This is zsh.info, produced by makeinfo version 4.6 from tzsh.texi. INFO-DIR-SECTION Utilities START-INFO-DIR-ENTRY * ZSH: (zsh). The Z Shell Manual. END-INFO-DIR-ENTRY  File: zsh.info, Node: Shell Builtin Commands, Next: Zsh Line Editor, Prev: Options, Up: Top Shell Builtin Commands ********************** - SIMPLE COMMAND See *Note Precommand Modifiers::. . FILE [ ARG ... ] Read commands from FILE and execute them in the current shell environment. If FILE does not contain a slash, or if PATH_DIRS is set, the shell looks in the components of $path to find the directory containing FILE. Files in the current directory are not read unless `.' appears somewhere in $path. If a file named `FILE.zwc' is found, is newer than FILE, and is the compiled form (created with the zcompile builtin) of FILE, then commands are read from that file instead of FILE. If any arguments ARG are given, they become the positional parameters; the old positional parameters are restored when the FILE is done executing. The exit status is the exit status of the last command executed. : [ ARG ... ] This command does nothing, although normal argument expansions is performed which may have effects on shell parameters. A zero exit code is returned. alias [ {+|-}gmrsL ] [ NAME[=VALUE] ... ] For each NAME with a corresponding VALUE, define an alias with that value. A trailing space in VALUE causes the next word to be checked for alias expansion. If the -g flag is present, define a global alias; global aliases are expanded even if they do not occur in command position. If the -s flags is present, define a suffix alias: if the command word on a command line is in the form `TEXT.NAME', where TEXT is any non-empty string, it is replaced by the text `VALUE TEXT.NAME'. Note that NAME is treated as a literal string, not a pattern. A trailing space in VALUE is not special in this case. For example, alias -s ps=gv will cause the command `*.ps' to be expanded to `gv *.ps'. As alias expansion is carried out earlier than globbing, the `*.ps' will then be expanded. Suffix aliases constitute a different name space from other aliases (so in the above example it is still possible to create an alias for the command ps) and the two sets are never listed together. For each NAME with no VALUE, print the value of NAME, if any. With no arguments, print all currently defined aliases other than suffix aliases. If the -m flag is given the arguments are taken as patterns (they should be quoted to preserve them from being interpreted as glob patterns), and the aliases matching these patterns are printed. When printing aliases and one of the -g, -r or -s flags is present, restrict the printing to global, regular or suffix aliases, respectively; a regular alias is one which is neither a global nor a suffix alias. Using `+' instead of `-', or ending the option list with a single `+', prevents the values of the aliases from being printed. If the -L flag is present, then print each alias in a manner suitable for putting in a startup script. The exit status is nonzero if a NAME (with no VALUE) is given for which no alias has been defined. autoload [ {+|-}UXmt ] [ -wkz ] [ NAME ... ] Equivalent to functions -u, with the exception of -X/+X, -w, -k and -z. The flag -X may be used only inside a shell function, and may not be followed by a NAME. It causes the calling function to be marked for autoloading and then immediately loaded and executed, with the current array of positional parameters as arguments. This replaces the previous definition of the function. If no function definition is found, an error is printed and the function remains undefined and marked for autoloading. The flag +X attempts to load each NAME as an autoloaded function, but does _not_ execute it. The exit status is zero (success) if the function was not previously defined _and_ a definition for it was found. This does _not_ replace any existing definition of the function. The exit status is nonzero (failure) if the function was already defined or when no definition was found. In the latter case the function remains undefined and marked for autoloading. The flag +X may be combined with either -k or -z to make the function be loaded using ksh-style or zsh-style autoloading, respectively. If neither is given, the current setting of the KSH_AUTOLOAD options determines how the function is loaded. With ksh-style autoloading, the contents of the file will not be executed immediately. Instead, the function created will contain the contents of the file plus a call to the function itself appended to it, thus given normal ksh autoloading behaviour on the first call to the function. With the -w flag, the NAMEs are taken as names of files compiled with the zcompile builtin, and all functions defined in them are marked for autoloading. bg [ JOB ... ] JOB ... & Put each specified JOB in the background, or the current job if none is specified. bindkey See *Note Zle Builtins::. break [ N ] Exit from an enclosing for, while, until, select or repeat loop. If N is specified, then break N levels instead of just one. builtin NAME [ ARGS ... ] Executes the builtin NAME, with the given ARGS. bye Same as exit. cap See *Note The zsh/cap Module::. cd [ -sLP ] [ ARG ] cd [ -sLP ] OLD NEW cd [ -sLP ] {+|-}N Change the current directory. In the first form, change the current directory to ARG, or to the value of $HOME if ARG is not specified. If ARG is `-', change to the value of $OLDPWD, the previous directory. Otherwise, if a directory named ARG is not found in the current directory and ARG does not begin with a slash, search each component of the shell parameter cdpath. If no directory is found and the option CDABLE_VARS is set, and a parameter named ARG exists whose value begins with a slash, treat its value as the directory. In that case, the parameter is added to the named directory hash table. The second form of cd substitutes the string NEW for the string OLD in the name of the current directory, and tries to change to this new directory. The third form of cd extracts an entry from the directory stack, and changes to that directory. An argument of the form `+N' identifies a stack entry by counting from the left of the list shown by the dirs command, starting with zero. An argument of the form `-N' counts from the right. If the PUSHD_MINUS option is set, the meanings of `+' and `-' in this context are swapped. If the -s option is specified, cd refuses to change the current directory if the given pathname contains symlinks. If the -P option is given or the CHASE_LINKS option is set, symbolic links are resolved to their true values. If the -L option is given symbolic links are followed regardless of the state of the CHASE_LINKS option. chdir Same as cd. clone See *Note The zsh/clone Module::. command [ -pvV ] SIMPLE COMMAND The simple command argument is taken as an external command instead of a function or builtin and is executed. If the POSIX_BUILTINS option is set, builtins will also be executed but certain special properties of them are suppressed. The -p flag causes a default path to be searched instead of that in $path. With the -v flag, command is similar to whence and with -V, it is equivalent to whence -v. See also *Note Precommand Modifiers::. comparguments See *Note The zsh/computil Module::. compcall See *Note The zsh/compctl Module::. compctl See *Note The zsh/compctl Module::. compdescribe See *Note The zsh/computil Module::. compfiles See *Note The zsh/computil Module::. compgroups See *Note The zsh/computil Module::. compquote See *Note The zsh/computil Module::. comptags See *Note The zsh/computil Module::. comptry See *Note The zsh/computil Module::. compvalues See *Note The zsh/computil Module::. continue [ N ] Resume the next iteration of the enclosing for, while, until, select or repeat loop. If N is specified, break out of N-1 loops and resume at the Nth enclosing loop. declare Same as typeset. dirs [ -c ] [ ARG ... ] dirs [ -lpv ] With no arguments, print the contents of the directory stack. Directories are added to this stack with the pushd command, and removed with the cd or popd commands. If arguments are specified, load them onto the directory stack, replacing anything that was there, and push the current directory onto the stack. -c clear the directory stack. -l print directory names in full instead of using of using ~ expressions. -p print directory entries one per line. -v number the directories in the stack when printing. disable [ -afmrs ] NAME ... Temporarily disable the NAMEd hash table elements. The default is to disable builtin commands. This allows you to use an external command with the same name as a builtin command. The -a option causes disable to act on regular or global aliases. The -s option causes disable to act on suffix aliases. The -f option causes disable to act on shell functions. The -r options causes disable to act on reserved words. Without arguments all disabled hash table elements from the corresponding hash table are printed. With the -m flag the arguments are taken as patterns (which should be quoted to prevent them from undergoing filename expansion), and all hash table elements from the corresponding hash table matching these patterns are disabled. Disabled objects can be enabled with the enable command. disown [ JOB ... ] JOB ... &| JOB ... &! Remove the specified JOBs from the job table; the shell will no longer report their status, and will not complain if you try to exit an interactive shell with them running or stopped. If no JOB is specified, disown the current job. If the JOBs are currently stopped and the AUTO_CONTINUE option is not set, a warning is printed containing information about how to make them running after they have been disowned. If one of the latter two forms is used, the JOBs will automatically be made running, independent of the setting of the AUTO_CONTINUE option. echo [ -neE ] [ ARG ... ] Write each ARG on the standard output, with a space separating each one. If the -n flag is not present, print a newline at the end. echo recognizes the following escape sequences: \a bell character \b backspace \c suppress final newline \e escape \f form feed \n linefeed (newline) \r carriage return \t horizontal tab \v vertical tab \\ backslash \0NNN character code in octal \xNN character code in hexadecimal \uNNNN unicode character code in hexadecimal \UNNNNNNNN unicode character code in hexadecimal The -E flag, or the BSD_ECHO option, can be used to disable these escape sequences. In the latter case, -e flag can be used to enable them. echotc See *Note The zsh/termcap Module::. echoti See *Note The zsh/terminfo Module::. emulate [ -LR ] {zsh|sh|ksh|csh} Set up zsh options to emulate the specified shell as much as possible. `csh' will never be fully emulated. If the argument is not one of the shells listed above, zsh will be used as a default; more precisely, the tests performed on the argument are the same as those used to determine the emulation at startup based on the shell name, see *Note Compatibility:: . If the -R option is given, all options are reset to their default value corresponding to the specified emulation mode, except for certain options describing the interactive environment; otherwise, only those options likely to cause portability problems in scripts and functions are altered. If the -L option is given, the options LOCAL_OPTIONS and LOCAL_TRAPS will be set as well, causing the effects of the emulate command and any setopt and trap commands to be local to the immediately surrounding shell function, if any; normally these options are turned off in all emulation modes except ksh. enable [ -afmrs ] NAME ... Enable the NAMEd hash table elements, presumably disabled earlier with disable. The default is to enable builtin commands. The -a option causes enable to act on regular or global aliases. The -s option causes enable to act on suffix aliases. The -f option causes enable to act on shell functions. The -r option causes enable to act on reserved words. Without arguments all enabled hash table elements from the corresponding hash table are printed. With the -m flag the arguments are taken as patterns (should be quoted) and all hash table elements from the corresponding hash table matching these patterns are enabled. Enabled objects can be disabled with the disable builtin command. eval [ ARG ... ] Read the arguments as input to the shell and execute the resulting command in the current shell process. exec SIMPLE COMMAND See *Note Precommand Modifiers::. exit [ N ] Exit the shell with the exit code specified by N; if none is specified, use the exit code from the last command executed. An EOF condition will also cause the shell to exit, unless the IGNORE_EOF option is set. export [ NAME[=VALUE] ... ] The specified NAMEs are marked for automatic export to the environment of subsequently executed commands. Equivalent to typeset -gx. If a parameter specified does not already exist, it is created in the global scope. false [ ARG ... ] Do nothing and return an exit code of 1. fc [ -e ENAME ] [ -nlrdDfEim ] [ OLD=NEW ... ] [ FIRST [ LAST ] ] fc -ARWI [ FILENAME ] Select a range of commands from FIRST to LAST from the history list. The arguments FIRST and LAST may be specified as a number or as a string. A negative number is used as an offset to the current history event number. A string specifies the most recent event beginning with the given string. All substitutions OLD=NEW, if any, are then performed on the commands. If the -l flag is given, the resulting commands are listed on standard output. If the -m flag is also given the first argument is taken as a pattern (should be quoted) and only the history events matching this pattern will be shown. Otherwise the editor program ENAME is invoked on a file containing these history events. If ENAME is not given, the value of the parameter FCEDIT is used. If ENAME is `-', no editor is invoked. When editing is complete, the edited command is executed. If FIRST is not specified, it will be set to -1 (the most recent event), or to -16 if the -l flag is given. If LAST is not specified, it will be set to FIRST, or to -1 if the -l flag is given. The flag -r reverses the order of the commands and the flag -n suppresses command numbers when listing. Also when listing, -d prints timestamps for each command, and -f prints full time-date stamps. Adding the -E flag causes the dates to be printed as `DD.MM.YYYY', instead of the default `MM/DD/YYYY'. Adding the -i flag causes the dates to be printed in ISO8601 `YYYY-MM-DD' format. With the -D flag, fc prints elapsed times. `fc -R' reads the history from the given file, `fc -W' writes the history out to the given file, and `fc -A' appends the history out to the given file. If no filename is specified, the $HISTFILE is assumed. If the -I option is added to -R, only those events that are not already contained within the internal history list are added. If the -I option is added to -A or -W, only those events that are new since last incremental append/write to the history file are appended/written. In any case, the created file will have no more than $SAVEHIST entries. fg [ JOB ... ] JOB ... Bring each specified JOB in turn to the foreground. If no JOB is specified, resume the current job. float [ {+|-}EFHghlprtux ] [ NAME[=VALUE] ... ] Equivalent to typeset -E, except that options irrelevant to floating point numbers are not permitted. functions [ {+|-}UXmtu ] [ NAME ... ] Equivalent to typeset -f. getcap See *Note The zsh/cap Module::. getln [ -AclneE ] NAME ... Read the top value from the buffer stack and put it in the shell parameter name. Equivalent to read -zr. getopts OPTSTRING NAME [ ARG ... ] Checks the ARGs for legal options. If the ARGs are omitted, use the positional parameters. A valid option argument begins with a `+' or a `-'. An argument not beginning with a `+' or a `-', or the argument `-', ends the options. Note that a single `-' is not considered a valid option argument. OPTSTRING contains the letters that getopts recognizes. If a letter is followed by a `:', that option is expected to have an argument. The options can be separated from the argument by blanks. Each time it is invoked, getopts places the option letter it finds in the shell parameter NAME, prepended with a `+' when ARG begins with a `+'. The index of the next ARG is stored in OPTIND. The option argument, if any, is stored in OPTARG. The first option to be examined may be changed by explicitly assigning to OPTIND. OPTIND has an initial value of 1, and is normally reset to 1 upon exit from a shell function. OPTARG is not reset and retains its value from the most recent call to getopts. If either of OPTIND or OPTARG is explicitly unset, it remains unset, and the index or option argument is not stored. The option itself is still stored in NAME in this case. A leading `:' in OPTSTRING causes getopts to store the letter of any invalid option in OPTARG, and to set NAME to `?' for an unknown option and to `:' when a required option is missing. Otherwise, getopts sets NAME to `?' and prints an error message when an option is invalid. The exit status is nonzero when there are no more options. hash [ -Ldfmrv ] [ NAME[=VALUE] ] ... hash can be used to directly modify the contents of the command hash table, and the named directory hash table. Normally one would modify these tables by modifying one's PATH (for the command hash table) or by creating appropriate shell parameters (for the named directory hash table). The choice of hash table to work on is determined by the -d option; without the option the command hash table is used, and with the option the named directory hash table is used. Given no arguments, and neither the -r or -f options, the selected hash table will be listed in full. The -r option causes the selected hash table to be emptied. It will be subsequently rebuilt in the normal fashion. The -f option causes the selected hash table to be fully rebuilt immediately. For the command hash table this hashes all the absolute directories in the PATH, and for the named directory hash table this adds all users' home directories. These two options cannot be used with any arguments. The -m option causes the arguments to be taken as patterns (which should be quoted) and the elements of the hash table matching those patterns are printed. This is the only way to display a limited selection of hash table elements. For each NAME with a corresponding VALUE, put `NAME' in the selected hash table, associating it with the pathname `VALUE'. In the command hash table, this means that whenever `NAME' is used as a command argument, the shell will try to execute the file given by `VALUE'. In the named directory hash table, this means that `VALUE' may be referred to as `~NAME'. For each NAME with no corresponding VALUE, attempt to add NAME to the hash table, checking what the appropriate value is in the normal manner for that hash table. If an appropriate value can't be found, then the hash table will be unchanged. The -v option causes hash table entries to be listed as they are added by explicit specification. If has no effect if used with -f. If the -L flag is present, then each hash table entry is printed in the form of a call to hash. history Same as fc -l. integer [ {+|-}Hghilprtux ] [ NAME[=VALUE] ... ] Equivalent to typeset -i, except that options irrelevant to integers are not permitted. jobs [ -dlprs ] [ JOB ... ] jobs -Z STRING Lists information about each given job, or all jobs if JOB is omitted. The -l flag lists process IDs, and the -p flag lists process groups. If the -r flag is specified only running jobs will be listed and if the -s flag is given only stopped jobs are shown. If the -d flag is given, the directory from which the job was started (which may not be the current directory of the job) will also be shown. The -Z option replaces the shell's argument and environment space with the given string, truncated if necessary to fit. This will normally be visible in ps (man page ps(1)) listings. This feature is typically used by daemons, to indicate their state. kill [ -s SIGNAL_NAME | -n SIGNAL_NUMBER | -SIG ] JOB ... kill -l [ SIG ... ] Sends either SIGTERM or the specified signal to the given jobs or processes. Signals are given by number or by names, with or without the `SIG' prefix. If the signal being sent is not `KILL' or `CONT', then the job will be sent a `CONT' signal if it is stopped. The argument JOB can be the process ID of a job not in the job list. In the second form, kill -l, if SIG is not specified the signal names are listed. Otherwise, for each SIG that is a name, the corresponding signal number is listed. For each SIG that is a signal number or a number representing the exit status of a process which was terminated or stopped by a signal the name of the signal is printed. let ARG ... Evaluate each ARG as an arithmetic expression. See *Note Arithmetic Evaluation:: for a description of arithmetic expressions. The exit status is 0 if the value of the last expression is nonzero, and 1 otherwise. limit [ -hs ] [ RESOURCE [ LIMIT ] ] ... Set or display resource limits. Unless the -s flag is given, the limit applies only the children of the shell. If -s is given without other arguments, the resource limits of the current shell is set to the previously set resource limits of the children. If LIMIT is not specified, print the current limit placed on RESOURCE, otherwise set the limit to the specified value. If the -h flag is given, use hard limits instead of soft limits. If no RESOURCE is given, print all limits. RESOURCE can be one of: addressspace Maximum amount of address space used. aiomemorylocked Maximum amount of memory locked in RAM for AIO operations. aiooperations Maximum number of AIO operations. cachedthreads Maximum number of cached threads. coredumpsize Maximum size of a core dump. cputime Maximum CPU seconds per process. datasize Maximum data size (including stack) for each process. descriptors Maximum value for a file descriptor. filesize Largest single file allowed. maxproc Maximum number of processes. maxpthreads Maximum number of threads per process. memorylocked Maximum amount of memory locked in RAM. memoryuse Maximum resident set size. resident Maximum resident set size. sockbufsize Maximum size of all socket buffers. stacksize Maximum stack size for each process. vmemorysize Maximum amount of virtual memory. Which of these resource limits are available depends on the system. RESOURCE can be abbreviated to any unambiguous prefix. LIMIT is a number, with an optional scaling factor, as follows: Nh hours Nk kilobytes (default) Nm megabytes or minutes [MM:]SS minutes and seconds local [ {+|-}AEFHLRUZahilprtux [N]] [ NAME[=VALUE] ] ... Same as typeset, except that the options -g, and -f are not permitted. In this case the -x option does not force the use of -g, i.e. exported variables will be local to functions. log List all users currently logged in who are affected by the current setting of the watch parameter. logout [ N ] Same as exit, except that it only works in a login shell. noglob SIMPLE COMMAND See *Note Precommand Modifiers::. popd [ {+|-}N ] Remove an entry from the directory stack, and perform a cd to the new top directory. With no argument, the current top entry is removed. An argument of the form `+N' identifies a stack entry by counting from the left of the list shown by the dirs command, starting with zero. An argument of the form -n counts from the right. If the PUSHD_MINUS option is set, the meanings of `+' and `-' in this context are swapped. print [ -abcDilmnNoOpPrsz ] [ -u N ] [ -f FORMAT ] [ -C COLS ] [ -R [ -en ]] [ ARG ... ] With the `-f' option the arguments are printed as described by printf. With no flags or with the flag `-', the arguments are printed on the standard output as described by echo, with the following differences: the escape sequence `\M-X' metafies the character X (sets the highest bit), `\C-X' produces a control character (`\C-@' and `\C-?' give the characters NUL and delete), and `\E' is a synonym for `\e'. Finally, if not in an escape sequence, `\' escapes the following character and is not printed. -a Print arguments with the column incrementing first. Only useful with the -c and -C options. -b Recognize all the escape sequences defined for the bindkey command, see *Note Zle Builtins::. -c Print the arguments in columns. Unless -a is also given, arguments are printed with the row incrementing first. -C COLS Print the arguments in COLS columns. Unless -a is also given, arguments are printed with the row incrementing first. -D Treat the arguments as directory names, replacing prefixes with ~ expressions, as appropriate. -i If given together with -o or -O, sorting is performed case-independently. -l Print the arguments separated by newlines instead of spaces. -m Take the first argument as a pattern (should be quoted), and remove it from the argument list together with subsequent arguments that do not match this pattern. -n Do not add a newline to the output. -N Print the arguments separated and terminated by nulls. -o Print the arguments sorted in ascending order. -O Print the arguments sorted in descending order. -p Print the arguments to the input of the coprocess. -P Perform prompt expansion (see *Note Prompt Expansion::). -r Ignore the escape conventions of echo. -R Emulate the BSD echo command, which does not process escape sequences unless the -e flag is given. The -n flag suppresses the trailing newline. Only the -e and -n flags are recognized after -R; all other arguments and options are printed. -s Place the results in the history list instead of on the standard output. -u N Print the arguments to file descriptor N. -z Push the arguments onto the editing buffer stack, separated by spaces. If any of `-m', `-o' or `-O' are used in combination with `-f' and there are no arguments (after the removal process in the case of `-m') then nothing is printed. printf FORMAT [ ARG ... ] Print the arguments according to the format specification. Formatting rules are the same as used in C. The same escape sequences as for echo are recognised in the format. All C conversion specifications ending in one of csdiouxXeEfgGn are handled. In addition to this, `%b' can be used instead of `%s' to cause escape sequences in the argument to be recognised and `%q' can be used to quote the argument in such a way that allows it to be reused as shell input. With the numeric format specifiers, if the corresponding argument starts with a quote character, the numeric value of the following character is used as the number to print otherwise the argument is evaluated as an arithmetic expression. See *Note Arithmetic Evaluation:: for a description of arithmetic expressions. With `%n', the corresponding argument is taken as an identifier which is created as an integer parameter. Normally, conversion specifications are applied to each argument in order but they can explicitly specify the Nth argument is to be used by replacing `%' by `%N$' and `*' by `*N$'. It is recommended that you do not mix references of this explicit style with the normal style and the handling of such mixed styles may be subject to future change. If arguments remain unused after formatting, the format string is reused until all arguments have been consumed. With the print builtin, this can be suppressed by using the -r option. If more arguments are required by the format than have been specified, the behaviour is as if zero or an empty string had been specified as the argument. pushd [ -sLP ] [ ARG ] pushd [ -sLP ] OLD NEW pushd [ -sLP ] {+|-}N Change the current directory, and push the old current directory onto the directory stack. In the first form, change the current directory to ARG. If ARG is not specified, change to the second directory on the stack (that is, exchange the top two entries), or change to $HOME if the PUSHD_TO_HOME option is set or if there is only one entry on the stack. Otherwise, ARG is interpreted as it would be by cd. The meaning of OLD and NEW in the second form is also the same as for cd. The third form of pushd changes directory by rotating the directory list. An argument of the form `+N' identifies a stack entry by counting from the left of the list shown by the dirs command, starting with zero. An argument of the form `-N' counts from the right. If the PUSHD_MINUS option is set, the meanings of `+' and `-' in this context are swapped. If the option PUSHD_SILENT is not set, the directory stack will be printed after a pushd is performed. The options -s, -L and -P have the same meanings as for the cd builtin. pushln [ ARG ... ] Equivalent to print -nz. pwd [ -rLP ] Print the absolute pathname of the current working directory. If the -r or the -P flag is specified, or the CHASE_LINKS option is set and the -L flag is not given, the printed path will not contain symbolic links. r Same as fc -e -. read [ -rszpqAclneE ] [ -t [ NUM ] ] [ -k [ NUM ] ] [ -d DELIM ] [ -u N ] [ NAME[?PROMPT] ] [ NAME ... ] Read one line and break it into fields using the characters in $IFS as separators, except as noted below. The first field is assigned to the first NAME, the second field to the second NAME, etc., with leftover fields assigned to the last NAME. If NAME is omitted then REPLY is used for scalars and reply for arrays. -r Raw mode: a `\' at the end of a line does not signify line continuation and backslashes in the line don't quote the following character and are not removed. -s Don't echo back characters if reading from the terminal. Currently does not work with the -q option. -q Read only one character from the terminal and set NAME to `y' if this character was `y' or `Y' and to `n' otherwise. With this flag set the return value is zero only if the character was `y' or `Y'. Note that this always reads from the terminal, even if used with the -p or -u or -z flags or with redirected input. This option may also be used within zle widgets. -k [ NUM ] Read only one (or NUM) characters. All are assigned to the first NAME, without word splitting. This flag is ignored when -q is present. Input is read from the terminal unless one of -u or -p is present. This option may also be used within zle widgets. -z Read one entry from the editor buffer stack and assign it to the first NAME, without word splitting. Text is pushed onto the stack with `print -z' or with push-line from the line editor (see *Note Zsh Line Editor::). This flag is ignored when the -k or -q flags are present. -e -E The input read is printed (echoed) to the standard output. If the -e flag is used, no input is assigned to the parameters. -A The first NAME is taken as the name of an array and all words are assigned to it. -c -l These flags are allowed only if called inside a function used for completion (specified with the -K flag to compctl). If the -c flag is given, the words of the current command are read. If the -l flag is given, the whole line is assigned as a scalar. If both flags are present, -l is used and -c is ignored. -n Together with -c, the number of the word the cursor is on is read. With -l, the index of the character the cursor is on is read. Note that the command name is word number 1, not word 0, and that when the cursor is at the end of the line, its character index is the length of the line plus one. -u N Input is read from file descriptor N. -p Input is read from the coprocess. -d DELIM Input is terminated by the first character of DELIM instead of by newline. -t [ NUM ] Test if input is available before attempting to read. If NUM is