----------------- THE Z SHELL (ZSH) ----------------- Version ------- This is zsh version 4.0.7. This is a stable release. Installing Zsh -------------- The instructions for compiling zsh are in the file INSTALL. You should also check the file MACHINES in the subdirectory Etc to see if there are any special instructions for your particular architecture. Features -------- Zsh is a shell with lots of features. For a list of some of these, see the file Etc/FEATURES, and for the latest changes see Etc/NEWS. For more details, see the documentation. Possible incompatibilities --------------------------- A change between 4.0.6 and 4.0.7 affects substitutions of the form ${foo/src/rep} and ${foo//src/rep}. In 4.0.6, a literal `/' was quoted in the `src' text with two backslashes. This was documented, but inconsistent with normal quoting conventions and poorly implemented. The `/' now requires only one backslash to quote it whether or not the expresion occurs in double quotes. For example: % foo=word/bird % print ${foo/\//-} "${foo/\//+}" word-bird word+bird Note also the following workaround which is valid in all versions of the shell that support this syntax: % slash=/ % foo=word/bird % print ${foo/$slash/-} "${foo/$slash/+}" Some particular differences you may notice between version 3.0 and 4.0 (mostly based on 3.0.8; there are other differences from earlier versions): o The options ALWAYS_LAST_PROMPT (return to the line you were editing after displaying completion lists) and LIST_AMBIGUOUS (don't do AUTO_LIST if there was an unambiguous prefix that could be inserted, i.e. only list if it is ambiguous what to insert next) are now set by default. This is in response to complaints that too many zsh features are never noticed by many users. To turn them off, just put `unsetopt alwayslastprompt listambiguous' in your .zshrc file. o The editor commands history-search-{forward,backward} are implemented slightly differently, as are {up,down}-line-or-search. You may well not notice this, however. o Cursor keys are now usually bound in both vi command and insert mode. In the latter case, this may result in a slight delay after hitting ESCAPE to exit insert mode. Purists who object to this can unbind the appropriate key sequences (see zshzle(1)). Most beginning users of zsh apparently find the current behaviour preferable. o History file format is incompatible with versions older than 3.0.6, but this should only affect people who try to share history files between the two versions -- 4.0 can read the old format, 3.0.6 and later can read the new format. Just beware of INC_APPEND_HISTORY, which could conceivably mix the two. o Default compctl completions have been removed for some builtin commands. Either use the new compinit-derived system, use the improved compctls from Misc/compctl-examples, or restore these equivalents yourself: compctl -b bindkey compctl -v export typeset vared compctl -o setopt unsetopt compctl -c which Documentation ------------- There are a number of documents about zsh in this distribution: Doc/Zsh/*.yo The master source for the zsh documentation is written in yodl. Yodl is a document language written by Karel Kubat. It is not required by zsh but but it is a nice program so you might want to get it anyway, especially if you are a zsh developer. It can be downloaded from ftp://ftp.lilypond.org/pub/yodl/ Doc/zsh*.1 Man pages in nroff format. These will be installed by "make install.man" or "make install". By default, these will be installed in /usr/local/man/man1, although you can change this with the --mandir option to configure or editing the user configuration section of the top level Makefile. Doc/zsh.texi Everything the man pages have, but in texinfo format. These will be installed by "make install.info" or "make install". By default, these will be installed in /usr/local/info, although you can change this with the --infodir option to configure or editing the user configuration section of the top level Makefile. Also include in the distribution are: Doc/intro.ms An introduction to zsh in troff format using the ms macros. This document explains many of the features that make zsh more equal than other shells. Unfortunately this is based on zsh-2.5 so some examples may not work without changes but it is still a good introduction. For more information, see the website, as described in the META-FAQ. If you do not have the necessary tools to process these documents, PostScript, ASCII, Info and DVI versions are available in the separate file zsh-doc.tar.gz at the archive sites listed in the META-FAQ. The distribution also contains a Perl script in Utils/helpfiles which can be used to extract the descriptions of builtin commands from the zshbuiltins manual page. See the comments at the beginning of the script about its usage. The files created by this script can be used by example function run-help located in the subdirectory Functions/Misc to show information about zsh builtins and run `man' on external commands. For this the shell variable HELPDIR should point to a directory containing the files generated by the helpfiles script. run-help should be unaliased before loading the run-help function. After that this function will be executed by the run-help ZLE function which is by default bound to ESC-h in emacs mode. Examples -------- Examples of zsh startup files are located in the subdirectory StartupFiles. Examples of zsh functions and scripts are located in the subdirectory Functions. Examples of completion control commands (compctl) are located in the file Misc/compctl-examples. Zsh FTP Sites, Web Pages, and Mailing Lists ------------------------------------------- The current list of zsh FTP sites, web pages, and mailing lists can be found in the META-FAQ. A copy is included in this distribution and is available separately at any of the zsh FTP sites. Common Problems and Frequently Asked Questions ---------------------------------------------- Zsh has a list of Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) maintained by Peter Stephenson . It covers many common problems encountered when building, installing, and using zsh. A copy is included in this distribution in Etc/FAQ and is available separately at any of the zsh ftp sites. Zsh Maintenance and Bug Reports ------------------------------- Zsh is currently maintained by the members of the zsh-workers mailing list and coordinated by Peter Stephenson . Please send any feedback and bugs reports to . Reports are most helpful if you can reproduce the bug starting zsh with the -f option. This skips the execution of local startup files except /etc/zshenv. If a bug occurs only when some options set try to locate the option which triggers the bug. There is a script "reporter" in the subdirectory Util which will print out your current shell environment/setup. If you cannot reproduce the bug with "zsh -f", use this script and include the output from sourcing this file. This way, the problem you are reporting can be recreated. The known bugs in zsh are listed in the file Etc/BUGS. Check this as well as the Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) list before sending a bug report. Note that zsh has some features which are not compatible with sh but these are not bugs. Most of these incompatibilities go away when zsh is invoked as sh or ksh (e.g. using a symbolic link). If you send a bug report to the list and are not a subscriber, please mention this in your message if you want a response. If you would like to contribute to the development and maintenance of zsh, then you should join the zsh-workers mailing list (check the META-FAQ for info on this). You should also read the "zsh-development-guide" located in the subdirectory Util. Contributors ------------ The people who have contributed to this software project are listed in Etc/CONTRIBUTORS.