and which built-ins. Programmable completion was inspired by,
but is entirely different to, tcsh's `complete'. (There is a perl
script called lete2ctl in the Misc directory of the source
distribution to convert `complete' to `compctl' statements.)
This list is not definitive: some features have gone in the other
direction.
If you're missing the editor function run-fg-editor, try something
with `bindkey -s' (which binds a string to a keystroke), e.g.
bindkey -s '^z' '\eqfg %$EDITOR:t\n'
which pushes the current line onto the stack and tries to bring a job
with the basename of your editor into the foreground. `bindkey -s'
allows limitless possibilities along these lines. You can execute
any command in the middle of editing a line in the same way,
corresponding to tcsh's `-c' option:
bindkey -s '^p' '\eqpwd\n'
In both these examples, the `\eq' saves the current input line to
be restored after the command runs; a better effect with multiline
buffers is achieved if you also have
bindkey '\eq' push-input
to save the entire buffer. In recent versions of zsh 3.1, you have
the following more sophisticated option,
run-fg-editor() {
zle push-input
BUFFER="fg %$EDITOR:t"
zle accept-line
}
zle -N run-fg-editor
and can now bind run-fg-editor just like any other editor function.
3.7: How do I make the completion list use eight bit characters?
If you are sure your terminal handles this, the easiest way from version
3.1 of the shell is to set the option PRINT_EIGHT_BIT. In principle,
this will work automatically if your computer uses the `locale' system
and your locale variables are set properly, as zsh understands this.
However, it is quite complicated, so if it isn't already set up, trying
the option is a lot easier. For 3.0, you are stuck with trying to
understand locales, see the setlocale(3) and zshparam(1) manual
pages: the simplest possibility may be to set LC_ALL=en_US. For older
versions of the shell, there is no easy way out.
3.23: How do I prevent the prompt overwriting output when there is no newline?
The problem is, for example,
% echo -n foo
%
and the foo has been overwritten by the prompt %. The answer is
simple: put unsetopt promptcr in your .zshrc. The option PROMPT_CR,
to print a carriage return before a new prompt, is set by default because
a prompt at the right hand side (`$RPROMPT', `$RPS1') will not appear
in the right place, and multi-line editing will be confused about the line
position, unless the line starts in the left hand column. Apart from
PROMPT_CR, you can force this to happen by putting a newline in the
prompt (see question 3.13 for that).
5.1: What bugs are currently known and unfixed? (Plus recent important changes)
Here are some of the more well-known ones, very roughly in
decreasing order of significance. Many of these can also be counted
against differences from ksh in question 2.1; note that this applies
to the latest beta version and that simple bugs are often fixed
quite quickly. There is a file Etc/BUGS in the source distribution
with more detail.
o `time' is ignored with builtins and can't be used with `{...}'.
o `set -x' (`setopt xtrace') still has a few glitches.
o Zsh's notion of the current line number (via $LINENO) is
sometimes not well handled, particularly when using functions and traps.
o In vi mode, `u' can go past the original modification point.
o The singlelinezle option has problems with prompts containing escapes.
o The `r' command does not work inside `$(...)' or ``...`'
expansions. (This is fixed in 3.1.)
o `typeset' handling is non-optimal, particularly with regard to
flags, and is ksh-incompatible in unpredictable ways.
o Nested closures in extended globbing and pattern matching, such as
[[ fofo = (fo#)# ]]
were not correctly handled, and there were problems with
complicated exclusions using `^' or `~'. (These
are fixed in version 3.1.3.)