present, it must begin with a digit and will be evaluated to give a number of seconds, which may be a floating point number; in this case the read times out if input is not available within this time. If NUM is not present, it is taken to be zero, so that read returns immediately if no input is available. If no input is available, return status 1 and do not set any variables. This option is not available when reading from the editor buffer with -z, when called from within completion with -c or -l, with -q which clears the input queue before reading, or within zle where other mechanisms should be used to test for input. Note that read does not attempt to alter the input processing mode. The default mode is canonical input, in which an entire line is read at a time, so usually `read -t' will not read anything until an entire line has been typed. However, when reading from the terminal with -k input is processed one key at a time; in this case, only availability of the first character is tested, so that e.g. `read -t -k 2' can still block on the second character. Use two instances of `read -t -k' if this is not what is wanted. If the first argument contains a `?', the remainder of this word is used as a PROMPT on standard error when the shell is interactive. The value (exit status) of read is 1 when an end-of-file is encountered, or when -c or -l is present and the command is not called from a compctl function, or as described for -q. Otherwise the value is 0. The behavior of some combinations of the -k, -p, -q, -u and -z flags is undefined. Presently -q cancels all the others, -p cancels -u, -k cancels -z, and otherwise -z cancels both -p and -u. The -c or -l flags cancel any and all of -kpquz. readonly Same as typeset -r. rehash Same as hash -r. return [ N ] Causes a shell function or . script to return to the invoking script with the return status specified by N. If N is omitted, the return status is that of the last command executed. If return was executed from a trap in a TRAPNAL function, the effect is different for zero and non-zero return status. With zero status (or after an implicit return at the end of the trap), the shell will return to whatever it was previously processing; with a non-zero status, the shell will behave as interrupted except that the return status of the trap is retained. Note that the numeric value of the signal which caused the trap is passed as the first argument, so the statement `return $((128+$1))' will return the same status as if the signal had not been trapped. sched See *Note The zsh/sched Module::. set [ {+|-}OPTIONS | {+|-}o [ OPTION_NAME ] ] ... [ {+|-}A [ NAME ] ] [ ARG ... ] Set the options for the shell and/or set the positional parameters, or declare and set an array. If the -s option is given, it causes the specified arguments to be sorted before assigning them to the positional parameters (or to the array NAME if -A is used). With +s sort arguments in descending order. For the meaning of the other flags, see *Note Options::. Flags may be specified by name using the -o option. If no option name is supplied with -o, the current option states are printed. With +o they are printed in a form that can be used as input to the shell. If the -A flag is specified, NAME is set to an array containing the given ARGs; if no NAME is specified, all arrays are printed together with their values. If +A is used and NAME is an array, the given arguments will replace the initial elements of that array; if no NAME is specified, all arrays are printed without their values. The behaviour of arguments after -A NAME or +A NAME depends on whether the option KSH_ARRAYS is set. If it is not set, all arguments following NAME are treated as values for the array, regardless of their form. If the option is set, normal option processing continues at that point; only regular arguments are treated as values for the array. This means that set -A array -x -- foo sets array to `-x - foo' if KSH_ARRAYS is not set, but sets the array to foo and turns on the option `-x' if it is set. If the -A flag is not present, but there are arguments beyond the options, the positional parameters are set. If the option list (if any) is terminated by `--', and there are no further arguments, the positional parameters will be unset. If no arguments and no `--' are given, then the names and values of all parameters are printed on the standard output. If the only argument is `+', the names of all parameters are printed. setcap See *Note The zsh/cap Module::. setopt [ {+|-}OPTIONS | {+|-}o OPTION_NAME ] [ NAME ... ] Set the options for the shell. All options specified either with flags or by name are set. If no arguments are supplied, the names of all options currently set are printed. If the -m flag is given the arguments are taken as patterns (which should be quoted to protect them from filename expansion), and all options with names matching these patterns are set. shift [ N ] [ NAME ... ] The positional parameters ${N+1} ... are renamed to $1 ..., where N is an arithmetic expression that defaults to 1. If any NAMEs are given then the arrays with these names are shifted instead of the positional parameters. source FILE [ ARG ... ] Same as ., except that the current directory is always searched and is always searched first, before directories in $path. stat See *Note The zsh/stat Module::. suspend [ -f ] Suspend the execution of the shell (send it a SIGTSTP) until it receives a SIGCONT. Unless the -f option is given, this will refuse to suspend a login shell. test [ ARG ... ] [ [ ARG ... ] ] Like the system version of test. Added for compatibility; use conditional expressions instead (see *Note Conditional Expressions::). times Print the accumulated user and system times for the shell and for processes run from the shell. trap [ ARG [ SIG ... ] ] ARG is a series of commands (usually quoted to protect it from immediate evaluation by the shell) to be read and executed when the shell receives SIG. Each SIG can be given as a number or as the name of a signal. If ARG is `-', then all traps SIG are reset to their default values. If ARG is the empty string, then this signal is ignored by the shell and by the commands it invokes. If SIG is ZERR then ARG will be executed after each command with a nonzero exit status. If SIG is DEBUG then ARG will be executed after each command. If SIG is 0 or EXIT and the trap statement is executed inside the body of a function, then the command ARG is executed after the function completes. If SIG is 0 or EXIT and the trap statement is not executed inside the body of a function, then the command ARG is executed when the shell terminates. The trap command with no arguments prints a list of commands associated with each signal. Note that traps defined with the trap builtin are slightly different from those defined as `TRAPNAL () { ... }', as the latter have their own function environment (line numbers, local variables, etc.) while the former use the environment of the command in which they were called. For example, trap 'print $LINENO' DEBUG will print the line number of a command executed after it has run, while TRAPDEBUG() { print $LINENO; } will always print the number zero. true [ ARG ... ] Do nothing and return an exit code of 0. ttyctl -fu The -f option freezes the tty, and -u unfreezes it. When the tty is frozen, no changes made to the tty settings by external programs will be honored by the shell, except for changes in the size of the screen; the shell will simply reset the settings to their previous values as soon as each command exits or is suspended. Thus, stty and similar programs have no effect when the tty is frozen. Without options it reports whether the terminal is frozen or not. type [ -wfpams ] NAME ... Equivalent to whence -v. typeset [ {+|-}AEFHLRUZafghilprtuxm [N]] [ NAME[=VALUE] ... ] typeset -T [ {+|-}LRUZrux ] SCALAR[=VALUE] ARRAY [ SEP ] Set or display attributes and values for shell parameters. A parameter is created for each NAME that does not already refer to one. When inside a function, a new parameter is created for every NAME (even those that already exist), and is unset again when the function completes. See *Note Local Parameters::. The same rules apply to special shell parameters, which retain their special attributes when made local. For each NAME=VALUE assignment, the parameter NAME is set to VALUE. Note that arrays currently cannot be assigned in typeset expressions, only scalars and integers. If the shell option TYPESET_SILENT is not set, for each remaining NAME that refers to a parameter that is set, the name and value of the parameter are printed in the form of an assignment. Nothing is printed for newly-created parameters, or when any attribute flags listed below are given along with the NAME. Using `+' instead of minus to introduce an attribute turns it off. If the -p option is given, parameters and values are printed in the form of a typeset comand and an assignment (which will be printed separately for arrays and associative arrays), regardless of other flags and options. Note that the -h flag on parameters is respected; no value will be shown for these parameters. If the -T option is given, two or three arguments must be present (an exception is that zero arguments are allowed to show the list of parameters created in this fashion). The first two are the name of a scalar and an array parameter (in that order) that will be tied together in the manner of $PATH and $path. The optional third argument is a single-character separator which will be used to join the elements of the array to form the scalar; if absent, a colon is used, as with $PATH. Only the first character of the separator is significant; any remaining characters are ignored. Only the scalar parameter may be assigned an initial value. Both the scalar and the array may otherwise be manipulated as normal. If one is unset, the other will automatically be unset too. There is no way of untying the variables without unsetting them, or converting the type of one of them with another typeset command; +T does not work, assigning an array to SCALAR is an error, and assigning a scalar to ARRAY sets it to be a single-element array. Note that both `typeset -xT ...' and `export -T ...' work, but only the scalar will be marked for export. Setting the value using the scalar version causes a split on all separators (which cannot be quoted). The -g (global) flag is treated specially: it means that any resulting parameter will not be restricted to local scope. Note that this does not necessarily mean that the parameter will be global, as the flag will apply to any existing parameter (even if unset) from an enclosing function. This flag does not affect the parameter after creation, hence it has no effect when listing existing parameters, nor does the flag +g have any effect except in combination with -m (see below). If no NAME is present, the names and values of all parameters are printed. In this case the attribute flags restrict the display to only those parameters that have the specified attributes, and using `+' rather than `-' to introduce the flag suppresses printing of the values of parameters when there is no parameter name. Also, if the last option is the word `+', then names are printed but values are not. If the -m flag is given the NAME arguments are taken as patterns (which should be quoted). With no attribute flags, all parameters (or functions with the -f flag) with matching names are printed (the shell option TYPESET_SILENT is not used in this case). Note that -m is ignored if no patterns are given. If the +g flag is combined with -m, a new local parameter is created for every matching parameter that is not already local. Otherwise -m applies all other flags or assignments to the existing parameters. Except when assignments are made with NAME=VALUE, using +m forces the matching parameters to be printed, even inside a function. If no attribute flags are given and either no -m flag is present or the +m form was used, each parameter name printed is preceded by a list of the attributes of that parameter (array, association, exported, integer, readonly). If +m is used with attribute flags, and all those flags are introduced with +, the matching parameter names are printed but their values are not. The following attribute flags may be specified: -A The names refer to associative array parameters; see *Note Array Parameters::. -L Left justify and remove leading blanks from VALUE. If N is nonzero, it defines the width of the field; otherwise it is determined by the width of the value of the first assignment. When the parameter is expanded, it is filled on the right with blanks or truncated if necessary to fit the field. Leading zeros are removed if the -Z flag is also set. -R Right justify and fill with leading blanks. If N is nonzero if defines the width of the field; otherwise it is determined by the width of the value of the first assignment. When the parameter is expanded, the field is left filled with blanks or truncated from the end. -U For arrays (but not for associative arrays), keep only the first occurrence of each duplicated value. This may also be set for colon-separated special parameters like PATH or FIGNORE, etc. This flag has a different meaning when used with -f; see below. -Z Right justify and fill with leading zeros if the first non-blank character is a digit and the -L flag has not been set. If N is nonzero it defines the width of the field; otherwise it is determined by the width of the value of the first assignment. -a The names refer to array parameters. An array parameter may be created this way, but it may not be assigned to in the typeset statement. When displaying, both normal and associative arrays are shown. -f The names refer to functions rather than parameters. No assignments can be made, and the only other valid flags are -t, -u and -U. The flag -t turns on execution tracing for this function. The -u and -U flags cause the function to be marked for autoloading; -U also causes alias expansion to be suppressed when the function is loaded. The fpath parameter will be searched to find the function definition when the function is first referenced; see *Note Functions::. -h Hide: only useful for special parameters (those marked `' in the table in *Note Parameters Set By The Shell::), and for local parameters with the same name as a special parameter, though harmless for others. A special parameter with this attribute will not retain its special effect when made local. Thus after `typeset -h PATH', a function containing `typeset PATH' will create an ordinary local parameter without the usual behaviour of PATH. Alternatively, the local parameter may itself be given this attribute; hence inside a function `typeset -h PATH' creates an ordinary local parameter and the special PATH parameter is not altered in any way. It is also possible to create a local parameter using `typeset +h SPECIAL', where the local copy of SPECIAL will retain its special properties regardless of having the -h attribute. Global special parameters loaded from shell modules (currently those in zsh/mapfile and zsh/parameter) are automatically given the -h attribute to avoid name clashes. -H Hide value: specifies that typeset will not display the value of the parameter when listing parameters; the display for such parameters is always as if the `+' flag had been given. Use of the parameter is in other respects normal, and the option does not apply if the parameter is specified by name, or by pattern with the -m option. This is on by default for the parameters in the zsh/parameter and zsh/mapfile modules. Note, however, that unlike the -h flag this is also useful for non-special parameters. -i Use an internal integer representation. If N is nonzero it defines the output arithmetic base, otherwise it is determined by the first assignment. -E Use an internal double-precision floating point representation. On output the variable will be converted to scientific notation. If N is nonzero it defines the number of significant figures to display; the default is ten. -F Use an internal double-precision floating point representation. On output the variable will be converted to fixed-point decimal notation. If N is nonzero it defines the number of digits to display after the decimal point; the default is ten. -l Convert the result to lower case whenever the parameter is expanded. The value is _not_ converted when assigned. -r The given NAMEs are marked readonly. Note that if NAME is a special parameter, the readonly attribute can be turned on, but cannot then be turned off. -t Tags the named parameters. Tags have no special meaning to the shell. This flag has a different meaning when used with -f; see above. -u Convert the result to upper case whenever the parameter is expanded. The value is _not_ converted when assigned. This flag has a different meaning when used with -f; see above. -x Mark for automatic export to the environment of subsequently executed commands. If the option GLOBAL_EXPORT is set, this implies the option -g, unless +g is also explicitly given; in other words the parameter is not made local to the enclosing function. This is for compatibility with previous versions of zsh. ulimit [ -SHacdflmnpstv [ LIMIT ] ... ] Set or display resource limits of the shell and the processes started by the shell. The value of LIMIT can be a number in the unit specified below or the value `unlimited'. By default, only soft limits are manipulated. If the -H flag is given use hard limits instead of soft limits. If the -S flag is given together with the -H flag set both hard and soft limits. If no options are used, the file size limit (-f) is assumed. If LIMIT is omitted the current value of the specified resources are printed. When more than one resource values are printed the limit name and unit is printed before each value. -a Lists all of the current resource limits. -c 512-byte blocks on the size of core dumps. -d K-bytes on the size of the data segment. -f 512-byte blocks on the size of files written. -l K-bytes on the size of locked-in memory. -m K-bytes on the size of physical memory. -n open file descriptors. -s K-bytes on the size of the stack. -t CPU seconds to be used. -u processes available to the user. -v K-bytes on the size of virtual memory. On some systems this refers to the limit called `address space'. umask [ -S ] [ MASK ] The umask is set to MASK. MASK can be either an octal number or a symbolic value as described in man page chmod(1). If MASK is omitted, the current value is printed. The -S option causes the mask to be printed as a symbolic value. Otherwise, the mask is printed as an octal number. Note that in the symbolic form the permissions you specify are those which are to be allowed (not denied) to the users specified. unalias Same as unhash -a. unfunction Same as unhash -f. unhash [ -adfms ] NAME ... Remove the element named NAME from an internal hash table. The default is remove elements from the command hash table. The -a option causes unhash to remove regular or global aliases. The -s option causes unhash to remove suffix aliases. The -f option causes unhash to remove shell functions. The -d options causes unhash to remove named directories. If the -m flag is given the arguments are taken as patterns (should be quoted) and all elements of the corresponding hash table with matching names will be removed. unlimit [ -hs ] RESOURCE ... The resource limit for each RESOURCE is set to the hard limit. If the -h flag is given and the shell has appropriate privileges, the hard resource limit for each RESOURCE is removed. The resources of the shell process are only changed if the -s flag is given. unset [ -fmv ] NAME ... Each named parameter is unset. Local parameters remain local even if unset; they appear unset within scope, but the previous value will still reappear when the scope ends. Individual elements of associative array parameters may be unset by using subscript syntax on NAME, which should be quoted (or the entire command prefixed with noglob) to protect the subscript from filename generation. If the -m flag is specified the arguments are taken as patterns (should be quoted) and all parameters with matching names are unset. Note that this cannot be used when unsetting associative array elements, as the subscript will be treated as part of the pattern. The -v flag specifies that NAME refers to parameters. This is the default behaviour. unset -f is equivalent to unfunction. unsetopt [ {+|-}OPTIONS | {+|-}o OPTION_NAME ] [ NAME ... ] Unset the options for the shell. All options specified either with flags or by name are unset. If no arguments are supplied, the names of all options currently unset are printed. If the -m flag is given the arguments are taken as patterns (which should be quoted to preserve them from being interpreted as glob patterns), and all options with names matching these patterns are unset. vared See *Note Zle Builtins::. wait [ JOB ... ] Wait for the specified jobs or processes. If JOB is not given then all currently active child processes are waited for. Each JOB can be either a job specification or the process ID of a job in the job table. The exit status from this command is that of the job waited for. whence [ -vcwfpams ] NAME ... For each name, indicate how it would be interpreted if used as a command name. -v Produce a more verbose report. -c Print the results in a `csh'-like format. This takes precedence over -v. -w For each NAME, print `NAME: WORD' where WORD is one of alias, builtin, command, function, hashed, reserved or none, according as NAME corresponds to an alias, a built-in command, an external command, a shell function, a command defined with the hash builtin, a reserved word, or is not recognised. This takes precedence over -v and -c. -f Causes the contents of a shell function to be displayed, which would otherwise not happen unless the -c flag were used. -p Do a path search for NAME even if it is an alias, reserved word, shell function or builtin. -a Do a search for all occurrences of NAME throughout the command path. Normally only the first occurrence is printed. -m The arguments are taken as patterns (should be quoted), and the information is displayed for each command matching one of these patterns. -s If a pathname contains symlinks, print the symlink-free pathname as well. where [ -wpms ] NAME ... Equivalent to whence -ca. which [ -wpams ] NAME ... Equivalent to whence -c. zcompile [ -U ] [ -z | -k ] [ -R | -M ] FILE [ NAME ... ] zcompile -ca [ -m ] [ -R | -M ] FILE [ NAME ... ] zcompile -t FILE [ NAME ... ] This builtin command can be used to compile functions or scripts, storing the compiled form in a file, and to examine files containing the compiled form. This allows faster autoloading of functions and execution of scripts by avoiding parsing of the text when the files are read. The first form (without the -c, -a or -t options) creates a compiled file. If only the FILE argument is given, the output file has the name `FILE.zwc' and will be placed in the same directory as the FILE. The shell will load the compiled file instead of the normal function file when the function is autoloaded; see *Note Functions:: for a description of how autoloaded functions are searched. The extension .zwc stands for `zsh word code'. If there is at least one NAME argument, all the named files are compiled into the output FILE given as the first argument. If FILE does not end in .zwc, this extension is automatically appended. Files containing multiple compiled functions are called `digest' files, and are intended to be used as elements of the FPATH/fpath special array. The second form, with the -c or -a options, writes the compiled definitions for all the named functions into FILE. For -c, the names must be functions currently defined in the shell, not those marked for autoloading. Undefined functions that are marked for autoloading may be written by using the -a option, in which case the fpath is searched and the contents of the definition files for those functions, if found, are compiled into FILE. If both -c and -a are given, names of both defined functions and functions marked for autoloading may be given. In either case, the functions in files written with the -c or -a option will be autoloaded as if the KSH_AUTOLOAD option were unset. The reason for handling loaded and not-yet-loaded functions with different options is that some definition files for autoloading define multiple functions, including the function with the same name as the file, and, at the end, call that function. In such cases the output of `zcompile -c' does not include the additional functions defined in the file, and any other initialization code in the file is lost. Using `zcompile -a' captures all this extra information. If the -m option is combined with -c or -a, the NAMEs are used as patterns and all functions whose names match one of these patterns will be written. If no NAME is given, the definitions of all functions currently defined or marked as autoloaded will be written. The third form, with the -t option, examines an existing compiled file. Without further arguments, the names of the original files compiled into it are listed. The first line of output shows the version of the shell which compiled the file and how the file will be used (i.e. by reading it directly or by mapping it into memory). With arguments, nothing is output and the return value is set to zero if definitions for _all_ NAMEs were found in the compiled file, and non-zero if the definition for at least one NAME was not found. Other options: -U Aliases are not expanded when compiling the NAMEd files. -R When the compiled file is read, its contents are copied into the shell's memory, rather than memory-mapped (see -M). This happens automatically on systems that do not support memory mapping. When compiling scripts instead of autoloadable functions, it is often desirable to use this option; otherwise the whole file, including the code to define functions which have already been defined, will remain mapped, consequently wasting memory. -M The compiled file is mapped into the shell's memory when read. This is done in such a way that multiple instances of the shell running on the same host will share this mapped file. If neither -R nor -M is given, the zcompile builtin decides what to do based on the size of the compiled file. -k -z These options are used when the compiled file contains functions which are to be autoloaded. If -z is given, the function will be autoloaded as if the KSH_AUTOLOAD option is _not_ set, even if it is set at the time the compiled file is read, while if the -k is given, the function will be loaded as if KSH_AUTOLOAD _is_ set. If neither of these options is given, the function will be loaded as determined by the setting of the KSH_AUTOLOAD option at the time the compiled file is read. These options may also appear as many times as necessary between the listed NAMEs to specify the loading style of all following functions, up to the next -k or -z. The created file always contains two versions of the compiled format, one for big-endian machines and one for small-endian machines. The upshot of this is that the compiled file is machine independent and if it is read or mapped, only one half of the file is actually used (and mapped). zformat See *Note The zsh/zutil Module::. zftp See *Note The zsh/zftp Module::. zle See *Note Zle Builtins::. zmodload [ -dL ] [ ... ] zmodload -e [ -A ] [ ... ] zmodload [ -a [ -bcpf [ -I ] ] ] [ -iL ] ... zmodload -u [ -abcdpf [ -I ] ] [ -iL ] ... zmodload -A [ -L ] [ MODALIAS[=MODULE] ... ] zmodload -R MODALIAS ... Performs operations relating to zsh's loadable modules. Loading of modules while the shell is running (`dynamical loading') is not available on all operating systems, or on all installations on a particular operating system, although the zmodload command itself is always available and can be used to manipulate modules built into versions of the shell executable without dynamical loading. Without arguments the names of all currently loaded binary modules are printed. The -L option causes this list to be in the form of a series of zmodload commands. Forms with arguments are: zmodload [ -i ] NAME ... zmodload -u [ -i ] NAME ... In the simplest case, zmodload loads a binary module. The module must be in a file with a name consisting of the specified NAME followed by a standard suffix, usually `.so' (`.sl' on HPUX). If the module to be loaded is already loaded and the -i option is given, the duplicate module is ignored. Otherwise zmodload prints an error message. The NAMEd module is searched for in the same way a command is, using $module_path instead of $path. However, the path search is performed even when the module name contains a `/', which it usually does. There is no way to prevent the path search. With -u, zmodload unloads modules. The same NAME must be given that was given when the module was loaded, but it is not necessary for the module to exist in the filesystem. The -i option suppresses the error if the module is already unloaded (or was never loaded). Each module has a boot and a cleanup function. The module will not be loaded if its boot function fails. Similarly a module can only be unloaded if its cleanup function runs successfully. zmodload -d [ -L ] [ NAME ] zmodload -d NAME DEP ... zmodload -ud NAME [ DEP ... ] The -d option can be used to specify module dependencies. The modules named in the second and subsequent arguments will be loaded before the module named in the first argument. With -d and one argument, all dependencies for that module are listed. With -d and no arguments, all module dependencies are listed. This listing is by default in a Makefile-like format. The -L option changes this format to a list of zmodload -d commands. If -d and -u are both used, dependencies are removed. If only one argument is given, all dependencies for that module are removed. zmodload -ab [ -L ] zmodload -ab [ -i ] NAME [ BUILTIN ... ] zmodload -ub [ -i ] BUILTIN ... The -ab option defines autoloaded builtins. It defines the specified BUILTINs. When any of those builtins is called, the module specified in the first argument is loaded. If only the NAME is given, one builtin is defined, with the same name as the module. -i suppresses the error if the builtin is already defined or autoloaded, regardless of which module it came from. With -ab and no arguments, all autoloaded builtins are listed, with the module name (if different) shown in parentheses after the builtin name. The -L option changes this format to a list of zmodload -a commands. If -b is used together with the -u option, it removes builtins previously defined with -ab. This is only possible if the builtin is not yet loaded. -i suppresses the error if the builtin is already removed (or never existed). zmodload -ac [ -IL ] zmodload -ac [ -iI ] NAME [ COND ... ] zmodload -uc [ -iI ] COND ... The -ac option is used to define autoloaded condition codes. The COND strings give the names of the conditions defined by the module. The optional -I option is used to define infix condition names. Without this option prefix condition names are defined. If given no condition names, all defined names are listed (as a series of zmodload commands if the -L option is given). The -uc option removes definitions for autoloaded conditions. zmodload -ap [ -L ] zmodload -ap [ -i ] NAME [ PARAMETER ... ] zmodload -up [ -i ] PARAMETER ... The -p option is like the -b and -c options, but makes zmodload work on autoloaded parameters instead. zmodload -af [ -L ] zmodload -af [ -i ] NAME [ FUNCTION ... ] zmodload -uf [ -i ] FUNCTION ... The -f option is like the -b, -p, and -c options, but makes zmodload work on autoloaded math functions instead. zmodload -a [ -L ] zmodload -a [ -i ] NAME [ BUILTIN ... ] zmodload -ua [ -i ] BUILTIN ... Equivalent to -ab and -ub. zmodload -e [ -A ] [ STRING ... ] The -e option without arguments lists all loaded modules; if the -A option is also given, module aliases corresponding to loaded modules are also shown. With arguments only the return status is set to zero if all STRINGs given as arguments are names of loaded modules and to one if at least on STRING is not the name of a loaded module. This can be used to test for the availability of things implemented by modules. In this case, any aliases are automatically resolved and the -A flag is not used. zmodload -A [ -L ] [ MODALIAS[=MODULE] ... ] For each argument, if both MODALIAS and MODULE are given, define MODALIAS to be an alias for the module MODULE. If the module MODALIAS is ever subsequently requested, either via a call to zmodload or implicitly, the shell will attempt to load MODULE instead. If MODULE is not given, show the definition of MODALIAS. If no arguments are given, list all defined module aliases. When listing, if the -L flag was also given, list the definition as a zmodload command to recreate the alias. The existence of aliases for modules is completely independent of whether the name resolved is actually loaded as a module: while the alias exists, loading and unloading the module under any alias has exactly the same effect as using the resolved name, and does not affect the connection between the alias and the resolved name which can be removed either by zmodload -R or by redefining the alias. Chains of aliases (i.e. where the first resolved name is itself an alias) are valid so long as these are not circular. As the aliases take the same format as module names, they may include path separators: in this case, there is no requirement for any part of the path named to exist as the alias will be resolved first. For example, `any/old/alias' is always a valid alias. Dependencies added to aliased modules are actually added to the resolved module; these remain if the alias is removed. It is valid to create an alias whose name is one of the standard shell modules and which resolves to a different module. However, if a module has dependencies, it will not be possible to use the module name as an alias as the module will already be marked as a loadable module in its own right. Apart from the above, aliases can be used in the zmodload command anywhere module names are required. However, aliases will not be shown in lists of loaded modules with a bare `zmodload'. zmodload -R MODALIAS ... For each MODALIAS argument that was previously defined as a module alias via zmodload -A, delete the alias. If any was not defined, an error is caused and the remainder of the line is ignored. Note that zsh makes no distinction between modules that were linked into the shell and modules that are loaded dynamically. In both cases this builtin command has to be used to make available the builtins and other things defined by modules (unless the module is autoloaded on these definitions). This is true even for systems that don't support dynamic loading of modules. zparseopts See *Note The zsh/zutil Module::. zprof See *Note The zsh/zprof Module::. zpty See *Note The zsh/zpty Module::. zregexparse See *Note The zsh/zutil Module::. zsocket See *Note The zsh/net/socket Module::. zstyle See *Note The zsh/zutil Module::. ztcp See *Note The zsh/net/tcp Module::.  