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NAME

       zsh - the Z shell

OVERVIEW

       Because  zsh contains many features, the zsh manual has been split into
       a number of sections:

       zsh          Zsh overview (this section)
       zshroadmap   Informal introduction to the manual
       zshmisc      Anything not fitting into the other sections
       zshexpn      Zsh command and parameter expansion
       zshparam     Zsh parameters
       zshoptions   Zsh options
       zshbuiltins  Zsh built-in functions
       zshzle       Zsh command line editing
       zshcompwid   Zsh completion widgets
       zshcompsys   Zsh completion system
       zshcompctl   Zsh completion control
       zshmodules   Zsh loadable modules
       zshcalsys    Zsh built-in calendar functions
       zshtcpsys    Zsh built-in TCP functions
       zshzftpsys   Zsh built-in FTP client
       zshcontrib   Additional zsh functions and utilities
       zshall       Meta-man page containing all of the above

DESCRIPTION

       Zsh is a UNIX command interpreter  (shell)  usable  as  an  interactive
       login  shell  and as a shell script command processor.  Of the standard
       shells, zsh most closely resembles ksh but includes many  enhancements.
       Zsh has command line editing, builtin spelling correction, programmable
       command completion,  shell  functions  (with  autoloading),  a  history
       mechanism, and a host of other features.

AUTHOR

       Zsh  was  originally  written by Paul Falstad <pf@zsh.org>.  Zsh is now
       maintained  by  the   members   of   the   zsh-workers   mailing   list
       <zsh-workers@sunsite.dk>.   The development is currently coordinated by
       Peter Stephenson <pws@zsh.org>.  The coordinator can  be  contacted  at
       <coordinator@zsh.org>,   but   matters  relating  to  the  code  should
       generally go to the mailing list.

AVAILABILITY

       Zsh is available from the following anonymous FTP sites.  These  mirror
       sites are kept frequently up to date.  The sites marked with (H) may be
       mirroring ftp.cs.elte.hu instead of the primary site.

       Primary site
              ftp://ftp.zsh.org/pub/zsh/
              http://www.zsh.org/pub/zsh/

       Australia
              ftp://ftp.zsh.org/pub/zsh/
              http://www.zsh.org/pub/zsh/

       Denmark
              ftp://sunsite.dk/pub/unix/shells/zsh/

       Finland
              ftp://ftp.funet.fi/pub/unix/shells/zsh/

       Germany
              ftp://ftp.fu-berlin.de/pub/unix/shells/zsh/  (H)
              ftp://ftp.gmd.de/packages/zsh/
              ftp://ftp.uni-trier.de/pub/unix/shell/zsh/

       Hungary
              ftp://ftp.cs.elte.hu/pub/zsh/
              http://www.cs.elte.hu/pub/zsh/
              ftp://ftp.kfki.hu/pub/packages/zsh/

       Israel
              ftp://ftp.math.technion.ac.il/pub/zsh/
              http://www.math.technion.ac.il/pub/zsh/

       Japan
              ftp://ftp.win.ne.jp/pub/shell/zsh/

       Korea
              ftp://linux.sarang.net/mirror/system/shell/zsh/

       Netherlands
              ftp://ftp.demon.nl/pub/mirrors/zsh/

       Norway
              ftp://ftp.uit.no/pub/unix/shells/zsh/

       Poland
              ftp://sunsite.icm.edu.pl/pub/unix/shells/zsh/

       Romania
              ftp://ftp.roedu.net/pub/mirrors/ftp.zsh.org/pub/zsh/
              ftp://ftp.kappa.ro/pub/mirrors/ftp.zsh.org/pub/zsh/

       Slovenia
              ftp://ftp.siol.net/mirrors/zsh/

       Sweden
              ftp://ftp.lysator.liu.se/pub/unix/zsh/

       UK
              ftp://ftp.net.lut.ac.uk/zsh/
              ftp://sunsite.org.uk/packages/zsh/

       USA
              http://zsh.open-mirror.com/

       The  up-to-date  source  code  is  available  via  anonymous  CVS  from
       Sourceforge.  See http://sourceforge.net/projects/zsh/ for details.

MAILING LISTS

       Zsh has 3 mailing lists:

       <zsh-announce@sunsite.dk>
              Announcements about releases, major changes in the shell and the
              monthly posting of the Zsh FAQ.  (moderated)

       <zsh-users@sunsite.dk>
              User discussions.