Note that a few recent changes introduce incompatibilities (these
are not bugs):
Changes after zsh 3.0 (3.1.x is still currently in beta):
o The options ALWAYS_LAST_PROMPT (return to the line you were
editing after displaying completion lists) and LIST_AMBIGUOUS
(don't do AUTO_LIST if there was an unambiguous prefix that could be
inserted, i.e. only list if it is ambiguous what to insert next) are
now set by default. This is in response to complaints that too many
zsh features are never noticed by many users. To turn them off,
just put `unsetopt alwayslastprompt listambiguous' in your
.zshrc file.
o history-search-{forward,backward} now only find previous
lines where the first word is the same as the current one. For
example,
comp<ESC>p
will find lines in the history like `comp -edit emacs', but not
`compress file' any more. For this reason, `\M-n' and
`\M-p' use history-beginning-search-{forward,backward} which
search for a line with the same prefix up to the cursor position.
From 3.1.6, there is likely to be a different implementation which
makes this closer (though not identical) to the old behaviour.
The story for the {up,down}-line-or-search commands is similar.
o In vi insert mode, the cursor keys no longer work. The following
will bind them:
bindkey -M viins '^[[D' vi-backward-char '^[[C' vi-forward-char \
'^[[A' up-line-or-history '^[[B' down-line-or-history
(unless your terminal requires `^[O' instead of `^[['). The
rationale is that the insert mode and command mode keymaps for
keys with prefixes are now separate.
Changes since zsh 2.5:
o The left hand of an assignment is no longer substituted. Thus,
`$1=$2' will not work. You can use something like `eval
"$1=\$2"', which should have the identical effect.
o Signal traps established with the `trap' builtin are now called with
the environment of the caller, as in ksh, instead of as a new
function level. Traps established as functions (e.g. `TRAPINT()
{...}') work as before.
o The NO_CLOBBER option is now -C and PRINT_EXIT_VALUE -1; they
used to be the other way around. (Use of names rather than letters is
generally recommended.)
o `[[' is a reserved word, hence must be separated from
other characters by whitespace; `{' and `}' are also reserved
words if the IGNORE_BRACES option is set.
o The option CSH_JUNKIE_PAREN has been removed: csh-like code now
always does what it looks like it does, so `if ( ... ) ...'
executes the code in parentheses in a subshell. To make this
useful, the syntax expected after an `if', etc., is less strict
than in other shells.
o `foo=*' does not perform globbing immediately on the right
hand side of the assignment; the old behaviour now requires the
option GLOB_ASSIGN. (`foo=(*)' is and has always been the
consistent way of doing this.)
o <> performs redirection of input and output to the specified file.
For numeric globs, you now need <->.
o The command line qualifiers exec, noglob, command, - are now
treated more like builtin commands: previously they were
syntactically special. This should make it easier to perform
tricks with them (disabling, hiding in parameters, etc.).
o The pushd builtin has been rewritten for compatibility with other
shells. The old behavour can be achieved with a shell function.
o The current version now uses ~'s for directory stack substitution
instead of ='s. This is for consistency: all other directory
substitution (~user, ~name, ~+, ...) used a tilde, while
=<number> caused problems with =program substitution.
o The HISTLIT option was broken in various ways and has been removed:
the rewritten history mechanism doesn't alter history lines, making
the option unnecessary.
o History expansion is disabled in single-quoted strings, like other
forms of expansion -- hence exclamation marks there should not be
backslashed.
o The `$HISTCHARS' variable is now `$histchars'. Currently both
are tied together for compatibility.
o The PROMPT_SUBST option now performs backquote expansion -- hence
you should quote these in prompts. (SPROMPT has changed as a result.)
o Quoting in prompts has changed: close parentheses inside ternary
expressions should be quoted with a %; history is now %!, not
!. Backslashes are no longer special.