File: zsh.info, Node: Zsh Line Editor, Next: Completion Widgets, Prev: Shell Builtin Commands, Up: Top Zsh Line Editor *************** Description =========== If the ZLE option is set (which it is by default in interactive shells) and the shell input is attached to the terminal, the user is able to edit command lines. There are two display modes. The first, multiline mode, is the default. It only works if the TERM parameter is set to a valid terminal type that can move the cursor up. The second, single line mode, is used if TERM is invalid or incapable of moving the cursor up, or if the SINGLE_LINE_ZLE option is set. This mode is similar to `ksh', and uses no termcap sequences. If TERM is "emacs", the ZLE option will be unset by default. The parameters BAUD, COLUMNS, and LINES are also used by the line editor. *Note Parameters Used By The Shell::. * Menu: * Keymaps:: * Zle Builtins:: * Zle Widgets::  File: zsh.info, Node: Keymaps, Next: Zle Builtins, Up: Zsh Line Editor Keymaps ======= A keymap in ZLE contains a set of bindings between key sequences and ZLE commands. The empty key sequence cannot be bound. There can be any number of keymaps at any time, and each keymap has one or more names. If all of a keymap's names are deleted, it disappears. bindkey can be used to manipulate keymap names. Initially, there are four keymaps: emacs EMACS emulation viins vi emulation - insert mode vicmd vi emulation - command mode .safe fallback keymap The `.safe' keymap is special. It can never be altered, and the name can never be removed. However, it can be linked to other names, which can be removed. In the future other special keymaps may be added; users should avoid using names beginning with `.' for their own keymaps. In addition to these four names, either `emacs' or `viins' is also linked to the name `main'. If one of the VISUAL or EDITOR environment variables contain the string `vi' when the shell starts up then it will be `viins', otherwise it will be `emacs'. bindkey's -e and -v options provide a convenient way to override this default choice. When the editor starts up, it will select the `main' keymap. If that keymap doesn't exist, it will use `.safe' instead. In the `.safe' keymap, each single key is bound to self-insert, except for ^J (line feed) and ^M (return) which are bound to accept-line. This is deliberately not pleasant to use; if you are using it, it means you deleted the main keymap, and you should put it back. Reading Commands ---------------- When ZLE is reading a command from the terminal, it may read a sequence that is bound to some command and is also a prefix of a longer bound string. In this case ZLE will wait a certain time to see if more characters are typed, and if not (or they don't match any longer string) it will execute the binding. This timeout is defined by the KEYTIMEOUT parameter; its default is 0.4 sec. There is no timeout if the prefix string is not itself bound to a command. As well as ZLE commands, key sequences can be bound to other strings, by using `bindkey -s'. When such a sequence is read, the replacement string is pushed back as input, and the command reading process starts again using these fake keystrokes. This input can itself invoke further replacement strings, but in order to detect loops the process will be stopped if there are twenty such replacements without a real command being read.  File: zsh.info, Node: Zle Builtins, Next: Zle Widgets, Prev: Keymaps, Up: Zsh Line Editor Zle Builtins ============ The ZLE module contains three related builtin commands. The bindkey command manipulates keymaps and key bindings; the vared command invokes ZLE on the value of a shell parameter; and the zle command manipulates editing widgets and allows command line access to ZLE commands from within shell functions. bindkey [ OPTIONS ] -l bindkey [ OPTIONS ] -d bindkey [ OPTIONS ] -D KEYMAP ... bindkey [ OPTIONS ] -A OLD-KEYMAP NEW-KEYMAP bindkey [ OPTIONS ] -N NEW-KEYMAP [ OLD-KEYMAP ] bindkey [ OPTIONS ] -m bindkey [ OPTIONS ] -r IN-STRING ... bindkey [ OPTIONS ] -s IN-STRING OUT-STRING ... bindkey [ OPTIONS ] IN-STRING COMMAND ... bindkey [ OPTIONS ] [ IN-STRING ] bindkey's options can be divided into three categories: keymap selection, operation selection, and others. The keymap selection options are: -e Selects keymap `emacs', and also links it to `main'. -v Selects keymap `viins', and also links it to `main'. -a Selects keymap `vicmd'. -M KEYMAP The KEYMAP specifies a keymap name. If a keymap selection is required and none of the options above are used, the `main' keymap is used. Some operations do not permit a keymap to be selected, namely: -l List all existing keymap names. If the -L option is also used, list in the form of bindkey commands to create the keymaps. -d Delete all existing keymaps and reset to the default state. -D KEYMAP ... Delete the named KEYMAPs. -A OLD-KEYMAP NEW-KEYMAP Make the NEW-KEYMAP name an alias for OLD-KEYMAP, so that both names refer to the same keymap. The names have equal standing; if either is deleted, the other remains. If there is already a keymap with the NEW-KEYMAP name, it is deleted. -N NEW-KEYMAP [ OLD-KEYMAP ] Create a new keymap, named NEW-KEYMAP. If a keymap already has that name, it is deleted. If an OLD-KEYMAP name is given, the new keymap is initialized to be a duplicate of it, otherwise the new keymap will be empty. To use a newly created keymap, it should be linked to main. Hence the sequence of commands to create and use a new keymap `mymap' initialized from the emacs keymap (which remains unchanged) is: bindkey -N mymap emacs bindkey -A mymap main Note that while `bindkey -A NEWMAP main' will work when NEWMAP is emacs or viins, it will not work for vicmd, as switching from vi insert to command mode becomes impossible. The following operations act on the `main' keymap if no keymap selection option was given: -m Add the built-in set of meta-key bindings to the selected keymap. Only keys that are unbound or bound to self-insert are affected. -r IN-STRING ... Unbind the specified IN-STRINGs in the selected keymap. This is exactly equivalent to binding the strings to undefined-key. When -R is also used, interpret the IN-STRINGs as ranges. When -p is also used, the IN-STRINGs specify prefixes. Any binding that has the given IN-STRING as a prefix, not including the binding for the IN-STRING itself, if any, will be removed. For example, bindkey -rpM viins '^[' will remove all bindings in the vi-insert keymap beginning with an escape character (probably cursor keys), but leave the binding for the escape character itself (probably vi-cmd-mode). This is incompatible with the option -R. -s IN-STRING OUT-STRING ... Bind each IN-STRING to each OUT-STRING. When IN-STRING is typed, OUT-STRING will be pushed back and treated as input to the line editor. When -R is also used, interpret the IN-STRINGs as ranges. IN-STRING COMMAND ... Bind each IN-STRING to each COMMAND. When -R is used, interpret the IN-STRINGs as ranges. [ IN-STRING ] List key bindings. If an IN-STRING is specified, the binding of that string in the selected keymap is displayed. Otherwise, all key bindings in the selected keymap are displayed. (As a special case, if the -e or -v option is used alone, the keymap is _not_ displayed - the implicit linking of keymaps is the only thing that happens.) When the option -p is used, the IN-STRING must be present. The listing shows all bindings which have the given key sequence as a prefix, not including any bindings for the key sequence itself. When the -L option is used, the list is in the form of bindkey commands to create the key bindings. When the -R option is used as noted above, a valid range consists of two characters, with an optional `-' between them. All characters between the two specified, inclusive, are bound as specified. For either IN-STRING or OUT-STRING, the following escape sequences are recognised: \a bell character \b backspace \e, \E escape \f form feed \n linefeed (newline) \r carriage return \t horizontal tab \v vertical tab \NNN character code in octal \xNN character code in hexadecimal \M[-]X character with meta bit set \C[-]X control character ^X control character In all other cases, `\' escapes the following character. Delete is written as `^?'. Note that `\M^?' and `^\M?' are not the same, and that (unlike emacs), the bindings `\M-X' and `\eX' are entirely distinct, although they are initialized to the same bindings by `bindkey -m'. vared [ -Aache ] [ -p PROMPT ] [ -r RPROMPT ] NAME The value of the parameter NAME is loaded into the edit buffer, and the line editor is invoked. When the editor exits, NAME is set to the string value returned by the editor. When the -c flag is given, the parameter is created if it doesn't already exist. The -a flag may be given with -c to create an array parameter, or the -A flag to create an associative array. If the type of an existing parameter does not match the type to be created, the parameter is unset and recreated. If an array or array slice is being edited, separator characters as defined in $IFS will be shown quoted with a backslash, as will backslashes themselves. Conversely, when the edited text is split into an array, a backslash quotes an immediately following separator character or backslash; no other special handling of backslashes, or any handling of quotes, is performed. Individual elements of existing array or associative array parameters may be edited by using subscript syntax on NAME. New elements are created automatically, even without -c. If the -p flag is given, the following string will be taken as the prompt to display at the left. If the -r flag is given, the following string gives the prompt to display at the right. If the -h flag is specified, the history can be accessed from ZLE. If the -e flag is given, typing ^D (Control-D) on an empty line causes vared to exit immediately with a non-zero return value. zle -l [ -L | -a ] [ STRING ... ] zle -D WIDGET ... zle -A OLD-WIDGET NEW-WIDGET zle -N WIDGET [ FUNCTION ] zle -C WIDGET COMPLETION-WIDGET FUNCTION zle -R [ -c ] [ DISPLAY-STRING ] [ STRING ... ] zle -M STRING zle -U STRING zle -K KEYMAP zle -F [ -L ] [ FD [ HANDLER ] ] zle -I zle WIDGET [ -n NUM ] [ -N ] ARGS ... zle The zle builtin performs a number of different actions concerning ZLE. Which operation it performs depends on its options: -l [ -L | -a ] List all existing user-defined widgets. If the -L option is used, list in the form of zle commands to create the widgets. When combined with the -a option, all widget names are listed, including the builtin ones. In this case the -L option is ignored. If at least one STRING is given, nothing will be printed but the return status will be zero if all STRINGs are names of existing widgets (or of user-defined widgets if the -a flag is not given) and non-zero if at least one STRING is not a name of an defined widget. -D WIDGET ... Delete the named WIDGETs. -A OLD-WIDGET NEW-WIDGET Make the NEW-WIDGET name an alias for OLD-WIDGET, so that both names refer to the same widget. The names have equal standing; if either is deleted, the other remains. If there is already a widget with the NEW-WIDGET name, it is deleted. -N WIDGET [ FUNCTION ] Create a user-defined widget. If there is already a widget with the specified name, it is overwritten. When the new widget is invoked from within the editor, the specified shell FUNCTION is called. If no function name is specified, it defaults to the same name as the widget. For further information, see the section _Widgets_ in *Note Zsh Line Editor::. -C WIDGET COMPLETION-WIDGET FUNCTION Create a user-defined completion widget named WIDGET. The completion widget will behave like the built-in completion-widget whose name is given as COMPLETION-WIDGET. To generate the completions, the shell function FUNCTION will be called. For further information, see *Note Completion Widgets::. -R [ -c ] [ DISPLAY-STRING ] [ STRING ... ] Redisplay the command line; this is to be called from within a user-defined widget to allow changes to become visible. If a DISPLAY-STRING is given and not empty, this is shown in the status line (immediately below the line being edited). If the optional STRINGs are given they are listed below the prompt in the same way as completion lists are printed. If no STRINGs are given but the -c option is used such a list is cleared. Note that this option is only useful for widgets that do not exit immediately after using it because the strings displayed will be erased immediately after return from the widget. This command can safely be called outside user defined widgets; if zle is active, the display will be refreshed, while if zle is not active, the command has no effect. In this case there will usually be no other arguments. The status is zero if zle was active, else one. -M STRING As with the -R option, the STRING will be displayed below the command line; unlike the -R option, the string will not be put into the status line but will instead be printed normally below the prompt. This means that the STRING will still be displayed after the widget returns (until it is overwritten by subsequent commands). -U STRING This pushes the characters in the STRING onto the input stack of ZLE. After the widget currently executed finishes ZLE will behave as if the characters in the STRING were typed by the user. As ZLE uses a stack, if this option is used repeatedly the last string pushed onto the stack will be processed first. However, the characters in each STRING will be processed in the order in which they appear in the string. -K KEYMAP Selects the keymap named KEYMAP. An error message will be displayed if there is no such keymap. This keymap selection affects the interpretation of following keystrokes within this invocation of ZLE. Any following invocation (e.g., the next command line) will start as usual with the `main' keymap selected. -F [ -L ] [ FD [ HANDLER ] ] Only available if your system supports one of the `poll' or `select' system calls; most modern systems do. Installs HANDLER (the name of a shell function) to handle input from file descriptor FD. When zle is attempting to read data, it will examine both the terminal and the list of handled FD's. If data becomes available on a handled FD, zle will call HANDLER with the fd which is ready for reading as the only argument. If the handler produces output to the terminal, it should call `zle -I' before doing so (see below). The handler should not attempt to read from the terminal. Note that zle makes no attempt to check whether this fd is actually readable when installing the handler. The user must make their own arrangements for handling the file descriptor when zle is not active. Any number of handlers for any number of readable file descriptors may be installed. Installing a handler for an FD which is already handled causes the existing handler to be replaced. If no HANDLER is given, but an FD is present, any handler for that FD is removed. If there is none, an error message is printed and status 1 is returned. If no arguments are given, or the -L option is supplied, a list of handlers is printed in a form which can be stored for later execution. An FD (but not a HANDLER) may optionally be given with the -L option; in this case, the function will list the handler if any, else silently return status 1. Note that this feature should be used with care. Activity on one of the FD's which is not properly handled can cause the terminal to become unusable. Here is a simple example of using this feature. A connection to a remote TCP port is created using the ztcp command; see *Note The zsh/net/tcp Module::. Then a handler is installed which simply prints out any data which arrives on this connection. Note that `select' will indicate that the file descriptor needs handling if the remote side has closed the connection; we handle that by testing for a failed read. if ztcp pwspc 2811; then tcpfd=$REPLY handler() { zle -I local line if ! read -r line <&$1; then # select marks this fd if we reach EOF, # so handle this specially. print "[Read on fd $1 failed, removing.]" >&2 zle -F $1 return 1 fi print -r - $line } zle -F $tcpfd handler fi -I Unusually, this option is most useful outside ordinary widget functions, though it may be used within if normal output to the terminal is required. It invalidates the current zle display in preparation for output; typically this will be from a trap function. It has no effect if zle is not active. When a trap exits, the shell checks to see if the display needs restoring, hence the following will print output in such a way as not to disturb the line being edited: TRAPUSR1() { # Invalidate zle display [[ -o zle ]] && zle -I # Show output print Hello } In general, the trap function may need to test whether zle is active before using this method (as shown in the example), since the zsh/zle module may not even be loaded; if it is not, the command can be skipped. It is possible to call `zle -I' several times before control is returned to the editor; the display will only be invalidated the first time to minimise disruption. Note that there are normally better ways of manipulating the display from within zle widgets; see, for example, `zle -R' above. The status is zero if zle is active and the current zle display has been invalidated (even if this was by a previous call to `zle -I'), else one. WIDGET [ -n NUM ] [ -N ] ARGS ... Invoke the specified widget. This can only be done when ZLE is active; normally this will be within a user-defined widget. With the options -n and -N, the current numerical argument will be saved and then restored after the call to widget; `-n NUM' sets the numerical argument temporarily to NUM, while `-N' sets it to the default, i.e. as if there were none. Any further arguments will be passed to the widget. If it is a shell function, these are passed down as positional parameters; for builtin widgets it is up to the widget in question what it does with them. Currently arguments are only handled by the incremental-search commands, the history-search-forward and -backward and the corresponding functions prefixed by vi-, and by universal-argument. No error is flagged if the command does not use the arguments, or only uses some of them. The return status reflects the success or failure of the operation carried out by the widget, or if it is a user-defined widget the return status of the shell function. A non-zero return status causes the shell to beep when the widget exits, unless the BEEP options was unset or the widget was called via the zle command. Thus if a user defined widget requires an immediate beep, it should call the beep widget directly. With no options and no arguments, only the return status will be set. It is zero if ZLE is currently active and widgets could be invoked using this builtin command and non-zero if ZLE is not active.  File: zsh.info, Node: Zle Widgets, Prev: Zle Builtins, Up: Zsh Line Editor Widgets ======= All actions in the editor are performed by `widgets'. A widget's job is simply to perform some small action. The ZLE commands that key sequences in keymaps are bound to are in fact widgets. Widgets can be user-defined or built in. The standard widgets built in to ZLE are listed in Standard Widgets below. Other built-in widgets can be defined by other modules (see *Note Zsh Modules::). Each built-in widget has two names: its normal canonical name, and the same name preceded by a `.'. The `.' name is special: it can't be rebound to a different widget. This makes the widget available even when its usual name has been redefined. User-defined widgets are defined using `zle -N', and implemented as shell functions. When the widget is executed, the corresponding shell function is executed, and can perform editing (or other) actions. It is recommended that user-defined widgets should not have names starting with `.'. User-Defined Widgets ==================== User-defined widgets, being implemented as shell functions, can execute any normal shell command. They can also run other widgets (whether built-in or user-defined) using the zle builtin command. The standard input of the function is closed to prevent external commands from unintentionally blocking ZLE by reading from the terminal, but read -k or read -q can be used to read characters. Finally, they can examine and edit the ZLE buffer being edited by reading and setting the special parameters described below. These special parameters are always available in widget functions, but are not in any way special outside ZLE. If they have some normal value outside ZLE, that value is temporarily inaccessible, but will return when the widget function exits. These special parameters in fact have local scope, like parameters created in a function using local. Inside completion widgets and traps called while ZLE is active, these parameters are available read-only. BUFFER (scalar) The entire contents of the edit buffer. If it is written to, the cursor remains at the same offset, unless that would put it outside the buffer. BUFFERLINES (integer) The number of screen lines needed for the edit buffer currently displayed on screen (i.e. without any changes to the preceding parameters done after the last redisplay); read-only. CONTEXT (scalar) The context in which zle was called to read a line; read-only. One of the values: start The start of a command line (at prompt PS1). cont A continuation to a command line (at prompt PS2). select In a select loop. vared Editing a variable in vared. CURSOR (integer) The offset of the cursor, within the edit buffer. This is in the range 0 to $#BUFFER, and is by definition equal to $#LBUFFER. Attempts to move the cursor outside the buffer will result in the cursor being moved to the appropriate end of the buffer. CUTBUFFER (scalar) The last item to be cut using one of the `kill-' commands; the string which the next yank would insert in the line. HISTNO (integer) The current history number; read-only. KEYMAP (scalar) The name of the currently selected keymap; read-only. KEYS (scalar) The keys typed to invoke this widget, as a literal string; read-only. killring (array) The array of previously killed items, with the most recently killed first. This gives the items that would be retrieved by a yank-pop in the same order. The default size for the kill ring is eight, however the length may be changed by normal array operations. Any empty string in the kill ring is ignored by the yank-pop command, hence the size of the array effectively sets the maximum length of the kill ring, while the number of non-zero strings gives the current length, both as seen by the user at the command line. LASTSEARCH (scalar) The last search string used by an interactive search ; read-only. LASTWIDGET (scalar) The name of the last widget that was executed; read-only. LBUFFER (scalar) The part of the buffer that lies to the left of the cursor position. If it is assigned to, only that part of the buffer is replaced, and the cursor remains between the new $LBUFFER and the old $RBUFFER. MARK (integer) Like CURSOR, but for the mark. NUMERIC (integer) The numeric argument. If no numeric argument was given, this parameter is unset. When this is set inside a widget function, builtin widgets called with the zle builtin command will use the value assigned. If it is unset inside a widget function, builtin widgets called behave as if no numeric argument was given. PENDING (integer) The number of bytes pending for input, i.e. the number of bytes which have already been typed and can immediately be read. On systems where the shell is not able to get this information, this parameter will always have a value of zero. Read-only. PREBUFFER (scalar) In a multi-line input at the secondary prompt, this read-only parameter contains the contents of the lines before the one the cursor is currently in. PREDISPLAY (scalar) Text to be displayed before the start of the editable text buffer. This does not have to be a complete line; to display a complete line, a newline must be appended explicitly. The text is reset on each new invocation (but not recursive invocation) of zle. POSTDISPLAY (scalar) Text to be displayed after the end of the editable text buffer. This does not have to be a complete line; to display a complete line, a newline must be prepended explicitly. The text is reset on each new invocation (but not recursive invocation) of zle. RBUFFER (scalar) The part of the buffer that lies to the right of the cursor position. If it is assigned to, only that part of the buffer is replaced, and the cursor remains between the old $LBUFFER and the new $RBUFFER. WIDGET (scalar) The name of the widget currently being executed; read-only. Special Widget -------------- There is one user-defined widget which is special to the shell. If it does not exist, no special action is taken. The environment provided is identical to that for any other editing widget. zle-line-init Executed every time the line editor is started to read a new line of input. The following example puts the line editor into vi command mode when it starts up. zle-line-init() { zle -K vicmd; } zle -N zle-line-init (The command inside the function sets the keymap directly; it is equivalent to zle vi-cmd-mode.) Standard Widgets ================ The following is a list of all the standard widgets, and their default bindings in emacs mode, vi command mode and vi insert mode (the `emacs', `vicmd' and `viins' keymaps, respectively). Note that cursor keys are bound to movement keys in all three keymaps; the shell assumes that the cursor keys send the key sequences reported by the terminal-handling library (termcap or terminfo). The key sequences shown in the list are those based on the VT100, common on many modern terminals, but in fact these are not necessarily bound. In the case of the viins keymap, the initial escape character of the sequences serves also to return to the vicmd keymap: whether this happens is determined by the KEYTIMEOUT parameter, see *Note Parameters::. * Menu: * Movement:: * History Control:: * Modifying Text:: * Arguments:: * Completion:: * Miscellaneous::  File: zsh.info, Node: Movement, Next: History Control, Up: Zle Widgets Movement -------- vi-backward-blank-word (unbound) (B) (unbound) Move backward one word, where a word is defined as a series of non-blank characters. backward-char (^B ESC-[D) (unbound) (unbound) Move backward one character. vi-backward-char (unbound) (^H h ^?) (ESC-[D) Move backward one character, without changing lines. backward-word (ESC-B ESC-b) (unbound) (unbound) Move to the beginning of the previous word. emacs-backward-word Move to the beginning of the previous word. vi-backward-word (unbound) (b) (unbound) Move to the beginning of the previous word, vi-style. beginning-of-line (^A) (unbound) (unbound) Move to the beginning of the line. If already at the beginning of the line, move to the beginning of the previous line, if any. vi-beginning-of-line Move to the beginning of the line, without changing lines. end-of-line (^E) (unbound) (unbound) Move to the end of the line. If already at the end of the line, move to the end of the next line, if any. vi-end-of-line (unbound) ($) (unbound) Move to the end of the line. If an argument is given to this command, the cursor will be moved to the end of the line (argument - 1) lines down. vi-forward-blank-word (unbound) (W) (unbound) Move forward one word, where a word is defined as a series of non-blank characters. vi-forward-blank-word-end (unbound) (E) (unbound) Move to the end of the current word, or, if at the end of the current word, to the end of the next word, where a word is defined as a series of non-blank characters. forward-char (^F ESC-[C) (unbound) (unbound) Move forward one character. vi-forward-char (unbound) (space l) (ESC-[C) Move forward one character. vi-find-next-char (^X^F) (f) (unbound) Read a character from the keyboard, and move to the next occurrence of it in the line. vi-find-next-char-skip (unbound) (t) (unbound) Read a character from the keyboard, and move to the position just before the next occurrence of it in the line. vi-find-prev-char (unbound) (F) (unbound) Read a character from the keyboard, and move to the previous occurrence of it in the line. vi-find-prev-char-skip (unbound) (T) (unbound) Read a character from the keyboard, and move to the position just after the previous occurrence of it in the line. vi-first-non-blank (unbound) (^) (unbound) Move to the first non-blank character in the line. vi-forward-word (unbound) (w) (unbound) Move forward one word, vi-style. forward-word (ESC-F ESC-f) (unbound) (unbound) Move to the beginning of the next word. The editor's idea of a word is specified with the WORDCHARS parameter. emacs-forward-word Move to the end of the next word. vi-forward-word-end (unbound) (e) (unbound) Move to the end of the next word. vi-goto-column (ESC-|) (|) (unbound) Move to the column specified by the numeric argument. vi-goto-mark (unbound) (`) (unbound) Move to the specified mark. vi-goto-mark-line (unbound) (') (unbound) Move to beginning of the line containing the specified mark. vi-repeat-find (unbound) (;) (unbound) Repeat the last vi-find command. vi-rev-repeat-find (unbound) (,) (unbound) Repeat the last vi-find command in the opposite direction.  