zshcontrib
NAME
zshcontrib - user contributions to zsh
DESCRIPTION
The Zsh source distribution includes a number of items contributed by the
user community. These are not inherently a part of the shell, and some
may not be available in every zsh installation. The most significant of
these are documented here. For documentation on other contributed items
such as shell functions, look for comments in the function source files.
UTILITIES
The key sequence ESC h is normally bound by ZLE to execute the
run-help widget (see
zshzle(1)). This invokes the run-help command with the command word from the
current input line as its argument. By default, run-help is an alias
for the man command, so this often fails when the command word is a
shell builtin or a user-defined function. By redefining the run-help
alias, one can improve the on-line help provided by the shell.
The helpfiles utility, found in the Util directory of the
distribution, is a Perl program that can be used to process the zsh manual
to produce a separate help file for each shell builtin and for many other
shell features as well. The autoloadable run-help function, found in
Functions/Misc, searches for these helpfiles and performs several
other tests to produce the most complete help possible for the command.
There may already be a directory of help files on your system; look in
/usr/share/zsh or /usr/local/share/zsh and subdirectories below
those, or ask your system administrator.
To create your own help files with helpfiles, choose or create a
directory where the individual command help files will reside. For
example, you might choose ~/zsh_help. If you unpacked the zsh
distribution in your home directory, you would use the commands:
mkdir ~/zsh_help cd ~/zsh_help man zshall | colcrt - | perl ~/zsh-4.3.4/Util/helpfiles
Next, to use the run-help function, you need to add lines something
like the following to your .zshrc or equivalent startup file:
unalias run-help autoload run-help HELPDIR=~/zsh_help
The HELPDIR parameter tells run-help where to look for the help
files. If your system already has a help file directory installed, set
HELPDIR to the path of that directory instead.
Note that in order for `autoload run-help' to work, the run-help
file must be in one of the directories named in your fpath array (see
zshparam(1)). This should already be the case if you have a standard zsh
installation; if it is not, copy Functions/Misc/run-help to an
appropriate directory.
If you frequently edit your zsh functions, or periodically update your zsh
installation to track the latest developments, you may find that function
digests compiled with the zcompile builtin are frequently out of date
with respect to the function source files. This is not usually a problem,
because zsh always looks for the newest file when loading a function, but
it may cause slower shell startup and function loading. Also, if a digest
file is explicitly used as an element of fpath, zsh won't check whether
any of its source files has changed.
The zrecompile autoloadable function, found in Functions/Misc, can
be used to keep function digests up to date.
zrecompile [ -qt ] [ name ... ]
zrecompile [ -qt ] -p args [ -- args ... ]
This tries to find *.zwc files and automatically re-compile them if at
least one of the original files is newer than the compiled file. This
works only if the names stored in the compiled files are full paths or are
relative to the directory that contains the .zwc file.
In the first form, each name is the name of a compiled file or a
directory containing *.zwc files that should be checked. If no
arguments are given, the directories and *.zwc files in fpath are
used.
When -t is given, no compilation is performed, but a return status of
zero (true) is set if there are files that need to be re-compiled and
non-zero (false) otherwise. The -q option quiets the chatty output
that describes what zrecompile is doing.
Without the -t option, the return status is zero if all files that
needed re-compilation could be compiled and non-zero if compilation for at
least one of the files failed.
If the -p option is given, the args are interpreted as one
or more sets of arguments for zcompile, separated by `--'.
For example:
zrecompile -p
-R ~/.zshrc --
-M ~/.zcompdump --
~/zsh/comp.zwc ~/zsh/Completion/*/_*
This compiles ~/.zshrc into ~/.zshrc.zwc if that doesn't exist or
if it is older than ~/.zshrc. The compiled file will be marked for
reading instead of mapping. The same is done for ~/.zcompdump and
~/.zcompdump.zwc, but this compiled file is marked for mapping. The
last line re-creates the file ~/zsh/comp.zwc if any of the files
matching the given pattern is newer than it.
Without the -p option, zrecompile does not create function digests
that do not already exist, nor does it add new functions to the digest.
The following shell loop is an example of a method for creating function
digests for all functions in your fpath, assuming that you have write
permission to the directories:
for ((i=1; i <= $#fpath; ++i)); do
dir=$fpath[i]
zwc=${dir:t}.zwc
if [[ $dir == (.|..) || $dir == (.|..)/* ]]; then
continue
fi
files=($dir/*(N-.))
if [[ -w $dir:h && -n $files ]]; then
files=(${${(M)files%/*/*}#/})
if ( cd $dir:h &&
zrecompile -p -U -z $zwc $files ); then
fpath[i]=$fpath[i].zwc
fi
fi
done
The -U and -z options are appropriate for functions in the default
zsh installation fpath; you may need to use different options for your
personal function directories.
Once the digests have been created and your fpath modified to refer to
them, you can keep them up to date by running zrecompile with no
arguments.
The large number of possible combinations of keyboards, workstations,
terminals, emulators, and window systems makes it impossible for zsh to
have built-in key bindings for every situation. The zkbd utility,
found in Functions/Misc, can help you quickly create key bindings for your
configuration.
Run zkbd either as an autoloaded function, or as a shell script:
zsh -f ~/zsh-4.3.4/Functions/Misc/zkbd
When you run zkbd, it first asks you to enter your terminal type; if
the default it offers is correct, just press return. It then asks you to
press a number of different keys to determine characteristics of your
keyboard and terminal; zkbd warns you if it finds anything out of the
ordinary, such as a Delete key that sends neither ^H nor ^?.
The keystrokes read by zkbd are recorded as a definition for an
associative array named key, written to a file in the subdirectory
.zkbd within either your HOME or ZDOTDIR directory. The name
of the file is composed from the TERM, VENDOR and OSTYPE
parameters, joined by hyphens.
You may read this file into your .zshrc or another startup file with
the "source" or "." commands, then reference the key parameter in
bindkey commands, like this:
source ${ZDOTDIR:-$HOME}/.zkbd/$TERM-$VENDOR-$OSTYPE
[[ -n ${key[Left]} ]] && bindkey "${key[Left]}" backward-char
[[ -n ${key[Right]} ]] && bindkey "${key[Right]}" forward-char
# etc.
Note that in order for `autoload zkbd' to work, the zkdb file must
be in one of the directories named in your fpath array (see
zshparam(1)). This should already be the case if you have a standard zsh
installation; if it is not, copy Functions/Misc/zkbd to an
appropriate directory.
Occasionally you may encounter what appears to be a bug in the shell,
particularly if you are using a beta version of zsh or a development
release. Usually it is sufficient to send a description of the
problem to one of the zsh mailing lists (see
zsh(1)), but sometimes one of the zsh developers will need to recreate your
environment in order to track the problem down.
The script named reporter, found in the Util directory of the
distribution, is provided for this purpose. (It is also possible to
autoload reporter, but reporter is not installed in fpath
by default.) This script outputs a detailed dump of the shell state,
in the form of another script that can be read with `zsh -f' to
recreate that state.
To use reporter, read the script into your shell with the `.'
command and redirect the output into a file:
. ~/zsh-4.3.4/Util/reporter > zsh.report
You should check the zsh.report file for any sensitive information
such as passwords and delete them by hand before sending the script to the
developers. Also, as the output can be voluminous, it's best to wait for
the developers to ask for this information before sending it.
You can also use reporter to dump only a subset of the shell state.
This is sometimes useful for creating startup files for the first time.
Most of the output from reporter is far more detailed than usually is
necessary for a startup file, but the aliases, options, and
zstyles states may be useful because they include only changes from
the defaults. The bindings state may be useful if you have created
any of your own keymaps, because reporter arranges to dump the keymap
creation commands as well as the bindings for every keymap.
As is usual with automated tools, if you create a startup file with
reporter, you should edit the results to remove unnecessary commands.
Note that if you're using the new completion system, you should not
dump the functions state to your startup files with reporter; use
the compdump function instead (see
zshcompsys(1)).
reporter [ state ... ]
Print to standard output the indicated subset of the current shell state.
The state arguments may be one or more of:
all
Output everything listed below.
aliases
Output alias definitions.
bindings
Output ZLE key maps and bindings.
completion
Output old-style compctl commands.