--- End of changed items, diff from previous version follows ---
Index: zshfaq.txt
===================================================================
RCS file: /pack/anoncvs/zsh/www/FAQ/zshfaq.txt,v
retrieving revision 1.13
retrieving revision 1.15
diff -u -r1.13 -r1.15
--- zshfaq.txt 1999/04/23 12:00:30 1.13
+++ zshfaq.txt 1999/05/24 10:07:31 1.15
@@ -1,15 +1,20 @@
Archive-Name: unix-faq/shell/zsh
-Last-Modified: 1999/04/23
+Last-Modified: 1999/05/24
Submitted-By: pws@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Peter Stephenson)
-Version: $Id: zshfaq.txt,v 1.13 1999/04/23 12:00:30 pws Exp $
+Version: $Id: zshfaq.txt,v 1.15 1999/05/24 10:07:31 pws Exp $
Posting-Frequency: Monthly
Copyright: (C) P.W. Stephenson, 1995--1999 (see end of document)
-Changes since issue posted March 1999:
+Changes since issue posted April 1999:
-1.5 Mention 3.0.6 should appear soon
-5.1 Update on history-search-backward saga
+*.* Orthography for option names standardised.
+1.4 don't change config.h.in, change acconfig.h
+1.6 email zefram@xxxxxxx
+2.4 new widget version of tcsh run-fg-editor
+3.7 should have mentioned PRINT_EIGHT_BIT is new in 3.1
+3.23 new: describe PROMPT_CR option.
+5.1 Description of LIST_AMBIGUOUS corrected.
This document contains a list of frequently-asked (or otherwise
significant) questions concerning the Z-shell, a command interpreter
@@ -69,6 +74,7 @@
3.20. How does the alternative loop syntax, e.g. `while {...} {...}' work?
3.21. Why is my history not being saved?
3.22. How do I get a variable's value to be evaluated as another variable?
+3.23. How do I prevent the prompt overwriting output when there is no newline?
Chapter 4: The mysteries of completion
4.1. What is completion?
@@ -209,7 +215,7 @@
If you need to change something to support a new machine, it would be
appreciated if you could add any necessary preprocessor code and
- alter configure.in and config.h.in to configure zsh automatically,
+ alter configure.in and acconfig.h to configure zsh automatically,
then send the required context diffs to the list (see question
5.2). Changes based on version 2.5 are very unlikely to
be useful.
@@ -249,7 +255,7 @@
1.6: Where do I get it?
- The archive is now run by Andrew Main <zefram@xxxxxxxxx>.
+ The archive is now run by Andrew Main <zefram@xxxxxxx>.
The following are known mirrors (kept frequently up to date); the
first is the official archive site, currently in Australia. All are
available by anonymous FTP. The major sites keep test versions in
@@ -452,8 +458,8 @@
o * Failure to match a globbing pattern causes an error (use
NO_NOMATCH).
o * The results of parameter substitutions are treated as plain text:
- `foo="*"; print $foo' prints all files in ksh but `*' in zsh.
- (GLOB_SUBST has been added to fix this.)
+ `foo="*"; print $foo' prints all files in ksh but `*' in zsh
+ (uset GLOB_SUBST).
o The backslash in $(echo '\$x') is treated differently: in ksh, it
is not stripped, in zsh it is. (The `...` form gives the same in
both shells.)
@@ -644,7 +650,7 @@
heavy csh alias junkies:
5) Mapping from csh alias "parameter referencing" into zsh function
- (assuming shwordsplit and ksharrays are NOT set in zsh):
+ (assuming SH_WORD_SPLIT and KSH_ARRAYS are NOT set in zsh):
csh zsh
===== ==========
@@ -723,8 +729,18 @@
bindkey '\eq' push-input
- to save the entire buffer.
+ to save the entire buffer. In recent versions of zsh 3.1, you have
+ the following more sophisticated option,
+ run-fg-editor() {
+ zle push-input
+ BUFFER="fg %$EDITOR:t"
+ zle accept-line
+ }
+ zle -N run-fg-editor
+
+ and can now bind run-fg-editor just like any other editor function.
+
2.5: Similarities with bash
The Bourne-Again Shell, bash, is another enhanced Bourne-like shell;
@@ -770,8 +786,8 @@
are split into words when passed to a command or used in a `for foo in
$var' loop. By default, zsh does not have that behaviour: the
- variable remains intact. (This is not a bug! See below.) An option
- (SHWORDSPLIT) exists to provide compatibility.