File: zsh.info, Node: History Control, Next: Modifying Text, Prev: Movement, Up: Zle Widgets History Control --------------- beginning-of-buffer-or-history (ESC-<) (unbound) (unbound) Move to the beginning of the buffer, or if already there, move to the first event in the history list. beginning-of-line-hist Move to the beginning of the line. If already at the beginning of the buffer, move to the previous history line. beginning-of-history Move to the first event in the history list. down-line-or-history (^N ESC-[B) (j) (ESC-[B) Move down a line in the buffer, or if already at the bottom line, move to the next event in the history list. vi-down-line-or-history (unbound) (+) (unbound) Move down a line in the buffer, or if already at the bottom line, move to the next event in the history list. Then move to the first non-blank character on the line. down-line-or-search Move down a line in the buffer, or if already at the bottom line, search forward in the history for a line beginning with the first word in the buffer. If called from a function by the zle command with arguments, the first argument is taken as the string for which to search, rather than the first word in the buffer. down-history (unbound) (^N) (unbound) Move to the next event in the history list. history-beginning-search-backward Search backward in the history for a line beginning with the current line up to the cursor. This leaves the cursor in its original position. end-of-buffer-or-history (ESC->) (unbound) (unbound) Move to the end of the buffer, or if already there, move to the last event in the history list. end-of-line-hist Move to the end of the line. If already at the end of the buffer, move to the next history line. end-of-history Move to the last event in the history list. vi-fetch-history (unbound) (G) (unbound) Fetch the history line specified by the numeric argument. This defaults to the current history line (i.e. the one that isn't history yet). history-incremental-search-backward (^R ^Xr) (unbound) (unbound) Search backward incrementally for a specified string. The search is case-insensitive if the search string does not have uppercase letters and no numeric argument was given. The string may begin with `^' to anchor the search to the beginning of the line. A restricted set of editing functions is available in the mini-buffer. An interrupt signal, as defined by the stty setting, will stop the search and go back to the original line. An undefined key will have the same effect. The supported functions are: backward-delete-char, vi-backward-delete-char, clear-screen, redisplay, quoted-insert, vi-quoted-insert, accept-and-hold, accept-and-infer-next-history, accept-line and accept-line-and-down-history. magic-space just inserts a space. vi-cmd-mode toggles between the `main' and `vicmd' keymaps; the `main' keymap (insert mode) will be selected initially. history-incremental-search-backward will get the next occurrence of the contents of the mini-buffer. history-incremental-search-forward inverts the sense of the search. vi-repeat-search and vi-rev-repeat-search are similarly supported. The direction of the search is indicated in the mini-buffer. Any multi-character string that is not bound to one of the above functions will beep and interrupt the search, leaving the last found line in the buffer. Any single character that is not bound to one of the above functions, or self-insert or self-insert-unmeta, will have the same effect but the function will be executed. When called from a widget function by the zle command, the incremental search commands can take a string argument. This will be treated as a string of keys, as for arguments to the bindkey command, and used as initial input for the command. Any characters in the string which are unused by the incremental search will be silently ignored. For example, zle history-incremental-search-backward forceps will search backwards for forceps, leaving the minibuffer containing the string `forceps'. history-incremental-search-forward (^S ^Xs) (unbound) (unbound) Search forward incrementally for a specified string. The search is case-insensitive if the search string does not have uppercase letters and no numeric argument was given. The string may begin with `^' to anchor the search to the beginning of the line. The functions available in the mini-buffer are the same as for history-incremental-search-backward. history-search-backward (ESC-P ESC-p) (unbound) (unbound) Search backward in the history for a line beginning with the first word in the buffer. If called from a function by the zle command with arguments, the first argument is taken as the string for which to search, rather than the first word in the buffer. vi-history-search-backward (unbound) (/) (unbound) Search backward in the history for a specified string. The string may begin with `^' to anchor the search to the beginning of the line. A restricted set of editing functions is available in the mini-buffer. An interrupt signal, as defined by the stty setting, will stop the search. The functions available in the mini-buffer are: accept-line, backward-delete-char, vi-backward-delete-char, backward-kill-word, vi-backward-kill-word, clear-screen, redisplay, quoted-insert and vi-quoted-insert. vi-cmd-mode is treated the same as accept-line, and magic-space is treated as a space. Any other character that is not bound to self-insert or self-insert-unmeta will beep and be ignored. If the function is called from vi command mode, the bindings of the current insert mode will be used. If called from a function by the zle command with arguments, the first argument is taken as the string for which to search, rather than the first word in the buffer. history-search-forward (ESC-N ESC-n) (unbound) (unbound) Search forward in the history for a line beginning with the first word in the buffer. If called from a function by the zle command with arguments, the first argument is taken as the string for which to search, rather than the first word in the buffer. vi-history-search-forward (unbound) (?) (unbound) Search forward in the history for a specified string. The string may begin with `^' to anchor the search to the beginning of the line. The functions available in the mini-buffer are the same as for vi-history-search-backward. Argument handling is also the same as for that command. infer-next-history (^X^N) (unbound) (unbound) Search in the history list for a line matching the current one and fetch the event following it. insert-last-word (ESC-_ ESC-.) (unbound) (unbound) Insert the last word from the previous history event at the cursor position. If a positive numeric argument is given, insert that word from the end of the previous history event. If the argument is zero or negative insert that word from the left (zero inserts the previous command word). Repeating this command replaces the word just inserted with the last word from the history event prior to the one just used; numeric arguments can be used in the same way to pick a word from that event. When called from a shell function invoked from a user-defined widget, the command can take one to three arguments. The first argument specifies a history offset which applies to successive calls to this widget: if is -1, the default behaviour is used, while if it is 1, successive calls will move forwards through the history. The value 0 can be used to indicate that the history line examined by the previous execution of the command will be reexamined. Note that negative numbers should be preceded with a `--' argument to avoid confusing them with options. If two arguments are given, the second specifies the word on the command line in normal array index notation (as a more natural alternative to the prefix argument). Hence 1 is the first word, and -1 (the default) is the last word. If a third argument is given, its value is ignored, but it is used to signify that the history offset is relative to the current history line, rather than the one remembered after the previous invocations of insert-last-word. For example, the default behaviour of the command corresponds to zle insert-last-word -- -1 -1 while the command zle insert-last-word -- -1 1 - always copies the first word of the line in the history immediately before the line being edited. This has the side effect that later invocations of the widget will be relative to that line. vi-repeat-search (unbound) (n) (unbound) Repeat the last vi history search. vi-rev-repeat-search (unbound) (N) (unbound) Repeat the last vi history search, but in reverse. up-line-or-history (^P ESC-[A) (k) (ESC-[A) Move up a line in the buffer, or if already at the top line, move to the previous event in the history list. vi-up-line-or-history (unbound) (-) (unbound) Move up a line in the buffer, or if already at the top line, move to the previous event in the history list. Then move to the first non-blank character on the line. up-line-or-search Move up a line in the buffer, or if already at the top line, search backward in the history for a line beginning with the first word in the buffer. If called from a function by the zle command with arguments, the first argument is taken as the string for which to search, rather than the first word in the buffer. up-history (unbound) (^P) (unbound) Move to the previous event in the history list. history-beginning-search-forward Search forward in the history for a line beginning with the current line up to the cursor. This leaves the cursor in its original position.  File: zsh.info, Node: Modifying Text, Next: Arguments, Prev: History Control, Up: Zle Widgets Modifying Text -------------- vi-add-eol (unbound) (A) (unbound) Move to the end of the line and enter insert mode. vi-add-next (unbound) (a) (unbound) Enter insert mode after the current cursor position, without changing lines. backward-delete-char (^H ^?) (unbound) (unbound) Delete the character behind the cursor. vi-backward-delete-char (unbound) (X) (^H) Delete the character behind the cursor, without changing lines. If in insert mode, this won't delete past the point where insert mode was last entered. backward-delete-word Delete the word behind the cursor. backward-kill-line Kill from the beginning of the line to the cursor position. backward-kill-word (^W ESC-^H ESC-^?) (unbound) (unbound) Kill the word behind the cursor. vi-backward-kill-word (unbound) (unbound) (^W) Kill the word behind the cursor, without going past the point where insert mode was last entered. capitalize-word (ESC-C ESC-c) (unbound) (unbound) Capitalize the current word and move past it. vi-change (unbound) (c) (unbound) Read a movement command from the keyboard, and kill from the cursor position to the endpoint of the movement. Then enter insert mode. If the command is vi-change, change the current line. vi-change-eol (unbound) (C) (unbound) Kill to the end of the line and enter insert mode. vi-change-whole-line (unbound) (S) (unbound) Kill the current line and enter insert mode. copy-region-as-kill (ESC-W ESC-w) (unbound) (unbound) Copy the area from the cursor to the mark to the kill buffer. copy-prev-word (ESC-^_) (unbound) (unbound) Duplicate the word to the left of the cursor. copy-prev-shell-word (ESC-^_) (unbound) (unbound) Like copy-prev-word, but the word is found by using shell parsing, whereas copy-prev-word looks for blanks. This makes a difference when the word is quoted and contains spaces. vi-delete (unbound) (d) (unbound) Read a movement command from the keyboard, and kill from the cursor position to the endpoint of the movement. If the command is vi-delete, kill the current line. delete-char Delete the character under the cursor. vi-delete-char (unbound) (x) (unbound) Delete the character under the cursor, without going past the end of the line. delete-word Delete the current word. down-case-word (ESC-L ESC-l) (unbound) (unbound) Convert the current word to all lowercase and move past it. kill-word (ESC-D ESC-d) (unbound) (unbound) Kill the current word. gosmacs-transpose-chars Exchange the two characters behind the cursor. vi-indent (unbound) (>) (unbound) Indent a number of lines. vi-insert (unbound) (i) (unbound) Enter insert mode. vi-insert-bol (unbound) (I) (unbound) Move to the first non-blank character on the line and enter insert mode. vi-join (^X^J) (J) (unbound) Join the current line with the next one. kill-line (^K) (unbound) (unbound) Kill from the cursor to the end of the line. If already on the end of the line, kill the newline character. vi-kill-line (unbound) (unbound) (^U) Kill from the cursor back to wherever insert mode was last entered. vi-kill-eol (unbound) (D) (unbound) Kill from the cursor to the end of the line. kill-region Kill from the cursor to the mark. kill-buffer (^X^K) (unbound) (unbound) Kill the entire buffer. kill-whole-line (^U) (unbound) (unbound) Kill the current line. vi-match-bracket (^X^B) (%) (unbound) Move to the bracket character (one of {}, () or []) that matches the one under the cursor. If the cursor is not on a bracket character, move forward without going past the end of the line to find one, and then go to the matching bracket. vi-open-line-above (unbound) (O) (unbound) Open a line above the cursor and enter insert mode. vi-open-line-below (unbound) (o) (unbound) Open a line below the cursor and enter insert mode. vi-oper-swap-case Read a movement command from the keyboard, and swap the case of all characters from the cursor position to the endpoint of the movement. If the movement command is vi-oper-swap-case, swap the case of all characters on the current line. overwrite-mode (^X^O) (unbound) (unbound) Toggle between overwrite mode and insert mode. vi-put-before (unbound) (P) (unbound) Insert the contents of the kill buffer before the cursor. If the kill buffer contains a sequence of lines (as opposed to characters), paste it above the current line. vi-put-after (unbound) (p) (unbound) Insert the contents of the kill buffer after the cursor. If the kill buffer contains a sequence of lines (as opposed to characters), paste it below the current line. quoted-insert (^V) (unbound) (unbound) Insert the next character typed into the buffer literally. An interrupt character will not be inserted. vi-quoted-insert (unbound) (unbound) (^Q ^V) Display a `^' at the cursor position, and insert the next character typed into the buffer literally. An interrupt character will not be inserted. quote-line (ESC-') (unbound) (unbound) Quote the current line; that is, put a `'' character at the beginning and the end, and convert all `'' characters to `'\'''. quote-region (ESC-") (unbound) (unbound) Quote the region from the cursor to the mark. vi-replace (unbound) (R) (unbound) Enter overwrite mode. vi-repeat-change (unbound) (.) (unbound) Repeat the last vi mode text modification. If a count was used with the modification, it is remembered. If a count is given to this command, it overrides the remembered count, and is remembered for future uses of this command. The cut buffer specification is similarly remembered. vi-replace-chars (unbound) (r) (unbound) Replace the character under the cursor with a character read from the keyboard. self-insert (printable characters) (unbound) (printable characters and some control characters) Insert a character into the buffer at the cursor position. self-insert-unmeta (ESC-^I ESC-^J ESC-^M) (unbound) (unbound) Insert a character into the buffer after stripping the meta bit and converting ^M to ^J. vi-substitute (unbound) (s) (unbound) Substitute the next character(s). vi-swap-case (unbound) (~) (unbound) Swap the case of the character under the cursor and move past it. transpose-chars (^T) (unbound) (unbound) Exchange the two characters to the left of the cursor if at end of line, else exchange the character under the cursor with the character to the left. transpose-words (ESC-T ESC-t) (unbound) (unbound) Exchange the current word with the one before it. vi-unindent (unbound) (<) (unbound) Unindent a number of lines. up-case-word (ESC-U ESC-u) (unbound) (unbound) Convert the current word to all caps and move past it. yank (^Y) (unbound) (unbound) Insert the contents of the kill buffer at the cursor position. yank-pop (ESC-y) (unbound) (unbound) Remove the text just yanked, rotate the kill-ring, and yank the new top. Only works following yank or yank-pop. vi-yank (unbound) (y) (unbound) Read a movement command from the keyboard, and copy the region from the cursor position to the endpoint of the movement into the kill buffer. If the command is vi-yank, copy the current line. vi-yank-whole-line (unbound) (Y) (unbound) Copy the current line into the kill buffer. vi-yank-eol Copy the region from the cursor position to the end of the line into the kill buffer. Arguably, this is what Y should do in vi, but it isn't what it actually does.  File: zsh.info, Node: Arguments, Next: Completion, Prev: Modifying Text, Up: Zle Widgets Arguments --------- digit-argument (ESC-0..ESC-9) (1-9) (unbound) Start a new numeric argument, or add to the current one. See also vi-digit-or-beginning-of-line. This only works if bound to a key sequence ending in a decimal digit. Inside a widget function, a call to this function treats the last key of the key sequence which called the widget as the digit. neg-argument (ESC-) (unbound) (unbound) Changes the sign of the following argument. universal-argument Multiply the argument of the next command by 4. Alternatively, if this command is followed by an integer (positive or negative), use that as the argument for the next command. Thus digits cannot be repeated using this command. For example, if this command occurs twice, followed immediately by forward-char, move forward sixteen spaces; if instead it is followed by -2, then forward-char, move backward two spaces. Inside a widget function, if passed an argument, i.e. `zle universal-argument NUM', the numerical argument will be set to NUM; this is equivalent to `NUMERIC=NUM'.  File: zsh.info, Node: Completion, Next: Miscellaneous, Prev: Arguments, Up: Zle Widgets Completion ---------- accept-and-menu-complete In a menu completion, insert the current completion into the buffer, and advance to the next possible completion. complete-word Attempt completion on the current word. delete-char-or-list (^D) (unbound) (unbound) Delete the character under the cursor. If the cursor is at the end of the line, list possible completions for the current word. expand-cmd-path Expand the current command to its full pathname. expand-or-complete (TAB) (unbound) (TAB) Attempt shell expansion on the current word. If that fails, attempt completion. expand-or-complete-prefix Attempt shell expansion on the current word up to cursor. expand-history (ESC-space ESC-!) (unbound) (unbound) Perform history expansion on the edit buffer. expand-word (^X*) (unbound) (unbound) Attempt shell expansion on the current word. list-choices (ESC-^D) (^D =) (^D) List possible completions for the current word. list-expand (^Xg ^XG) (^G) (^G) List the expansion of the current word. magic-space Perform history expansion and insert a space into the buffer. This is intended to be bound to space. menu-complete Like complete-word, except that menu completion is used. See the MENU_COMPLETE option. menu-expand-or-complete Like expand-or-complete, except that menu completion is used. reverse-menu-complete Perform menu completion, like menu-complete, except that if a menu completion is already in progress, move to the _previous_ completion rather than the next. end-of-list When a previous completion displayed a list below the prompt, this widget can be used to move the prompt below the list.  File: zsh.info, Node: Miscellaneous, Prev: Completion, Up: Zle Widgets Miscellaneous ------------- accept-and-hold (ESC-A ESC-a) (unbound) (unbound) Push the contents of the buffer on the buffer stack and execute it. accept-and-infer-next-history Execute the contents of the buffer. Then search the history list for a line matching the current one and push the event following onto the buffer stack. accept-line (^J ^M) (^J ^M) (^J ^M) Finish editing the buffer. Normally this causes the buffer to be executed as a shell command. accept-line-and-down-history (^O) (unbound) (unbound) Execute the current line, and push the next history event on the the buffer stack. beep Beep, unless the BEEP option is unset. vi-cmd-mode (^X^V) (unbound) (^[) Enter command mode; that is, select the `vicmd' keymap. Yes, this is bound by default in emacs mode. vi-caps-lock-panic Hang until any lowercase key is pressed. This is for vi users without the mental capacity to keep track of their caps lock key (like the author). clear-screen (^L ESC-^L) (^L) (^L) Clear the screen and redraw the prompt. describe-key-briefly Reads a key sequence, then prints the function bound to that sequence. exchange-point-and-mark (^X^X) (unbound) (unbound) Exchange the cursor position with the position of the mark. execute-named-cmd (ESC-x) (unbound) (unbound) Read the name of an editor command and execute it. A restricted set of editing functions is available in the mini-buffer. An interrupt signal, as defined by the stty setting, will abort the function. The allowed functions are: backward-delete-char, vi-backward-delete-char, clear-screen, redisplay, quoted-insert, vi-quoted-insert, backward-kill-word, vi-backward-kill-word, kill-whole-line, vi-kill-line, backward-kill-line, list-choices, delete-char-or-list, complete-word, accept-line, expand-or-complete and expand-or-complete-prefix. kill-region kills the last word, and vi-cmd-mode is treated the same as accept-line. The space and tab characters, if not bound to one of these functions, will complete the name and then list the possibilities if the AUTO_LIST option is set. Any other character that is not bound to self-insert or self-insert-unmeta will beep and be ignored. The bindings of the current insert mode will be used. execute-last-named-cmd (ESC-z) (unbound) (unbound) Redo the last function executed with execute-named-cmd. get-line (ESC-G ESC-g) (unbound) (unbound) Pop the top line off the buffer stack and insert it at the cursor position. pound-insert (unbound) (#) (unbound) If there is no # character at the beginning of the buffer, add one to the beginning of each line. If there is one, remove a # from each line that has one. In either case, accept the current line. The INTERACTIVE_COMMENTS option must be set for this to have any usefulness. vi-pound-insert If there is no # character at the beginning of the current line, add one. If there is one, remove it. The INTERACTIVE_COMMENTS option must be set for this to have any usefulness. push-input Push the entire current multiline construct onto the buffer stack and return to the top-level (PS1) prompt. If the current parser construct is only a single line, this is exactly like push-line. Next time the editor starts up or is popped with get-line, the construct will be popped off the top of the buffer stack and loaded into the editing buffer. push-line (^Q ESC-Q ESC-q) (unbound) (unbound) Push the current buffer onto the buffer stack and clear the buffer. Next time the editor starts up, the buffer will be popped off the top of the buffer stack and loaded into the editing buffer. push-line-or-edit At the top-level (PS1) prompt, equivalent to push-line. At a secondary (PS2) prompt, move the entire current multiline construct into the editor buffer. The latter is equivalent to push-input followed by get-line. recursive-edit Only useful from a user-defined widget. At this point in the function, the editor regains control until one of the standard widgets which would normally cause zle to exit (typically an accept-line caused by hitting the return key) is executed. Instead, control returns to the user-defined widget. The status returned is non-zero if the return was caused by an error, but the function still continues executing and hence may tidy up. This makes it safe for the user-defined widget to alter the command line or key bindings temporarily. The following widget, caps-lock, serves as an example. self-insert-ucase() { LBUFFER+=${(U)KEYS[-1]} } integer stat zle -N self-insert self-insert-ucase zle -A caps-lock save-caps-lock zle -A accept-line caps-lock zle recursive-edit stat=$? zle -A .self-insert self-insert zle -A save-caps-lock caps-lock zle -D save-caps-lock (( stat )) && zle send-break return $stat This causes typed letters to be inserted capitalised until either accept-line (i.e. typically the return key) is typed or the caps-lock widget is invoked again; the later is handled by saving the old definition of caps-lock as save-caps-lock and then rebinding it to invoke accept-line. Note that an error from the recursive edit is detected as a non-zero return status and propagated by using the send-break widget. redisplay (unbound) (^R) (^R) Redisplays the edit buffer. send-break (^G ESC-^G) (unbound) (unbound) Abort the current editor function, e.g. execute-named-command, or the editor itself, e.g. if you are in vared. Otherwise abort the parsing of the current line. run-help (ESC-H ESC-h) (unbound) (unbound) Push the buffer onto the buffer stack, and execute the command `run-help CMD', where CMD is the current command. run-help is normally aliased to man. vi-set-buffer (unbound) (") (unbound) Specify a buffer to be used in the following command. There are 35 buffers that can be specified: the 26 `named' buffers "a to "z and the nine `queued' buffers "1 to "9. The named buffers can also be specified as "A to "Z. When a buffer is specified for a cut command, the text being cut replaces the previous contents of the specified buffer. If a named buffer is specified using a capital, the newly cut text is appended to the buffer instead of overwriting it. If no buffer is specified for a cut command, "1 is used, and the contents of "1 to "8 are each shifted along one buffer; the contents of "9 is lost. vi-set-mark (unbound) (m) (unbound) Set the specified mark at the cursor position. set-mark-command (^@) (unbound) (unbound) Set the mark at the cursor position. spell-word (ESC-$ ESC-S ESC-s) (unbound) (unbound) Attempt spelling correction on the current word. undefined-key This command is executed when a key sequence that is not bound to any command is typed. By default it beeps. undo (^_ ^Xu ^X^U) (unbound) (unbound) Incrementally undo the last text modification. redo Incrementally redo undone text modifications. vi-undo-change (unbound) (u) (unbound) Undo the last text modification. If repeated, redo the modification. what-cursor-position (^X=) (unbound) (unbound) Print the character under the cursor, its code as an octal, decimal and hexadecimal number, the current cursor position within the buffer and the column of the cursor in the current line. where-is Read the name of an editor command and and print the listing of key sequences that invoke the specified command. which-command (ESC-?) (unbound) (unbound) Push the buffer onto the buffer stack, and execute the command `which-command CMD'. where CMD is the current command. which-command is normally aliased to WHENCE. vi-digit-or-beginning-of-line (unbound) (0) (unbound) If the last command executed was a digit as part of an argument, continue the argument. Otherwise, execute vi-beginning-of-line.  