New completion is covered by functions and zstyles.
functions
Output autoloads and function definitions.
limits
Output limit commands.
options
Output setopt commands.
styles
Same as zstyles.
variables
Output shell parameter assignments, plus export
commands for any environment variables.
zstyles
Output zstyle commands.
If the state is omitted, all is assumed.
With the exception of `all', every state can be abbreviated by
any prefix, even a single letter; thus a is the same as aliases,
z is the same as zstyles, etc.
PROMPT THEMES
You should make sure all the functions from the Functions/Prompts
directory of the source distribution are available; they all begin with
the string `prompt_' except for the special function`promptinit'.
You also need the `colors' function from Functions/Misc. All of
these functions may already have been installed on your system; if not,
you will need to find them and copy them. The directory should appear as
one of the elements of the fpath array (this should already be the
case if they were installed), and at least the function promptinit
should be autoloaded; it will autoload the rest. Finally, to initialize
the use of the system you need to call the promptinit function. The
following code in your .zshrc will arrange for this; assume the
functions are stored in the directory ~/myfns:
fpath=(~/myfns $fpath) autoload -U promptinit promptinit
Use the prompt command to select your preferred theme. This command
may be added to your .zshrc following the call to promptinit in
order to start zsh with a theme already selected.
prompt [ -c | -l ]
prompt [ -p | -h ] [ theme ... ]
prompt [ -s ] theme [ arg ... ]
Set or examine the prompt theme. With no options and a theme
argument, the theme with that name is set as the current theme. The
available themes are determined at run time; use the -l option to see
a list. The special theme `random' selects at random one of the
available themes and sets your prompt to that.
In some cases the theme may be modified by one or more arguments,
which should be given after the theme name. See the help for each theme
for descriptions of these arguments.
Options are:
-c
Show the currently selected theme and its parameters, if any.
-l
List all available prompt themes.
-p
Preview the theme named by theme, or all themes if no
theme is given.
-h
Show help for the theme named by theme, or for the
prompt function if no theme is given.
-s
Set theme as the current theme and save state.
prompt_theme_setup
Each available theme has a setup function which is called by the
prompt function to install that theme. This function may define
other functions as necessary to maintain the prompt, including functions
used to preview the prompt or provide help for its use. You should not
normally call a theme's setup function directly.
ZLE FUNCTIONS
These functions all implement user-defined ZLE widgets (see
zshzle(1)) which can be bound to keystrokes in interactive shells. To use them,
your .zshrc should contain lines of the form
autoload function zle -N function
followed by an appropriate bindkey command to associate the function
with a key sequence. Suggested bindings are described below.
bash-style word functions
If you are looking for functions to implement moving over and editing
words in the manner of bash, where only alphanumeric characters are
considered word characters, you can use the functions described in
the next section. The following is sufficient:
autoload -U select-word-style select-word-style bash
forward-word-match, backward-word-match
kill-word-match, backward-kill-word-match
transpose-words-match, capitalize-word-match
up-case-word-match, down-case-word-match
select-word-style, match-word-context, match-words-by-style
The eight `-match' functions are drop-in replacements for the
builtin widgets without the suffix. By default they behave in a similar
way. However, by the use of styles and the function select-word-style,
the way words are matched can be altered.
The simplest way of configuring the functions is to use
select-word-style, which can either be called as a normal function with
the appropriate argument, or invoked as a user-defined widget that will
prompt for the first character of the word style to be used. The first
time it is invoked, the eight -match functions will automatically
replace the builtin versions, so they do not need to be loaded explicitly.
The word styles available are as follows. Only the first character
is examined.
bash
Word characters are alphanumeric characters only.
normal
As in normal shell operation: word characters are alphanumeric characters
plus any characters present in the string given by the parameter
$WORDCHARS.
shell
Words are complete shell command arguments, possibly including complete
quoted strings, or any tokens special to the shell.
whitespace
Words are any set of characters delimited by whitespace.
default
Restore the default settings; this is usually the same as `normal'.
More control can be obtained using the zstyle command, as described in
zshmodules(1). Each style is looked up in the
context :zle:widget where widget is the name of the
user-defined widget, not the name of the function implementing it, so in
the case of the definitions supplied by select-word-style the
appropriate contexts are :zle:forward-word, and so on. The function
select-word-style itself always defines styles for the context
`:zle:*' which can be overridden by more specific (longer) patterns as
well as explicit contexts.
The style word-style specifies the rules to use. This may have the
following values.
normal
Use the standard shell rules, i.e. alphanumerics and $WORDCHARS, unless
overridden by the styles word-chars or word-class.
specified
Similar to normal, but only the specified characters, and not also
alphanumerics, are considered word characters.
unspecified
The negation of specified. The given characters are those which will
not be considered part of a word.
shell
Words are obtained by using the syntactic rules for generating shell
command arguments. In addition, special tokens which are never command
arguments such as `()' are also treated as words.
whitespace
Words are whitespace-delimited strings of characters.
The first three of those rules usually use $WORDCHARS, but the value
in the parameter can be overridden by the style word-chars, which works
in exactly the same way as $WORDCHARS. In addition, the style
word-class uses character class syntax to group characters and takes
precedence over word-chars if both are set. The word-class style
does not include the surrounding brackets of the character class; for
example, `-:[:alnum:]' is a valid word-class to include all
alphanumerics plus the characters `-' and `:'. Be careful
including `]', `^' and `-' as these are special inside
character classes.
The style skip-chars is mostly useful for
transpose-words and similar functions. If set, it gives a count of
characters starting at the cursor position which will not be considered
part of the word and are treated as space, regardless of what they actually
are. For example, if
zstyle ':zle:transpose-words' skip-chars 1
has been set, and transpose-words-match is called with the cursor on
the X of fooXbar, where X can be any character, then
the resulting expression is barXfoo.
Finer grained control can be obtained by setting the style word-context
to an array of pairs of entries. Each pair of entries consists of a
pattern and a subcontext. The shell argument the cursor is on is
matched against each pattern in turn until one matches; if it does,
the context is extended by a colon and the corresponding subcontext.
Note that the test is made against the original word on the line, with no
stripping of quotes. If the cursor is at the end of the line the test is
performed against an empty string; if it is on whitespace between words the
test is made against a single space. Some examples are given below.
Here are some examples of use of the styles, actually taken from the
simplified interface in select-word-style:
zstyle ':zle:*' word-style standard zstyle ':zle:*' word-chars ''
Implements bash-style word handling for all widgets, i.e. only
alphanumerics are word characters; equivalent to setting
the parameter WORDCHARS empty for the given context.
style ':zle:*kill*' word-style space
Uses space-delimited words for widgets with the word `kill' in the name.
Neither of the styles word-chars nor word-class is used in this case.
Here are some examples of use of the word-context style to extend
the context.
zstyle ':zle:*' word-context "*/*" file "[[:space:]]" whitespace zstyle ':zle:transpose-words:whitespace' word-style shell zstyle ':zle:transpose-words:filename' word-style normal zstyle ':zle:transpose-words:filename' word-chars ''
This provides two different ways of using transpose-words depending on
whether the cursor is on whitespace between words or on a filename, here
any word containing a /. On whitespace, complete arguments as defined
by standard shell rules will be transposed. In a filename, only
alphanumerics will be transposed. Elsewhere, words will be transposed
using the default style for :zle:transpose-words.
The word matching and all the handling of zstyle settings is actually
implemented by the function match-words-by-style. This can be used to
create new user-defined widgets. The calling function should set the local
parameter curcontext to :zle:widget, create the local
parameter matched_words and call match-words-by-style with no
arguments. On return, matched_words will be set to an array with the
elements: (1) the start of the line (2) the word before the cursor (3) any
non-word characters between that word and the cursor (4) any non-word
character at the cursor position plus any remaining non-word characters
before the next word, including all characters specified by the
skip-chars style, (5) the word at or following the cursor (6) any
non-word characters following that word (7) the remainder of the line. Any
of the elements may be an empty string; the calling function should test
for this to decide whether it can perform its function.
