zshmodules(1)
NAME
zshmodules - zsh loadable modules
DESCRIPTION
Some optional parts of zsh are in modules, separate from the core of
the shell. Each of these modules may be linked in to the shell at
build time, or can be dynamically linked while the shell is running if
the installation supports this feature. The modules that are bundled
with the zsh distribution are:
zsh/cap
Builtins for manipulating POSIX.1e (POSIX.6) capability (privi-
lege) sets.
zsh/clone
A builtin that can clone a running shell onto another terminal.
zsh/compctl
The compctl builtin for controlling completion.
zsh/complete
The basic completion code.
zsh/complist
Completion listing extensions.
zsh/computil
A module with utility builtins needed for the shell function
based completion system.
zsh/datetime
Some date/time commands and parameters.
zsh/deltochar
A ZLE function duplicating EMACS' zap-to-char.
zsh/example
An example of how to write a module.
zsh/files
Some basic file manipulation commands as builtins.
zsh/mapfile
Access to external files via a special associative array.
zsh/mathfunc
Standard scientific functions for use in mathematical evalua-
tions.
zsh/parameter
Access to internal hash tables via special associative arrays.
zsh/pcre
Interface to the PCRE library.
zsh/sched
A builtin that provides a timed execution facility within the
shell.
zsh/net/socket
Manipulation of Unix domain sockets
zsh/stat
A builtin command interface to the stat system call.
zsh/system
A builtin interface to various low-level system features.
zsh/net/tcp
Manipulation of TCP sockets
zsh/termcap
Interface to the termcap database.
zsh/terminfo
Interface to the terminfo database.
zsh/zftp
A builtin FTP client.
zsh/zle
The Zsh Line Editor, including the bindkey and vared builtins.
zsh/zleparameter
Access to internals of the Zsh Line Editor via parameters.
zsh/zprof
A module allowing profiling for shell functions.
zsh/zpty
A builtin for starting a command in a pseudo-terminal.
zsh/zselect
Block and return when file descriptors are ready.
zsh/zutil
Some utility builtins, e.g. the one for supporting configuration
via styles.
THE ZSH/CAP MODULE
The zsh/cap module is used for manipulating POSIX.1e (POSIX.6) capabil-
ity sets. If the operating system does not support this interface, the
builtins defined by this module will do nothing. The builtins in this
module are:
cap [ capabilities ]
Change the shell's process capability sets to the specified
capabilities, otherwise display the shell's current capabili-
ties.
getcap filename ...
This is a built-in implementation of the POSIX standard utility.
It displays the capability sets on each specified filename.
setcap capabilities filename ...
This is a built-in implementation of the POSIX standard utility.
It sets the capability sets on each specified filename to the
specified capabilities.
THE ZSH/CLONE MODULE
The zsh/clone module makes available one builtin command:
clone tty
Creates a forked instance of the current shell, attached to the
specified tty. In the new shell, the PID, PPID and TTY special
parameters are changed appropriately. $! is set to zero in the
new shell, and to the new shell's PID in the original shell.
The return value of the builtin is zero in both shells if suc-
cessful, and non-zero on error.
The target of clone should be an unused terminal, such as an
unused virtual console or a virtual terminal created by
xterm -e sh -c 'trap : INT QUIT TSTP; tty; while :; do sleep
100000000; done'
Some words of explanation are warranted about this long xterm
command line: when doing clone on a pseudo-terminal, some other
session ("session" meant as a unix session group, or SID) is
already owning the terminal. Hence the cloned zsh cannot acquire
the pseudo-terminal as a controlling tty. That means two things:
the job control signals will go to the sh-started-by-xterm
process
group (that's why we disable INT QUIT and TSTP with trap;
otherwise
the while loop could get suspended or killed)
the cloned shell will have job control disabled, and the job
control keys (control-C, control-\ and control-Z) will not
work.
This does not apply when cloning to an unused vc.
Cloning to an used (and unprepared) terminal will result in two
processes reading simultaneously from the same terminal, with
input bytes going randomly to either process.
clone is mostly useful as a shell built-in replacement for
openvt.
THE ZSH/COMPCTL MODULE
The zsh/compctl module makes available two builtin commands. compctl,
is the old, deprecated way to control completions for ZLE. See zshcom-
pctl(1). The other builtin command, compcall can be used in
user-defined completion widgets, see zshcompwid(1).
THE ZSH/COMPLETE MODULE
The zsh/complete module makes available several builtin commands which
can be used in user-defined completion widgets, see zshcompwid(1).
THE ZSH/COMPLIST MODULE
The zsh/complist module offers three extensions to completion listings:
the ability to highlight matches in such a list, the ability to scroll
through long lists and a different style of menu completion.
Colored completion listings
Whenever one of the parameters ZLS_COLORS or ZLS_COLOURS is set and the
zsh/complist module is loaded or linked into the shell, completion
lists will be colored. Note, however, that complist will not automati-
cally be loaded if it is not linked in: on systems with dynamic load-
ing, `zmodload zsh/complist' is required.
The parameters ZLS_COLORS and ZLS_COLOURS describe how matches are
highlighted. To turn on highlighting an empty value suffices, in which
case all the default values given below will be used. The format of
the value of these parameters is the same as used by the GNU version of
the ls command: a colon-separated list of specifications of the form
`name=value'. The name may be one of the following strings, most of
which specify file types for which the value will be used. The strings
and their default values are:
no 0 for normal text (i.e. when displaying something other than a
matched file)
fi 0 for regular files
di 32 for directories
ln 36 for symbolic links
pi 31 for named pipes (FIFOs)
so 33 for sockets
bd 44;37
for block devices
cd 44;37
for character devices
ex 35 for executable files
mi none
for a non-existent file (default is the value defined for fi)
lc \e[ for the left code (see below)
rc m for the right code
tc 0 for the character indicating the file type printed after file-
names if the LIST_TYPES option is set
sp 0 for the spaces printed after matches to align the next column
ec none
for the end code
Apart from these strings, the name may also be an asterisk (`*') fol-
lowed by any string. The value given for such a string will be used for
all files whose name ends with the string. The name may also be an
equals sign (`=') followed by a pattern. The value given for this pat-
tern will be used for all matches (not just filenames) whose display
string are matched by the pattern. Definitions for both of these take
precedence over the values defined for file types and the form with the
leading asterisk takes precedence over the form with the leading equal
sign.
The last form also allows different parts of the displayed strings to
be colored differently. For this, the pattern has to use the `(#b)'
globbing flag and pairs of parentheses surrounding the parts of the
strings that are to be colored differently. In this case the value may
consist of more than one color code separated by equal signs. The
first code will be used for all parts for which no explicit code is
specified and the following codes will be used for the parts matched by
the sub-patterns in parentheses. For example, the specification
`=(#b)(?)*(?)=0=3=7' will be used for all matches which are at least
two characters long and will use the code `3' for the first character,
`7' for the last character and `0' for the rest.
All three forms of name may be preceded by a pattern in parentheses.
If this is given, the value will be used only for matches in groups
whose names are matched by the pattern given in the parentheses. For
example, `(g*)m*=43' highlights all matches beginning with `m' in
groups whose names begin with `g' using the color code `43'. In case
of the `lc', `rc', and `ec' codes, the group pattern is ignored.
Note also that all patterns are tried in the order in which they appear
in the parameter value until the first one matches which is then used.
When printing a match, the code prints the value of lc, the value for
the file-type or the last matching specification with a `*', the value
of rc, the string to display for the match itself, and then the value
of ec if that is defined or the values of lc, no, and rc if ec is not
defined.
The default values are ISO 6429 (ANSI) compliant and can be used on
vt100 compatible terminals such as xterms. On monochrome terminals the
default values will have no visible effect. The colors function from
the contribution can be used to get associative arrays containing the
codes for ANSI terminals (see the section `Other Functions' in zshcon-
trib(1)). For example, after loading colors, one could use `$col-
ors[red]' to get the code for foreground color red and `$col-
ors[bg-green]' for the code for background color green.
If the completion system invoked by compinit is used, these parameters
should not be set directly because the system controls them itself.
Instead, the list-colors style should be used (see the section `Comple-
tion System Configuration' in zshcompsys(1)).
Scrolling in completion listings
To enable scrolling through a completion list, the LISTPROMPT parameter
must be set. Its value will be used as the prompt; if it is the empty
string, a default prompt will be used. The value may contain escapes
of the form `%x'. It supports the escapes `%B', `%b', `%S', `%s',
`%U', `%u' and `%{...%}' used also in shell prompts as well as three
pairs of additional sequences: a `%l' or `%L' is replaced by the number
of the last line shown and the total number of lines in the form `num-
ber/total'; a `%m' or `%M' is replaced with the number of the last
match shown and the total number of matches; and `%p' or `%P' is
replaced with `Top', `Bottom' or the position of the first line shown
in percent of the total number of lines, respectively. In each of
these cases the form with the uppercase letter will be replaced with a
string of fixed width, padded to the right with spaces, while the low-
ercase form will not be padded.
If the parameter LISTPROMPT is set, the completion code will not ask if
the list should be shown. Instead it immediately starts displaying the
list, stopping after the first screenful, showing the prompt at the
bottom, waiting for a keypress after temporarily switching to the
listscroll keymap. Some of the zle functions have a special meaning
while scrolling lists:
send-break
stops listing discarding the key pressed
accept-line, down-history, down-line-or-history
down-line-or-search, vi-down-line-or-history
scrolls forward one line
complete-word, menu-complete, expand-or-complete
expand-or-complete-prefix, menu-complete-or-expand
scrolls forward one screenful
Every other character stops listing and immediately processes the key
as usual. Any key that is not bound in the listscroll keymap or that
is bound to undefined-key is looked up in the keymap currently
selected.