File: zsh.info, Node: Completion Widgets, Next: Completion System, Prev: Zsh Line Editor, Up: Top Completion Widgets ****************** Description =========== The shell's programmable completion mechanism can be manipulated in two ways; here the low-level features supporting the newer, function-based mechanism are defined. A complete set of shell functions based on these features is described in the next chapter, *Note Completion System::, and users with no interest in adding to that system (or, potentially, writing their own -- see dictionary entry for `hubris') should skip this section. The older system based on the compctl builtin command is described in *Note Completion Using compctl::. Completion widgets are defined by the -C option to the zle builtin command provided by the zsh/zle module (see *Note The zsh/zle Module::). For example, zle -C complete expand-or-complete completer defines a widget named `complete'. The second argument is the name of any of the builtin widgets that handle completions: complete-word, expand-or-complete, expand-or-complete-prefix, menu-complete, menu-expand-or-complete, reverse-menu-complete, list-choices, or delete-char-or-list. Note that this will still work even if the widget in question has been re-bound. When this newly defined widget is bound to a key using the bindkey builtin command defined in the zsh/zle module (*Note Zsh Line Editor::), typing that key will call the shell function `completer'. This function is responsible for generating the possible matches using the builtins described below. As with other ZLE widgets, the function is called with its standard input closed. Once the function returns, the completion code takes over control again and treats the matches in the same manner as the specified builtin widget, in this case expand-or-complete. * Menu: * Special Parameters:: * Builtin Commands:: * Condition Codes:: * Matching Control:: * Completion Widget Example::  File: zsh.info, Node: Special Parameters, Next: Builtin Commands, Up: Completion Widgets Special Parameters ================== Inside completion widgets, and any functions called from them, some parameters have special meaning; outside these functions they are not special to the shell in any way. These parameters are used to pass information between the completion code and the completion widget. Some of the builtin commands and the condition codes use or change the current values of these parameters. Any existing values will be hidden during execution of completion widgets; except for compstate, the parameters are reset on each function exit (including nested function calls from within the completion widget) to the values they had when the function was entered. CURRENT This is the number of the current word, i.e. the word the cursor is currently on in the words array. Note that this value is only correct if the ksharrays option is not set. IPREFIX Initially this will be set to the empty string. This parameter functions like PREFIX; it contains a string which precedes the one in PREFIX and is not considered part of the list of matches. Typically, a string is transferred from the beginning of PREFIX to the end of IPREFIX, for example: IPREFIX=${PREFIX%%\=*}= PREFIX=${PREFIX#*=} causes the part of the prefix up to and including the first equal sign not to be treated as part of a matched string. This can be done automatically by the compset builtin, see below. ISUFFIX As IPREFIX, but for a suffix that should not be considered part of the matches; note that the ISUFFIX string follows the SUFFIX string. PREFIX Initially this will be set to the part of the current word from the beginning of the word up to the position of the cursor; it may be altered to give a common prefix for all matches. QIPREFIX This parameter is read-only and contains the quoted string up to the word being completed. E.g. when completing `"foo', this parameter contains the double quote. If the -q option of compset is used (see below), and the original string was `"foo bar' with the cursor on the `bar', this parameter contains `"foo '. QISUFFIX Like QIPREFIX, but containing the suffix. SUFFIX Initially this will be set to the part of the current word from the cursor position to the end; it may be altered to give a common suffix for all matches. It is most useful when the option COMPLETE_IN_WORD is set, as otherwise the whole word on the command line is treated as a prefix. compstate This is an associative array with various keys and values that the completion code uses to exchange information with the completion widget. The keys are: all_quotes The -q option of the compset builtin command (see below) allows a quoted string to be broken into separate words; if the cursor is on one of those words, that word will be completed, possibly invoking `compset -q' recursively. With this key it is possible to test the types of quoted strings which are currently broken into parts in this fashion. Its value contains one character for each quoting level. The characters are a single quote or a double quote for strings quoted with these characters and a backslash for strings not starting with a quote character. The first character in the value always corresponds to the innermost quoting level. context This will be set by the completion code to the overall context in which completion is attempted. Possible values are: array_value when completing inside the value of an array parameter assignment; in this case the words array contains the words inside the parentheses. brace_parameter when completing the name of a parameter in a parameter expansion beginning with ${. assign_parameter when completing the name of a parameter in a parameter assignment. command when completing for a normal command (either in command position or for an argument of the command). condition when completing inside a `[[...]]' conditional expression; in this case the words array contains only the words inside the conditional expression. math when completing in a mathematical environment such as a `((...))' construct. parameter when completing the name of a parameter in a parameter expansion beginning with $ but not ${. redirect when completing after a redirection operator. subscript when completing inside a parameter subscript. value when completing the value of a parameter assignment. exact Controls the behaviour when the REC_EXACT option is set. It will be set to accept if an exact match would be accepted, and will be unset otherwise. If it was set when at least one match equal to the string on the line was generated, the match is accepted. exact_string The string of an exact match if one was found, otherwise unset. ignored The number of words that were ignored because they matched one of the patterns given with the -F option to the compadd builtin command. insert This controls the manner in which a match is inserted into the command line. On entry to the widget function, if it is unset the command line is not to be changed; if set to unambiguous, any prefix common to all matches is to be inserted; if set to automenu-unambiguous, the common prefix is to be inserted and the next invocation of the completion code may start menu completion (due to the AUTO_MENU option being set); if set to menu or automenu menu completion will be started for the matches currently generated (in the latter case this will happen because the AUTO_MENU is set). The value may also contain the string `tab' when the completion code would normally not really do completion, but only insert the TAB character. On exit it may be set to any of the values above (where setting it to the empty string is the same as unsetting it), or to a number, in which case the match whose number is given will be inserted into the command line. Negative numbers count backward from the last match (with `-1' selecting the last match) and out-of-range values are wrapped around, so that a value of zero selects the last match and a value one more than the maximum selects the first. Unless the value of this key ends in a space, the match is inserted as in a menu completion, i.e. without automatically appending a space. Both menu and automenu may also specify the the number of the match to insert, given after a colon. For example, `menu:2' says to start menu completion, beginning with the second match. Note that a value containing the substring `tab' makes the matches generated be ignored and only the TAB be inserted. Finally, it may also be set to all, which makes all matches generated be inserted into the line. insert_positions When the completion system inserts an unambiguous string into the line, there may be multiple places where characters are missing or where the character inserted differs from at least one match. The value of this key contains a colon separated list of all these positions, as indexes into the command line. last_prompt If this is set to a non-empty string for every match added, the completion code will move the cursor back to the previous prompt after the list of completions has been displayed. Initially this is set or unset according to the ALWAYS_LAST_PROMPT option. list This controls whether or how the list of matches will be displayed. If it is unset or empty they will never be listed; if its value begins with list, they will always be listed; if it begins with autolist or ambiguous, they will be listed when the AUTO_LIST or LIST_AMBIGUOUS options respectively would normally cause them to be. If the substring force appears in the value, this makes the list be shown even if there is only one match. Normally, the list would be shown only if there are at least two matches. The value contains the substring packed if the LIST_PACKED option is set. If this substring is given for all matches added to a group, this group will show the LIST_PACKED behavior. The same is done for the LIST_ROWS_FIRST option with the substring rows. Finally, if the value contains the string explanations, only the explanation strings, if any, will be listed and if it contains messages, only the messages (added with the -x option of compadd) will be listed. If it contains both explanations and messages both kinds of explanation strings will be listed. It will be set appropriately on entry to a completion widget and may be changed there. list_lines This gives the number of lines that are needed to display the full list of completions. Note that to calculate the total number of lines to display you need to add the number of lines needed for the command line to this value, this is available as the value of the BUFFERLINES special parameter. list_max Initially this is set to the value of the LISTMAX parameter. It may be set to any other value; when the widget exits this value will be used in the same way as the value of LISTMAX. nmatches The number of matches generated and accepted by the completion code so far. old_insert On entry to the widget this will be set to the number of the match of an old list of completions that is currently inserted into the command line. If no match has been inserted, this is unset. As with old_list, the value of this key will only be used if it is the string keep. If it was set to this value by the widget and there was an old match inserted into the command line, this match will be kept and if the value of the insert key specifies that another match should be inserted, this will be inserted after the old one. old_list This is set to yes if there is still a valid list of completions from a previous completion at the time the widget is invoked. This will usually be the case if and only if the previous editing operation was a completion widget or one of the builtin completion functions. If there is a valid list and it is also currently shown on the screen, the value of this key is shown. After the widget has exited the value of this key is only used if it was set to keep. In this case the completion code will continue to use this old list. If the widget generated new matches, they will not be used. parameter The name of the parameter when completing in a subscript or in the value of a parameter assignment. pattern_insert Normally this is set to menu, which specifies that menu completion will be used whenever a set of matches was generated using pattern matching. If it is set to any other non-empty string by the user and menu completion is not selected by other option settings, the code will instead insert any common prefix for the generated matches as with normal completion. pattern_match Locally controls the behaviour given by the GLOB_COMPLETE option. Initially it is set to `*' if and only if the option is set. The completion widget may set it to this value, to an empty string (which has the same effect as unsetting it), or to any other non-empty string. If it is non-empty, unquoted metacharacters on the command line will be treated as patterns; if it is `*', then additionally a wildcard `*' is assumed at the cursor position; if it is empty or unset, metacharacters will be treated literally. Note that the matcher specifications given to the compadd builtin command are not used if this is set to a non-empty string. quote When completing inside quotes, this contains the quotation character (i.e. either a single quote, a double quote, or a backtick). Otherwise it is unset. quoting When completing inside single quotes, this is set to the string single; inside double quotes, the string double; inside backticks, the string backtick. Otherwise it is unset. redirect The redirection operator when completing in a redirection position, i.e. one of <, >, etc. restore This is set to auto before a function is entered, which forces the special parameters mentioned above (words, CURRENT, PREFIX, IPREFIX, SUFFIX, and ISUFFIX) to be restored to their previous values when the function exits. If a function unsets it or sets it to any other string, they will not be restored. to_end Specifies the occasions on which the cursor is moved to the end of a string when a match is inserted. On entry to a widget function, it may be single if this will happen when a single unambiguous match was inserted or match if it will happen any time a match is inserted (for example, by menu completion; this is likely to be the effect of the ALWAYS_TO_END option). On exit, it may be set to single as above. It may also be set to always, or to the empty string or unset; in those cases the cursor will be moved to the end of the string always or never respectively. Any other string is treated as match. unambiguous This key is read-only and will always be set to the common (unambiguous) prefix the completion code has generated for all matches added so far. unambiguous_cursor This gives the position the cursor would be placed at if the common prefix in the unambiguous key were inserted, relative to the value of that key. The cursor would be placed before the character whose index is given by this key. unambiguous_positions This contains all positions where characters in the unambiguous string are missing or where the character inserted differs from at least one of the matches. The positions are given as indexes into the string given by the value of the unambiguous key. vared If completion is called while editing a line using the vared builtin, the value of this key is set to the name of the parameter given as an argument to vared. This key is only set while a vared command is active. words This array contains the words present on the command line currently being edited.  File: zsh.info, Node: Builtin Commands, Next: Condition Codes, Prev: Special Parameters, Up: Completion Widgets Builtin Commands ================ compadd [ -akqQfenUl12C ] [ -F ARRAY ] [ -P PREFIX ] [ -S SUFFIX ] [ -p HIDDEN-PREFIX ] [ -s HIDDEN-SUFFIX ] [ -i IGNORED-PREFIX ] [ -I IGNORED-SUFFIX ] [ -W FILE-PREFIX ] [ -d ARRAY ] [ -J NAME ] [ -V NAME ] [ -X EXPLANATION ] [ -x MESSAGE ] [ -r REMOVE-CHARS ] [ -R REMOVE-FUNC ] [ -D ARRAY ] [ -O ARRAY ] [ -A ARRAY ] [ -E NUMBER ] [ -M MATCH-SPEC ] [ - ] [ WORDS ... ] This builtin command can be used to add matches directly and control all the information the completion code stores with each possible match. The return value is zero if at least one match was added and non-zero if no matches were added. The completion code breaks the string to complete into seven fields in the order: The first field is an ignored prefix taken from the command line, the contents of the IPREFIX parameter plus the string given with the -i option. With the -U option, only the string from the -i option is used. The field is an optional prefix string given with the -P option. The field is a string that is considered part of the match but that should not be shown when listing completions, given with the -p option; for example, functions that do filename generation might specify a common path prefix this way. is the part of the match that should appear in the list of completions, i.e. one of the WORDS given at the end of the compadd command line. The suffixes , and correspond to the prefixes , and and are given by the options -s, -S and -I, respectively. The supported flags are: -P PREFIX This gives a string to be inserted before the given WORDS. The string given is not considered as part of the match and any shell metacharacters in it will not be quoted when the string is inserted. -S SUFFIX Like -P, but gives a string to be inserted after the match. -p HIDDEN-PREFIX This gives a string that should be inserted into the command line before the match but that should not appear in the list of matches. Unless the -U option is given, this string must be matched as part of the string on the command line. -s HIDDEN-SUFFIX Like `-p', but gives a string to insert after the match. -i IGNORED-PREFIX This gives a string to insert into the command line just before any string given with the `-P' option. Without `-P' the string is inserted before the string given with `-p' or directly before the match. -I IGNORED-SUFFIX Like -i, but gives an ignored suffix. -a With this flag the WORDS are taken as names of arrays and the possible matches are their values. If only some elements of the arrays are needed, the WORDS may also contain subscripts, as in `foo[2,-1]'. -k With this flag the WORDS are taken as names of associative arrays and the possible matches are their keys. As for -a, the WORDS may also contain subscripts, as in `foo[(R)*bar*]'. -d ARRAY This adds per-match display strings. The ARRAY should contain one element per WORD given. The completion code will then display the first element instead of the first WORD, and so on. The ARRAY may be given as the name of an array parameter or directly as a space-separated list of words in parentheses. If there are fewer display strings than WORDS, the leftover WORDS will be displayed unchanged and if there are more display strings than WORDS, the leftover display strings will be silently ignored. -l This option only has an effect if used together with the -d option. If it is given, the display strings are listed one per line, not arrayed in columns. -J NAME Gives the name of the group of matches the words should be stored in. -V NAME Like -J but naming a unsorted group. These are in a different name space than groups created with the -J flag. -1 If given together with the -V option, makes only consecutive duplicates in the group be removed. If combined with the -J option, this has no visible effect. Note that groups with and without this flag are in different name spaces. -2 If given together with the -J or -V option, makes all duplicates be kept. Again, groups with and without this flag are in different name spaces. -X EXPLANATION The EXPLANATION string will be printed with the list of matches, above the group currently selected. -x MESSAGE Like -X, but the MESSAGE will be printed even if there are no matches in the group. -q The suffix given with -S will be automatically removed if the next character typed is a blank or does not insert anything, or if the suffix consists of only one character and the next character typed is the same character. -r REMOVE-CHARS This is a more versatile form of the -q option. The suffix given with -S or the slash automatically added after completing directories will be automatically removed if the next character typed inserts one of the characters given in the REMOVE-CHARS. This string is parsed as a characters class and understands the backslash sequences used by the print command. For example, `-r "a-z\t"' removes the suffix if the next character typed inserts a lowercase character or a TAB, and `-r "^0-9"' removes the suffix if the next character typed inserts anything but a digit. One extra backslash sequence is understood in this string: `\-' stands for all characters that insert nothing. Thus `-S "=" -q' is the same as `-S "=" -r "= \t\n\-"'. This option may also be used without the -S option; then any automatically added space will be removed when one of the characters in the list is typed. -R REMOVE-FUNC This is another form of the -r option. When a suffix has been inserted and the completion accepted, the function REMOVE-FUNC will be called after the next character typed. It is passed the length of the suffix as an argument and can use the special parameters available in ordinary (non-completion) zle widgets (see *Note Zsh Line Editor::) to analyse and modify the command line. -f If this flag is given, all of the matches built from WORDS are marked as being the names of files. They are not required to be actual filenames, but if they are, and the option LIST_TYPES is set, the characters describing the types of the files in the completion lists will be shown. This also forces a slash to be added when the name of a directory is completed. -e This flag can be used to tell the completion code that the matches added are parameter names for a parameter expansion. This will make the AUTO_PARAM_SLASH and AUTO_PARAM_KEYS options be used for the matches. -W FILE-PREFIX This string is a pathname that will be prepended to each of the matches formed by the given WORDS together with any prefix specified by the -p option to form a complete filename for testing. Hence it is only useful if combined with the -f flag, as the tests will not otherwise be performed. -F ARRAY Specifies an array containing patterns. Words matching one of these patterns are ignored, i.e. not considered to be possible matches. The ARRAY may be the name of an array parameter or a list of literal patterns enclosed in parentheses and quoted, as in `-F "(*?.o *?.h)"'. If the name of an array is given, the elements of the array are taken as the patterns. -Q This flag instructs the completion code not to quote any metacharacters in the words when inserting them into the command line. -M MATCH-SPEC This gives local match specifications as described below in *Note Matching Control::. This option may be given more than once. In this case all MATCH-SPECs given are concatenated with spaces between them to form the specification string to use. Note that they will only be used if the -U option is not given. -n Specifies that the words added are to be used as possible matches, but are not to appear in the completion listing. -U If this flag is given, all words given will be accepted and no matching will be done by the completion code. Normally this is used in functions that do the matching themselves. -O ARRAY If this option is given, the WORDS are _not_ added to the set of possible completions. Instead, matching is done as usual and all of the WORDS given as arguments that match the string on the command line will be stored in the array parameter whose name is given as ARRAY. -A ARRAY As the -O option, except that instead of those of the WORDS which match being stored in ARRAY, the strings generated internally by the completion code are stored. For example, with a matching specification of `-M "L:|no="', the string `nof' on the command line and the string `foo' as one of the WORDS, this option stores the string `nofoo' in the array, whereas the -O option stores the `foo' originally given. -D ARRAY As with -O, the WORDS are not added to the set of possible completions. Instead, the completion code tests whether each WORD in turn matches what is on the line. If the N'th WORD does not match, the N'th element of the ARRAY is removed. Elements for which the corresponding WORD is matched are retained. -C This option adds a special match which expands to all other matches when inserted into the line, even those that are added after this option is used. Together with the -d option it is possible to specify a string that should be displayed in the list for this special match. If no string is given, it will be shown as a string containing the strings that would be inserted for the other matches, truncated to the width of the screen. -E This option adds NUMBER empty matches after the WORDS have been added. An empty match takes up space in completion listings but will never be inserted in the line and can't be selected with menu completion or menu selection. This makes empty matches only useful to format completion lists and to make explanatory string be shown in completion lists (since empty matches can be given display strings with the -d option). And because all but one empty string would otherwise be removed, this option implies the -V and -2 options (even if an explicit -J option is given). - -- This flag ends the list of flags and options. All arguments after it will be taken as the words to use as matches even if they begin with hyphens. Except for the -M flag, if any of these flags is given more than once, the first one (and its argument) will be used. compset -p NUMBER compset -P [ NUMBER ] PATTERN compset -s NUMBER compset -S [ NUMBER ] PATTERN compset -n BEGIN [ END ] compset -N BEG-PAT [ END-PAT ] compset -q This command simplifies modification of the special parameters, while its return value allows tests on them to be carried out. The options are: -p NUMBER If the contents of the PREFIX parameter is longer than NUMBER characters, the first NUMBER characters are removed from it and appended to the contents of the IPREFIX parameter. -P [ NUMBER ] PATTERN If the value of the PREFIX parameter begins with anything that matches the PATTERN, the matched portion is removed from PREFIX and appended to IPREFIX. Without the optional NUMBER, the longest match is taken, but if NUMBER is given, anything up to the NUMBER'th match is moved. If the NUMBER is negative, the NUMBER'th longest match is moved. For example, if PREFIX contains the string `a=b=c', then compset -P '*\=' will move the string `a=b=' into the IPREFIX parameter, but compset -P 1 '*\=' will move only the string `a='. -s NUMBER As -p, but transfer the last NUMBER characters from the value of SUFFIX to the front of the value of ISUFFIX. -S [ NUMBER ] PATTERN As -P, but match the last portion of SUFFIX and transfer the matched portion to the front of the value of ISUFFIX. -n BEGIN [ END ] If the current word position as specified by the parameter CURRENT is greater than or equal to BEGIN, anything up to the BEGIN'th word is removed from the words array and the value of the parameter CURRENT is decremented by BEGIN. If the optional END is given, the modification is done only if the current word position is also less than or equal to END. In this case, the words from position END onwards are also removed from the words array. Both BEGIN and END may be negative to count backwards from the last element of the words array. -N BEG-PAT [ END-PAT ] If one of the elements of the words array before the one at the index given by the value of the parameter CURRENT matches the pattern BEG-PAT, all elements up to and including the matching one are removed from the words array and the value of CURRENT is changed to point to the same word in the changed array. If the optional pattern END-PAT is also given, and there is an element in the words array matching this pattern, the parameters are modified only if the index of this word is higher than the one given by the CURRENT parameter (so that the matching word has to be after the cursor). In this case, the words starting with the one matching end-pat are also removed from the words array. If words contains no word matching END-PAT, the testing and modification is performed as if it were not given. -q The word currently being completed is split on spaces into separate words, respecting the usual shell quoting conventions. The resulting words are stored in the words array, and CURRENT, PREFIX, SUFFIX, QIPREFIX, and QISUFFIX are modified to reflect the word part that is completed. In all the above cases the return value is zero if the test succeeded and the parameters were modified and non-zero otherwise. This allows one to use this builtin in tests such as: if compset -P '*\='; then ... This forces anything up to and including the last equal sign to be ignored by the completion code. compcall [ -TD ] This allows the use of completions defined with the compctl builtin from within completion widgets. The list of matches will be generated as if one of the non-widget completion function (complete-word, etc.) had been called, except that only compctls given for specific commands are used. To force the code to try completions defined with the -T option of compctl and/or the default completion (whether defined by compctl -D or the builtin default) in the appropriate places, the -T and/or -D flags can be passed to compcall. The return value can be used to test if a matching compctl definition was found. It is non-zero if a compctl was found and zero otherwise. Note that this builtin is defined by the zsh/compctl module.  File: zsh.info, Node: Condition Codes, Next: Matching Control, Prev: Builtin Commands, Up: Completion Widgets Condition Codes =============== The following additional condition codes for use within the [[ ... ]] construct are available in completion widgets. These work on the special parameters. All of these tests can also be performed by the compset builtin, but in the case of the condition codes the contents of the special parameters are not modified. -prefix [ NUMBER ] PATTERN true if the test for the -P option of compset would succeed. -suffix [ NUMBER ] PATTERN true if the test for the -S option of compset would succeed. -after BEG-PAT true if the test of the -N option with only the BEG-PAT given would succeed. -between BEG-PAT END-PAT true if the test for the -N option with both patterns would succeed.  File: zsh.info, Node: Matching Control, Next: Completion Widget Example, Prev: Condition Codes, Up: Completion Widgets Matching Control ================ It is possible by use of the -M option of the compadd builtin command to specify how the characters in the string to be completed (referred to here as the command line) map onto the characters in the list of matches produced by the completion code (referred to here as the trial completions). Note that this is not used if the command line contains a glob pattern and the GLOB_COMPLETE option is set or the pattern_match of the compstate special association is set to a non-empty string. The MATCH-SPEC given as the argument to the -M option (see *Note Builtin Commands::) consists of one or more matching descriptions separated by whitespace. Each description consists of a letter followed by a colon and then the patterns describing which character sequences on the line match which character sequences in the trial completion. Any sequence of characters not handled in this fashion must match exactly, as usual. The forms of MATCH-SPEC understood are as follows. In each case, the form with an uppercase initial character retains the string already typed on the command line as the final result of completion, while with a lowercase initial character the string on the command line is changed into the corresponding part of the trial completion. m:LPAT=TPAT M:LPAT=TPAT Here, LPAT is a pattern that matches on the command line, corresponding to TPAT which matches in the trial completion. l:LANCHOR|LPAT=TPAT L:LANCHOR|LPAT=TPAT l:LANCHOR||RANCHOR=TPAT L:LANCHOR||RANCHOR=TPAT b:LPAT=TPAT B:LPAT=TPAT These letters are for patterns that are anchored by another pattern on the left side. Matching for LPAT and TPAT is as for m and M, but the pattern LPAT matched on the command line must be preceded by the pattern LANCHOR. The LANCHOR can be blank to anchor the match to the start of the command line string; otherwise the anchor can occur anywhere, but must match in both the command line and trial completion strings. If no LPAT is given but a RANCHOR is, this matches the gap between substrings matched by LANCHOR and RANCHOR. Unlike LANCHOR, the RANCHOR only needs to match the trial completion string. The b and B forms are similar to l and L with an empty anchor, but need to match only the beginning of the trial completion or the word on the command line, respectively. r:LPAT|RANCHOR=TPAT R:LPAT|RANCHOR=TPAT r:LANCHOR||RANCHOR=TPAT R:LANCHOR||RANCHOR=TPAT e:LPAT=TPAT E:LPAT=TPAT As l, L, b and B, with the difference that the command line and trial completion patterns are anchored on the right side. Here an empty RANCHOR and the e and E forms force the match to the end of the trial completion or command line string. Each LPAT, TPAT or ANCHOR is either an empty string or consists of a sequence of literal characters (which may be quoted with a backslash), question marks, character classes, and correspondence classes; ordinary shell patterns are not used. Literal characters match only themselves, question marks match any character, and character classes are formed as for globbing and match any character in the given set. Correspondence classes are defined like character classes, but with two differences: they are delimited by a pair of braces, and negated classes are not allowed, so the characters ! and ^ have no special meaning directly after the opening brace. They indicate that a range of characters on the line match a range of characters in the trial completion, but (unlike ordinary character classes) paired according to the corresponding position in the sequence. For example, to make any lowercase letter on the line match the corresponding uppercase letter in the trial completion, you can use `m:{a-z}={A-Z}'. More than one pair of classes can occur, in which case the first class before the = corresponds to the first after it, and so on. If one side has more such classes than the other side, the superfluous classes behave like normal character classes. In anchor patterns correspondence classes also behave like normal character classes. The pattern TPAT may also be one or two stars, `*' or `**'. This means that the pattern on the command line can match any number of characters in the trial completion. In this case the pattern must be anchored (on either side); in the case of a single star, the ANCHOR then determines how much of the trial completion is to be included -- only the characters up to the next appearance of the anchor will be matched. With two stars, substrings matched by the anchor can be matched, too. Examples: The keys of the options association defined by the parameter module are the option names in all-lowercase form, without underscores, and without the optional no at the beginning even though the builtins setopt and unsetopt understand option names with uppercase letters, underscores, and the optional no. The following alters the matching rules so that the prefix no and any underscore are ignored when trying to match the trial completions generated and uppercase letters on the line match the corresponding lowercase letters in the words: compadd -M 'L:|[nN][oO]= M:_= M:{A-Z}={a-z}' - \ ${(k)options} The first part says that the pattern `[nN][oO]' at the beginning (the empty anchor before the pipe symbol) of the string on the line matches the empty string in the list of words generated by completion, so it will be ignored if present. The second part does the same for an underscore anywhere in the command line string, and the third part uses correspondence classes so that any uppercase letter on the line matches the corresponding lowercase letter in the word. The use of the uppercase forms of the specification characters (L and M) guarantees that what has already been typed on the command line (in particular the prefix no) will not be deleted. Note that the use of L in the first part means that it matches only when at the beginning of both the command line string and the trial completion. I.e., the string `_NO_f' would not be completed to `_NO_foo', nor would `NONO_f' be completed to `NONO_foo' because of the leading underscore or the second `NO' on the line which makes the pattern fail even though they are otherwise ignored. To fix this, one would use `B:[nN][oO]=' instead of the first part. As described above, this matches at the beginning of the trial completion, independent of other characters or substrings at the beginning of the command line word which are ignored by the same or other MATCH-SPECs. The second example makes completion case insensitive. This is just the same as in the option example, except here we wish to retain the characters in the list of completions: compadd -M 'm:{a-z}={A-Z}' ... This makes lowercase letters match their uppercase counterparts. To make uppercase letters match the lowercase forms as well: compadd -M 'm:{a-zA-Z}={A-Za-z}' ... A nice example for the use of * patterns is partial word completion. Sometimes you would like to make strings like `c.s.u' complete to strings like `comp.source.unix', i.e. the word on the command line consists of multiple parts, separated by a dot in this example, where each part should be completed separately -- note, however, that the case where each part of the word, i.e. `comp', `source' and `unix' in this example, is to be completed from separate sets of matches is a different problem to be solved by the implementation of the completion widget. The example can be handled by: compadd -M 'r:|.