It is possible to pass options with arguments to match-words-by-style
to override the use of styles. The options are:
-w
word-style
-s
skip-chars
-c
word-class
-C
word-chars
For example, match-words-by-style -w shell -c 0 may be used to
extract the command argument around the cursor.
The word-context style is implemented by the function
match-word-context. This should not usually need to be called
directly.
delete-whole-word-match
This is another function which works like the -match functions
described immediately above, i.e. using styles to decide the word
boundaries. However, it is not a replacement for any existing function.
The basic behaviour is to delete the word around the cursor. There is no
numeric prefix handling; only the single word around the cursor is
considered. If the widget contains the string kill, the removed text
will be placed in the cutbuffer for future yanking. This can be obtained
by defining kill-whole-word-match as follows:
zle -N kill-whole-word-match delete-whole-word-match
and then binding the widget kill-whole-word-match.
copy-earlier-word
This widget works like a combination of insert-last-word and
copy-prev-shell-word. Repeated invocations of the widget retrieve
earlier words on the relevant history line. With a numeric argument
N, insert the Nth word from the history line; N may be
negative to count from the end of the line.
If insert-last-word has been used to retrieve the last word on a
previous history line, repeated invocations will replace that word with
earlier words from the same line.
Otherwise, the widget applies to words on the line currently being edited.
The widget style can be set to the name of another widget that should
be called to retrieve words. This widget must accept the same three
arguments as insert-last-word.
cycle-completion-positions
After inserting an unambiguous string into the command line, the new
function based completion system may know about multiple places in
this string where characters are missing or differ from at least one
of the possible matches. It will then place the cursor on the
position it considers to be the most interesting one, i.e. the one
where one can disambiguate between as many matches as possible with as
little typing as possible.
This widget allows the cursor to be easily moved to the other interesting
spots. It can be invoked repeatedly to cycle between all positions
reported by the completion system.
edit-command-line
Edit the command line using your visual editor, as in ksh.
bindkey -M vicmd v edit-command-line
history-search-end
This function implements the widgets
history-beginning-search-backward-end and
history-beginning-search-forward-end. These commands work by first
calling the corresponding builtin widget (see
`History Control' in zshzle(1)) and then moving the cursor to the end of the line. The original cursor
position is remembered and restored before calling the builtin widget a
second time, so that the same search is repeated to look farther through
the history.
Although you autoload only one function, the commands to use it are
slightly different because it implements two widgets.
zle -N history-beginning-search-backward-end
history-search-end
zle -N history-beginning-search-forward-end
history-search-end
bindkey '\e^P' history-beginning-search-backward-end
bindkey '\e^N' history-beginning-search-forward-end
history-beginning-search-menu
This function implements yet another form of history searching. The
text before the cursor is used to select lines from the history,
as for history-beginning-search-backward except that all matches are
shown in a numbered menu. Typing the appropriate digits inserts the
full history line. Note that leading zeroes must be typed (they are only
shown when necessary for removing ambiguity). The entire history is
searched; there is no distinction between forwards and backwards.
With a prefix argument, the search is not anchored to the start of
the line; the string typed by the use may appear anywhere in the line
in the history.
If the widget name contains `-end' the cursor is moved to the end of
the line inserted. If the widget name contains `-space' any space
in the text typed is treated as a wildcard and can match anything (hence
a leading space is equivalent to giving a prefix argument). Both
forms can be combined, for example:
zle -N history-beginning-search-menu-space-end
history-beginning-search-menu
history-pattern-search
The function history-pattern-search implements widgets which prompt
for a pattern with which to search the history backwards or forwards. The
pattern is in the usual zsh format, however the first character may be
^ to anchor the search to the start of the line, and the last character
may be $ to anchor the search to the end of the line. If the
search was not anchored to the end of the line the cursor is positioned
just after the pattern found.
The commands to create bindable widgets are similar to those in the
example immediately above:
autoload -U history-pattern-search zle -N history-pattern-search-backward history-pattern-search zle -N history-pattern-search-forward history-pattern-search
up-line-or-beginning-search, down-line-or-beginning-search
These widgets are similar to the builtin functions up-line-or-search
and down-line-or-search: if in a multiline buffer they move up or
down within the buffer, otherwise they search for a history line matching
the start of the current line. In this case, however, they search for
a line which matches the current line up to the current cursor position, in
the manner of history-beginning-search-backward and -forward, rather
than the first word on the line.
incarg
Typing the keystrokes for this widget with the cursor placed on or to the
left of an integer causes that integer to be incremented by one. With a
numeric prefix argument, the number is incremented by the amount of the
argument (decremented if the prefix argument is negative). The shell
parameter incarg may be set to change the default increment to
something other than one.
bindkey '^X+' incarg
incremental-complete-word
This allows incremental completion of a word. After starting this
command, a list of completion choices can be shown after every character
you type, which you can delete with ^H or DEL. Pressing return
accepts the completion so far and returns you to normal editing (that is,
the command line is not immediately executed). You can hit TAB to
do normal completion, ^G to abort back to the state when you started,
and ^D to list the matches.
This works only with the new function based completion system.
bindkey '^Xi' incremental-complete-word
insert-composed-char
This function allows you to compose characters that don't appear on the
keyboard to be inserted into the command line. The command is followed by
two keys corresponding to ASCII characters (there is no prompt). For
accented characters, the two keys are a base character followed by a code
for the accent, while for other special characters the two characters
together form a mnemonic for the character to be inserted. The
two-character codes are a subset of those given by RFC 1345 (see for
example http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc1345.html).
The function may optionally be followed by up to two characters which
replace one or both of the characters read from the keyboard; if both
characters are supplied, no input is read. For example,
insert-composed-char a: can be used within a widget to insert an a with
umlaut into the command line. This has the advantages over use of a
literal character that it is more portable.
For best results zsh should have been built with support for multibyte
characters (configured with --enable-multibyte); however, the function
works for the limited range of characters available in single-byte
character sets such as ISO-8859-1.
The character is converted into the local representation and
inserted into the command line at the cursor position.
(The conversion is done within the shell, using whatever facilities
the C library provides.) With a numeric argument, the character and its
code are previewed in the status line
The function may be run outside zle in which case it prints the character
(together with a newline) to standard output. Input is still read from
keystrokes.
See insert-unicode-char for an alternative way of inserting Unicode
characters using their hexadecimal character number.
The set of accented characters is reasonably complete up to Unicode
character U+0180, the set of special characters less so. However, it it
is very sporadic from that point. Adding new characters is easy,
however; see the function define-composed-chars. Please send any
additions to zsh-workers@sunsite.dk.
The codes for the second character when used to accent the first are as
follows. Note that not every character can take every accent.
!
Grave.
'
Acute.
>
Circumflex.
?
Tilde. (This is not ~ as RFC 1345 does not assume that
character is present on the keyboard.)
-
Macron. (A horizonal bar over the base character.)
(
Breve. (A shallow dish shape over the base character.)
.
Dot above the base character, or in the case of i no dot,
or in the case of L and l a centered dot.
:
Diaeresis (Umlaut).
c
Cedilla.
_
Underline, however there are currently no underlined characters.
/
Stroke through the base character.
"
Double acute (only supported on a few letters).
;
Ogonek. (A little forward facing hook at the bottom right
of the character.)
<
Caron. (A little v over the letter.)
0
Circle over the base character.
2
Hook over the base character.
9
Horn over the base character.
The most common characters from the Arabic, Cyrillic, Greek and Hebrew
alphabets are available; consult RFC 1345 for the appropriate sequences.
In addition, a set of two letter codes not in RFC 1345 are available for
the double-width characters corresponding to ASCII characters from !
to ~ (0x21 to 0x7e) by preceeding the character with ^, for
example ^A for a double-width A.
The following other two-character sequences are understood.
ASCII characters
These are already present on most keyboards:
<(
Left square bracket
//
Backslash (solidus)
)>
Right square bracket
(!
Left brace (curly bracket)
!!
Vertical bar (pipe symbol)
!)
Right brace (curly bracket)
'?