As for the ZLS_COLORS and ZLS_COLOURS parameters, LISTPROMPT should not
be set directly when using the shell function based completion system.
Instead, the list-prompt style should be used.
Menu selection
The zsh/complist module also offers an alternative style of selecting
matches from a list, called menu selection, which can be used if the
shell is set up to return to the last prompt after showing a completion
list (see the ALWAYS_LAST_PROMPT option in zshoptions(1)). It can be
invoked directly by the widget menu-select defined by the module.
Alternatively, the parameter MENUSELECT can be set to an integer, which
gives the minimum number of matches that must be present before menu
selection is automatically turned on. This second method requires that
menu completion be started, either directly from a widget such as
menu-complete, or due to one of the options MENU_COMPLETE or AUTO_MENU
being set. If MENUSELECT is set, but is 0, 1 or empty, menu selection
will always be started during an ambiguous menu completion.
When using the completion system based on shell functions, the MENUSE-
LECT parameter should not be used (like the ZLS_COLORS and ZLS_COLOURS
parameters described above). Instead, the menu style should be used
with the select=... keyword.
After menu selection is started, the matches will be listed. If there
are more matches than fit on the screen, only the first screenful is
shown. The matches to insert into the command line can be selected
from this list. In the list one match is highlighted using the value
for ma from the ZLS_COLORS or ZLS_COLOURS parameter. The default value
for this is `7' which forces the selected match to be highlighted using
standout mode on a vt100-compatible terminal. If neither ZLS_COLORS
nor ZLS_COLOURS is set, the same terminal control sequence as for the
`%S' escape in prompts is used.
If there are more matches than fit on the screen and the parameter
MENUPROMPT is set, its value will be shown below the matches. It sup-
ports the same escape sequences as LISTPROMPT, but the number of the
match or line shown will be that of the one where the mark is placed.
If its value is the empty string, a default prompt will be used.
The MENUSCROLL parameter can be used to specify how the list is
scrolled. If the parameter is unset, this is done line by line, if it
is set to `0' (zero), the list will scroll half the number of lines of
the screen. If the value is positive, it gives the number of lines to
scroll and if it is negative, the list will be scrolled the number of
lines of the screen minus the (absolute) value.
As for the ZLS_COLORS, ZLS_COLOURS and LISTPROMPT parameters, neither
MENUPROMPT nor MENUSCROLL should be set directly when using the shell
function based completion system. Instead, the select-prompt and
select-scroll styles should be used.
The completion code sometimes decides not to show all of the matches in
the list. These hidden matches are either matches for which the com-
pletion function which added them explicitly requested that they not
appear in the list (using the -n option of the compadd builtin command)
or they are matches which duplicate a string already in the list
(because they differ only in things like prefixes or suffixes that are
not displayed). In the list used for menu selection, however, even
these matches are shown so that it is possible to select them. To
highlight such matches the hi and du capabilities in the ZLS_COLORS and
ZLS_COLOURS parameters are supported for hidden matches of the first
and second kind, respectively.
Selecting matches is done by moving the mark around using the zle move-
ment functions. When not all matches can be shown on the screen at the
same time, the list will scroll up and down when crossing the top or
bottom line. The following zle functions have special meaning during
menu selection:
accept-line
accepts the current match and leaves menu selection
send-break
leaves menu selection and restores the previous contents of the
command line
redisplay, clear-screen
execute their normal function without leaving menu selection
accept-and-hold, accept-and-menu-complete
accept the currently inserted match and continue selection
allowing to select the next match to insert into the line
accept-and-infer-next-history
accepts the current match and then tries completion with menu
selection again; in the case of files this allows one to select
a directory and immediately attempt to complete files in it; if
there are no matches, a message is shown and one can use undo to
go back to completion on the previous level, every other key
leaves menu selection (including the other zle functions which
are otherwise special during menu selection)
undo removes matches inserted during the menu selection by one of the
three functions before
down-history, down-line-or-history
vi-down-line-or-history, down-line-or-search
moves the mark one line down
up-history, up-line-or-history
vi-up-line-or-history, up-line-or-search
moves the mark one line up
forward-char, vi-forward-char
moves the mark one column right
backward-char, vi-backward-char
moves the mark one column left
forward-word, vi-forward-word
vi-forward-word-end, emacs-forward-word
moves the mark one screenful down
backward-word, vi-backward-word, emacs-backward-word
moves the mark one screenful up
vi-forward-blank-word, vi-forward-blank-word-end
moves the mark to the first line of the next group of matches
vi-backward-blank-word
moves the mark to the last line of the previous group of matches
beginning-of-history
moves the mark to the first line
end-of-history
moves the mark to the last line
beginning-of-buffer-or-history, beginning-of-line
beginning-of-line-hist, vi-beginning-of-line
moves the mark to the leftmost column
end-of-buffer-or-history, end-of-line
end-of-line-hist, vi-end-of-line
moves the mark to the rightmost column
complete-word, menu-complete, expand-or-complete
expand-or-complete-prefix, menu-expand-or-complete
moves the mark to the next match
reverse-menu-complete
moves the mark to the previous match
vi-insert
this toggles between normal and interactive mode; in interactive
mode the keys bound to self-insert and self-insert-unmeta insert
into the command line as in normal editing mode but without
leaving menu selection; after each character completion is tried
again and the list changes to contain only the new matches; the
completion widgets make the longest unambiguous string be
inserted in the command line and undo and backward-delete-char
go back to the previous set of matches
history-incremental-search-forward,
history-incremental-search-backward this starts incremental
searches in the list of completions displayed; in this mode,
accept-line only leaves incremental search, going back to the
normal menu selection mode
All movement functions wrap around at the edges; any other zle function
not listed leaves menu selection and executes that function. It is
possible to make widgets in the above list do the same by using the
form of the widget with a `.' in front. For example, the widget
`.accept-line' has the effect of leaving menu selection and accepting
the entire command line.
During this selection the widget uses the keymap menuselect. Any key
that is not defined in this keymap or that is bound to undefined-key is
looked up in the keymap currently selected. This is used to ensure
that the most important keys used during selection (namely the cursor
keys, return, and TAB) have sensible defaults. However, keys in the
menuselect keymap can be modified directly using the bindkey builtin
command (see zshmodules(1)). For example, to make the return key leave
menu selection without accepting the match currently selected one could
call
bindkey -M menuselect '^M' send-break
after loading the zsh/complist module.
THE ZSH/COMPUTIL MODULE
The zsh/computil module adds several builtin commands that are used by
some of the completion functions in the completion system based on
shell functions (see zshcompsys(1) ). Except for compquote these
builtin commands are very specialised and thus not very interesting
when writing your own completion functions. In summary, these builtin
commands are:
comparguments
This is used by the _arguments function to do the argument and
command line parsing. Like compdescribe it has an option -i to
do the parsing and initialize some internal state and various
options to access the state information to decide what should be
completed.
compdescribe
This is used by the _describe function to build the displays for
the matches and to get the strings to add as matches with their
options. On the first call one of the options -i or -I should
be supplied as the first argument. In the first case, display
strings without the descriptions will be generated, in the sec-
ond case, the string used to separate the matches from their
descriptions must be given as the second argument and the
descriptions (if any) will be shown. All other arguments are
like the definition arguments to _describe itself.
Once compdescribe has been called with either the -i or the -I
option, it can be repeatedly called with the -g option and the
names of five arrays as its arguments. This will step through
the different sets of matches and store the options in the first
array, the strings with descriptions in the second, the matches
for these in the third, the strings without descriptions in the
fourth, and the matches for them in the fifth array. These are
then directly given to compadd to register the matches with the
completion code.
compfiles
Used by the _path_files function to optimize complex recursive
filename generation (globbing). It does three things. With the
-p and -P options it builds the glob patterns to use, including
the paths already handled and trying to optimize the patterns
with respect to the prefix and suffix from the line and the
match specification currently used. The -i option does the
directory tests for the ignore-parents style and the -r option
tests if a component for some of the matches are equal to the
string on the line and removes all other matches if that is
true.
compgroups
Used by the _tags function to implement the internals of the
group-order style. This only takes its arguments as names of
completion groups and creates the groups for it (all six types:
sorted and unsorted, both without removing duplicates, with
removing all duplicates and with removing consecutive dupli-
cates).
compquote [ -p ] names ...
There may be reasons to write completion functions that have to
add the matches using the -Q option to compadd and perform quot-
ing themselves. Instead of interpreting the first character of
the all_quotes key of the compstate special association and
using the q flag for parameter expansions, one can use this
builtin command. The arguments are the names of scalar or array
parameters and the values of these parameters are quoted as
needed for the innermost quoting level. If the -p option is
given, quoting is done as if there is some prefix before the
values of the parameters, so that a leading equal sign will not
be quoted.
The return value is non-zero in case of an error and zero other-
wise.
comptags
comptry
These implement the internals of the tags mechanism.
compvalues
Like comparguments, but for the _values function.
THE ZSH/DATETIME MODULE
The zsh/datetime module makes available one builtin command:
strftime [ -s scalar ] format epochtime
Output the date denoted by epochtime in the format specified.
If -s scalar is given, assign the date to scalar instead of
printing it.
The zsh/datetime module makes available one parameter:
EPOCHSECONDS
An integer value representing the number of seconds since the
epoch.
THE ZSH/DELTOCHAR MODULE
The zsh/deltochar module makes available two ZLE functions:
delete-to-char
Read a character from the keyboard, and delete from the cursor
position up to and including the next (or, with repeat count n,
the nth) instance of that character. Negative repeat counts
mean delete backwards.
zap-to-char
This behaves like delete-to-char, except that the final occur-
rence of the character itself is not deleted.