       <zsh-workers@sunsite.dk>
              Hacking, development, bug reports and patches.

       To subscribe or unsubscribe, send mail to the associated administrative
       address for the mailing list.

       <zsh-announce-subscribe@sunsite.dk>
       <zsh-users-subscribe@sunsite.dk>
       <zsh-workers-subscribe@sunsite.dk>
       <zsh-announce-unsubscribe@sunsite.dk>
       <zsh-users-unsubscribe@sunsite.dk>
       <zsh-workers-unsubscribe@sunsite.dk>

       YOU ONLY NEED TO JOIN ONE OF THE MAILING LISTS AS THEY ARE NESTED.  All
       submissions to zsh-announce are automatically forwarded  to  zsh-users.
       All   submissions   to   zsh-users   are   automatically  forwarded  to
       zsh-workers.

       If you have problems subscribing/unsubscribing to any  of  the  mailing
       lists,  send  mail  to  <listmaster@zsh.org>.   The  mailing  lists are
       maintained by Karsten Thygesen <karthy@kom.auc.dk>.

       The mailing lists are archived; the archives can be  accessed  via  the
       administrative  addresses  listed  above.   There  is  also a hypertext
       archive,  maintained  by  Geoff  Wing   <gcw@zsh.org>,   available   at
       http://www.zsh.org/mla/.

THE ZSH FAQ

       Zsh has a list of Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ), maintained by Peter
       Stephenson <pws@zsh.org>.  It is  regularly  posted  to  the  newsgroup
       comp.unix.shell  and the zsh-announce mailing list.  The latest version
       can   be   found   at   any   of   the   Zsh   FTP   sites,    or    at
       http://www.zsh.org/FAQ/.   The  contact address for FAQ-related matters
       is <faqmaster@zsh.org>.

THE ZSH WEB PAGE

       Zsh has a web page which is located at  http://www.zsh.org/.   This  is
       maintained  by  Karsten  Thygesen <karthy@zsh.org>, of SunSITE Denmark.
       The contact address for web-related matters is <webmaster@zsh.org>.

THE ZSH USERGUIDE

       A userguide is currently in preparation.  It is intended to  complement
       the  manual, with explanations and hints on issues where the manual can
       be cabbalistic, hierographic, or downright mystifying (for example, the
       word  `hierographic'  does not exist).  It can be viewed in its current
       state  at  http://zsh.sunsite.dk/Guide/.   At  the  time  of   writing,
       chapters  dealing  with  startup  files  and their contents and the new
       completion system were essentially complete.

THE ZSH WIKI

       A `wiki' website for zsh has been created  at  http://www.zshwiki.org/.
       This  is  a  site  which can be added to and modified directly by users
       without any special permission.  You can add  your  own  zsh  tips  and
       configurations.

INVOCATION OPTIONS

       The  following  flags  are  interpreted  by  the  shell when invoked to
       determine where the shell will read commands from:

       -c     Take the first argument as a command  to  execute,  rather  than
              reading  commands  from  a  script  or  standard  input.  If any
              further arguments are given, the first one is  assigned  to  $0,
              rather than being used as a positional parameter.

       -i     Force shell to be interactive.

       -s     Force shell to read commands from the standard input.  If the -s
              flag is not present and an argument is given, the first argument
              is taken to be the pathname of a script to execute.

       After  the  first  one  or  two  arguments  have  been  appropriated as
       described above, the remaining arguments are assigned to the positional
       parameters.

       For  further  options,  which  are  common  to  invocation  and the set
       builtin, see zshoptions(1).

       Options may be specified by name using the -o option.  -o acts  like  a
       single-letter  option, but takes a following string as the option name.
       For example,

              zsh -x -o shwordsplit scr

       runs the script scr, setting the XTRACE  option  by  the  corresponding
       letter  `-x'  and  the  SH_WORD_SPLIT  option  by name.  Options may be
       turned off by name by using +o instead of -o.  -o  can  be  stacked  up
       with  preceding single-letter options, so for example `-xo shwordsplit'
       or `-xoshwordsplit' is equivalent to `-x -o shwordsplit'.

       Options may also be  specified  by  name  in  GNU  long  option  style,
       `--option-name'.   When this is done, `-' characters in the option name
       are permitted: they are translated into `_', and thus ignored.  So, for
       example,  `zsh  --sh-word-split'  invokes  zsh  with  the SH_WORD_SPLIT
       option turned on.  Like other option syntaxes, options  can  be  turned
       off  by replacing the initial `-' with a `+'; thus `+-sh-word-split' is
       equivalent to  `--no-sh-word-split'.   Unlike  other  option  syntaxes,
       GNU-style long options cannot be stacked with any other options, so for
       example `-x-shwordsplit' is an error, rather than  being  treated  like
       `-x --shwordsplit'.