Tilde
Special letters
Characters found in various variants of the Latin alphabet:
ss
Eszett (scafes S)
D-, d-
Eth
TH, th
Thorn
kk
Kra
'n
'n
NG, ng
Ng
OI, oi
Oi
yr
yr
ED
ezh
Currency symbols
Ct
Cent
Pd
Pound sterling (also lira and others)
Cu
Currency
Ye
Yen
Eu
Euro (N.B. not in RFC 1345)
Punctuation characters
References to "right" quotes indicate the shape (like a 9 rather than 6)
rather than their grammatical use. (For example, a "right" low double
quote is used to open quotations in German.)
!I
Inverted exclamation mark
BB
Broken vertical bar
SE
Section
Co
Copyright
-a
Spanish feminine ordinal indicator
<<
Left guillemet
--
Soft hyphen
Rg
Registered trade mark
PI
Pilcrow (paragraph)
-o
Spanish masculine ordinal indicator
>>
Right guillemet
?I
Inverted question mark
-1
Hyphen
-N
En dash
-M
Em dash
-3
Horizontal bar
:3
Vertical ellipsis
.3
Horizontal midline ellipsis
!2
Double vertical line
=2
Double low line
'6
Left single quote
'9
Right single quote
.9
"Right" low quote
9'
Reversed "right" quote
"6
Left double quote
"9
Right double quote
:9
"Right" low double quote
9"
Reversed "right" double quote
/-
Dagger
/=
Double dagger
Mathematical symbols
DG
Degree
-2, +-, -+
- sign, +/- sign, -/+ sign
2S
Superscript 2
3S
Superscript 3
1S
Superscript 1
My
Micro
.M
Middle dot
14
Quarter
12
Half
34
Three quarters
*X
Multiplication
-:
Division
%0
Per mille
FA, TE, /0
For all, there exists, empty set
dP, DE, NB
Partial derivative, delta (increment), del
(nabla)
(-, -)
Element of, contains
*P, +Z
Product, sum
*-, Ob, Sb
Asterisk, ring, bullet
RT, 0(, 00
Root sign, proportional to, infinity
Other symbols
cS, cH, cD, cC
Card suits: spades, hearts, diamonds,
clubs
Md, M8, M2, Mb, Mx, MX
Musical notation:
crotchet (quarter note), quaver (eighth note), semiquavers (sixteenth
notes), flag sign, natural signa, sharp sign
Fm, Ml
Female, male
Accents on their own
'>
Circumflex (same as caret, ^)
'!
Grave (same as backtick, `)
',
Cedilla
':
Diaeresis (Umlaut)
'm
Macron
''
Acute
insert-files
This function allows you type a file pattern, and see the results of the
expansion at each step. When you hit return, all expansions are inserted
into the command line.
bindkey '^Xf' insert-files
narrow-to-region [ -p pre ] [ -P post ]
[ -S statepm | -R statepm ] [ -n ] [ start end ])
narrow-to-region-invisible
Narrow the editable portion of the buffer to the region between the cursor
and the mark, which may be in either order. The region may not be empty.
narrow-to-region may be used as a widget or called as a function from a
user-defined widget; by default, the text outside the editable area remains
visible. A recursive-edit is performed and the original widening
status is then restored. Various options and arguments are available when
it is called as a function.
The options -p pretext and -P posttext may be
used to replace the text before and after the display for the duration of
the function; either or both may be an empty string.
If the option -n is also given, pretext or posttext will only
be inserted if there is text before or after the region respectively which
will be made invisible.
Two numeric arguments may be given which will be used instead of the cursor
and mark positions.
The option -S statepm is used to narrow according to the other
options while saving the original state in the parameter with name
statepm, while the option -R statepm is used to restore the
state from the parameter; note in both cases the name of the parameter
is required. In the second case, other options and arguments are
irrelevant. When this method is used, no recursive-edit is performed;
the calling widget should call this function with the option -S,
perform its own editing on the command line or pass control to the user
via `zle recursive-edit', then call this function with the option
-R. The argument statepm must be a suitable name for an ordinary
parameter, except that parameters beginning with the prefix _ntr_ are
reserved for use within narrow-to-region. Typically the parameter will
be local to the calling function.
narrow-to-region-invisible is a simple widget which calls
narrow-to-region with arguments which replace any text outside the
region with `...'.
The display is restored (and the widget returns) upon any zle command
which would usually cause the line to be accepted or aborted. Hence an
additional such command is required to accept or abort the current line.
The return status of both widgets is zero if the line was accepted, else
non-zero.
Here is a trivial example of a widget using this feature.
local state narrow-to-region -p $'Editing restricted region\n' -P '' -S state zle recursive-edit narrow-to-region -R state
insert-unicode-char
When first executed, the user inputs a set of hexadecimal digits.
This is terminated with another call to insert-unicode-char.
The digits are then turned into the corresponding Unicode character.
For example, if the widget is bound to ^XU, the character sequence
`^XU 4 c ^XU' inserts L (Unicode U+004c).
See insert-composed-char for a way of inserting characters
using a two-character mnemonic.
predict-on
This set of functions implements predictive typing using history search.
After predict-on, typing characters causes the editor to look backward
in the history for the first line beginning with what you have typed so
far. After predict-off, editing returns to normal for the line found.
In fact, you often don't even need to use predict-off, because if the
line doesn't match something in the history, adding a key performs
standard completion, and then inserts itself if no completions were found.
However, editing in the middle of a line is liable to confuse prediction;
see the toggle style below.
With the function based completion system (which is needed for this), you
should be able to type TAB at almost any point to advance the cursor
to the next ``interesting'' character position (usually the end of the
current word, but sometimes somewhere in the middle of the word). And of
course as soon as the entire line is what you want, you can accept with
return, without needing to move the cursor to the end first.
The first time predict-on is used, it creates several additional
widget functions:
delete-backward-and-predict
Replaces the backward-delete-char
widget. You do not need to bind this yourself.
insert-and-predict
Implements predictive typing by replacing the
self-insert widget. You do not need to bind this yourself.
predict-off
Turns off predictive typing.
Although you autoload only the predict-on function, it is
necessary to create a keybinding for predict-off as well.
zle -N predict-on zle -N predict-off bindkey '^X^Z' predict-on bindkey '^Z' predict-off
read-from-minibuffer
This is most useful when called as a function from inside a widget, but will
work correctly as a widget in its own right. It prompts for a value
below the current command line; a value may be input using all of the
standard zle operations (and not merely the restricted set available
when executing, for example, execute-named-cmd). The value is then
returned to the calling function in the parameter $REPLY and the
editing buffer restored to its previous state. If the read was aborted
by a keyboard break (typically ^G), the function returns status 1
and $REPLY is not set.
If one argument is supplied to the function it is taken as a prompt,
otherwise `? ' is used. If two arguments are supplied, they are the
prompt and the initial value of $LBUFFER, and if a third argument is
given it is the initial value of $RBUFFER. This provides a default
value and starting cursor placement. Upon return the entire buffer is the
value of $REPLY.
One option is available: `-k num' specifies that num
characters are to be read instead of a whole line. The line editor is not
invoked recursively in this case, so depending on the terminal settings
the input may not be visible, and only the input keys are placed in
$REPLY, not the entire buffer. Note that unlike the read builtin
num must be given; there is no default.
The name is a slight misnomer, as in fact the shell's own minibuffer is
not used. Hence it is still possible to call executed-named-cmd and
similar functions while reading a value.
replace-string, replace-pattern
replace-string-again, replace-pattern-again
The function replace-string implements two widgets.
If defined under the same name as the function, it prompts for two
strings; the first (source) string will be replaced by the second
everywhere it occurs in the line editing buffer.
If the widget name contains the word `pattern', for example by
defining the widget using the command `zle -N replace-pattern
replace-string', then the replacement is done by pattern matching. All
zsh extended globbing patterns can be used in the source string; note
that unlike filename generation the pattern does not need to match an
entire word, nor do glob qualifiers have any effect. In addition, the
replacement string can contain parameter or command substitutions.
Furthermore, a `&' in the replacement string will be replaced with
the matched source string, and a backquoted digit `\N' will be
replaced by the Nth parenthesised expression matched. The form
`\{N}' may be used to protect the digit from following
digits.
By default the previous source or replacement string will not be offered
for editing. However, this feature can be activated by setting the style
edit-previous in the context :zle:widget (for example,
:zle:replace-string) to true. In addition, a positive
numeric argument forces the previous values to be offered, a negative or
zero argument forces them not to be.