THE ZSH/EXAMPLE MODULE
The zsh/example module makes available one builtin command:
example [ -flags ] [ args ... ]
Displays the flags and arguments it is invoked with.
The purpose of the module is to serve as an example of how to write a
module.
THE ZSH/FILES MODULE
The zsh/files module makes some standard commands available as
builtins:
chgrp [ -Rs ] group filename ...
Changes group of files specified. This is equivalent to chown
with a user-spec argument of `:group'.
chown [ -Rs ] user-spec filename ...
Changes ownership and group of files specified.
The user-spec can be in four forms:
user change owner to user; do not change group
user:: change owner to user; do not change group
user: change owner to user; change group to user's primary
group
user:group
change owner to user; change group to group
:group do not change owner; change group to group
In each case, the `:' may instead be a `.'. The rule is that if
there is a `:' then the separator is `:', otherwise if there is
a `.' then the separator is `.', otherwise there is no separa-
tor.
Each of user and group may be either a username (or group name,
as appropriate) or a decimal user ID (group ID). Interpretation
as a name takes precedence, if there is an all-numeric username
(or group name).
The -R option causes chown to recursively descend into directo-
ries, changing the ownership of all files in the directory after
changing the ownership of the directory itself.
The -s option is a zsh extension to chown functionality. It
enables paranoid behaviour, intended to avoid security problems
involving a chown being tricked into affecting files other than
the ones intended. It will refuse to follow symbolic links, so
that (for example) ``chown luser /tmp/foo/passwd'' can't acci-
dentally chown /etc/passwd if /tmp/foo happens to be a link to
/etc. It will also check where it is after leaving directories,
so that a recursive chown of a deep directory tree can't end up
recursively chowning /usr as a result of directories being moved
up the tree.
ln [ -dfis ] filename dest
ln [ -dfis ] filename ... dir
Creates hard (or, with -s, symbolic) links. In the first form,
the specified destination is created, as a link to the specified
filename. In the second form, each of the filenames is taken in
turn, and linked to a pathname in the specified directory that
has the same last pathname component.
Normally, ln will not attempt to create hard links to directo-
ries. This check can be overridden using the -d option. Typi-
cally only the super-user can actually succeed in creating hard
links to directories. This does not apply to symbolic links in
any case.
By default, existing files cannot be replaced by links. The -i
option causes the user to be queried about replacing existing
files. The -f option causes existing files to be silently
deleted, without querying. -f takes precedence.
mkdir [ -p ] [ -m mode ] dir ...
Creates directories. With the -p option, non-existing parent
directories are first created if necessary, and there will be no
complaint if the directory already exists. The -m option can be
used to specify (in octal) a set of file permissions for the
created directories, otherwise mode 777 modified by the current
umask (see umask(2)) is used.
mv [ -fi ] filename dest
mv [ -fi ] filename ... dir
Moves files. In the first form, the specified filename is moved
to the specified destination. In the second form, each of the
filenames is taken in turn, and moved to a pathname in the spec-
ified directory that has the same last pathname component.
By default, the user will be queried before replacing any file
that the user cannot write to, but writable files will be
silently removed. The -i option causes the user to be queried
about replacing any existing files. The -f option causes any
existing files to be silently deleted, without querying. -f
takes precedence.
Note that this mv will not move files across devices. Histori-
cal versions of mv, when actual renaming is impossible, fall
back on copying and removing files; if this behaviour is
desired, use cp and rm manually. This may change in a future
version.
rm [ -dfirs ] filename ...
Removes files and directories specified.
Normally, rm will not remove directories (except with the -r
option). The -d option causes rm to try removing directories
with unlink (see unlink(2)), the same method used for files.
Typically only the super-user can actually succeed in unlinking
directories in this way. -d takes precedence over -r.
By default, the user will be queried before removing any file
that the user cannot write to, but writable files will be
silently removed. The -i option causes the user to be queried
about removing any files. The -f option causes files to be
silently deleted, without querying, and suppresses all error
indications. -f takes precedence.
The -r option causes rm to recursively descend into directories,
deleting all files in the directory before removing the direc-
tory with the rmdir system call (see rmdir(2)).
The -s option is a zsh extension to rm functionality. It
enables paranoid behaviour, intended to avoid common security
problems involving a root-run rm being tricked into removing
files other than the ones intended. It will refuse to follow
symbolic links, so that (for example) ``rm /tmp/foo/passwd''
can't accidentally remove /etc/passwd if /tmp/foo happens to be
a link to /etc. It will also check where it is after leaving
directories, so that a recursive removal of a deep directory
tree can't end up recursively removing /usr as a result of
directories being moved up the tree.
rmdir dir ...
Removes empty directories specified.
sync Calls the system call of the same name (see sync(2)), which
flushes dirty buffers to disk. It might return before the I/O
has actually been completed.
THE ZSH/MAPFILE MODULE
The zsh/mapfile module provides one special associative array parameter
of the same name.
mapfile
This associative array takes as keys the names of files; the
resulting value is the content of the file. The value is
treated identically to any other text coming from a parameter.
The value may also be assigned to, in which case the file in
question is written (whether or not it originally existed); or
an element may be unset, which will delete the file in question.
For example, `vared mapfile[myfile]' works as expected, editing
the file `myfile'.
When the array is accessed as a whole, the keys are the names of
files in the current directory, and the values are empty (to
save a huge overhead in memory). Thus ${(k)mapfile} has the
same affect as the glob operator *(D), since files beginning
with a dot are not special. Care must be taken with expressions
such as rm ${(k)mapfile}, which will delete every file in the
current directory without the usual `rm *' test.
The parameter mapfile may be made read-only; in that case, files
referenced may not be written or deleted.
Limitations
Although reading and writing of the file in question is efficiently
handled, zsh's internal memory management may be arbitrarily baroque.
Thus it should not automatically be assumed that use of mapfile repre-
sents a gain in efficiency over use of other mechanisms. Note in par-
ticular that the whole contents of the file will always reside physi-
cally in memory when accessed (possibly multiple times, due to standard
parameter substitution operations). In particular, this means handling
of sufficiently long files (greater than the machine's swap space, or
than the range of the pointer type) will be incorrect.
No errors are printed or flagged for non-existent, unreadable, or
unwritable files, as the parameter mechanism is too low in the shell
execution hierarchy to make this convenient.
It is unfortunate that the mechanism for loading modules does not yet
allow the user to specify the name of the shell parameter to be given
the special behaviour.
THE ZSH/MATHFUNC MODULE
The zsh/mathfunc module provides standard mathematical functions for
use when evaluating mathematical formulae. The syntax agrees with nor-
mal C and FORTRAN conventions, for example,
(( f = sin(0.3) ))
assigns the sine of 0.3 to the parameter f.
Most functions take floating point arguments and return a floating
point value. However, any necessary conversions from or to integer
type will be performed automatically by the shell. Apart from atan
with a second argument and the abs, int and float functions, all func-
tions behave as noted in the manual page for the corresponding C func-
tion, except that any arguments out of range for the function in ques-
tion will be detected by the shell and an error reported.
The following functions take a single floating point argument: acos,
acosh, asin, asinh, atan, atanh, cbrt, ceil, cos, cosh, erf, erfc, exp,
expm1, fabs, floor, gamma, j0, j1, lgamma, log, log10, log1p, logb,
sin, sinh, sqrt, tan, tanh, y0, y1. The atan function can optionally
take a second argument, in which case it behaves like the C function
atan2. The ilogb function takes a single floating point argument, but
returns an integer.
The function signgam takes no arguments, and returns an integer, which
is the C variable of the same name, as described in gamma(3). Note
that it is therefore only useful immediately after a call to gamma or
lgamma. Note also that `signgam()' and `signgam' are distinct expres-
sions.
The following functions take two floating point arguments: copysign,
fmod, hypot, nextafter.
The following take an integer first argument and a floating point sec-
ond argument: jn, yn.
The following take a floating point first argument and an integer sec-
ond argument: ldexp, scalb.
The function abs does not convert the type of its single argument; it
returns the absolute value of either a floating point number or an
integer. The functions float and int convert their arguments into a
floating point or integer value (by truncation) respectively.
Note that the C pow function is available in ordinary math evaluation
as the `**' operator and is not provided here.
The function rand48 is available if your system's mathematical library
has the function erand48(3). It returns a pseudo-random floating point
number between 0 and 1. It takes a single string optional argument.
If the argument is not present, the random number seed is initialised
by three calls to the rand(3) function --- this produces the same ran-
dom numbers as the next three values of $RANDOM.
If the argument is present, it gives the name of a scalar parameter
where the current random number seed will be stored. On the first
call, the value must contain at least twelve hexadecimal digits (the
remainder of the string is ignored), or the seed will be initialised in
the same manner as for a call to rand48 with no argument. Subsequent
calls to rand48(param) will then maintain the seed in the parameter
param as a string of twelve hexadecimal digits, with no base signifier.
The random number sequences for different parameters are completely
independent, and are also independent from that used by calls to rand48
with no argument.
For example, consider
print $(( rand48(seed) ))
print $(( rand48() ))
print $(( rand48(seed) ))
Assuming $seed does not exist, it will be initialised by the first
call. In the second call, the default seed is initialised; note, how-
ever, that because of the properties of rand() there is a correlation
between the seeds used for the two initialisations, so for more secure
uses, you should generate your own 12-byte seed. The third call
returns to the same sequence of random numbers used in the first call,
unaffected by the intervening rand48().