=* r:|=*' \ - comp.sources.unix comp.sources.misc ... The first specification says that LPAT is the empty string, while ANCHOR is a dot; TPAT is *, so this can match anything except for the `.' from the anchor in the trial completion word. So in `c.s.u', the matcher sees `c', followed by the empty string, followed by the anchor `.', and likewise for the second dot, and replaces the empty strings before the anchors, giving `c[omp].s[ources].u[nix]', where the last part of the completion is just as normal. With the pattern shown above, the string `c.u' could not be completed to `comp.sources.unix' because the single star means that no dot (matched by the anchor) can be skipped. By using two stars as in `r:|.=**', however, `c.u' could be completed to `comp.sources.unix'. This also shows that in some cases, especially if the anchor is a real pattern, like a character class, the form with two stars may result in more matches than one would like. The second specification is needed to make this work when the cursor is in the middle of the string on the command line and the option COMPLETE_IN_WORD is set. In this case the completion code would normally try to match trial completions that end with the string as typed so far, i.e. it will only insert new characters at the cursor position rather then at the end. However in our example we would like the code to recognise matches which contain extra characters after the string on the line (the `nix' in the example). Hence we say that the empty string at the end of the string on the line matches any characters at the end of the trial completion. More generally, the specification compadd -M 'r:|[.,_-]=* r:|=*' ... allows one to complete words with abbreviations before any of the characters in the square brackets. For example, to complete veryverylongfile.c rather than veryverylongheader.h with the above in effect, you can just type very.c before attempting completion. The specifications with both a left and a right anchor are useful to complete partial words whose parts are not separated by some special character. For example, in some places strings have to be completed that are formed `LikeThis' (i.e. the separate parts are determined by a leading uppercase letter) or maybe one has to complete strings with trailing numbers. Here one could use the simple form with only one anchor as in: compadd -M 'r:|[A-Z0-9]=* r:|=*' LikeTHIS FooHoo 5foo123 5bar234 But with this, the string `H' would neither complete to `FooHoo' nor to `LikeTHIS' because in each case there is an uppercase letter before the `H' and that is matched by the anchor. Likewise, a `2' would not be completed. In both cases this could be changed by using `r:|[A-Z0-9]=**', but then `H' completes to both `LikeTHIS' and `FooHoo' and a `2' matches the other strings because characters can be inserted before every uppercase letter and digit. To avoid this one would use: compadd -M 'r:[^A-Z0-9]||[A-Z0-9]=** r:|=*' \ LikeTHIS FooHoo foo123 bar234 By using these two anchors, a `H' matches only uppercase `H's that are immediately preceded by something matching the left anchor `[^A-Z0-9]'. The effect is, of course, that `H' matches only the string `FooHoo', a `2' matches only `bar234' and so on. When using the completion system (see *Note Completion System::), users can define match specifications that are to be used for specific contexts by using the matcher and matcher-list styles. The values for the latter will be used everywhere.  File: zsh.info, Node: Completion Widget Example, Prev: Matching Control, Up: Completion Widgets Completion Widget Example ========================= The first step is to define the widget: zle -C complete complete-word complete-files Then the widget can be bound to a key using the bindkey builtin command: bindkey '^X\t' complete After that the shell function complete-files will be invoked after typing control-X and TAB. The function should then generate the matches, e.g.: complete-files () { compadd - * } This function will complete files in the current directory matching the current word.  File: zsh.info, Node: Completion System, Next: Completion Using compctl, Prev: Completion Widgets, Up: Top Completion System ***************** Description =========== This describes the shell code for the new completion system. It consists of various shell functions; those beginning `comp' are to be called directly, while those beginning `_' are called by the completion code. The shell functions of the second set, which implement completion behaviour and may be bound to keystrokes, are referred to as `widgets'. * Menu: * Initialization:: * Completion System Configuration:: * Control Functions:: * Bindable Commands:: * Completion Functions:: * Completion Directories::  File: zsh.info, Node: Initialization, Next: Completion System Configuration, Up: Completion System Initialization ============== If the system was installed completely, it should be enough to call the shell function compinit from your initialization file; see the next section. However, the function compinstall can be run by a user to configure various aspects of the completion system. Usually, compinstall will insert code into .zshrc, although if that is not writable it will save it in another file and tell you that file's location. Note that it is up to you to make sure that the lines added to .zshrc are actually run; you may, for example, need to move them to an earlier place in the file if .zshrc usually returns early. So long as you keep them all together (including the comment lines at the start and finish), you can rerun compinstall and it will correctly locate and modify these lines. Note, however, that any code you add to this section by hand is likely to be lost if you rerun compinstall, although lines using the command `zstyle' should be gracefully handled. The new code will take effect next time you start the shell, or run .zshrc by hand; there is also an option to make them take effect immediately. However, if compinstall has removed definitions, you will need to restart the shell to see the changes. To run compinstall you will need to make sure it is in a directory mentioned in your fpath parameter, which should already be the case if zsh was properly configured as long as your startup files do not remove the appropriate directories from fpath. Then it must be autoloaded (`autoload -U compinstall' is recommended). You can abort the installation any time you are being prompted for information, and your .zshrc will not be altered at all; changes only take place right at the end, where you are specifically asked for confirmation. Use of compinit --------------- This section describes the use of compinit to initialize completion for the current session when called directly; if you have run compinstall it will be called automatically from your .zshrc. To initialize the system, the function compinit should be in a directory mentioned in the fpath parameter, and should be autoloaded (`autoload -U compinit' is recommended), and then run simply as `compinit'. This will define a few utility functions, arrange for all the necessary shell functions to be autoloaded, and will then re-define all widgets that do completion to use the new system. If you use the menu-select widget, which is part of the zsh/complist module, you should make sure that that module is loaded before the call to compinit so that that widget is also re-defined. If completion styles (see below) are set up to perform expansion as well as completion by default, and the TAB key is bound to expand-or-complete, compinit will rebind it to complete-word; this is necessary to use the correct form of expansion. Should you need to use the original completion commands, you can still bind keys to the old widgets by putting a `.' in front of the widget name, e.g. `.expand-or-complete'. To speed up the running of compinit, it can be made to produce a dumped configuration that will be read in on future invocations; this is the default, but can be turned off by calling compinit with the option -D. The dumped file is .zcompdump in the same directory as the startup files (i.e. $ZDOTDIR or $HOME); alternatively, an explicit file name can be given by `compinit -d DUMPFILE'. The next invocation of compinit will read the dumped file instead of performing a full initialization. If the number of completion files changes, compinit will recognise this and produce a new dump file. However, if the name of a function or the arguments in the first line of a #compdef function (as described below) change, it is easiest to delete the dump file by hand so that compinit will re-create it the next time it is run. The check performed to see if there are new functions can be omitted by giving the option -C. In this case the dump file will only be created if there isn't one already. The dumping is actually done by another function, compdump, but you will only need to run this yourself if you change the configuration (e.g. using compdef) and then want to dump the new one. The name of the old dumped file will be remembered for this purpose. If the parameter _compdir is set, compinit uses it as a directory where completion functions can be found; this is only necessary if they are not already in the function search path. For security reasons compinit also checks if the completion system would use files not owned by root or by the current user, or files in directories that are world- or group-writable or that are not owned by root or by the current user. If such files or directories are found, compinit will ask if the completion system should really be used. To avoid these tests and make all files found be used without asking, use the option -u, and to make compinit silently ignore all insecure files and directories use the option -i. This security check is skipped entirely when the -C option is given. The security check can be retried at any time by running the function compaudit. This is the same check used by compinit, but when it is executed directly any changes to fpath are made local to the function so they do not persist. The directories to be checked may be passed as arguments; if none are given, compaudit uses fpath and _compdir to find completion system directories, adding missing ones to fpath as necessary. To force a check of exactly the directories currently named in fpath, set _compdir to an empty string before calling compaudit or compinit. Autoloaded files ---------------- The convention for autoloaded functions used in completion is that they start with an underscore; as already mentioned, the fpath/FPATH parameter must contain the directory in which they are stored. If zsh was properly installed on your system, then fpath/FPATH automatically contains the required directories for the standard functions. For incomplete installations, if compinit does not find enough files beginning with an underscore (fewer than twenty) in the search path, it will try to find more by adding the directory _compdir to the search path. If that directory has a subdirectory named Base, all subdirectories will be added to the path. Furthermore, if the subdirectory Base has a subdirectory named Core, compinit will add all subdirectories of the subdirectories is to the path: this allows the functions to be in the same format as in the zsh source distribution. When compinit is run, it searches all such files accessible via fpath/FPATH and reads the first line of each of them. This line should contain one of the tags described below. Files whose first line does not start with one of these tags are not considered to be part of the completion system and will not be treated specially. The tags are: #compdef NAMES... [ -[pP] PATTERNS... [ -N NAMES... ] ] The file will be made autoloadable and the function defined in it will be called when completing NAMES, each of which is either the name of a command whose arguments are to be completed or one of a number of special contexts in the form -CONTEXT- described below. Each NAME may also be of the form `CMD=SERVICE'. When completing the command CMD, the function typically behaves as if the command (or special context) SERVICE was being completed instead. This provides a way of altering the behaviour of functions that can perform many different completions. It is implemented by setting the parameter $service when calling the function; the function may choose to interpret this how it wishes, and simpler functions will probably ignore it. If the #compdef line contains one of the options -p or -P, the words following are taken to be patterns. The function will be called when completion is attempted for a command or context that matches one of the patterns. The options -p and -P are used to specify patterns to be tried before or after other completions respectively. Hence -P may be used to specify default actions. The option -N is used after a list following -p or -P; it specifies that remaining words no longer define patterns. It is possible to toggle between the three options as many times as necessary. #compdef -k STYLE KEY-SEQUENCES... This option creates a widget behaving like the builtin widget STYLE and binds it to the given KEY-SEQUENCES, if any. The STYLE must be one of the builtin widgets that perform completion, namely complete-word, delete-char-or-list, expand-or-complete, expand-or-complete-prefix, list-choices, menu-complete, menu-expand-or-complete, or reverse-menu-complete. If the zsh/complist module is loaded (see *Note The zsh/complist Module::) the widget menu-select is also available. When one of the KEY-SEQUENCES is typed, the function in the file will be invoked to generate the matches. Note that a key will not be re-bound if if it already was (that is, was bound to something other than undefined-key). The widget created has the same name as the file and can be bound to any other keys using bindkey as usual. #compdef -K WIDGET-NAME STYLE KEY-SEQUENCES ... This is similar to -k except that only one KEY-SEQUENCES argument may be given for each WIDGET-NAME STYLE pair. However, the entire set of three arguments may be repeated with a different set of arguments. Note in particular that the WIDGET-NAME must be distinct in each set. If it does not begin with `_' this will be added. The WIDGET-NAME should not clash with the name of any existing widget: names based on the name of the function are most useful. For example, #compdef -K _foo_complete complete-word "^X^C" \ _foo_list list-choices "^X^D" (all on one line) defines a widget _foo_complete for completion, bound to `^X^C', and a widget _foo_list for listing, bound to `^X^D'. #autoload [ OPTIONS ] Functions with the #autoload tag are marked for autoloading but are not otherwise treated specially. Typically they are to be called from within one of the completion functions. Any OPTIONS supplied will be passed to the autoload builtin; a typical use is +X to force the function to be loaded immediately. Note that the -U flag is always added implicitly. The # is part of the tag name and no white space is allowed after it. The #compdef tags use the compdef function described below; the main difference is that the name of the function is supplied implicitly. Note also that the functions for the completion system assume that the KSH_AUTOLOAD option is not set. They cannot be loaded if it is set. To avoid having to unset KSH_AUTOLOAD, you can instead use one or more zwc file(s) that have been created with the command zcompile -z to load the functions for the completion system; see *Note Shell Builtin Commands::. This forces the functions to be autoloaded the way zsh normally loads functions. The special contexts for which completion functions can be defined are: -array-value- The right hand side of an array-assignment (`foo=(...)') -brace-parameter- The name of a parameter expansion within braces (`${...}') -assign-parameter- The name of a parameter in an assignment, i.e. on the left hand side of an `=' -command- A word in command position -condition- A word inside a condition (`[[...]]') -default- Any word for which no other completion is defined -equal- A word beginning with an equals sign -first- This is tried before any other completion function. The function called may set the _compskip parameter to one of various values: all: no further completion is attempted; a string containing the substring patterns: no pattern completion functions will be called; a string containing default: the function for the `-default-' context will not be called, but functions defined for commands will -math- Inside mathematical contexts, such as `((...))' -parameter- The name of a parameter expansion (`$...') -redirect- The word after a redirection operator. -subscript- The contents of a parameter subscript. -tilde- After an initial tilde (`~'), but before the first slash in the word. -value- On the right hand side of an assignment. Default implementations are supplied for each of these contexts. In most cases the context -CONTEXT- is implemented by a corresponding function _CONTEXT, for example the context `-tilde-' and the function `_tilde'). The contexts -redirect- and -value- allow extra context-specific information. (Internally, this is handled by the functions for each context calling the function _dispatch.) The extra information is added separated by commas. For the -redirect- context, the extra information is in the form `-redirect-,OP,COMMAND', where OP is the redirection operator and COMMAND is the name of the command on the line. If there is no command on the line yet, the COMMAND field will be empty. For the -value- context, the form is `-value-,NAME,COMMAND', where NAME is the name of the parameter. In the case of elements of an associative array, for example `assoc=(key ', NAME is expanded to `NAME-KEY'. In certain special contexts, such as completing after `make CFLAGS=', the COMMAND part gives the name of the command, here make; otherwise it is empty. It is not necessary to define fully specific completions as the functions provided will try to generate completions by progressively replacing the elements with `-default-'. For example, when completing after `foo=', _value will try the names `-value-,foo,' (note the empty COMMAND part), `-value-,foo,-default-' and`-value-,-default-,-default-', in that order, until it finds a function to handle the context. As an example: compdef '_files -g "*.log"' '-redirect-,2>,-default-' completes files matching `*.log' after `2> ' for any command with no more specific handler defined. Also: compdef _foo -value-,-default-,-default- specifies that _foo provides completions for the values of parameters for which no special function has been defined. This is usually handled by the function _value itself. The same lookup rules are used when looking up styles (as described below); for example zstyle ':completion:*:*:-redirect-,2>,*:*' file-patterns '*.log' is another way to make completion after `2> ' complete files matching `*.log'. Functions --------- The following function is defined by compinit and may be called directly. compdef [ -an ] FUNCTION NAMES... [ -[pP] PATTERNS... [ -N NAMES... ] ] compdef -d NAMES... compdef -k [ -an ] FUNCTION STYLE KEY-SEQUENCES... compdef -K [ -an ] FUNCTION NAME STYLE KEY-SEQUENCES ... The first form defines the FUNCTION to call for completion in the given contexts as described for the #compdef tag above. Alternatively, all the arguments may have the form `CMD=SERVICE'. Here SERVICE should already have been defined by `CMD1=SERVICE' lines in #compdef files, as described above. The argument for CMD will be completed in the same way as SERVICE. The FUNCTION argument may alternatively be a string containing any shell code. The string will be executed using the eval builtin command to generate completions. This provides a way of avoiding having to define a new completion function. For example, to complete files ending in `.h' as arguments to the command foo: compdef '_files -g "*.h"' foo The option -n prevents any completions already defined for the command or context from being overwritten. The option -d deletes any completion defined for the command or contexts listed. The NAMES may also contain -p, -P and -N options as described for the #compdef tag. The effect on the argument list is identical, switching between definitions of patterns tried initially, patterns tried finally, and normal commands and contexts. The parameter $_compskip may be set by any function defined for a pattern context. If it is set to a value containing the substring `patterns' none of the pattern-functions will be called; if it is set to a value containing the substring `all', no other function will be called. The form with -k defines a widget with the same name as the FUNCTION that will be called for each of the KEY-SEQUENCES; this is like the #compdef -k tag. The function should generate the completions needed and will otherwise behave like the builtin widget whose name is given as the STYLE argument. The widgets usable for this are: complete-word, delete-char-or-list, expand-or-complete, expand-or-complete-prefix, list-choices, menu-complete, menu-expand-or-complete, and reverse-menu-complete, as well as menu-select if the zsh/complist module is loaded. The option -n prevents the key being bound if it is already to bound to something other than undefined-key. The form with -K is similar and defines multiple widgets based on the same FUNCTION, each of which requires the set of three arguments NAME, STYLE and KEY-SEQUENCES, where the latter two are as for -k and the first must be a unique widget name beginning with an underscore. Wherever applicable, the -a option makes the FUNCTION autoloadable, equivalent to autoload -U FUNCTION. The function compdef can be used to associate existing completion functions with new commands. For example, compdef _pids foo uses the function _pids to complete process IDs for the command foo. Note also the _gnu_generic function described below, which can be used to complete options for commands that understand the `--help' option.  File: zsh.info, Node: Completion System Configuration, Next: Control Functions, Prev: Initialization, Up: Completion System Completion System Configuration =============================== This section gives a short overview of how the completion system works, and then more detail on how users can configure how and when matches are generated. Overview -------- When completion is attempted somewhere on the command line the completion system first works out the context. This takes account of a number of things including the command word (such as `grep' or `zsh') and options to which the current word may be an argument (such as the `-o' option to zsh which takes a shell option as an argument). This context information is condensed into a string consisting of multiple fields separated by colons, referred to simply as `the context' in the remainder of the documentation. This is used to look up _styles_, context-sensitive options that can be used to configure the completion system. The context used for lookup may vary during the same call to the completion system. The context string always consists of the following fields, separated by colons and with a leading colon before the first: * The literal string completion, saying that this style is used by the completion system. This distinguishes the context from those used by, for example, zle widgets and ZFTP functions. * The FUNCTION, if completion is called from a named widget rather than through the normal completion system. Typically this is blank, but it is set by special widgets such as predict-on and the various functions in the Widget directory of the distribution to the name of that function, often in an abbreviated form. * The COMPLETER currently active, the name of the function without the leading underscore. A `completer' is in overall control of how completion is to be performed; `complete' is the simplest, but other completers exist to perform related tasks such as correction, or to modify the behaviour of a later completer. See *Note Control Functions:: for more information. * The COMMAND or a special -CONTEXT-, just at it appears following the #compdef tag or the compdef function. Completion functions for commands that have sub-commands usually modify this field to contain the name of the command followed by a minus sign and the sub-command. For example, the completion function for the cvs command sets this field to cvs-add when completing arguments to the add subcommand. * The ARGUMENT; this indicates which command line or option argument we are completing. For command arguments this generally takes the form argument-N, where N is the number of the argument, and for arguments to options the form option-OPT-N where N is the number of the argument to option OPT. However, this is only the case if the command line is parsed with standard UNIX-style options and arguments, so many completions do not set this. * The TAG. Tags are used to discriminate between the types of matches a completion function can generate in a certain context and are described further below. As an example, the context name :completion::complete:dvips:option-o-1:files says that normal completion was attempted as the first argument to the option -o of the command dvips: dvips -o ... and the completion function will generate filenames. Each type of completion the system can perform in a given context is described by a `tag', a short descriptive string such as files in the example above. Any completion function may use any tag name it likes, but a list of the more common ones is given below. Usually completion will be tried by all possible tags in an order given by the completion function. However, this can be altered by using the tag-order style. Completion is then restricted to the list of given tags in the given order. The _complete_help bindable command shows all the contexts and tags available for completion at a particular point. This provides an easy way of finding information for tag-order and other styles. It is described in *Note Bindable Commands::. Styles determine such things as how the matches are generated, similarly to shell options but with much more control. They can have any number of strings as their value. They are defined with the zstyle builtin command (*Note The zsh/zutil Module::). When looking up styles the completion system uses full context names, including the tag. Looking up the value of a style therefore consists of two things: the context, which may be matched as a pattern, and the name of the style itself, which must be given exactly. For example, many completion functions can generate matches in a simple and a verbose form and use the verbose style to decide which form should be used. To make all such functions use the verbose form, put zstyle ':completion:*' verbose yes in a startup file (probably .zshrc). This gives the verbose style the value yes in every context inside the completion system, unless that context has a more specific definition. It is best to avoid giving the context as `*' in case the style has some meaning outside the completion system. Many such general purpose styles can be configured simply by using the compinstall function. A more specific example of the use of the verbose style is by the completion for the kill builtin. If the style is set, the builtin lists full job texts and process command lines; otherwise it shows the bare job numbers and PIDs. To turn the style off for this use only: zstyle ':completion:*:*:kill:*' verbose no For even more control, the style can use one of the tags `jobs' or `processes'. To turn off verbose display only for jobs: zstyle ':completion:*:*:kill:*:jobs' verbose no The -e option to zstyle even allows completion function code to appear as the argument to a style; this requires some understanding of the internals of completion functions (see *Note Completion Widgets::)). For example: zstyle -e ':completion:*' completer ' if [[ $words[1] = cvs ]]; then reply=(_complete) else reply=(_complete _approximate) fi' uses the value `_complete' for the completer style in most contexts, but the value `_complete _approximate' when the first word on the command line is `cvs'. This is probably more conveniently done by specifying the style for two different contexts. This form can be slow and should be avoided for commonly examined styles such as menu and list-rows-first. Note that the order in which styles are _defined_ does not matter; the style mechanism uses the most specific possible match for a particular style to determine the set of values. More precisely, strings are preferred over patterns (for example, `:completion::complete:foo' is more specific than `:completion::complete:*'), and longer patterns are preferred over shorter patterns. Style names like those of tags are arbitrary and depend on the completion function. However, the following two sections list some of the most common tags and styles. Standard Tags ------------- Some of the following are only used when looking up particular styles and do not refer to a type of match. accounts used to look up the users-hosts style all-expansions used by the _expand completer when adding the single string containing all possible expansions all-files for the names of all files (as distinct from a particular subset, see the globbed-files tag). arguments for arguments to a command arrays for names of array parameters association-keys for keys of associative arrays; used when completing inside a subscript to a parameter of this type bookmarks when completing bookmarks (e.g. for URLs and the zftp function suite) builtins for names of builtin commands characters for single characters in arguments of commands such as stty. Also used when completing character classes after an opening bracket colormapids for X colormap ids colors for color names commands for names of external commands. Also used by complex commands such as cvs when completing names subcommands. contexts for contexts in arguments to the zstyle builtin command corrections used by the _approximate and _correct completers for possible corrections cursors for cursor names used by X programs default used in some contexts to provide a way of supplying a default when more specific tags are also valid. Note that this tag is used when only the FUNCTION field of the context name is set descriptions used when looking up the value of the format style to generate descriptions for types of matches devices for names of device special files directories for names of directories directory-stack for entries in the directory stack displays for X display names domains for network domains expansions used by the _expand completer for individual words (as opposed to the complete set of expansions) resulting from the expansion of a word on the command line extensions for X server extensions file-descriptors for numbers of open file descriptors files the generic file-matching tag used by functions completing filenames fonts for X font names fstypes for file system types (e.g. for the mount command) functions names of functions -- normally shell functions, although certain commands may understand other kinds of function globbed-files for filenames when the name has been generated by pattern matching groups for names of user groups history-words for words from the history hosts for hostnames indexes for array indexes jobs for jobs (as listed by the `jobs' builtin) interfaces for network interfaces keymaps for names of zsh keymaps keysyms for names of X keysyms libraries for names of system libraries limits for system limits local-directories for names of directories that are subdirectories of the current working directory when completing arguments of cd and related builtin commands (compare path-directories) manuals for names of manual pages mailboxes for e-mail folders maps for map names (e.g. NIS maps) messages used to look up the format style for messages modifiers for names of X modifiers modules for modules (e.g. zsh modules) my-accounts used to look up the users-hosts style named-directories for named directories (you wouldn't have guessed that, would you?) names for all kinds of names newsgroups for USENET groups nicknames for nicknames of NIS maps options for command options original used by the _approximate, _correct and _expand completers when offering the original string as a match other-accounts used to look up the users-hosts style packages for packages (e.g. rpm or installed Debian packages) parameters for names of parameters path-directories for names of directories found by searching the cdpath array when completing arguments of cd and related builtin commands (compare local-directories) paths used to look up the values of the expand, ambiguous and special-dirs styles pods for perl pods (documentation files) ports for communication ports prefixes for prefixes (like those of a URL) printers for print queue names processes for process identifiers processes-names used to look up the command style when generating the names of processes for killall sequences for sequences (e.g. mh sequences) sessions for sessions in the zftp function suite signals for signal names strings for strings (e.g. the replacement strings for the cd builtin command) styles for styles used by the zstyle builtin command suffixes for filename extensions tags for tags (e.g. rpm tags) targets for makefile targets time-zones for time zones (e.g. when setting the TZ parameter) types for types of whatever (e.g. address types for the xhost command) urls used to look up the urls and local styles when completing URLs users for usernames values for one of a set of values in certain lists variant used by _pick_variant to look up the command to run when determining what program is installed for a particular command name. visuals for X visuals warnings used to look up the format style for warnings widgets for zsh widget names windows for IDs of X windows zsh-options for shell options Standard Styles --------------- Note that the values of several of these styles represent boolean values. Any of the strings `true', `on', `yes', and `1' can be used for the value `true' and any of the strings `false', `off', `no', and `0' for the value `false'. The behavior for any other value is undefined except where explicitly mentioned. The default value may be either true or false if the style is not set. Some of these styles are tested first for every possible tag corresponding to a type of match, and if no style was found, for the default tag. The most notable styles of this type are menu, list-colors and styles controlling completion listing such as list-packed and last-prompt). When tested for the default tag, only the FUNCTION field of the context will be set so that a style using the default tag will normally be defined along the lines of: zstyle ':completion:*:default' menu ... accept-exact This is tested for the default tag in addition to the tags valid for the current context. If it is set to `true' and any of the trial matches is the same as the string on the command line, this match will immediately be accepted (even if it would otherwise be considered ambiguous). When completing pathnames (where the tag used is `paths') this style accepts any number of patterns as the value in addition to the boolean values. Pathnames matching one of these patterns will be accepted immediately even if the command line contains some more partially typed pathname components and these match no file under the directory accepted. This style is also used by the _expand completer to decide if words beginning with a tilde or parameter expansion should be expanded. For example, if there are parameters foo and foobar, the string `$foo' will only be expanded if accept-exact is set to `true'; otherwise the completion system will be allowed to complete $foo to $foobar. If the style is set to `continue', _expand will add the expansion as a match and the completion system will also be allowed to continue. add-space This style is used by the _expand completer. If it is true (the default), a space will be inserted after all words resulting from the expansion, or a slash in the case of directory names. If the value is `file', the completer will only add a space to names of existing files. Either a boolean true or the value `file' may be combined with `subst', in which case the completer will not add a space to words generated from the expansion of a substitution of the form `$(...)' or `${...}'. The _prefix completer uses this style as a simple boolean value to decide if a space should be inserted before the suffix. ambiguous This applies when completing non-final components of filename paths, in other words those with a trailing slash. If it is set, the cursor is left after the first ambiguous component, even if menu completion is in use. The style is always tested with the paths tag. assign-list When completing after an equals sign that is being treated as an assignment, the completion system normally completes only one filename. In some cases the value may be a list of filenames separated by colons, as with PATH and similar parameters. This style can be set to a list of patterns matching the names of such parameters. The default is to complete lists when the word on the line already contains a colon. auto-description If set, this style's value will be used as the description for options that are not described by the completion functions, but that have exactly one argument. The sequence `%d' in the value will be replaced by the description for this argument. Depending on personal preferences, it may be useful to set this style to something like `specify: %d'. Note that this may not work for some commands. avoid-completer This is used by the _all_matches completer to decide if the string consisting of all matches should be added to the list currently being generated. Its value is a list of names of completers. If any of these is the name of the completer that generated the matches in this completion, the string will not be added. The default value for this style is `_expand _old_list _correct _approximate', i.e. it contains the completers for which a string with all matches will almost never be wanted. cache-path This style defines the path where any cache files containing dumped completion data are stored. It defaults to `$ZDOTDIR/.zcompcache', or `$HOME/.zcompcache' if $ZDOTDIR is not defined. The completion cache will not be used unless the use-cache style is set. cache-policy This style defines the function that will be used to determine whether a cache needs rebuilding. See the section on the _cache_invalid function below. call-command This style is used in the function for commands such as make and ant where calling the command directly to generate matches suffers problems such as being slow or, as in the case of make can potentially causes actions in the makefile to be executed. If it is set to `true' the command is called to generate matches. The default value of this style is `false'. command In many places, completion functions need to call external commands to generate the list of completions. This style can be used to override the command that is called in some such cases. The elements of the value are joined with spaces to form a command line to execute. The value can also start with a hyphen, in which case the usual command will be added to the end; this is most useful for putting `builtin' or `command' in front to make sure the appropriate version of a command is called, for example to avoid calling a shell function with the same name as an external command. As an example, the completion function for process IDs uses this style with the processes tag to generate the IDs to complete and the list of processes to display (if the verbose style is `true'). The list produced by the command should look like the output of the ps command. The first line is not displayed, but is searched for the string `PID' (or `pid') to find the position of the process IDs in the following lines. If the line does not contain `PID', the first numbers in each of the other lines are taken as the process IDs to complete. Note that the completion function generally has to call the specified command for each attempt to generate the completion list. Hence care should be taken to specify only commands that take a short time to run, and in particular to avoid any that may never terminate. commands This is used by the function completing sub-commands for the system initialisation scripts (residing in /etc/init.d or somewhere not too far away from that). Its values give the default commands to complete for those commands for which the completion function isn't able to find them out automatically. The default for this style are the two strings `start' and `stop'. complete This is used by the _expand_alias function when invoked as a bindable command. If it set to `true' and the word on the command line is not the name of an alias, matching alias names will be completed. completer The strings given as the value of this style provide the names of the completer functions to use. The available completer functions are described in *Note Control Functions::. Each string may be either the name of a completer function or a string of the form `FUNCTION:NAME'. In the first case the COMPLETER field of the context will contain the name of the completer without the leading underscore and with all other underscores replaced by hyphens. In the second case the FUNCTION is the name of the completer to call, but the context will contain the user-defined NAME in the COMPLETER field of the context. If the NAME starts with a hyphen, the string for the context will be build from the name of the completer function as in the first case with the NAME appended to it. For example: zstyle ':completion:*' completer _complete _complete:-foo Here, completion will call the _complete completer twice, once using `complete' and once using `complete-foo' in the COMPLETER field of the context. Normally, using the same completer more than once only makes sense when used with the `FUNCTIONS:NAME' form, because otherwise the context name will be the same in all calls to the completer; possible exceptions to this rule are the _ignored and _prefix completers. The default value for this style is `_complete _ignored': only completion will be done, first using the ignored-patterns style and the $fignore array and then without ignoring matches. condition This style is used by the _list completer function to decide if insertion of matches should be delayed unconditionally. The default is `true'. disabled If this is set to `true', the _expand_alias completer and bindable command will try to expand disabled aliases, too. The default is `false'. disable-stat This is used with an empty tag by the _cvs function to decide whether the zsh/stat module should be used to generate names of modified files in the appropriate places (this is its only use). If the style is set, completion will use the ls command. domains A list of names of network domains for completion. If this is not set, domain names will be taken from the file /etc/resolv.conf. expand This style is used when completing strings consisting of multiple parts, such as path names. If one of its values is the string `prefix', the partially typed word from the line will be expanded as far as possible even if trailing parts cannot be completed. If one of its values is the string `suffix', matching names for components after the first ambiguous one will also be added. This means that the resulting string is the longest unambiguous string possible. However, menu completion can be used to cycle through all matches. fake This style may be set for any completion context. It specifies additional strings that will always be completed in that context. The form of each string is `VALUE:DESCRIPTION'; the colon and description may be omitted, but any literal colons in VALUE must be quoted with a backslash. Any DESCRIPTION provided is shown alongside the value in completion listings. It is important to use a sufficiently restrictive context when specifying fake strings. Note that the styles fake-files and fake-parameters provide additional features when completing files or parameters. fake-files This style is used when completing files and looked up without a tag. Its values are of the form `DIR:NAMES...'. This will add the NAMES (strings separated by spaces) as possible matches when completing in the directory DIR, even if no such files really exist. This can be useful on systems that support special filesystems whose top-level pathnames can not be listed or generated with glob patterns. It can also be used for directories for which one does not have read permission. fake-parameters This is used by the completion function for parameter names. Its values are names of parameters that might not yet be set but should be completed nonetheless. Each name may also be followed by a colon and a string specifying the type of the parameter (like `scalar', `array' or `integer'). If the type is given, the name will only be completed if parameters of that type are required in the particular context. Names for which no type is specified will always be completed. file-patterns This is used by the standard function for completing filenames, _files. If the style is unset up to three tags are offered, `globbed-files',`directories' and `all-files', depending on the types of files expected by the caller of _files. The first two (`globbed-files' and `directories') are normally offered together to make it easier to complete files in sub-directories. The file-patterns style provides alternatives to the default tags, which are not used. Its value consists of elements of the form `PATTERN:TAG'; each string may contain any number of such specifications separated by spaces. The PATTERN is a pattern that is to be used to generate filenames. Any occurrence of the sequence `%p' is replaced by any pattern(s) passed by the function calling _files. Colons in the pattern must be preceded by a backslash to make them distinguishable from the colon before the TAG. If more than one pattern is needed, the patterns can be given inside braces, separated by commas. The TAGs of all strings in the value will be offered by _files and used when looking up other styles. Any TAGs in the same word will be offered at the same time and before later words. If no `:TAG' is given the `files' tag will be used. The TAG may also be followed by an optional second colon and a description, which will be used for the `%d' in the value of the format style (if that is set) instead of the default description supplied by the completion function. If the description given here contains itself a `%d', that is replaced with the description supplied by the completion function. For example, to make the rm command first complete only names of object files and then the names of all files if there is no matching object file: zstyle ':completion:*:*:rm:*' file-patterns \ '*.o:object-files' '%p:all-files' To alter the default behaviour of file completion -- offer files matching a pattern and directories on the first attempt, then all files -- to offer only matching files on the first attempt, then directories, and finally all files: zstyle ':completion:*' file-patterns \ '%p:globbed-files' '*(-/):directories' '*:all-files' This works even where there is no special pattern: _files matches all files using the pattern `*' at the first step and stops when it sees this pattern. Note also it will never try a pattern more than once for a single completion attempt. During the execution of completion functions, the EXTENDED_GLOB option is in effect, so the characters `#', `~' and `^' have special meanings in the patterns. file-sort The standard filename completion function uses this style without a tag to determine in which order the names should be listed; menu completion will cycle through them in the same order. The possible values are: `size' to sort by the size of the file; `links' to sort by the number of links to the file; `modification' (or `time' or `date') to sort by the last modification time; `access' to sort by the last access time; and `inode' (or `change') to sort by the last inode change time. If the style is set to any other value, or is unset, files will be sorted alphabetically by name. If the value contains the string `reverse', sorting is done in the opposite order. filter This is used by the LDAP plugin for e-mail address completion to specify the attributes to match against when filtering entries. So for example, if the style is set to `sn', matching is done against surnames. Standard LDAP filtering is used so normal completion matching is bypassed. If this style is not set, the LDAP plugin is skipped. You may also need to set the command style to specify how to connect to your LDAP server. force-list This forces a list of completions to be shown at any point where listing is done, even in cases where the list would usually be suppressed. For example, normally the list is only shown if there are at least two different matches. By setting this style to `always', the list will always be shown, even if there is only a single match that will immediately be accepted. The style may also be set to a number. In this case the list will be shown if there are at least that many matches, even if they would all insert the same string. This style is tested for the default tag as well as for each tag valid for the current completion. Hence the listing can be forced only for certain types of match. format If this is set for the descriptions tag, its value is used as a string to display above matches in completion lists. The sequence `%d' in this string will be replaced with a short description of what these matches are. This string may also contain the sequences to specify output attributes, such as `%B', `%S' and `%{...%}'. The style is tested with each tag valid for the current completion before it is tested for the descriptions tag. Hence different format strings can be defined for different types of match. Note also that some completer functions define additional `%'-sequences. These are described for the completer functions that make use of them. Some completion functions display messages that may be customised by setting this style for the messages tag. Here, the `%d' is replaced with a message given by the completion function. Finally, the format string is looked up with the warnings tag, for use when no matches could be generated at all. In this case the `%d' is replaced with the descriptions for the matches that were expected separated by spaces. The sequence `%D' is replaced with the same descriptions separated by newlines. It is possible to use printf-style field width specifiers with `%d' and similar escape sequences. This is handled by the zformat builtin command from the zsh/zutil module, see *Note The zsh/zutil Module::. glob This is used by the _expand completer. If it is set to `true' (the default), globbing will be attempted on the words resulting from a previous substitution (see the substitute style) or else the original string from the line. global If this is set to `true' (the default), the _expand_alias completer and bindable command will try to expand global aliases. group-name The completion system can group different types of matches, which appear in separate lists. This style can be used to give the names of groups for particular tags. For example, in command position the completion system generates names of builtin and external commands, names of aliases, shell functions and parameters and reserved words as possible completions. To have the external commands and shell functions listed separately: zstyle ':completion:*:*:-command-:*:commands' group-name commands zstyle ':completion:*:*:-command-:*:functions' group-name functions As a consequence, any match with the same tag will be displayed in the same group. If the name given is the empty string the name of the tag for the matches will be used as the name of the group. So, to have all different types of matches displayed separately, one can just set: zstyle ':completion:*' group-name '' All matches for which no group name is defined will be put in a group named -default-. group-order This style is additional to the group-name style to specify the order for display of the groups defined by that style (compare tag-order, which determines which completions appear at all). The groups named are shown in the given order; any other groups are shown in the order defined by the completion function. For example, to have names of builtin commands, shell functions and external commands appear in that order when completing in command position: zstyle ':completion:*:*:-command-:*' group-order \ builtins functions commands groups A list of names of UNIX groups. If this is not set, group names are taken from the YP database or the file `/etc/group'. hidden If this is set to true, matches for the given context will not be listed, although any description for the matches set with the format style will be shown. If it is set to `all', not even the description will be displayed. Note that the matches will still be completed; they are just not shown in the list. To avoid having matches considered as possible completions at all, the tag-order style can be modified as described below. hosts A list of names of hosts that should be completed. If this is not set, hostnames are taken from the file `/etc/hosts'. hosts-ports This style is used by commands that need or accept hostnames and network ports. The strings in the value should be of the form `HOST:PORT'. Valid ports are determined by the presence of hostnames; multiple ports for the same host may appear. ignore-line This is tested for each tag valid for the current completion. If it is set to `true', none of the words that are already on the line will be considered as possible completions. If it is set to `current', the word the cursor is on will not be considered as a possible completion. The value `current-shown' is similar but only applies if the list of completions is currently shown on the screen. Finally, if the style is set to `other', no word apart from the current one will be considered as a possible completion. The values `current' and `current-shown' are a bit like the opposite of the accept-exact style: only strings with missing characters will be completed. Note that you almost certainly don't want to set this to `true' or `other' for a general context such as `:completion:*'. This is because it would disallow completion of, for example, options multiple times even if the command in question accepts the option more than once. ignore-parents The style is tested without a tag by the function completing pathnames in order to determine whether to ignore the names of directories already mentioned in the current word, or the name of the current working directory. The value must include one or both of the following strings: parent The name of any directory whose path is already contained in the word on the line is ignored. For example, when completing after foo/../, the directory foo will not be considered a valid completion. pwd The name of the current working directory will not be completed; hence, for example, completion after ../ will not use the name of the current directory. In addition, the value may include one or both of: .. Ignore the specified directories only when the word on the line contains the substring `../'. directory Ignore the specified directories only when names of directories are completed, not when completing names of files. Excluded values act in a similar fashion to values of the ignored-patterns style, so they can be restored to consideration by the _ignored completer. ignored-patterns A list of patterns; any trial completion matching one of the patterns will be excluded from consideration. The _ignored completer can appear in the list of completers to restore the ignored matches. This is a more configurable version of the shell parameter $fignore. Note that the EXTENDED_GLOB option is set during the execution of completion functions, so the characters `#', `~' and `^' have special meanings in the patterns. insert This style is used by the _all_matches completer to decide whether to insert the list of all matches unconditionally instead of adding the list as another match. insert-ids When completing process IDs, for example as arguments to the kill and wait builtins the name of a command may be converted to the appropriate process ID. A problem arises when the process name typed is not unique. By default (or if this style is set explicitly to `menu') the name will be converted immediately to a set of possible IDs, and menu completion will be started to cycle through them. If the value of the style is `single', the shell will wait until the user has typed enough to make the command unique before converting the name to an ID; attempts at completion will be unsuccessful until that point. If the value is any other string, menu completion will be started when the string typed by the user is longer than the common prefix to the corresponding IDs. insert-tab If this is set to `true', the completion system will insert a TAB character (assuming that was used to start completion) instead of performing completion when there is no non-blank character to the left of the cursor. If it is set to `false', completion will be done even there. The value may also contain the substrings `pending' or `pending=VAL'. In this case, the typed character will be inserted instead of staring completion when there is unprocessed input pending. If a VAL is given, completion will not be done if there are at least that many characters of unprocessed input. This is often useful when pasting characters into a terminal. Note however, that it relies on the $PENDING special parameter from the zsh/zle module being set properly which is not guaranteed on all platforms. The default value of this style is `true' except for completion within vared builtin command where it is `false'. insert-unambiguous This is used by the _match and _approximate completers. These completers are often used with menu completion since the word typed may bear little resemblance to the final completion. However, if this style is `true', the completer will start menu completion only if it could find no unambiguous initial string at least as long as the original string typed by the user. In the case of the _approximate completer, the completer field in the context will already have been set to one of correct-NUM or approximate-NUM, where NUM is the number of errors that were accepted. In the case of the _match completer, the style may also be set to the string `pattern'. Then the pattern on the line is left unchanged if it does not match unambiguously. keep-prefix This style is used by the _expand completer. If it is `true', the completer will try to keep a prefix containing a tilde or parameter expansion. Hence, for example, the string `~/f*' would be expanded to `~/foo' instead of `/home/user/foo'. If the style is set to `changed' (the default), the prefix will only be left unchanged if there were other changes between the expanded words and the original word from the command line. Any other value forces the prefix to be expanded unconditionally. The behaviour of expand when this style is true is to cause _expand to give up when a single expansion with the restored prefix is the same as the original; hence any remaining completers may be called. last-prompt This is a more flexible form of the ALWAYS_LAST_PROMPT option. If it is true, the completion system will try to return the cursor to the previous command line after displaying a completion list. It is tested for all tags valid for the current completion, then the default tag. The cursor will be moved back to the previous line if this style is `true' for all types of match. Note that unlike the ALWAYS_LAST_PROMPT option this is independent of the numeric prefix argument. list This style is used by the _history_complete_word bindable command. If it is set to `true' it has no effect. If it is set to `false' matches will not be listed. This overrides the setting of the options controlling listing behaviour, in particular AUTO_LIST. The context always starts with `:completion:history-words'. list-colors If the zsh/complist module is loaded, this style can be used to set color specifications. This mechanism replaces the use of the ZLS_COLORS and ZLS_COLOURS parameters described in *Note The zsh/complist Module::, but the syntax is the same. If this style is set for the default tag, the strings in the value are taken as specifications that are to be used everywhere. If it is set for other tags, the specifications are used only for matches of the type described by the tag. For this to work best, the group-name style must be set to an empty string. In addition to setting styles for specific tags, it is also possible to use group names specified explicitly by the group-name tag together with the `(group)' syntax allowed by the ZLS_COLORS and ZLS_COLOURS parameters and simply using the default tag. It is possible to use any color specifications already set up for the GNU version of the ls command: zstyle ':completion:*:default' list-colors ${(s.:.)LS_COLORS} The default colors are the same as for the GNU ls command and can be obtained by setting the style to an empty string (i.e. ''). list-grouped If this style is `true' (the default), the completion system will try to make certain completion listings more compact by grouping matches. For example, options for commands that have the same description (shown when the verbose style is set to `true') will appear as a single entry. However, menu selection can be used to cycle through all the matches. list-packed This is tested for each tag valid in the current context as well as the default tag. If it is set to `true', the corresponding matches appear in listings as if the LIST_PACKED option were set. If it is set to `false', they are listed normally. list-prompt If this style is set for the default tag, completion lists that don't fit on the screen can be scrolled (see *Note The zsh/complist Module::). The value, if not the empty string, will be displayed after every screenful and the shell will prompt for a key press; if the style is set to the empty string, a default prompt will be used. The value may contain the escape sequences: `%l' or `%L', which will be replaced by the number of the last line displayed and the total number of lines; `%m' or `%M', the number of the last match shown and the total number of matches; and `%p' and `%P', `Top' when at the beginning of the list, `Bottom' when at the end and the position shown as a percentage of the total length otherwise. In each case the form with the uppercase letter will be replaced by a string of fixed width, padded to the right with spaces, while the lowercase form will be replaced by a variable width string. As in other prompt strings, the escape sequences `%S', `%s', `%B', `%b', `%U', `%u' for entering and leaving the display modes standout, bold and underline are also available, as is the form `%{...