The function replace-string-again can be used to repeat the
previous replacement; no prompting is done. As with replace-string, if
the name of the widget contains the word `pattern', pattern matching
is performed, else a literal string replacement. Note that the
previous source and replacement text are the same whether pattern or string
matching is used.
For example, starting from the line:
print This line contains fan and fond
and invoking replace-pattern with the source string
`f(?)n' and
the replacment string `c\1r' produces the not very useful line:
print This line contains car and cord
The range of the replacement string can be limited by using the
narrow-to-region-invisible widget. One limitation of the current
version is that undo will cycle through changes to the replacement
and source strings before undoing the replacement itself.
smart-insert-last-word
This function may replace the insert-last-word widget, like so:
zle -N insert-last-word smart-insert-last-word
With a numeric prefix, or when passed command line arguments in a call
from another widget, it behaves like insert-last-word, except that
words in comments are ignored when INTERACTIVE_COMMENTS is set.
Otherwise, the rightmost ``interesting'' word from the previous command is
found and inserted. The default definition of ``interesting'' is that the
word contains at least one alphabetic character, slash, or backslash.
This definition may be overridden by use of the match style. The
context used to look up the style is the widget name, so usually the
context is :insert-last-word. However, you can bind this function to
different widgets to use different patterns:
zle -N insert-last-assignment smart-insert-last-word zstyle :insert-last-assignment match '[[:alpha:]][][[:alnum:]]#=*' bindkey '\e=' insert-last-assignment
If no interesting word is found and the auto-previous style is set to
a true value, the search continues upward through the history. When
auto-previous is unset or false (the default), the widget must be
invoked repeatedly in order to search earlier history lines.
which-command
This function is a drop-in replacement for the builtin widget
which-command. It has enhanced behaviour, in that it correctly
detects whether or not the command word needs to be expanded as an
alias; if so, it continues tracing the command word from the expanded
alias until it reaches the command that will be executed.
The style whence is available in the context :zle:$WIDGET; this
may be set to an array to give the command and options that will be used to
investigate the command word found. The default is whence -c.
These functions are useful in constructing widgets. They
should be loaded with `autoload -U function' and called
as indicated from user-defined widgets.
split-shell-arguments
This function splits the line currently being edited into shell arguments
and whitespace. The result is stored in the array reply. The array
contains all the parts of the line in order, starting with any whitespace
before the first argument, and finishing with any whitespace after the last
argument. Hence (so long as the option KSH_ARRAYS is not set)
whitespace is given by odd indices in the array and arguments by
even indices. Note that no stripping of quotes is done; joining together
all the elements of reply in order is guaranteed to produce the
original line.
The parameter REPLY is set to the index of the word in reply which
contains the character after the cursor, where the first element has index
1. The parameter REPLY2 is set to the index of the character under the
cursor in that word, where the first character has index 1.
Hence reply, REPLY and REPLY2 should all be made local to
the enclosing function.
See the function modify-current-argument, described below, for
an example of how to call this function.
modify-current-argument expr-using-$ARG
This function provides a simple method of allowing user-defined widgets
to modify the command line argument under the cursor (or immediately to the
left of the cursor if the cursor is between arguments). The argument
should be an expression which when evaluated operates on the shell
parameter ARG, which will have been set to the command line argument
under the cursor. The expression should be suitably quoted to prevent
it being evaluated too early.
For example, a user-defined widget containing the following code
converts the characters in the argument under the cursor into all upper
case:
modify-current-word '${(U)ARG}'
The following strips any quoting from the current word (whether backslashes
or one of the styles of quotes), and replaces it with single quoting
throughout:
modify-current-word '${(qq)${(Q)ARG}}'
The behavior of several of the above widgets can be controlled by the use
of the zstyle mechanism. In particular, widgets that interact with
the completion system pass along their context to any completions that
they invoke.
break-keys
This style is used by the incremental-complete-word widget. Its value
should be a pattern, and all keys matching this pattern will cause the
widget to stop incremental completion without the key having any further
effect. Like all styles used directly by
incremental-complete-word, this style is looked up using the
context `:incremental'.
completer
The incremental-complete-word and insert-and-predict widgets set
up their top-level context name before calling completion. This allows
one to define different sets of completer functions for normal completion
and for these widgets. For example, to use completion, approximation and
correction for normal completion, completion and correction for
incremental completion and only completion for prediction one could use:
zstyle ':completion:*' completer
_complete _correct _approximate
zstyle ':completion:incremental:*' completer
_complete _correct
zstyle ':completion:predict:*' completer
_complete
It is a good idea to restrict the completers used in prediction, because
they may be automatically invoked as you type. The _list and
_menu completers should never be used with prediction. The
_approximate, _correct, _expand, and _match completers may
be used, but be aware that they may change characters anywhere in the word
behind the cursor, so you need to watch carefully that the result is what
you intended.
cursor
The insert-and-predict widget uses this style, in the context
`:predict', to decide where to place the cursor after completion has
been tried. Values are:
complete
The cursor is left where it was when completion finished, but only if
it is after a character equal to the one just inserted by the user. If
it is after another character, this value is the same as `key'.
key
The cursor is left
after the nth occurrence of the character just inserted, where
n is the number of times that character appeared in the word
before completion was attempted. In short, this has the effect of
leaving the cursor after the character just typed even if the
completion code found out that no other characters need to be inserted
at that position.
Any other value for this style unconditionally leaves the cursor at the
position where the completion code left it.
list
When using the incremental-complete-word widget, this style says
if the matches should be listed on every key press (if they fit on the
screen). Use the context prefix `:completion:incremental'.
The insert-and-predict widget uses this style to decide if the
completion should be shown even if there is only one possible completion.
This is done if the value of this style is the string always. In this
case the context is `:predict' (not `:completion:predict').
match
This style is used by smart-insert-last-word to provide a pattern
(using full EXTENDED_GLOB syntax) that matches an interesting word.
The context is the name of the widget to which smart-insert-last-word
is bound (see above). The default behavior of smart-insert-last-word
is equivalent to:
zstyle :insert-last-word match '*[[:alpha:]/\]*'
However, you might want to include words that contain spaces:
zstyle :insert-last-word match '*[[:alpha:][:space:]/\]*'
Or include numbers as long as the word is at least two characters long:
zstyle :insert-last-word match '*([[:digit:]]?|[[:alpha:]/\])*'
The above example causes redirections like "2>" to be included.
prompt
The incremental-complete-word widget shows the value of this
style in the status line during incremental completion. The string
value may contain any of the following substrings in the manner of
the PS1 and other prompt parameters:
%c
Replaced by the name of the completer function that generated the
matches (without the leading underscore).
%l
When the list style is set,
replaced by `...' if the list of matches is too long to fit on the
screen and with an empty string otherwise. If the list style is
`false' or not set, `%l' is always removed.
%n
Replaced by the number of matches generated.
%s
Replaced by `-no match-', `-no prefix-', or an empty string
if there is no completion matching the word on the line, if the
matches have no common prefix different from the word on the line, or
if there is such a common prefix, respectively.
%u
Replaced by the unambiguous part of all matches, if there
is any, and if it is different from the word on the line.
Like `break-keys', this uses the `:incremental' context.
stop-keys
This style is used by the incremental-complete-word widget. Its value
is treated similarly to the one for the break-keys style (and uses
the same context: `:incremental'). However, in
this case all keys matching the pattern given as its value will stop
incremental completion and will then execute their usual function.
toggle
This boolean style is used by predict-on and its related widgets in
the context `:predict'. If set to one of the standard `true' values,
predictive typing is automatically toggled off in situations where it is
unlikely to be useful, such as when editing a multi-line buffer or after
moving into the middle of a line and then deleting a character. The
default is to leave prediction turned on until an explicit call to
predict-off.
verbose
This boolean style is used by predict-on and its related widgets in
the context `:predict'. If set to one of the standard `true' values,
these widgets display a message below the prompt when the predictive state
is toggled. This is most useful in combination with the toggle style.