THE ZSH/PARAMETER MODULE
The zsh/parameter module gives access to some of the internal hash
tables used by the shell by defining some special parameters.
options
The keys for this associative array are the names of the options
that can be set and unset using the setopt and unsetopt
builtins. The value of each key is either the string on if the
option is currently set, or the string off if the option is
unset. Setting a key to one of these strings is like setting or
unsetting the option, respectively. Unsetting a key in this
array is like setting it to the value off.
commands
This array gives access to the command hash table. The keys are
the names of external commands, the values are the pathnames of
the files that would be executed when the command would be
invoked. Setting a key in this array defines a new entry in this
table in the same way as with the hash builtin. Unsetting a key
as in `unset "commands[foo]"' removes the entry for the given
key from the command hash table.
functions
This associative array maps names of enabled functions to their
definitions. Setting a key in it is like defining a function
with the name given by the key and the body given by the value.
Unsetting a key removes the definition for the function named by
the key.
dis_functions
Like functions but for disabled functions.
builtins
This associative array gives information about the builtin com-
mands currently enabled. The keys are the names of the builtin
commands and the values are either `undefined' for builtin com-
mands that will automatically be loaded from a module if invoked
or `defined' for builtin commands that are already loaded.
dis_builtins
Like builtins but for disabled builtin commands.
reswords
This array contains the enabled reserved words.
dis_reswords
Like reswords but for disabled reserved words.
aliases
This maps the names of the regular aliases currently enabled to
their expansions.
dis_aliases
Like aliases but for disabled regular aliases.
galiases
Like aliases, but for global aliases.
dis_galiases
Like galiases but for disabled global aliases.
saliases
Like raliases, but for suffix aliases.
dis_saliases
Like saliases but for disabled suffix aliases.
parameters
The keys in this associative array are the names of the parame-
ters currently defined. The values are strings describing the
type of the parameter, in the same format used by the t parame-
ter flag, see zshexpn(1) . Setting or unsetting keys in this
array is not possible.
modules
An associative array giving information about modules. The keys
are the names of the modules loaded, registered to be
autoloaded, or aliased. The value says which state the named
module is in and is one of the strings `loaded', `autoloaded',
or `alias:name', where name is the name the module is aliased
to.
Setting or unsetting keys in this array is not possible.
dirstack
A normal array holding the elements of the directory stack. Note
that the output of the dirs builtin command includes one more
directory, the current working directory.
history
This associative array maps history event numbers to the full
history lines.
historywords
A special array containing the words stored in the history.
jobdirs
This associative array maps job numbers to the directories from
which the job was started (which may not be the current direc-
tory of the job).
jobtexts
This associative array maps job numbers to the texts of the com-
mand lines that were used to start the jobs.
jobstates
This associative array gives information about the states of the
jobs currently known. The keys are the job numbers and the val-
ues are strings of the form `job-state:mark:pid=state...'. The
job-state gives the state the whole job is currently in, one of
`running', `suspended', or `done'. The mark is `+' for the cur-
rent job, `-' for the previous job and empty otherwise. This is
followed by one `pid=state' for every process in the job. The
pids are, of course, the process IDs and the state describes the
state of that process.
nameddirs
This associative array maps the names of named directories to
the pathnames they stand for.
userdirs
This associative array maps user names to the pathnames of their
home directories.
funcstack
This array contains the names of the functions currently being
executed. The first element is the name of the function using
the parameter.
THE ZSH/PCRE MODULE
The zsh/pcre module makes some commands available as builtins:
pcre_compile [ -aimx ] PCRE
Compiles a perl-compatible regular expression.
Option -a will force the pattern to be anchored. Option -i will
compile a case-insensitive pattern. Option -m will compile a
multi-line pattern; that is, ^ and $ will match newlines within
the pattern. Option -x will compile an extended pattern,
wherein whitespace and # comments are ignored.
pcre_study
Studies the previously-compiled PCRE which may result in faster
matching.
pcre_match [ -a arr ] string
Returns successfully if string matches the previously-compiled
PCRE.
If the expression captures substrings within parentheses,
pcre_match will set the array $match to those substrings, unless
the -a option is given, in which case it will set the array arr.
The zsh/pcre module makes available the following test condition:
expr -pcre-match pcre
Matches a string against a perl-compatible regular expression.
For example,
[[ "$text" -pcre-match ^d+$ ]] && print text variable contains
only "d's".
THE ZSH/SCHED MODULE
The zsh/sched module makes available one builtin command:
sched [+]hh:mm command ...
sched [ -item ]
Make an entry in the scheduled list of commands to execute. The
time may be specified in either absolute or relative time. With
no arguments, prints the list of scheduled commands. With the
argument `-item', removes the given item from the list.
THE ZSH/NET/SOCKET MODULE
The zsh/net/socket module makes available one builtin command:
zsocket [ -altv ] [ -d fd ] [ args ]
zsocket is implemented as a builtin to allow full use of shell
command line editing, file I/O, and job control mechanisms.
Outbound Connections
zsocket [ -v ] [ -d fd ] filename
Open a new Unix domain connection to filename. The shell param-
eter REPLY will be set to the file descriptor associated with
that connection. Currently, only stream connections are sup-
ported.
If -d is specified, its argument will be taken as the target
file descriptor for the connection.
In order to elicit more verbose output, use -v.
Inbound Connections
zsocket -l [ -v ] [ -d fd ] filename
zsocket -l will open a socket listening on filename. The shell
parameter REPLY will be set to the file descriptor associated
with that listener.
If -d is specified, its argument will be taken as the target
file descriptor for the connection.
In order to elicit more verbose output, use -v.
zsocket -a [ -tv ] [ -d targetfd ] listenfd
zsocket -a will accept an incoming connection to the socket
associated with listenfd. The shell parameter REPLY will be set
to the file descriptor associated with the inbound connection.
If -d is specified, its argument will be taken as the target
file descriptor for the connection.
If -t is specified, zsocket will return if no incoming connec-
tion is pending. Otherwise it will wait for one.
In order to elicit more verbose output, use -v.
THE ZSH/STAT MODULE
The zsh/stat module makes available one builtin command:
stat [ -gnNolLtTrs ] [ -f fd ] [ -H hash ] [ -A array ] [ -F fmt ] [
+element ] [ file ... ]
The command acts as a front end to the stat system call (see
stat(2)). If the stat call fails, the appropriate system error
message printed and status 1 is returned. The fields of struct
stat give information about the files provided as arguments to
the command. In addition to those available from the stat call,
an extra element `link' is provided. These elements are:
device The number of the device on which the file resides.
inode The unique number of the file on this device (`inode'
number).
mode The mode of the file; that is, the file's type and access
permissions. With the -s option, this will be returned
as a string corresponding to the first column in the dis-
play of the ls -l command.
nlink The number of hard links to the file.
uid The user ID of the owner of the file. With the -s
option, this is displayed as a user name.
gid The group ID of the file. With the -s option, this is
displayed as a group name.
rdev The raw device number. This is only useful for special
devices.
size The size of the file in bytes.
atime
mtime
ctime The last access, modification and inode change times of
the file, respectively, as the number of seconds since
midnight GMT on 1st January, 1970. With the -s option,
these are printed as strings for the local time zone; the
format can be altered with the -F option, and with the -g
option the times are in GMT.
blksize
The number of bytes in one allocation block on the device
on which the file resides.
block The number of disk blocks used by the file.
link If the file is a link and the -L option is in effect,
this contains the name of the file linked to, otherwise
it is empty. Note that if this element is selected
(``stat +link'') then the -L option is automatically
used.
A particular element may be selected by including its name pre-
ceded by a `+' in the option list; only one element is allowed.
The element may be shortened to any unique set of leading char-
acters. Otherwise, all elements will be shown for all files.
Options:
-A array
Instead of displaying the results on standard output,
assign them to an array, one struct stat element per
array element for each file in order. In this case nei-
ther the name of the element nor the name of the files
appears in array unless the -t or -n options were given,
respectively. If -t is given, the element name appears
as a prefix to the appropriate array element; if -n is
given, the file name appears as a separate array element
preceding all the others. Other formatting options are
respected.
-H hash
Similar to -A, but instead assign the values to hash.
The keys are the elements listed above. If the -n option
is provided then the name of the file is included in the
hash with key name.
-f fd Use the file on file descriptor fd instead of named
files; no list of file names is allowed in this case.
-F fmt Supplies a strftime (see strftime(3)) string for the for-
matting of the time elements. The -s option is implied.
-g Show the time elements in the GMT time zone. The -s
option is implied.
-l List the names of the type elements (to standard output
or an array as appropriate) and return immediately;
options other than -A and arguments are ignored.
-L Perform an lstat (see lstat(2)) rather than a stat system
call. In this case, if the file is a link, information
about the link itself rather than the target file is
returned. This option is required to make the link ele-
ment useful.
-n Always show the names of files. Usually these are only
shown when output is to standard output and there is more
than one file in the list.
-N Never show the names of files.
-o If a raw file mode is printed, show it in octal, which is
more useful for human consumption than the default of
decimal. A leading zero will be printed in this case.
Note that this does not affect whether a raw or formatted
file mode is shown, which is controlled by the -r and -s
options, nor whether a mode is shown at all.
-r Print raw data (the default format) alongside string data
(the -s format); the string data appears in parentheses
after the raw data.
-s Print mode, uid, gid and the three time elements as
strings instead of numbers. In each case the format is
like that of ls -l.
-t Always show the type names for the elements of struct
stat. Usually these are only shown when output is to
standard output and no individual element has been
selected.
-T Never show the type names of the struct stat elements.
THE ZSH/SYSTEM MODULE
The zsh/system module makes available three builtin commands and a
parameter.
BUILTINS
syserror [ -e errvar ] [ -p prefix ] [ errno | errname ]
This command prints out the error message associated with errno,
a system error number, followed by a newline to standard error.
Instead of the error number, a name errname, for example ENOENT,
may be used. The set of names is the same as the contents of
the array errnos, see below.
If the string prefix is given, it is printed in front of the
error message, with no intervening space.