       The  special  GNU-style  option  `--version'  is  handled;  it sends to
       standard  output  the   shell's   version   information,   then   exits
       successfully.   `--help' is also handled; it sends to standard output a
       list of options that can be used when invoking the  shell,  then  exits
       successfully.

       Option  processing  may  be finished, allowing following arguments that
       start with `-' or `+' to be treated as normal arguments, in  two  ways.
       Firstly,  a  lone  `-'  (or  `+')  as an argument by itself ends option
       processing.  Secondly, a special option `--' (or `+-'),  which  may  be
       specified  on  its  own  (which  is the standard POSIX usage) or may be
       stacked with preceding options (so `-x-' is  equivalent  to  `-x  --').
       Options  are  not  permitted  to be stacked after `--' (so `-x-f' is an
       error), but note the  GNU-style  option  form  discussed  above,  where
       `--shwordsplit' is permitted and does not end option processing.

       Except  when  the sh/ksh emulation single-letter options are in effect,
       the option `-b' (or `+b') ends option processing.  `-b' is  like  `--',
       except that further single-letter options can be stacked after the `-b'
       and will take effect as normal.

COMPATIBILITY

       Zsh tries to emulate sh or  ksh  when  it  is  invoked  as  sh  or  ksh
       respectively;  more precisely, it looks at the first letter of the name
       by which it was invoked, excluding any initial `r'  (assumed  to  stand
       for `restricted'), and if that is `s' or `k' it will emulate sh or ksh.
       Furthermore, if invoked as su (which happens on  certain  systems  when
       the shell is executed by the su command), the shell will try to find an
       alternative name  from  the  SHELL  environment  variable  and  perform
       emulation based on that.

       In  sh  and  ksh  compatibility  modes the following parameters are not
       special and not initialized by the shell: ARGC, argv, cdpath,  fignore,
       fpath,  HISTCHARS,  mailpath,  MANPATH,  manpath, path, prompt, PROMPT,
       PROMPT2, PROMPT3, PROMPT4, psvar, status, watch.

       The usual zsh startup/shutdown scripts are not executed.  Login  shells
       source /etc/profile followed by $HOME/.profile.  If the ENV environment
       variable is set on  invocation,  $ENV  is  sourced  after  the  profile
       scripts.  The value of ENV is subjected to parameter expansion, command
       substitution, and arithmetic expansion before being  interpreted  as  a
       pathname.   Note  that the PRIVILEGED option also affects the execution
       of startup files.

       The following options are set if the shell is invoked  as  sh  or  ksh:
       NO_BAD_PATTERN,        NO_BANG_HIST,       NO_BG_NICE,       NO_EQUALS,
       NO_FUNCTION_ARGZERO,     GLOB_SUBST,     NO_GLOBAL_EXPORT,      NO_HUP,
       INTERACTIVE_COMMENTS,  KSH_ARRAYS,  NO_MULTIOS,  NO_NOMATCH, NO_NOTIFY,
       POSIX_BUILTINS, NO_PROMPT_PERCENT,  RM_STAR_SILENT,  SH_FILE_EXPANSION,
       SH_GLOB,  SH_OPTION_LETTERS,  SH_WORD_SPLIT.  Additionally the BSD_ECHO
       and IGNORE_BRACES options are set if zsh is invoked as sh.   Also,  the
       KSH_OPTION_PRINT,    LOCAL_OPTIONS,   PROMPT_BANG,   PROMPT_SUBST   and
       SINGLE_LINE_ZLE options are set if zsh is invoked as ksh.