+ variable remains intact. (This is not a bug! See below.) The option
+ SH_WORD_SPLIT exists to provide compatibility.
For example, defining the function args to show the number of its
arguments:
@@ -805,7 +821,7 @@
args $array
- produces the output `4', regardless of the setting of SHWORDSPLIT.
+ produces the output `4', regardless of the setting of SH_WORD_SPLIT.
Arrays are also much more versatile than single strings. Probably
if this mechanism had always been available there would never have
been automatic word splitting in scalars, which is a sort of
@@ -824,22 +840,22 @@
after which $words is an array with the words of $sentence (note
characters special to the shell, such as the `'' in this example,
must already be quoted), or, less standard but more reliable,
- turning on SHWORDSPLIT for one variable only:
+ turning on SH_WORD_SPLIT for one variable only:
args ${=sentence}
always returns 8 with the above definition of `args'. (In older
- versions of zsh, ${=foo} toggled SHWORDSPLIT; now it forces it on.)
+ versions of zsh, ${=foo} toggled SH_WORD_SPLIT; now it forces it on.)
Note also the "$@" method of word splitting is always available in zsh
functions and scripts (though strictly this does array splitting, not
word splitting). This is more portable than the $*, since it
- will work regardless of the SHWORDSPLIT setting; the other
+ will work regardless of the SH_WORD_SPLIT setting; the other
difference is that $* removes empty arguments from the array.
You can fix the first half of that objection by using ${==*},
- which turns off SHWORDSPLIT for the duration of the expansion.
+ which turns off SH_WORD_SPLIT for the duration of the expansion.
- SHWORDSPLIT is set when zsh is invoked with the names `ksh' or `sh',
+ SH_WORD_SPLIT is set when zsh is invoked with the names `ksh' or `sh',
or (entirely equivalent) when `emulate ksh' or `emulate sh' is in
effect.
@@ -986,12 +1002,15 @@
3.7: How do I make the completion list use eight bit characters?
- If you are sure your terminal handles this, the easiest way is to
- set the option PRINT_EIGHT_BIT. In principle, this will work
- automatically if your computer uses the `locale' system and your
- locale variables are set properly, as zsh understands this.
- However, it is quite complicated, so if it isn't already set up,
- trying the option is a lot easier.
+ If you are sure your terminal handles this, the easiest way from version
+ 3.1 of the shell is to set the option PRINT_EIGHT_BIT. In principle,
+ this will work automatically if your computer uses the `locale' system
+ and your locale variables are set properly, as zsh understands this.
+ However, it is quite complicated, so if it isn't already set up, trying
+ the option is a lot easier. For 3.0, you are stuck with trying to
+ understand locales, see the setlocale(3) and zshparam(1) manual
+ pages: the simplest possibility may be to set LC_ALL=en_US. For older
+ versions of the shell, there is no easy way out.
3.8: Why do the cursor (arrow) keys not work?
@@ -1115,7 +1134,7 @@
incompatible with the old zsh behaviour which allowed you to
redefine the function when you called it.
- From version 3.1, there is an option KSHAUTOLOAD to allow full ksh
+ From version 3.1, there is an option KSH_AUTOLOAD to allow full ksh
compatiblity, i.e. the function _must_ be in the second form
above. If that is not set, zsh tries to guess which form you are
using: if the file contains only a complete definition of the
@@ -1354,6 +1373,22 @@
it, this works). So in `${${E}}', the internal `${...}'
actually does nothing.
+3.23: How do I prevent the prompt overwriting output when there is no newline?
+
+ The problem is, for example,
+
+ % echo -n foo
+ %
+
+ and the foo has been overwritten by the prompt %. The answer is
+ simple: put unsetopt promptcr in your .zshrc. The option PROMPT_CR,
+ to print a carriage return before a new prompt, is set by default because
+ a prompt at the right hand side (`$RPROMPT', `$RPS1') will not appear
+ in the right place, and multi-line editing will be confused about the line
+ position, unless the line starts in the left hand column. Apart from
+ PROMPT_CR, you can force this to happen by putting a newline in the
+ prompt (see question 3.13 for that).