If errvar is supplied, the entire message, without a newline, is
assigned to the parameter names errvar and nothing is output.
A return value of 0 indicates the message was successfully
printed (although it may not be useful if the error number was
out of the system's range), a return value of 1 indicates an
error in the parameters, and a return value of 2 indicates the
error name was not recognised (no message is printed for this).
sysread [ -c countvar ] [ -i infd ] [ -o outfd ]
[ -s bufsize ] [ -t timeout ] [ param ]
Perform a single system read from file descriptor infd, or zero
if that is not given. The result of the read is stored in param
or REPLY if that is not given. If countvar is given, the number
of bytes read is assigned to the parameter named by countvar.
The maximum number of bytes read is bufsize or 8192 if that is
not given, however the command returns as soon as any number of
bytes was successfully read.
If timeout is given, it specifies a timeout in seconds, which
may be zero to poll the file descriptor. This is handled by the
poll system call if available, otherwise the select system call
if available.
If outfd is given, an attempt is made to write all the bytes
just read to the file descriptor outfd. If this fails, because
of a system error other than EINTR or because of an internal zsh
error during an interrupt, the bytes read but not written are
stored in the parameter named by param if supplied (no default
is used in this case), and the number of bytes read but not
written is stored in the parameter named by countvar if that is
supplied. If it was successful, countvar contains the full num-
ber of bytes transferred, as usual, and param is not set.
The error EINTR (interrupted system call) is handled internally
so that shell interrupts are transparent to the caller. Any
other error causes a return.
The possible return values are
0 At least one byte of data was successfully read and, if
appropriate, written.
1 There was an error in the parameters to the command.
This is the only error for which a message is printed to
standard error.
2 There was an error on the read, or on polling the input
file descriptor for a timeout. The parameter ERRNO gives
the error.
3 Data were successfully read, but there was an error writ-
ing them to outfd. The parameter ERRNO gives the error.
4 The attempt to read timed out. Note this does not set
ERRNO as this is not a system error.
5 No system error occurred, but zero bytes were read. This
usually indicates end of file. The parameters are set
according to the usual rules; no write to outfd is
attempted.
syswrite [ -c countvar ] [ -o outfd ] data
The data (a single string of bytes) are written to the file
descriptor outfd, or 1 if that is not given, using the write
system call. Multiple write operations may be used if the first
does not write all the data.
If countvar is given, the number of byte written is stored in
the parameter named by countvar; this may not be the full length
of data if an error occurred.
The error EINTR (interrupted system call) is handled internally
by retrying; otherwise an error causes the command to return.
For example, if the file descriptor is set to non-blocking out-
put, an error EAGAIN (on some systems, EWOULDBLOCK) may result
in the command returning early.
The return status may be 0 for success, 1 for an error in the
parameters to the command, or 2 for an error on the write; no
error message is printed in the last case, but the parameter
ERRNO will reflect the error that occurred.
PARAMETERS
errnos A readonly array of the names of errors defined on the system.
These are typically macros defined in C by including the system
header file errno.h. The index of each name (assuming the
option KSH_ARRAYS is unset) corresponds to the error number.
Error numbers num before the last known error which have no name
are given the name Enum in the array.
Note that aliases for errors are not handled; only the canonical
name is used.
THE ZSH/NET/TCP MODULE
The zsh/net/tcp module makes available one builtin command:
ztcp [ -acflLtv ] [ -d fd ] [ args ]
ztcp is implemented as a builtin to allow full use of shell com-
mand line editing, file I/O, and job control mechanisms.
If ztcp is run with no options, it will output the contents of
its session table.
If it is run with only the option -L, it will output the con-
tents of the session table in a format suitable for automatic
parsing. The option is ignored if given with a command to open
or close a session. The output consists of a set of lines, one
per session, each containing the following elements separated by
spaces:
File descriptor
The file descriptor in use for the connection. For nor-
mal inbound (I) and outbound (O) connections this may be
read and written by the usual shell mechanisms. However,
it should only be close with `ztcp -c'.
Connection type
A letter indicating how the session was created:
Z A session created with the zftp command.
L A connection opened for listening with `ztcp -l'.
I An inbound connection accepted with `ztcp -a'.
O An outbound connection created with `ztcp host
...'.
The local host
This is usually set to an all-zero IP address as the
address of the localhost is irrelevant.
The local port
This is likely to be zero unless the connection is for
listening.
The remote host
This is the fully qualified domain name of the peer, if
available, else an IP address. It is an all-zero IP
address for a session opened for listening.
The remote port
This is zero for a connection opened for listening.
Outbound Connections
ztcp [ -v ] [ -d fd ] host [ port ]
Open a new TCP connection to host. If the port is omitted, it
will default to port 23. The connection will be added to the
session table and the shell parameter REPLY will be set to the
file descriptor associated with that connection.
If -d is specified, its argument will be taken as the target
file descriptor for the connection.
In order to elicit more verbose output, use -v.
Inbound Connections
ztcp -l [ -v ] [ -d fd ] port
ztcp -l will open a socket listening on TCP port. The socket
will be added to the session table and the shell parameter REPLY
will be set to the file descriptor associated with that lis-
tener.
If -d is specified, its argument will be taken as the target
file descriptor for the connection.
In order to elicit more verbose output, use -v.
ztcp -a [ -tv ] [ -d targetfd ] listenfd
ztcp -a will accept an incoming connection to the port associ-
ated with listenfd. The connection will be added to the session
table and the shell parameter REPLY will be set to the file
descriptor associated with the inbound connection.
If -d is specified, its argument will be taken as the target
file descriptor for the connection.
If -t is specified, ztcp will return if no incoming connection
is pending. Otherwise it will wait for one.
In order to elicit more verbose output, use -v.
Closing Connections
ztcp -cf [ -v ] [ fd ]
ztcp -c [ -v ] [ fd ]
ztcp -c will close the socket associated with fd. The socket
will be removed from the session table. If fd is not specified,
ztcp will close everything in the session table.
Normally, sockets registered by zftp (see zshmodules(1) ) cannot
be closed this way. In order to force such a socket closed, use
-f.
In order to elicit more verbose output, use -v.
Example
Here is how to create a TCP connection between two instances of zsh.
We need to pick an unassigned port; here we use the randomly chosen
5123.
On host1,
zmodload zsh/net/tcp
ztcp -l 5123
listenfd=$REPLY
ztcp -a $listenfd
fd=$REPLY
The second from last command blocks until there is an incoming connec-
tion.
Now create a connection from host2 (which may, of course, be the same
machine):
zmodload zsh/net/tcp
ztcp host1 5123
fd=$REPLY
Now on each host, $fd contains a file descriptor for talking to the
other. For example, on host1:
print This is a message >&$fd
and on host2:
read -r line <&$fd; print -r - $line
prints `This is a message'.
To tidy up, on host1:
ztcp -c $listenfd
ztcp -c $fd
and on host2
ztcp -c $fd
THE ZSH/TERMCAP MODULE
The zsh/termcap module makes available one builtin command:
echotc cap [ arg ... ]
Output the termcap value corresponding to the capability cap,
with optional arguments.
The zsh/termcap module makes available one parameter:
termcap
An associative array that maps termcap capability codes to their
values.
THE ZSH/TERMINFO MODULE
The zsh/terminfo module makes available one builtin command:
echoti cap [ arg ]
Output the terminfo value corresponding to the capability cap,
instantiated with arg if applicable.
The zsh/terminfo module makes available one parameter:
terminfo
An associative array that maps terminfo capability names to
their values.
THE ZSH/ZFTP MODULE
The zsh/zftp module makes available one builtin command:
zftp subcommand [ args ]
The zsh/zftp module is a client for FTP (file transfer proto-
col). It is implemented as a builtin to allow full use of shell
command line editing, file I/O, and job control mechanisms.
Often, users will access it via shell functions providing a more
powerful interface; a set is provided with the zsh distribution
and is described in zshzftpsys(1). However, the zftp command is
entirely usable in its own right.
All commands consist of the command name zftp followed by the
name of a subcommand. These are listed below. The return sta-
tus of each subcommand is supposed to reflect the success or
failure of the remote operation. See a description of the vari-
able ZFTP_VERBOSE for more information on how responses from the
server may be printed.
Subcommands
open host[:port] [ user [ password [ account ] ] ]
Open a new FTP session to host, which may be the name of a
TCP/IP connected host or an IP number in the standard dot nota-
tion. If the argument is in the form host:port, open a connec-
tion to TCP port port instead of the standard FTP port 21. This
may be the name of a TCP service or a number: see the descrip-
tion of ZFTP_PORT below for more information.
If IPv6 addresses in colon format are used, the host should be
surrounded by quoted square brackets to distinguish it from the
port, for example '[fe80::203:baff:fe02:8b56]'. For consistency
this is allowed with all forms of host.
Remaining arguments are passed to the login subcommand. Note
that if no arguments beyond host are supplied, open will not
automatically call login. If no arguments at all are supplied,
open will use the parameters set by the params subcommand.
After a successful open, the shell variables ZFTP_HOST,
ZFTP_PORT, ZFTP_IP and ZFTP_SYSTEM are available; see `Vari-
ables' below.
login [ name [ password [ account ] ] ]
user [ name [ password [ account ] ] ]
Login the user name with parameters password and account. Any
of the parameters can be omitted, and will be read from standard
input if needed (name is always needed). If standard input is a
terminal, a prompt for each one will be printed on standard
error and password will not be echoed. If any of the parameters
are not used, a warning message is printed.
After a successful login, the shell variables ZFTP_USER,
ZFTP_ACCOUNT and ZFTP_PWD are available; see `Variables' below.