RESTRICTED SHELL

       When the basename of the command used to invoke  zsh  starts  with  the
       letter  `r'  or the `-r' command line option is supplied at invocation,
       the shell becomes  restricted.   Emulation  mode  is  determined  after
       stripping  the  letter `r' from the invocation name.  The following are
       disabled in restricted mode:

       o      changing directories with the cd builtin

       o      changing or unsetting the PATH, path, MODULE_PATH,  module_path,
              SHELL,  HISTFILE,  HISTSIZE,  GID,  EGID,  UID,  EUID, USERNAME,
              LD_LIBRARY_PATH,    LD_AOUT_LIBRARY_PATH,     LD_PRELOAD     and
              LD_AOUT_PRELOAD parameters

       o      specifying command names containing /

       o      specifying command pathnames using hash

       o      redirecting output to files

       o      using the exec builtin command to replace the shell with another
              command

       o      using jobs -Z to  overwrite  the  shell  process'  argument  and
              environment space

       o      using  the  ARGV0  parameter  to  override  argv[0] for external
              commands

       o      turning off restricted mode with set +r or unsetopt RESTRICTED

       These restrictions are enforced after  processing  the  startup  files.
       The  startup  files  should  set  up  PATH  to  point to a directory of
       commands which can be safely invoked  in  the  restricted  environment.
       They  may also add further restrictions by disabling selected builtins.

       Restricted  mode  can  also  be  activated  any  time  by  setting  the
       RESTRICTED  option.   This  immediately  enables  all  the restrictions
       described above even if the shell still has not processed  all  startup
       files.

STARTUP/SHUTDOWN FILES

       Commands   are   first   read  from  /etc/zsh/zshenv;  this  cannot  be
       overridden.  Subsequent behaviour is modified by the RCS and GLOBAL_RCS
       options;  the  former  affects all startup files, while the second only
       affects global startup files (those shown here with  an  path  starting
       with a /).  If one of the options is unset at any point, any subsequent
       startup file(s) of the corresponding type will not be read.  It is also
       possible  for  a file in $ZDOTDIR to re-enable GLOBAL_RCS. Both RCS and
       GLOBAL_RCS are set by default.

       Commands are then read from $ZDOTDIR/.zshenv.  If the shell is a  login
       shell,    commands   are   read   from   /etc/zsh/zprofile   and   then
       $ZDOTDIR/.zprofile.  Then, if the shell is  interactive,  commands  are
       read  from  /etc/zsh/zshrc  and  then $ZDOTDIR/.zshrc.  Finally, if the
       shell is a login shell, /etc/zsh/zlogin and $ZDOTDIR/.zlogin are  read.

       When  a  login  shell  exits,  the  files  $ZDOTDIR/.zlogout  and  then
       /etc/zsh/zlogout are read.  This happens with either an  explicit  exit
       via  the  exit  or  logout  commands,  or  an  implicit exit by reading
       end-of-file from the terminal.  However, if the shell terminates due to
       exec'ing  another  process,  the  logout files are not read.  These are
       also affected by the RCS and GLOBAL_RCS options.  Note  also  that  the
       RCS  option  affects  the saving of history files, i.e. if RCS is unset
       when the shell exits, no history file will be saved.

       If ZDOTDIR is unset, HOME is used instead.  Files listed above as being
       in /etc may be in another directory, depending on the installation.

       As  /etc/zsh/zshenv  is  run  for all instances of zsh, it is important
       that it be kept as small as possible.  In particular, it is a good idea
       to  put code that does not need to be run for every single shell behind
       a test of the form `if [[ -o rcs ]]; then ...' so that it will  not  be
       executed when zsh is invoked with the `-f' option.

       Any  of  these  files  may  be  pre-compiled  with the zcompile builtin
       command (see zshbuiltins(1)).  If a compiled file exists (named for the
       original  file  plus  the  .zwc  extension)  and  it  is newer than the
       original file, the compiled file will be used instead.

FILES

       $ZDOTDIR/.zshenv
       $ZDOTDIR/.zprofile
       $ZDOTDIR/.zshrc
       $ZDOTDIR/.zlogin
       $ZDOTDIR/.zlogout
       ${TMPPREFIX}*   (default is /tmp/zsh*)
       /etc/zsh/zshenv
       /etc/zsh/zprofile
       /etc/zsh/zshrc
       /etc/zsh/zlogin
       /etc/zsh/zlogout    (installation-specific - /etc is the default)

SEE ALSO

       sh(1),  csh(1),  tcsh(1),  rc(1),  bash(1),   ksh(1),   zshbuiltins(1),
       zshcompwid(1),  zshcompsys(1),  zshcompctl(1),  zshexpn(1), zshmisc(1),
       zshmodules(1), zshoptions(1), zshparam(1), zshzle(1)

       IEEE Standard for information Technology -  Portable  Operating  System
       Interface  (POSIX)  - Part 2: Shell and Utilities, IEEE Inc, 1993, ISBN
       1-55937-255-9.