+
Chapter 4: The mysteries of completion
Programmable completion using the `compctl' command is one of the most
@@ -1459,25 +1494,26 @@
delete the next character and you have to use ESC-\C-D.) This can be
changed by the following options, among others:
- o with nobeep set, that annoying beep goes away
- o with nolistbeep, beeping is only turned off for ambiguous completions
- o with autolist set, when the completion is ambiguous you get a
+ o with NO_BEEP set, that annoying beep goes away
+ o with NO_LIST_BEEP, beeping is only turned off for ambiguous
+ completions
+ o with AUTO_LIST set, when the completion is ambiguous you get a
list without having to type \C-D
- o with listambigous, this is modified so that nothing is listed if
+ o with LIST_AMBIGOUS, this is modified so that nothing is listed if
there is an unambiguous prefix or suffix to be inserted
- o with menucomplete set, one completion is always inserted
+ o with MENU_COMPLETE set, one completion is always inserted
completely, then when you hit TAB it changes to the next, and so
on until you get back to where you started
- o with automenu, you only get the menu behaviour when you hit TAB
+ o with AUTO_MENU, you only get the menu behaviour when you hit TAB
again on the ambiguous completion.
o Finally, although it affects all completion lists, including
- those explicitly requested, note also alwayslastprompt, which
+ those explicitly requested, note also ALWAYS_LAST_PROMPT, which
causes the cursor to return to the line you were editing after
printing the list, provided that is short enough.
- Combinations of these are possible; for example, autolist and
- automenu together give an intuitive combination. Note that
- from version 3.1 listambiguous is set by default; if you use
+ Combinations of these are possible; for example, AUTO_LIST and
+ AUTO_MENU together give an intuitive combination. Note that
+ from version 3.1 LIST_AMBIGUOUS is set by default; if you use
autolist, you may well want to `unsetopt listambiguous'.
4.4: How do I complete in the middle of words / just what's before the cursor?
@@ -1680,9 +1716,10 @@
o The options ALWAYS_LAST_PROMPT (return to the line you were
editing after displaying completion lists) and LIST_AMBIGUOUS
- (show matching files when there are several) are now set by
- default. This is in response to complaints that too many zsh
- features are never noticed by many users. To turn them off,
+ (don't do AUTO_LIST if there was an unambiguous prefix that could be
+ inserted, i.e. only list if it is ambiguous what to insert next) are
+ now set by default. This is in response to complaints that too many
+ zsh features are never noticed by many users. To turn them off,
just put `unsetopt alwayslastprompt listambiguous' in your
.zshrc file.
o history-search-{forward,backward} now only find previous
@@ -1717,8 +1754,8 @@
the environment of the caller, as in ksh, instead of as a new
function level. Traps established as functions (e.g. `TRAPINT()
{...}') work as before.
- o The NO_CLOBBER option is now -C and PRINT_EXIT_VALUE -1; they used
- to be the other way around. (Use of names rather than letters is
+ o The NO_CLOBBER option is now -C and PRINT_EXIT_VALUE -1; they
+ used to be the other way around. (Use of names rather than letters is
generally recommended.)
o `[[' is a reserved word, hence must be separated from
other characters by whitespace; `{' and `}' are also reserved
@@ -1744,7 +1781,7 @@
instead of ='s. This is for consistency: all other directory
substitution (~user, ~name, ~+, ...) used a tilde, while
=<number> caused problems with =program substitution.
- o The `HISTLIT' option was broken in various ways and has been removed:
+ o The HISTLIT option was broken in various ways and has been removed:
the rewritten history mechanism doesn't alter history lines, making
the option unnecessary.
o History expansion is disabled in single-quoted strings, like other
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