This command may be re-issued when a user is already logged in,
and the server will first be reinitialized for a new user.
params [ host [ user [ password [ account ] ] ] ]
params -
Store the given parameters for a later open command with no
arguments. Only those given on the command line will be remem-
bered. If no arguments are given, the parameters currently set
are printed, although the password will appear as a line of
stars; the return value is one if no parameters were set, zero
otherwise.
Any of the parameters may be specified as a `?', which may need
to be quoted to protect it from shell expansion. In this case,
the appropriate parameter will be read from stdin as with the
login subcommand, including special handling of password. If
the `?' is followed by a string, that is used as the prompt for
reading the parameter instead of the default message (any neces-
sary punctuation and whitespace should be included at the end of
the prompt). The first letter of the parameter (only) may be
quoted with a `\'; hence an argument "\\$word" guarantees that
the string from the shell parameter $word will be treated liter-
ally, whether or not it begins with a `?'.
If instead a single `-' is given, the existing parameters, if
any, are deleted. In that case, calling open with no arguments
will cause an error.
The list of parameters is not deleted after a close, however it
will be deleted if the zsh/zftp module is unloaded.
For example,
zftp params ftp.elsewhere.xx juser '?Password for juser: '
will store the host ftp.elsewhere.xx and the user juser and then
prompt the user for the corresponding password with the given
prompt.
test Test the connection; if the server has reported that it has
closed the connection (maybe due to a timeout), return status 2;
if no connection was open anyway, return status 1; else return
status 0. The test subcommand is silent, apart from messages
printed by the $ZFTP_VERBOSE mechanism, or error messages if the
connection closes. There is no network overhead for this test.
The test is only supported on systems with either the select(2)
or poll(2) system calls; otherwise the message `not supported on
this system' is printed instead.
The test subcommand will automatically be called at the start of
any other subcommand for the current session when a connection
is open.
cd directory
Change the remote directory to directory. Also alters the shell
variable ZFTP_PWD.
cdup Change the remote directory to the one higher in the directory
tree. Note that cd .. will also work correctly on non-UNIX sys-
tems.
dir [ args... ]
Give a (verbose) listing of the remote directory. The args are
passed directly to the server. The command's behaviour is imple-
mentation dependent, but a UNIX server will typically interpret
args as arguments to the ls command and with no arguments return
the result of `ls -l'. The directory is listed to standard out-
put.
ls [ args ]
Give a (short) listing of the remote directory. With no args,
produces a raw list of the files in the directory, one per line.
Otherwise, up to vagaries of the server implementation, behaves
similar to dir.
type [ type ]
Change the type for the transfer to type, or print the current
type if type is absent. The allowed values are `A' (ASCII), `I'
(Image, i.e. binary), or `B' (a synonym for `I').
The FTP default for a transfer is ASCII. However, if zftp finds
that the remote host is a UNIX machine with 8-bit byes, it will
automatically switch to using binary for file transfers upon
open. This can subsequently be overridden.
The transfer type is only passed to the remote host when a data
connection is established; this command involves no network
overhead.
ascii The same as type A.
binary The same as type I.
mode [ S | B ]
Set the mode type to stream (S) or block (B). Stream mode is
the default; block mode is not widely supported.
remote files...
local [ files... ]
Print the size and last modification time of the remote or local
files. If there is more than one item on the list, the name of
the file is printed first. The first number is the file size,
the second is the last modification time of the file in the for-
mat CCYYMMDDhhmmSS consisting of year, month, date, hour, min-
utes and seconds in GMT. Note that this format, including the
length, is guaranteed, so that time strings can be directly com-
pared via the [[ builtin's < and > operators, even if they are
too long to be represented as integers.
Not all servers support the commands for retrieving this infor-
mation. In that case, the remote command will print nothing and
return status 2, compared with status 1 for a file not found.
The local command (but not remote) may be used with no argu-
ments, in which case the information comes from examining file
descriptor zero. This is the same file as seen by a put command
with no further redirection.
get file [...]
Retrieve all files from the server, concatenating them and send-
ing them to standard output.
put file [...]
For each file, read a file from standard input and send that to
the remote host with the given name.
append file [...]
As put, but if the remote file already exists, data is appended
to it instead of overwriting it.
getat file point
putat file point
appendat file point
Versions of get, put and append which will start the transfer at
the given point in the remote file. This is useful for append-
ing to an incomplete local file. However, note that this abil-
ity is not universally supported by servers (and is not quite
the behaviour specified by the standard).
delete file [...]
Delete the list of files on the server.
mkdir directory
Create a new directory directory on the server.
rmdir directory
Delete the directory directory on the server.
rename old-name new-name
Rename file old-name to new-name on the server.
site args...
Send a host-specific command to the server. You will probably
only need this if instructed by the server to use it.
quote args...
Send the raw FTP command sequence to the server. You should be
familiar with the FTP command set as defined in RFC959 before
doing this. Useful commands may include STAT and HELP. Note
also the mechanism for returning messages as described for the
variable ZFTP_VERBOSE below, in particular that all messages
from the control connection are sent to standard error.
close
quit Close the current data connection. This unsets the shell param-
eters ZFTP_HOST, ZFTP_PORT, ZFTP_IP, ZFTP_SYSTEM, ZFTP_USER,
ZFTP_ACCOUNT, ZFTP_PWD, ZFTP_TYPE and ZFTP_MODE.
session [ sessname ]
Allows multiple FTP sessions to be used at once. The name of
the session is an arbitrary string of characters; the default
session is called `default'. If this command is called without
an argument, it will list all the current sessions; with an
argument, it will either switch to the existing session called
sessname, or create a new session of that name.
Each session remembers the status of the connection, the set of
connection-specific shell parameters (the same set as are unset
when a connection closes, as given in the description of close),
and any user parameters specified with the params subcommand.
Changing to a previous session restores those values; changing
to a new session initialises them in the same way as if zftp had
just been loaded. The name of the current session is given by
the parameter ZFTP_SESSION.
rmsession [ sessname ]
Delete a session; if a name is not given, the current session is
deleted. If the current session is deleted, the earliest exist-
ing session becomes the new current session, otherwise the cur-
rent session is not changed. If the session being deleted is
the only one, a new session called `default' is created and
becomes the current session; note that this is a new session
even if the session being deleted is also called `default'. It
is recommended that sessions not be deleted while background
commands which use zftp are still active.
Parameters
The following shell parameters are used by zftp. Currently none of
them are special.
ZFTP_TMOUT
Integer. The time in seconds to wait for a network operation to
complete before returning an error. If this is not set when the
module is loaded, it will be given the default value 60. A
value of zero turns off timeouts. If a timeout occurs on the
control connection it will be closed. Use a larger value if
this occurs too frequently.
ZFTP_IP
Readonly. The IP address of the current connection in dot nota-
tion.
ZFTP_HOST
Readonly. The hostname of the current remote server. If the
host was opened as an IP number, ZFTP_HOST contains that
instead; this saves the overhead for a name lookup, as IP num-
bers are most commonly used when a nameserver is unavailable.
ZFTP_PORT
Readonly. The number of the remote TCP port to which the con-
nection is open (even if the port was originally specified as a
named service). Usually this is the standard FTP port, 21.
In the unlikely event that your system does not have the appro-
priate conversion functions, this appears in network byte order.
If your system is little-endian, the port then consists of two
swapped bytes and the standard port will be reported as 5376.
In that case, numeric ports passed to zftp open will also need
to be in this format.
ZFTP_SYSTEM
Readonly. The system type string returned by the server in
response to an FTP SYST request. The most interesting case is a
string beginning "UNIX Type: L8", which ensures maximum compati-
bility with a local UNIX host.
ZFTP_TYPE
Readonly. The type to be used for data transfers , either `A'
or `I'. Use the type subcommand to change this.
ZFTP_USER
Readonly. The username currently logged in, if any.
ZFTP_ACCOUNT
Readonly. The account name of the current user, if any. Most
servers do not require an account name.
ZFTP_PWD
Readonly. The current directory on the server.
ZFTP_CODE
Readonly. The three digit code of the last FTP reply from the
server as a string. This can still be read after the connection
is closed, and is not changed when the current session changes.
ZFTP_REPLY
Readonly. The last line of the last reply sent by the server.
This can still be read after the connection is closed, and is
not changed when the current session changes.
ZFTP_SESSION
Readonly. The name of the current FTP session; see the descrip-
tion of the session subcommand.
ZFTP_PREFS
A string of preferences for altering aspects of zftp's behav-
iour. Each preference is a single character. The following are
defined:
P Passive: attempt to make the remote server initiate data
transfers. This is slightly more efficient than sendport
mode. If the letter S occurs later in the string, zftp
will use sendport mode if passive mode is not available.
S Sendport: initiate transfers by the FTP PORT command.
If this occurs before any P in the string, passive mode
will never be attempted.
D Dumb: use only the bare minimum of FTP commands. This
prevents the variables ZFTP_SYSTEM and ZFTP_PWD from
being set, and will mean all connections default to ASCII
type. It may prevent ZFTP_SIZE from being set during a
transfer if the server does not send it anyway (many
servers do).
If ZFTP_PREFS is not set when zftp is loaded, it will be set to
a default of `PS', i.e. use passive mode if available, otherwise
fall back to sendport mode.
ZFTP_VERBOSE
A string of digits between 0 and 5 inclusive, specifying which
responses from the server should be printed. All responses go
to standard error. If any of the numbers 1 to 5 appear in the
string, raw responses from the server with reply codes beginning
with that digit will be printed to standard error. The first
digit of the three digit reply code is defined by RFC959 to cor-
respond to:
1. A positive preliminary reply.
2. A positive completion reply.
3. A positive intermediate reply.
4. A transient negative completion reply.
5. A permanent negative completion reply.
It should be noted that, for unknown reasons, the reply `Service
not available', which forces termination of a connection, is
classified as 421, i.e. `transient negative', an interesting
interpretation of the word `transient'.