The default does not display these messages.
widget
This style is similar to the command style: For widget functions that
use zle to call other widgets, this style can sometimes be used to
override the widget which is called. The context for this style is the
name of the calling widget (not the name of the calling function,
because one function may be bound to multiple widget names).
zstyle :copy-earlier-word widget smart-insert-last-word
Check the documentation for the calling widget or function to determine
whether the widget style is used.
EXCEPTION HANDLING
Two functions are provided to enable zsh to provide exception handling in a
form that should be familiar from other languages.
throw exception
The function throw throws the named exception. The name is
an arbitrary string and is only used by the throw and catch
functions. An exception is for the most part treated the same as a
shell error, i.e. an unhandled exception will cause the shell to abort all
processing in a function or script and to return to the top level in an
interactive shell.
catch exception-pattern
The function catch returns status zero if an exception was thrown and
the pattern exception-pattern matches its name. Otherwise it
returns status 1. exception-pattern is a standard
shell pattern, respecting the current setting of the EXTENDED_GLOB
option. An alias catch is also defined to prevent the argument to the
function from matching filenames, so patterns may be used unquoted. Note
that as exceptions are not fundamentally different from other shell errors
it is possible to catch shell errors by using an empty string as the
exception name. The shell variable CAUGHT is set by catch to the
name of the exception caught. It is possible to rethrow an exception by
calling the throw function again once an exception has been caught.
The functions are designed to be used together with the always construct
described in
zshmisc(1). This is important as only this
construct provides the required support for exceptions. A typical example
is as follows.
{
# "try" block
# ... nested code here calls "throw MyExcept"
} always {
# "always" block
if catch MyExcept; then
print "Caught exception MyExcept"
elif catch ''; then
print "Caught a shell error. Propagating..."
throw ''
fi
# Other exceptions are not handled but may be caught further
# up the call stack.
}
If all exceptions should be caught, the following idiom might be
preferable.
{
# ... nested code here throws an exception
} always {
if catch *; then
case $CAUGHT in
(MyExcept)
print "Caught my own exception"
;;
(*)
print "Caught some other exception"
;;
esac
fi
}
In common with exception handling in other languages, the exception may be
thrown by code deeply nested inside the `try' block. However, note that it
must be thrown inside the current shell, not in a subshell forked for a
pipeline, parenthesised current-shell construct, or some form of
command or process substitution.
The system internally uses the shell variable EXCEPTION to record the
name of the exception between throwing and catching. One drawback of this
scheme is that if the exception is not handled the variable EXCEPTION
remains set and may be incorrectly recognised as the name of an exception
if a shell error subsequently occurs. Adding unset EXCEPTION at the
start of the outermost layer of any code that uses exception handling will
eliminate this problem.
MIME FUNCTIONS
Three functions are available to provide handling of files recognised by
extension, for example to dispatch a file text.ps when executed as a
command to an appropriate viewer.
zsh-mime-setup [-flv]
zsh-mime-handler
These two functions use the files ~/.mime.types and /etc/mime.types,
which associate types and extensions, as well as ~/.mailcap and
/etc/mailcap files, which associate types and the programs that
handle them. These are provided on many systems with the Multimedia
Internet Mail Extensions.
To enable the system, the function zsh-mime-setup should be
autoloaded and run. This allows files with extensions to be treated
as executable; such files be completed by the function completion system.
The function zsh-mime-handler should not need to be called by the
user.
The system works by setting up suffix aliases with `alias -s'.
Suffix aliases already installed by the user will not be overwritten.
Repeated calls to zsh-mime-setup do not override the existing
mapping between suffixes and executable files unless the option -f
is given. Note, however, that this does not override existing suffix
aliases assigned to handlers other than zsh-mime-handler.
Calling zsh-mime-setup with the option -l lists the existing
mappings without altering them. Calling zsh-mime-setup with the option
-v causes verbose output to be shown during the setup operation.
The system respects the mailcap flags needsterminal and
copiousoutput, see mailcap(4).
The functions use the following styles, which are defined with the
zstyle builtin command (see zshmodules(1)). They should be defined
before zsh-mime-setup is run. The contexts used all
start with :mime:, with additional components in some cases.
It is recommended that a trailing * (suitably quoted) be appended
to style patterns in case the system is extended in future. Some
examples are given below.
current-shell
If this boolean style is true, the mailcap handler for the context in
question is run using the eval builtin instead of by starting a new
sh process. This is more efficient, but may not work in the occasional
cases where the mailcap handler uses strict POSIX syntax.
execute-as-is
This style gives a list of patterns to be matched against files
passed for execution with a handler program. If the file matches
the pattern, the entire command line is executed in its current form,
with no handler. This is useful for files which might have suffixes
but nonetheless be executable in their own right. If the style
is not set, the pattern *(*) *(/) is used;
hence executable files are executed directly and not passed to a
handler, and the option AUTO_CD may be used to change to directories
that happen to have MIME suffixes.
flags
Defines flags to go with a handler; the context is as for the
handler style, and the format is as for the flags in mailcap.
handle-nonexistent
By default, arguments that don't correspond to files are not passed
to the MIME handler in order to prevent it from intercepting commands found
in the path that happen to have suffixes. This style may be set to
an array of extended glob patterns for arguments that will be passed to the
handler even if they don't exist. If it is not explicitly set it
defaults to [[:alpha:]]#:/* which allows URLs to be passed to the MIME
handler even though they don't exist in that format in the file system.
handler
Specifies a handler for a suffix; the suffix is given by the context as
:mime:.suffix:, and the format of the handler is exactly
that in mailcap. Note in particular the `.' and trailing colon
to distinguish this use of the context. This overrides any handler
specified by the mailcap files. If the handler requires a terminal,
the flags style should be set to include the word needsterminal,
or if the output is to be displayed through a pager (but not if the
handler is itself a pager), it should include copiousoutput.
mailcap
A list of files in the format of ~/.mailcap and
/etc/mailcap to be read during setup, replacing the default list
which consists of those two files. The context is :mime:.
A + in the list will be replaced by the default files.
mailcap-priorities
This style is used to resolve multiple mailcap entries for the same MIME
type. It consists of an array of the following elements, in descending
order of priority; later entries will be used if earlier entries are
unable to resolve the entries being compared. If none of the tests
resolve the entries, the first entry encountered is retained.
files
The order of files (entries in the mailcap style) read. Earlier
files are preferred. (Note this does not resolve entries in the same file.)
priority
The priority flag from the mailcap entry. The priority is an integer
from 0 to 9 with the default value being 5.
flags
The test given by the mailcap-prio-flags option is used to resolve
entries.
place
Later entries are preferred; as the entries are strictly ordered, this
test always succeeds.
Note that as this style is handled during initialisation, the context
is always :mime:, with no discrimination by suffix.
mailcap-prio-flags
This style is used when the keyword flags is encountered in the
list of tests specified by the mailcap-priorities style.
It should be set to a list of patterns, each of which is tested against
the flags specified in the mailcap entry (in other words, the sets of
assignments found with some entries in the mailcap file). Earlier
patterns in the list are preferred to later ones, and matched patterns
are preferred to unmatched ones.
mime-types
A list of files in the format of ~/.mime.types and
/etc/mime.types to be read during setup, replacing the default list
which consists of those two files. The context is :mime:.
A + in the list will be replaced by the default files.
never-background
If this boolean style is set, the handler for the given context is
always run in the foreground, even if the flags provided in the mailcap
entry suggest it need not be (for example, it doesn't require a
terminal).
pager
If set, will be used instead of $PAGER or more to handle
suffixes where the copiousoutput flag is set. The context is
as for handler, i.e. :mime:.suffix: for handling
a file with the given suffix.
Examples:
zstyle ':mime:*' mailcap ~/.mailcap /usr/local/etc/mailcap zstyle ':mime:.txt:' handler less %s zstyle ':mime:.txt:' flags needsterminal
When zsh-mime-setup is subsequently run, it will look for
mailcap entries in the two files given. Files of suffix .txt
will be handled by running `less file.txt'. The flag
needsterminal is set to show that this program must run attached to a
terminal.
As there are several steps to dispatching a command, the following
should be checked if attempting to execute a file by extension
.ext does not have the expected effect.
