## SYNOPSIS

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

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

## DESCRIPTION

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

## AUTHOR

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

## AVAILABILITY

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

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

           Australia
                  ftp://ftp.zsh.org/pub/zsh/
                  http://www.zsh.org/pub/zsh/
                  ftp://ftp.ips.gov.au/pub/packages/zsh/  (H)

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

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

           Italy
                  ftp://ftp.unina.it/pub/Unix/pkgs/shell/zsh/

           Japan
                  ftp://ftp.nisiq.net/pub/shells/zsh/  (H)
                  ftp://ftp.win.ne.jp/pub/shell/zsh/

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

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

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

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

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

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

           USA
                  ftp://uiarchive.uiuc.edu/pub/packages/shells/zsh/
                  ftp://ftp.rge.com/pub/shells/zsh/
                  ftp://foad.org/pub/zsh/
                  http://foad.org/zsh/

## MAILING LISTS

           Zsh has 3 mailing lists:

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

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

           NESTED.  All submissions to zsh-announce are automatically
           forwarded to zsh-users.  All submissions to zsh-users  are
           automatically forwarded to zsh-workers.

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

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

## THE ZSH FAQ

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

## THE ZSH WEB PAGE

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

## THE ZSH USERGUIDE

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

## INVOCATION OPTIONS

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

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

           -i     Force shell to be interactive.
           acts like a single-letter option, but  takes  a  following
           string as the option name.  For example,

                  zsh -x -o shwordsplit scr

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

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

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

           Option  processing  may  be  finished,  allowing following
           arguments that start with `-' or `+' to be treated as nor
           mal  arguments, in two ways.  Firstly, a lone `-' (or `+')
           as an argument by itself  ends  option  processing.   Sec
           ondly, a special option `--' (or `+-'), which may be spec
           ified on its own (which is the standard  POSIX  usage)  or
           may be stacked with preceding options (so `-x-' is equiva
           lent to `-x --').  Options are not permitted to be stacked
           after `--' (so `-x-f' is an error), but note the GNU-style
           option form discussed above, where `--shwordsplit' is per
           mitted and does not end option processing.

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

## COMPATIBILITY

           PROMPT4, psvar, status, watch.

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

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

## RESTRICTED SHELL

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

           ·      changing directories with the cd builtin

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

           ·      specifying command names containing /

           ·      specifying command pathnames using hash

           ·      redirecting output to files

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

           ·      using jobs -Z to overwrite the shell process' argu
                  ment and environment space

           restrictions described above even if the shell  still  has
           not processed all startup files.

## STARTUP/SHUTDOWN FILES

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

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

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

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

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

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

## FILES

           $ZDOTDIR/.zshenv
           $ZDOTDIR/.zprofile
           zshexpn(1), zshmisc(1), zshmodules(1), zshoptions(1), zsh
           param(1), zshzle(1)

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

    zsh 4.0.6                August 14, 2002                   ZSH(1)