The code 0 is special: it indicates that all but the last line
of multiline replies read from the server will be printed to
standard error in a processed format. By convention, servers
use this mechanism for sending information for the user to read.
The appropriate reply code, if it matches the same response,
takes priority.
If ZFTP_VERBOSE is not set when zftp is loaded, it will be set
to the default value 450, i.e., messages destined for the user
and all errors will be printed. A null string is valid and
specifies that no messages should be printed.
Functions
zftp_chpwd
If this function is set by the user, it is called every time the
directory changes on the server, including when a user is logged
in, or when a connection is closed. In the last case, $ZFTP_PWD
will be unset; otherwise it will reflect the new directory.
zftp_progress
If this function is set by the user, it will be called during a
get, put or append operation each time sufficient data has been
received from the host. During a get, the data is sent to stan-
dard output, so it is vital that this function should write to
standard error or directly to the terminal, not to standard out-
put.
When it is called with a transfer in progress, the following
additional shell parameters are set:
ZFTP_FILE
The name of the remote file being transferred from or to.
ZFTP_TRANSFER
A G for a get operation and a P for a put operation.
ZFTP_SIZE
The total size of the complete file being transferred:
the same as the first value provided by the remote and
local subcommands for a particular file. If the server
cannot supply this value for a remote file being
retrieved, it will not be set. If input is from a pipe
the value may be incorrect and correspond simply to a
full pipe buffer.
ZFTP_COUNT
The amount of data so far transferred; a number between
zero and $ZFTP_SIZE, if that is set. This number is
always available.
The function is initially called with ZFTP_TRANSFER set appro-
priately and ZFTP_COUNT set to zero. After the transfer is fin-
ished, the function will be called one more time with
ZFTP_TRANSFER set to GF or PF, in case it wishes to tidy up. It
is otherwise never called twice with the same value of
ZFTP_COUNT.
Sometimes the progress meter may cause disruption. It is up to
the user to decide whether the function should be defined and to
use unfunction when necessary.
Problems
A connection may not be opened in the left hand side of a pipe as this
occurs in a subshell and the file information is not updated in the
main shell. In the case of type or mode changes or closing the connec-
tion in a subshell, the information is returned but variables are not
updated until the next call to zftp. Other status changes in subshells
will not be reflected by changes to the variables (but should be other-
wise harmless).
Deleting sessions while a zftp command is active in the background can
have unexpected effects, even if it does not use the session being
deleted. This is because all shell subprocesses share information on
the state of all connections, and deleting a session changes the order-
ing of that information.
On some operating systems, the control connection is not valid after a
fork(), so that operations in subshells, on the left hand side of a
pipeline, or in the background are not possible, as they should be.
This is presumably a bug in the operating system.
THE ZSH/ZLE MODULE
The zsh/zle module contains the Zsh Line Editor. See zshzle(1).
THE ZSH/ZLEPARAMETER MODULE
The zsh/zleparameter module defines two special parameters that can be
used to access internal information of the Zsh Line Editor (see zsh-
zle(1)).
keymaps
This array contains the names of the keymaps currently defined.
widgets
This associative array contains one entry per widget defined.
The name of the widget is the key and the value gives informa-
tion about the widget. It is either the string `builtin' for
builtin widgets, a string of the form `user:name' for
user-defined widgets, where name is the name of the shell func-
tion implementing the widget, or it is a string of the form
`completion:type:name', for completion widgets. In the last case
type is the name of the builtin widgets the completion widget
imitates in its behavior and name is the name of the shell func-
tion implementing the completion widget.
THE ZSH/ZPROF MODULE
When loaded, the zsh/zprof causes shell functions to be profiled. The
profiling results can be obtained with the zprof builtin command made
available by this module. There is no way to turn profiling off other
than unloading the module.
zprof [ -c ]
Without the -c option, zprof lists profiling results to standard
output. The format is comparable to that of commands like
gprof.
At the top there is a summary listing all functions that were
called at least once. This summary is sorted in decreasing
order of the amount of time spent in each. The lines contain
the number of the function in order, which is used in other
parts of the list in suffixes of the form `[num]'.RE, then the
number of calls made to the function. The next three columns
list the time in milliseconds spent in the function and its
descendents, the average time in milliseconds spent in the func-
tion and its descendents per call and the percentage of time
spent in all shell functions used in this function and its
descendents. The following three columns give the same informa-
tion, but counting only the time spent in the function itself.
The final column shows the name of the function.
After the summary, detailed information about every function
that was invoked is listed, sorted in decreasing order of the
amount of time spent in each function and its descendents. Each
of these entries consists of descriptions for the functions that
called the function described, the function itself, and the
functions that were called from it. The description for the
function itself has the same format as in the summary (and shows
the same information). The other lines don't show the number of
the function at the beginning and have their function named
indented to make it easier to distinguish the line showing the
function described in the section from the surrounding lines.
The information shown in this case is almost the same as in the
summary, but only refers to the call hierarchy being displayed.
For example, for a calling function the column showing the total
running time lists the time spent in the described function and
its descendents only for the times when it was called from that
particular calling function. Likewise, for a called function,
this columns lists the total time spent in the called function
and its descendents only for the times when it was called from
the function described.
Also in this case, the column showing the number of calls to a
function also shows a slash and then the total number of invoca-
tions made to the called function.
As long as the zsh/zprof module is loaded, profiling will be
done and multiple invocations of the zprof builtin command will
show the times and numbers of calls since the module was loaded.
With the -c option, the zprof builtin command will reset its
internal counters and will not show the listing. )
THE ZSH/ZPTY MODULE
The zsh/zpty module offers one builtin:
zpty [ -e ] [ -b ] name [ arg ... ]
The arguments following name are concatenated with spaces
between, then executed as a command, as if passed to the eval
builtin. The command runs under a newly assigned pseudo-termi-
nal; this is useful for running commands non-interactively which
expect an interactive environment. The name is not part of the
command, but is used to refer to this command in later calls to
zpty.
With the -e option, the pseudo-terminal is set up so that input
characters are echoed.
With the -b option, input to and output from the pseudo-terminal
are made non-blocking.
zpty -d [ names ... ]
The second form, with the -d option, is used to delete commands
previously started, by supplying a list of their names. If no
names are given, all commands are deleted. Deleting a command
causes the HUP signal to be sent to the corresponding process.
zpty -w [ -n ] name [ strings ... ]
The -w option can be used to send the to command name the given
strings as input (separated by spaces). If the -n option is not
given, a newline is added at the end.
If no strings are provided, the standard input is copied to the
pseudo-terminal; this may stop before copying the full input if
the pseudo-terminal is non-blocking.
Note that the command under the pseudo-terminal sees this input
as if it were typed, so beware when sending special tty driver
characters such as word-erase, line-kill, and end-of-file.
zpty -r [ -t ] name [ param [ pattern ] ]
The -r option can be used to read the output of the command
name. With only a name argument, the output read is copied to
the standard output. Unless the pseudo-terminal is non-block-
ing, copying continues until the command under the pseudo-termi-
nal exits; when non-blocking, only as much output as is immedi-
ately available is copied. The return value is zero if any out-
put is copied.
When also given a param argument, at most one line is read and
stored in the parameter named param. Less than a full line may
be read if the pseudo-terminal is non-blocking. The return
value is zero if at least one character is stored in param.
If a pattern is given as well, output is read until the whole
string read matches the pattern, even in the non-blocking case.
The return value is zero if the string read matches the pattern,
or if the command has exited but at least one character could
still be read. As of this writing, a maximum of one megabyte of
output can be consumed this way; if a full megabyte is read
without matching the pattern, the return value is non-zero.
In all cases, the return value is non-zero if nothing could be
read, and is 2 if this is because the command has finished.
If the -r option is combined with the -t option, zpty tests
whether output is available before trying to read. If no output
is available, zpty immediately returns the value 1.
zpty -t name
The -t option without the -r option can be used to test whether
the command name is still running. It returns a zero value if
the command is running and a non-zero value otherwise.
zpty [ -L ]
The last form, without any arguments, is used to list the com-
mands currently defined. If the -L option is given, this is
done in the form of calls to the zpty builtin.
THE ZSH/ZSELECT MODULE
The zsh/zselect module makes available one builtin command:
zselect [ -rwe -t timeout -a array ] [ fd ... ]
The zselect builtin is a front-end to the `select' system call,
which blocks until a file descriptor is ready for reading or
writing, or has an error condition, with an optional timeout.
If this is not available on your system, the command prints an
error message and returns status 2 (normal errors return status
1). For more information, see your systems documentation for
select(3). Note there is no connection with the shell builtin
of the same name.
Arguments and options may be intermingled in any order.
Non-option arguments are file descriptors, which must be decimal
integers. By default, file descriptors are to be tested for
reading, i.e. zselect will return when data is available to be
read from the file descriptor, or more precisely, when a read
operation from the file descriptor will not block. After a -r,
-w and -e, the given file descriptors are to be tested for read-
ing, writing, or error conditions. These options and an arbi-
trary list of file descriptors may be given in any order.
(The presence of an `error condition' is not well defined in the
documentation for many implementations of the select system
call. According to recent versions of the POSIX specification,
it is really an exception condition, of which the only standard
example is out-of-band data received on a socket. So zsh users
are unlikely to find the -e option useful.)
The option `-t timeout' specifies a timeout in hundredths of a
second. This may be zero, in which case the file descriptors
will simply be polled and zselect will return immediately. It
is possible to call zselect with no file descriptors and a
non-zero timeout for use as a finer-grained replacement for
`sleep'; not, however, the return status is always 1 for a time-
out.