The command `alias -s ext' should show
`ps=zsh-mime-handler'. If it shows something else, another suffix
alias was already installed and was not overwritten. If it shows
nothing, no handler was installed: this is most likely because no
handler was found in the .mime.types and mailcap combination for
.ext files. In that case, appropriate handling should be added to
~/.mime.types and mailcap.
If the extension is handled by zsh-mime-handler but the file is
not opened correctly, either the handler defined for the type is
incorrect, or the flags associated with it are in appropriate. Running
zsh-mime-setup -l will show the handler and, if there are any, the
flags. A %s in the handler is replaced by the file (suitably quoted
if necessary). Check that the handler program listed lists and can
be run in the way shown. Also check that the flags needsterminal or
copiousoutput are set if the handler needs to be run under a
terminal; the second flag is used if the output should be sent to a pager.
An example of a suitable mailcap entry for such a program is:
text/html; /usr/bin/lynx '%s'; needsterminal
pick-web-browser
This function is separate from the two MIME functions described above
and can be assigned directly to a suffix:
autoload -U pick-web-browser alias -s html=pick-web-browser
It is provided as an intelligent front end to dispatch a web browser.
It will check if an X Windows display is available, and if so if there
is already a browser running on the display which can accept a remote
connection. In that case, the file will be displayed in that browser;
you should check explicitly if it has appeared in the running browser's
window. Otherwise, it will start a new browser according to a built-in
set of preferences.
Alternatively, pick-web-browser can be run as a zsh script.
Two styles are available to customize the choice of browsers:
x-browsers when running under the X Window System, and
tty-browsers otherwise. These are arrays in decreasing order
of preference consisting of the command name under which to start the
browser. They are looked up in the context :mime: (which may
be extended in future, so appending `*' is recommended). For
example,
zstyle ':mime:*' x-browsers opera konqueror netscape
specifies that pick-web-browser should first look for a runing
instance of Opera, Konqueror or Netscape, in that order, and if it
fails to find any should attempt to start Opera.
In addition, the style command, if set, is used to pick the command
used to open a page for a browser. The context is
:mime:browser:new:$browser: to start a new browser or
:mime:browser:running:$browser: to open a URL in a browser already
runing on the current X display. The escape sequence %b in the
style's value will be replaced by the browser, while %u will be
replaced by the URL. If the style is not set, the default for all new
instances is equivalent to %b %u and the defaults for using running
browsers are equivalent to the values kfmclient openURL %u for
Konqueror, firefox -new-tab %u for Firefox and %b -remote
"openUrl(%u)" for all others.
MATHEMATICAL FUNCTIONS
zcalc [ expression ... ]
A reasonably powerful calculator based on zsh's arithmetic evaluation
facility. The syntax is similar to that of formulae in most programming
languages; see
the section `Arithmetic Evaluation' in zshmisc(1) for details. The mathematical
library zsh/mathfunc will be loaded if it is available; see
the section `The zsh/mathfunc Module' in zshmodules(1). The mathematical functions
correspond to the raw system libraries, so trigonometric functions are
evaluated using radians, and so on.
Each line typed is evaluated as an expression. The prompt shows a number,
which corresponds to a positional parameter where the result of that
calculation is stored. For example, the result of the calculation on the
line preceded by `4> ' is available as $4. The last value
calculated is available as ans. Full command line editing, including
the history of previous calculations, is available; the history is saved in
the file ~/.zcalc_history. To exit, enter a blank line or type `q'
on its own.
If arguments are given to zcalc on start up, they are used to prime the
first few positional parameters. A visual indication of this is given when
the calculator starts.
The constants PI (3.14159...) and E (2.71828...) are provided.
Parameter assignment is possible, but note that all parameters will be put
into the global namespace.
The output base can be initialised by passing the option `-#base',
for example `zcalc -#16' (the `#' may have to be quoted, depending
on the globbing options set).
The prompt is configurable via the parameter ZCALCPROMPT, which
undergoes standard prompt expansion. The index of the current entry is
stored locally in the first element of the array psvar, which can be
referred to in ZCALCPROMPT as `%1v'. The default prompt is
`%1v> '.
The output precision may be specified within zcalc by special commands
familiar from many calculators:
norm
The default output format. It corresponds to the printf %g
specification. Typically this shows six decimal digits.
sci digits
Scientific notation, corresponding to the printf %g output format with
the precision given by digits. This produces either fixed point or
exponential notation depending on the value output.
fix digits
Fixed point notation, corresponding to the printf %f output format with
the precision given by digits.
eng digits
Exponential notation, corresponding to the printf %E output format with
the precision given by digits.
Other special commands:
local arg ...
Declare variables local to the function. Note that certain variables
are used by the function for its own purposes. Other variables
may be used, too, but they will be taken from or put into the global
scope.
function name [ body ]
Define a mathematical function or (with no body) delete it.
The function is defined using zmathfuncdef, see below.
Note that zcalc takes care of all quoting. Hence for example:
function cube $1 * $1 * $1
defines a function to cube the sole argument.
[#base]
When this syntax appears on a line by itself, the default output radix
is set to base. Use, for example, `[#16]' to display hexadecimal
output preceded by an indication of the base, or `[##16]' just to
display the raw number in the given base. Bases themselves are always
specified in decimal. `[#]' restores the normal output format. Note
that setting an output base suppresses floating point output; use `[#]'
to return to normal operation.
See the comments in the function for a few extra tips.
zmathfuncdef mathfunc [ body ]
A convenient front end to functions -M.
With two arguments, define a mathematical function named mathfunc
which can be used in any form of arithmetic evaluation. body
is a mathematical expression to implement the function. It may
contain references to position parameters $1, $2, ...
to refer to mandatory parameters and ${1:-defvalue} ...
to refer to optional parameters. Note that the forms must be
strictly adhered to for the function to calculate the correct number
of arguments. The implementation is held in a shell function named
zsh_math_func_mathfunc; usually the user will not need
to refer to the shell function directly.
With one argument, remove the mathematical function mathfunc
as well as the shell function implementation.
OTHER FUNCTIONS
There are a large number of helpful functions in the Functions/Misc
directory of the zsh distribution. Most are very simple and do not
require documentation here, but a few are worthy of special mention.
colors
This function initializes several associative arrays to map color names to
(and from) the ANSI standard eight-color terminal codes. These are used
by the prompt theme system (see above). You seldom should need to run
colors more than once.
The eight base colors are: black, red, green, yellow, blue, magenta, cyan,
and white. Each of these has codes for foreground and background. In
addition there are eight intensity attributes: bold, faint, standout,
underline, blink, reverse, and conceal. Finally, there are six codes used
to negate attributes: none (reset all attributes to the defaults), normal
(neither bold nor faint), no-standout, no-underline, no-blink, and
no-reverse.
Some terminals do not support all combinations of colors and intensities.
The associative arrays are:
color
colour
Map all the color names to their integer codes, and integer codes to the
color names. The eight base names map to the foreground color codes, as
do names prefixed with `fg-', such as `fg-red'. Names prefixed
with `bg-', such as `bg-blue', refer to the background codes. The
reverse mapping from code to color yields base name for foreground codes
and the bg- form for backgrounds.
Although it is a misnomer to call them `colors', these arrays also map the
other fourteen attributes from names to codes and codes to names.
fg
fg_bold
fg_no_bold
Map the eight basic color names to ANSI terminal escape sequences that set
the corresponding foreground text properties. The fg sequences change
the color without changing the eight intensity attributes.
bg
bg_bold
bg_no_bold
Map the eight basic color names to ANSI terminal escape sequences that set
the corresponding background properties. The bg sequences change the
color without changing the eight intensity attributes.
In addition, the scalar parameters reset_color and bold_color are
set to the ANSI terminal escapes that turn off all attributes and turn on
bold intensity, respectively.
fned name
Same as zed -f. This function does not appear in the zsh
distribution, but can be created by linking zed to the name fned
in some directory in your fpath.
is-at-least needed [ present ]
Perform a greater-than-or-equal-to comparison of two strings having the
format of a zsh version number; that is, a string of numbers and text with
segments separated by dots or dashes. If the present string is not
provided, $ZSH_VERSION is used. Segments are paired left-to-right in
the two strings with leading non-number parts ignored. If one string has
fewer segments than the other, the missing segments are considered zero.
This is useful in startup files to set options and other state that are
not available in all versions of zsh.
is-at-least 3.1.6-15 && setopt NO_GLOBAL_RCS is-at-least 3.1.0 && setopt HIST_REDUCE_BLANKS is-at-least 2.6-17 || print "You can't use is-at-least here."
nslookup [ arg ... ]
This wrapper function for the nslookup command requires the
zsh/zpty module (see
zshmodules(1)). It behaves exactly like the standard nslookup
except that it provides customizable prompts (including a right-side
prompt) and completion of nslookup commands, host names, etc. (if you use
the function-based completion system). Completion styles may be set with
the context prefix `:completion:nslookup'.
See also the pager, prompt and rprompt styles below.
run-help
See `Accessing On-Line Help'
above.
tetris
Zsh was once accused of not being as complete as Emacs,
because it lacked a Tetris game. This function was written to
refute this vicious slander.
This function must be used as a ZLE widget:
autoload -U tetris zle -N tetris bindkey keys tetris
To start a game, execute the widget by typing the keys. Whatever command
line you were editing disappears temporarily, and your keymap is also
temporarily replaced by the Tetris control keys. The previous editor state
is restored when you quit the game (by pressing `q') or when you lose.
If you quit in the middle of a game, the next invocation of the tetris
widget will continue where you left off. If you lost, it will start a new
game.
zargs [ option ... -- ] [ input ... ] [ -- command [ arg ... ] ]
This function works like GNU xargs, except that instead of reading lines
of arguments from the standard input, it takes them from the command line.
This is useful because zsh, especially with recursive glob operators,
often can construct a command line for a shell function that is longer
than can be accepted by an external command.
The option list represents options of the zargs command itself,
which are the same as those of xargs. The input list is the
collection of strings (often file names) that become the arguments of the
command, analogous to the standard input of xargs. Finally, the
arg list consists of those arguments (usually options) that are
passed to the command each time it runs. The arg list precedes
the elements from the input list in each run. If no command is
provided, then no arg list may be provided, and in that event the
default command is `print' with arguments `-r --'.
For example, to get a long ls listing of all plain files in the
current directory or its subdirectories:
autoload -U zargs zargs -- **/*(.) -- ls -l
Note that `--' is used both to mark the end of the option
list and to mark the end of the input list, so it must appear twice
whenever the input list may be empty. If there is guaranteed to be
at least one input and the first input does not begin with a
`-', then the first `--' may be omitted.
In the event that the string `--' is or may be an input, the
-e option may be used to change the end-of-inputs marker. Note that
this does not change the end-of-options marker. For example, to use
`..' as the marker:
zargs -e.. -- **/*(.) .. ls -l
This is a good choice in that example because no plain file can be named
`..', but the best end-marker depends on the circumstances.
For details of the other zargs options, see xargs(1) or run
zargs with the --help option.
zed [ -f ] name
zed -b
This function uses the ZLE editor to edit a file or function.
Only one name argument is allowed.
If the -f option is given, the name is taken to be that of
a function; if the function is marked for autoloading, zed searches
for it in the fpath and loads it. Note that functions edited this way
are installed into the current shell, but not written back to the
autoload file.
Without -f, name is the path name of the file to edit, which need
not exist; it is created on write, if necessary.
While editing, the function sets the main keymap to zed and the
vi command keymap to zed-vicmd. These will be copied from the existing
main and vicmd keymaps if they do not exist the first time zed
is run. They can be used to provide special key bindings used only in zed.
If it creates the keymap, zed rebinds the return key to insert a line
break and `^X^W' to accept the edit in the zed keymap, and binds
`ZZ' to accept the edit in the zed-vicmd keymap.
The bindings alone can be installed by running `zed -b'. This is
suitable for putting into a startup file. Note that, if rerun,
this will overwrite the existing zed and zed-vicmd keymaps.
Completion is available, and styles may be set with the context prefix
`:completion:zed'.
A zle widget zed-set-file-name is available. This can be called by
name from within zed using `\ex zed-set-file-name' (note, however, that
because of zed's rebindings you will have to type ^j at the end instead
of the return key), or can be bound to a key in either of the zed or
zed-vicmd keymaps after `zed -b' has been run. When the widget is
called, it prompts for a new name for the file being edited. When zed
exits the file will be written under that name and the original file will
be left alone. The widget has no effect with `zed -f'.
While zed-set-file-name is running, zed uses the keymap
zed-normal-keymap, which is linked from the main keymap in effect
at the time zed initialised its bindings. (This is to make the return key
operate normally.) The result is that if the main keymap has been changed,
the widget won't notice. This is not a concern for most users.
zcp [ -finqQvwW ] srcpat dest
zln [ -finqQsvwW ] srcpat dest
Same as zmv -C and zmv -L, respectively. These functions do not
appear in the zsh distribution, but can be created by linking zmv to
the names zcp and zln in some directory in your fpath.
zkbd
See `Keyboard Definition'
above.
zmv [ -finqQsvwW ] [ -C | -L | -M | -p program ] [ -o optstring ] srcpat dest
Move (usually, rename) files matching the pattern srcpat to
corresponding files having names of the form given by dest, where
srcpat contains parentheses surrounding patterns which will be
replaced in turn by $1, $2, ... in dest. For example,
zmv '(*).lis' '$1.txt'
renames `foo.lis' to `foo.txt', `my.old.stuff.lis' to
`my.old.stuff.txt', and so on.
The pattern is always treated as an EXTENDED_GLOB pattern. Any file
whose name is not changed by the substitution is simply ignored. Any
error (a substitution resulted in an empty string, two substitutions gave
the same result, the destination was an existing regular file and -f
was not given) causes the entire function to abort without doing anything.
Options:
-f
Force overwriting of destination files. Not currently
passed down to the mv/cp/ln command due to vagaries of
implementations (but you can use -o-f to do that).
-i
Interactive: show each line to be executed and ask the user
whether to execute it. `Y' or `y' will execute it, anything else will
skip it. Note that you just need to type one character.
-n
No execution: print what would happen, but don't do it.
-q
Turn bare glob qualifiers off: now assumed by default, so
this has no effect.
-Q
Force bare glob qualifiers on. Don't turn this on unless
you are actually using glob qualifiers in a pattern.
-s
Symbolic, passed down to ln; only works with -L.
-v
Verbose: print each command as it's being executed.
-w
Pick out wildcard parts of the pattern, as described above,
and implicitly add parentheses for referring to them.
-W
Just like -w, with the addition of turning wildcards in
the replacement pattern into sequential ${1} .. ${N} references.
-C
-L
-M
Force cp, ln or mv, respectively, regardless of
the name of the function.
-p program
Call program instead of cp, ln or
mv. Whatever it does, it should at least understand the form
`program -- oldname newname'
where oldname and newname are filenames generated by zmv.
-o optstring
The optstring is split into words and
passed down verbatim to the cp, ln or mv command called to
perform the work. It should probably begin with a `-'.
For more complete examples and other implementation details, see the
zmv source file, usually located in one of the directories named in
your fpath, or in Functions/Misc/zmv in the zsh distribution.
zrecompile
See `Recompiling Functions'
above.
zstyle+ context style value [ + subcontext style value ... ]
This makes defining styles a bit simpler by using a single `+' as a
special token that allows you to append a context name to the previously
used context name. Like this:
zstyle+ ':foo:bar' style1 value1
+ ':baz' style2 value2
+ ':frob' style3 value3
This defines `style1' with `value1' for the context :foo:bar as usual,
but it also defines `style2' with `value2' for the context
:foo:bar:baz and `style3' with `value3' for :foo:bar:frob. Any
subcontext may be the empty string to re-use the first context
unchanged.
insert-tab
The zed function sets this style in context `:completion:zed:*'
to turn off completion when TAB is typed at the beginning of a line.
You may override this by setting your own value for this context and style.
pager
The nslookup function looks up this style in the context
`:nslookup' to determine the program used to display output that does
not fit on a single screen.
prompt
rprompt
The nslookup function looks up this style in the context
`:nslookup' to set the prompt and the right-side prompt, respectively.
The usual expansions for the PS1 and RPS1 parameters may be used
(see
zshmisc(1)).