The option `-a array' indicates that array should be set to
indicate the file descriptor(s) which are ready. If the option
is not given, the array reply will be used for this purpose.
The array will contain a string similar to the arguments for
zselect. For example,
zselect -t 0 -r 0 -w 1
might return immediately with status 0 and $reply containing `-r
0 -w 1' to show that both file descriptors are ready for the
requested operations.
The option `-A assoc' indicates that the associative array assoc
should be set to indicate the file descriptor(s) which are
ready. This option overrides the option -a, nor will reply be
modified. The keys of assoc are the file descriptors, and the
corresponding values are any of the characters `rwe' to indicate
the condition.
The command returns 0 if some file descriptors are ready for
reading. If the operation timed out, or a timeout of 0 was
given and no file descriptors were ready, or there was an error,
it returns status 1 and the array will not be set (nor modified
in any way). If there was an error in the select operation the
appropriate error message is printed.
THE ZSH/ZUTIL MODULE
The zsh/zutil module only adds some builtins:
zstyle [ -L ]
zstyle [ -e | - | -- ] pattern style strings ...
zstyle -d [ pattern [ styles ... ] ]
zstyle -g name [ pattern [ style ] ]
zstyle -abs context style name [ sep ]
zstyle -Tt context style [ strings ...]
zstyle -m context style pattern
This builtin command is used to define and lookup styles.
Styles are pairs of names and values, where the values consist
of any number of strings. They are stored together with pat-
terns and lookup is done by giving a string, called the `con-
text', which is compared to the patterns. The definition stored
for the first matching pattern will be returned.
For ordering of comparisons, patterns are searched from most
specific to least specific, and patterns that are equally spe-
cific keep the order in which they were defined. A pattern is
considered to be more specific than another if it contains more
components (substrings separated by colons) or if the patterns
for the components are more specific, where simple strings are
considered to be more specific than patterns and complex pat-
terns are considered to be more specific than the pattern `*'.
The first form (without arguments) lists the definitions in the
order zstyle will test them. If the -L option is given, listing
is done in the form of calls to zstyle. Forms with arguments:
zstyle [ - | -- | -e ] pattern style strings ...
Defines the given style for the pattern with the strings
as the value. If the -e option is given, the strings
will be concatenated (separated by spaces) and the
resulting string will be evaluated (in the same way as it
is done by the eval builtin command) when the style is
looked up. In this case the parameter `reply' must be
assigned to set the strings returned after the evalua-
tion. Before evaluating the value, reply is unset, and
if it is still unset after the evaluation, the style is
treated as if it were not set.
zstyle -d [ pattern [ styles ... ] ]
Delete style definitions. Without arguments all defini-
tions are deleted, with a pattern all definitions for
that pattern are deleted and if any styles are given,
then only those styles are deleted for the pattern.
zstyle -g name [ pattern [ style ] ]
Retrieve a style definition. The name is used as the name
of an array in which the results are stored. Without any
further arguments, all patterns defined are returned.
With a pattern the styles defined for that pattern are
returned and with both a pattern and a style, the value
strings of that combination is returned.
The other forms can be used to look up or test patterns.
zstyle -s context style name [ sep ]
The parameter name is set to the value of the style
interpreted as a string. If the value contains several
strings they are concatenated with spaces (or with the
sep string if that is given) between them.
zstyle -b context style name
The value is stored in name as a boolean, i.e. as the
string `yes' if the value has only one string and that
string is equal to one of `yes', `true', `on', or `1'. If
the value is any other string or has more than one
string, the parameter is set to `no'.
zstyle -a context style name
The value is stored in name as an array. If name is
declared as an associative array, the first, third, etc.
strings are used as the keys and the other strings are
used as the values.
zstyle -t context style [ strings ...]
zstyle -T context style [ strings ...]
Test the value of a style, i.e. the -t option only
returns a status (sets $?). Without any strings the
return status is zero if the style is defined for at
least one matching pattern, has only one string in its
value, and that is equal to one of `true', `yes', `on' or
`1'. If any strings are given the status is zero if and
only if at least one of the strings is equal to at least
one of the strings in the value. If the style is not
defined, the status is 2.
The -T option tests the values of the style like -t, but
it returns zero (rather than 2) if the style is not
defined for any matching pattern.
zstyle -m context style pattern
Match a value. Returns status zero if the pattern matches
at least one of the strings in the value.
zformat -f param format specs ...
zformat -a array sep specs ...
This builtin provides two different forms of formatting. The
first form is selected with the -f option. In this case the for-
mat string will be modified by replacing sequences starting with
a percent sign in it with strings from the specs. Each spec
should be of the form `char:string' which will cause every
appearance of the sequence `%char' in format to be replaced by
the string. The `%' sequence may also contain optional minimum
and maximum field width specifications between the `%' and the
`char' in the form `%min.maxc', i.e. the minimum field width is
given first and if the maximum field width is used, it has to be
preceded by a dot. Specifying a minimum field width makes the
result be padded with spaces to the right if the string is
shorter than the requested width. Padding to the left can be
achieved by giving a negative minimum field width. If a maximum
field width is specified, the string will be truncated after
that many characters. After all `%' sequences for the given
specs have been processed, the resulting string is stored in the
parameter param.
The %-escapes also understand ternary expressions in the form
used by prompts. The % is followed by a `(' and then an ordi-
nary format specifier character as described above. There may
be a set of digits either before or after the `('; these specify
a test number, which defaults to zero. Negative numbers are
also allowed. An arbitrary delimiter character follows the for-
mat specifier, which is followed by a piece of `true' text, the
delimiter character again, a piece of `false' text, and a clos-
ing parenthesis. The complete expression (without the digits)
thus looks like `%(X.text1.text2)', except that the `.' charac-
ter is arbitrary. The value given for the format specifier in
the char:string expressions is evaluated as a mathematical
expression, and compared with the test number. If they are the
same, text1 is output, else text2 is output. A parenthesis may
be escaped in text2 as %). Either of text1 or text2 may contain
nested %-escapes.
For example:
zformat -f REPLY "The answer is '%3(c.yes.no)'." c:3
outputs "The answer is 'yes'." to REPLY since the value for the
format specifier c is 3, agreeing with the digit argument to the
ternary expression.
The second form, using the -a option, can be used for aligning
strings. Here, the specs are of the form `left:right' where
`left' and `right' are arbitrary strings. These strings are
modified by replacing the colons by the sep string and padding
the left strings with spaces to the right so that the sep
strings in the result (and hence the right strings after them)
are all aligned if the strings are printed below each other.
All strings without a colon are left unchanged and all strings
with an empty right string have the trailing colon removed. In
both cases the lengths of the strings are not used to determine
how the other strings are to be aligned. The resulting strings
are stored in the array.
zregexparse
This implements some internals of the _regex_arguments function.
zparseopts [ -D ] [ -K ] [ -E ] [ -a array ] [ -A assoc ] specs
This builtin simplifies the parsing of options in positional
parameters, i.e. the set of arguments given by $*. Each spec
describes one option and must be of the form `opt[=array]'. If
an option described by opt is found in the positional parameters
it is copied into the array specified with the -a option; if the
optional `=array' is given, it is instead copied into that
array.
Note that it is an error to give any spec without an `=array'
unless one of the -a or -A options is used.
Unless the -E option is given, parsing stops at the first string
that isn't described by one of the specs. Even with -E, parsing
always stops at a positional parameter equal to `-' or `--'.
The opt description must be one of the following. Any of the
special characters can appear in the option name provided it is
preceded by a backslash.
name
name+ The name is the name of the option without the leading
`-'. To specify a GNU-style long option, one of the
usual two leading `-' must be included in name; for exam-
ple, a `--file' option is represented by a name of
`-file'.
If a `+' appears after name, the option is appended to
array each time it is found in the positional parameters;
without the `+' only the last occurrence of the option is
preserved.
If one of these forms is used, the option takes no argu-
ment, so parsing stops if the next positional parameter
does not also begin with `-' (unless the -E option is
used).
name:
name:-
name:: If one or two colons are given, the option takes an argu-
ment; with one colon, the argument is mandatory and with
two colons it is optional. The argument is appended to
the array after the option itself.
An optional argument is put into the same array element
as the option name (note that this makes empty strings as
arguments indistinguishable). A mandatory argument is
added as a separate element unless the `:-' form is used,
in which case the argument is put into the same element.
A `+' as described above may appear between the name and
the first colon.
The options of zparseopts itself are:
-a array
As described above, this names the default array in which to
store the recognised options.
-A assoc
If this is given, the options and their values are also put into
an associative array with the option names as keys and the argu-
ments (if any) as the values.
-D If this option is given, all options found are removed from the
positional parameters of the calling shell or shell function, up
to but not including any not described by the specs. This is
similar to using the shift builtin.
-K With this option, the arrays specified with the -a and -A
options and with the `=array' forms are kept unchanged when none
of the specs for them is used. This allows assignment of
default values to them before calling zparseopts.
-E This changes the parsing rules to not stop at the first string
that isn't described by one of the specs. It can be used to
test for or (if used together with -D) extract options and their
arguments, ignoring all other options and arguments that may be
in the positional parameters.
For example,
set -- -a -bx -c y -cz baz -cend
zparseopts a=foo b:=bar c+:=bar
will have the effect of
foo=(-a)
bar=(-b x -c y -c z)
The arguments from `baz' on will not be used.
As an example for the -E option, consider:
set -- -a x -b y -c z arg1 arg2
zparseopts -E -D b:=bar
will have the effect of
bar=(-b y)
set -- -a x -c z arg1 arg2
I.e., the option -b and its arguments are taken from the positional
parameters and put into the array bar.
zsh 4.2.6 November 28, 2005 ZSHMODULES(1)
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