%}' for enclosing escape sequences which display with zero width. list-rows-first This style is tested in the same way as the list-packed style and determines whether matches are to be listed in a rows-first fashion as if the LIST_ROWS_FIRST option were set. list-suffixes This style is used by the function that completes filenames. If it is true, and completion is attempted on a string containing multiple partially typed pathname components, all ambiguous components will be shown. Otherwise, completion stops at the first ambiguous component. list-separator The value of this style is used in completion listing to separate the string to complete from a description when possible (e.g. when completing options). It defaults to `--' (two hyphens). local This is for use with functions that complete URLs for which the corresponding files are available directly from the filing system. Its value should consist of three strings: a hostname, the path to the default web pages for the server, and the directory name used by a user placing web pages within their home area. For example: zstyle ':completion:*' local toast \ /var/http/public/toast public_html Completion after `http://toast/stuff/' will look for files in the directory /var/http/public/toast/stuff, while completion after `http://toast/~yousir/' will look for files in the directory ~yousir/public_html. mail-directory If set, zsh will assume that mailbox files can be found in the directory specified. It defaults to `~/Mail'. match-original This is used by the _match completer. If it is set to only, _match will try to generate matches without inserting a `*' at the cursor position. If set to any other non-empty value, it will first try to generate matches without inserting the `*' and if that yields no matches, it will try again with the `*' inserted. If it is unset or set to the empty string, matching will only be performed with the `*' inserted. matcher This style is tested separately for each tag valid in the current context. Its value is added to any match specifications given by the matcher-list style. It should be in the form described in *Note Matching Control::. matcher-list This style can be set to a list of match specifications that are to be applied everywhere. Match specifications are described in *Note Matching Control::. The completion system will try them one after another for each completer selected. For example, to try first simple completion and, if that generates no matches, case-insensitive completion: zstyle ':completion:*' matcher-list '' 'm:{a-zA-Z}={A-Za-z}' By default each specification replaces the previous one; however, if a specification is prefixed with +, it is added to the existing list. Hence it is possible to create increasingly general specifications without repetition: zstyle ':completion:*' matcher-list '' '+m{a-Z}={A-Z}' '+m{A-Z}={a-z}' It is possible to create match specifications valid for particular completers by using the third field of the context. For example, to use the completers _complete and _prefix but only allow case-insensitive completion with _complete: zstyle ':completion:*' completer _complete _prefix zstyle ':completion:*:complete:*' matcher-list \ '' 'm:{a-zA-Z}={A-Za-z}' User-defined names, as explained for the completer style, are available. This makes it possible to try the same completer more than once with different match specifications each time. For example, to try normal completion without a match specification, then normal completion with case-insensitive matching, then correction, and finally partial-word completion: zstyle ':completion:*' completer _complete _correct _complete:foo zstyle ':completion:*:complete:*' matcher-list \ '' 'm:{a-zA-Z}={A-Za-z}' zstyle ':completion:*:foo:*' matcher-list \ 'm:{a-zA-Z}={A-Za-z} r:|[-_./]=* r:|=*' If the style is unset in any context no match specification is applied. Note also that some completers such as _correct and _approximate do not use the match specifications at all, though these completers will only ever called once even if the matcher-list contains more than one element. Where multiple specifications are useful, note that the _entire_ completion is done for each element of matcher-list, which can quickly reduce the shell's performance. As a rough rule of thumb, one to three strings will give acceptable performance. On the other hand, putting multiple space-separated values into the same string does not have an appreciable impact on performance. max-errors This is used by the _approximate and _correct completer functions to determine the maximum number of errors to allow. The completer will try to generate completions by first allowing one error, then two errors, and so on, until either a match or matches were found or the maximum number of errors given by this style has been reached. If the value for this style contains the string `numeric', the completer function will take any numeric argument as the maximum number of errors allowed. For example, with zstyle ':completion:*:approximate:::' max-errors 2 numeric two errors are allowed if no numeric argument is given, but with a numeric argument of six (as in `ESC-6 TAB'), up to six errors are accepted. Hence with a value of `0 numeric', no correcting completion will be attempted unless a numeric argument is given. If the value contains the string `not-numeric', the completer will _not_ try to generate corrected completions when given a numeric argument, so in this case the number given should be greater than zero. For example, `2 not-numeric' specifies that correcting completion with two errors will usually be performed, but if a numeric argument is given, correcting completion will not be performed. The default value for this style is `2 numeric'. max-matches-width This style is used to determine the trade off between the width of the display used for matches and the width used for their descriptions when the verbose style is in effect. The value gives the number of display columns to reserve for the matches. The default is half the width of the screen. This has the most impact when several matches have the same description and so will be grouped together. Increasing the style will allow more matches to be grouped together; decreasing it will allow more of the description to be visible. menu If this is true in the context of any of the tags defined for the current completion menu completion will be used. The value for a specific tag will take precedence over that for the `default' tag. If none of the values found in this way is true but at least one is set to `auto', the shell behaves as if the AUTO_MENU option is set. If one of the values is explicitly set to false, menu completion will be explicitly turned off, overriding the MENU_COMPLETE option and other settings. In the form `yes=NUM', where `yes' may be any of the true values (`yes', `true', `on' and `1'), menu completion will be turned on if there are at least NUM matches. In the form `yes=long', menu completion will be turned on if the list does not fit on the screen. This does not activate menu completion if the widget normally only lists completions, but menu completion can be activated in that case with the value `yes=long-list' (Typically, the value `select=long-list' described later is more useful as it provides control over scrolling.) Similarly, with any of the `false' values (as in `no=10'), menu completion will _not_ be used if there are NUM or more matches. The value of this widget also controls menu selection, as implemented by the zsh/complist module. The following values may appear either alongside or instead of the values above. If the value contains the string `select', menu selection will be started unconditionally. In the form `select=NUM', menu selection will only be started if there are at least NUM matches. If the values for more than one tag provide a number, the smallest number is taken. Menu selection can be turned off explicitly by defining a value containing the string`no-select'. It is also possible to start menu selection only if the list of matches does not fit on the screen by using the value `select=long'. To start menu selection even if the current widget only performs listing, use the value `select=long-list'. To turn on menu completion or menu selection when a there are a certain number of matches _or_ the list of matches does not fit on the screen, both of `yes=' and `select=' may be given twice, once with a number and once with `long' or `long-list'. Finally, it is possible to activate two special modes of menu selection. The word `interactive' in the value causes interactive mode to be entered immediately when menu selection is started; see *Note The zsh/complist Module:: for a description of interactive mode. Including the string `search' does the same for incremental search mode. To select backward incremental search, include the string `search-backward'. ) muttrc If set, gives the location of the mutt configuration file. It defaults to `~/.muttrc'. numbers This is used with the jobs tag. If it is `true', the shell will complete job numbers instead of the shortest unambiguous prefix of the job command text. If the value is a number, job numbers will only be used if that many words from the job descriptions are required to resolve ambiguities. For example, if the value is `1', strings will only be used if all jobs differ in the first word on their command lines. old-list This is used by the _oldlist completer. If it is set to `always', then standard widgets which perform listing will retain the current list of matches, however they were generated; this can be turned off explicitly with the value `never', giving the behaviour without the _oldlist completer. If the style is unset, or any other value, then the existing list of completions is displayed if it is not already; otherwise, the standard completion list is generated; this is the default behaviour of _oldlist. However, if there is an old list and this style contains the name of the completer function that generated the list, then the old list will be used even if it was generated by a widget which does not do listing. For example, suppose you type ^Xc to use the _correct_word widget, which generates a list of corrections for the word under the cursor. Usually, typing ^D would generate a standard list of completions for the word on the command line, and show that. With _oldlist, it will instead show the list of corrections already generated. As another example consider the _match completer: with the insert-unambiguous style set to `true' it inserts only a common prefix string, if there is any. However, this may remove parts of the original pattern, so that further completion could produce more matches than on the first attempt. By using the _oldlist completer and setting this style to _match, the list of matches generated on the first attempt will be used again. old-matches This is used by the _all_matches completer to decide if an old list of matches should be used if one exists. This is selected by one of the `true' values or by the string `only'. If the value is `only', _all_matches will only use an old list and won't have any effect on the list of matches currently being generated. If this style is set it is generally unwise to call the _all_matches completer unconditionally. One possible use is for either this style or the completer style to be defined with the -e option to zstyle to make the style conditional. old-menu This is used by the _oldlist completer. It controls how menu completion behaves when a completion has already been inserted and the user types a standard completion key such as TAB. The default behaviour of _oldlist is that menu completion always continues with the existing list of completions. If this style is set to `false', however, a new completion is started if the old list was generated by a different completion command; this is the behaviour without the _oldlist completer. For example, suppose you type ^Xc to generate a list of corrections, and menu completion is started in one of the usual ways. Usually, or with this style set to false, typing TAB at this point would start trying to complete the line as it now appears. With _oldlist, it instead continues to cycle through the list of corrections. original This is used by the _approximate and _correct completers to decide if the original string should be added as a possible completion. Normally, this is done only if there are at least two possible corrections, but if this style is set to `true', it is always added. Note that the style will be examined with the completer field in the context name set to correct-NUM or approximate-NUM, where NUM is the number of errors that were accepted. packageset This style is used when completing arguments of the Debian `dpkg' program. It contains an override for the default package set for a given context. For example, zstyle ':completion:*:complete:dpkg:option--status-1:*' \ packageset avail causes available packages, rather than only installed packages, to be completed for `dpkg -status'. path The function that completes color names uses this style with the colors tag. The value should be the pathname of a file containing color names in the format of an X11 rgb.txt file. If the style is not set but this file is found in one of various standard locations it will be used as the default. pine-directory If set, specifies the directory containing PINE mailbox files. It defaults to `~/mail'. ports A list of Internet service names (network ports) to complete. If this is not set, service names are taken from the file `/etc/services'. prefix-hidden This is used for certain completions which share a common prefix, for example command options beginning with dashes. If it is `true', the prefix will not be shown in the list of matches. The default value for this style is `false'. prefix-needed This, too, is used for matches with a common prefix. If it is set to `true' this common prefix must be typed by the user to generate the matches. In the case of command options, this means that the initial `-', `+', or `--' must be typed explicitly before option names will be completed. The default value for this style is `true'. preserve-prefix This style is used when completing path names. Its value should be a pattern matching an initial prefix of the word to complete that should be left unchanged under all circumstances. For example, on some Unices an initial `//' (double slash) has a special meaning; setting this style to the string `//' will preserve it. As another example, setting this style to `?:/' under Cygwin would allow completion after `a:/...' and so on. range This is used by the _history completer and the _history_complete_word bindable command to decide which words should be completed. If it is a singe number, only the last N words from the history will be completed. If it is a range of the form `MAX:SLICE', the last SLICE words will be completed; then if that yields no matches, the SLICE words before those will be tried and so on. This process stops either when at least one match was been found, or MAX words have been tried. The default is to complete all words from the history at once. regular This style is used by the _expand_alias completer and bindable command. If set to `true' (the default), regular aliases will be expanded but only in command position. If it is set to `false', regular aliases will never be expanded. If it is set to `always', regular aliases will be expanded even if not in command position. remote-access If set to false, certain commands will be prevented from making Internet connections to retrieve remote information. This includes the completion for the CVS command. It is not always possible to know if connections are in fact to a remote site, so some may be prevented unnecessarily. remove-all-dups The _history_complete_word bindable command and the _history completer use this to decide if all duplicate matches should be removed, rather than just consecutive duplicates. select-prompt If this is set for the default tag, its value will be displayed during menu selection (see the menu style above) when the completion list does not fit on the screen as a whole. The same escapes as for the list-prompt style are understood, except that the numbers refer to the match or line the mark is on. A default prompt is used when the value is the empty string. select-scroll This style is tested for the default tag and determines how a completion list is scrolled during a menu selection (see the menu style above) when the completion list does not fit on the screen as a whole. If the value is `0' (zero), the list is scrolled by half-screenfuls; if it is a positive integer, the list is scrolled by the given number of lines; if it is a negative number, the list is scrolled by a screenful minus the absolute value of the given number of lines. The default is to scroll by single lines. separate-sections This style is used with the manuals tag when completing names of manual pages. If it is `true', entries for different sections are added separately using tag names of the form `manual.X', where X is the section number. When the group-name style is also in effect, pages from different sections will appear separately. This style is also used similarly with the words style when completing words for the dict command. It allows words from different dictionary databases to be added separately. The default for this style is `false'. single-ignored This is used by the _ignored completer when there is only one match. If its value is `show', the single match will be displayed but not inserted. If the value is `menu', then the single match and the original string are both added as matches and menu completion is started, making it easy to select either of them. sort Many completion widgets call _description at some point which decides whether the matches are added sorted or unsorted (often indirectly via _wanted or _requested). This style can be set explicitly to one of the usual true or false values as an override. If it is not set for the context, the standard behaviour of the calling widget is used. The style is tested first against the full context including the tag, and if that fails to produce a value against the context without the tag. If the calling widget explicitly requests unsorted matches, this is usually honoured. However, the default (unsorted) behaviour of completion for the command history may be overridden by setting the style to true. In the _expand completer, if it is set to `true', the expansions generated will always be sorted. If it is set to `menu', then the expansions are only sorted when they are offered as single strings but not in the string containing all possible expansions. special-dirs Normally, the completion code will not produce the directory names `.' and `..' as possible completions. If this style is set to `true', it will add both `.' and `..' as possible completions; if it is set to `..', only `..' will be added. The following example sets special-dirs to `..' when the current prefix is empty, is a single `.', or consists only of a path beginning with `../'. Otherwise the value is `false'. zstyle -e ':completion:*' special-dirs \ '[[ $PREFIX = (../)#(|.|..) ]] && reply=(..)' squeeze-slashes If set to `true', sequences of slashes in filename paths (for example in `foo//bar') will be treated as a single slash. This is the usual behaviour of UNIX paths. However, by default the file completion function behaves as if there were a `*' between the slashes. stop If set to `true', the _history_complete_word bindable command will stop once when reaching the beginning or end of the history. Invoking _history_complete_word will then wrap around to the opposite end of the history. If this style is set to `false' (the default), _history_complete_word will loop immediately as in a menu completion. strip-comments If set to `true', this style causes non-essential comment text to be removed from completion matches. Currently it is only used when completing e-mail addresses where it removes any display name from the addresses, cutting them down to plain USER@HOST form. subst-globs-only This is used by the _expand completer. If it is set to `true', the expansion will only be used if it resulted from globbing; hence, if expansions resulted from the use of the substitute style described below, but these were not further changed by globbing, the expansions will be rejected. The default for this style is `false'. substitute This boolean style controls whether the _expand completer will first try to expand all substitutions in the string (such as `$(...)' and `${...}'). The default is `true'. suffix This is used by the _expand completer if the word starts with a tilde or contains a parameter expansion. If it is set to `true', the word will only be expanded if it doesn't have a suffix, i.e. if it is something like `~foo' or `$foo' rather than `~foo/' or `$foo/bar', unless that suffix itself contains characters eligible for expansion. The default for this style is `true'. tag-order This provides a mechanism for sorting how the tags available in a particular context will be used. The values for the style are sets of space-separated lists of tags. The tags in each value will be tried at the same time; if no match is found, the next value is used. (See the file-patterns style for an exception to this behavior.) For example: zstyle ':completion:*:complete:-command-:*' tag-order \ 'commands functions' specifies that completion in command position first offers external commands and shell functions. Remaining tags will be tried if no completions are found. In addition to tag names, each string in the value may take one of the following forms: - If any value consists of only a hyphen, then _only_ the tags specified in the other values are generated. Normally all tags not explicitly selected are tried last if the specified tags fail to generate any matches. This means that a single value consisting only of a single hyphen turns off completion. ! TAGS... A string starting with an exclamation mark specifies names of tags that are _not_ to be used. The effect is the same as if all other possible tags for the context had been listed. TAG:LABEL ... Here, TAG is one of the standard tags and LABEL is an arbitrary name. Matches are generated as normal but the name LABEL is used in contexts instead of TAG. This is not useful in words starting with !. If the LABEL starts with a hyphen, the TAG is prepended to the LABEL to form the name used for lookup. This can be used to make the completion system try a certain tag more than once, supplying different style settings for each attempt; see below for an example. TAG:LABEL:DESCRIPTION As before, but description will replace the `%d' in the value of the format style instead of the default description supplied by the completion function. Spaces in the description must be quoted with a backslash. A `%d' appearing in DESCRIPTION is replaced with the description given by the completion function. In any of the forms above the tag may be a pattern or several patterns in the form `{PAT1,PAT2...}'. In this case all matching tags will be used except for any given explicitly in the same string. One use of these features is to try one tag more than once, setting other styles differently on each attempt, but still to use all the other tags without having to repeat them all. For example, to make completion of function names in command position ignore all the completion functions starting with an underscore the first time completion is tried: zstyle ':completion:*:*:-command-:*' tag-order \ 'functions:-non-comp *' functions zstyle ':completion:*:functions-non-comp' ignored-patterns '_*' On the first attempt, all tags will be offered but the functions tag will be replaced by functions-non-comp. The ignored-patterns style is set for this tag to exclude functions starting with an underscore. If there are no matches, the second value of the tag-order style is used which completes functions using the default tag, this time presumably including all function names. The matches for one tag can be split into different groups. For example: zstyle ':completion:*' tag-order \ 'options:-long:long\ options options:-short:short\ options options:-single-letter:single\ letter\ options' zstyle ':completion:*:options-long' ignored-patterns '[-+](|-|[^-]*)' zstyle ':completion:*:options-short' ignored-patterns '--*' '[-+]?' zstyle ':completion:*:options-single-letter' ignored-patterns '???*' With the group-names style set, options beginning with `--', options beginning with a single `-' or `+' but containing multiple characters, and single-letter options will be displayed in separate groups with different descriptions. Another use of patterns is to try multiple match specifications one after another. The matcher-list style offers something similar, but it is tested very early in the completion system and hence can't be set for single commands nor for more specific contexts. Here is how to try normal completion without any match specification and, if that generates no matches, try again with case-insensitive matching, restricting the effect to arguments of the command foo: zstyle ':completion:*:*:foo:*' tag-order '*' '*:-case' zstyle ':completion:*-case' matcher 'm:{a-z}={A-Z}' First, all the tags offered when completing after foo are tried using the normal tag name. If that generates no matches, the second value of tag-order is used, which tries all tags again except that this time each has -case appended to its name for lookup of styles. Hence this time the value for the matcher style from the second call to zstyle in the example is used to make completion case-insensitive. It is possible to use the -e option of the zstyle builtin command to specify conditions for the use of particular tags. For example: zstyle -e '*:-command-:*' tag-order ' if [[ -n $PREFIX$SUFFIX ]]; then reply=( ) else reply=( - ) fi' Completion in command position will be attempted only if the string typed so far is not empty. This is tested using the PREFIX special parameter; see *Note Completion Widgets:: for a description of parameters which are special inside completion widgets. Setting reply to an empty array provides the default behaviour of trying all tags at once; setting it to an array containing only a hyphen disables the use of all tags and hence of all completions. If no tag-order style has been defined for a context, the strings `(|*-)argument-* (|*-)option-* values' and `options' plus all tags offered by the completion function will be used to provide a sensible default behavior that causes arguments (whether normal command arguments or arguments of options) to be completed before option names for most commands. urls This is used together with the the urls tag by functions completing URLs. If the value consists of more than one string, or if the only string does not name a file or directory, the strings are used as the URLs to complete. If the value contains only one string which is the name of a normal file the URLs are taken from that file (where the URLs may be separated by white space or newlines). Finally, if the only string in the value names a directory, the directory hierarchy rooted at this directory gives the completions. The top level directory should be the file access method, such as `http', `ftp', `bookmark' and so on. In many cases the next level of directories will be a filename. The directory hierarchy can descend as deep as necessary. For example, zstyle ':completion:*' urls ~/.urls mkdir -p ~/.urls/ftp/ftp.zsh.org/pub/development allows completion of all the components of the URL ftp://ftp.zsh.org/pub/development after suitable commands such as `netscape' or `lynx'. Note, however, that access methods and files are completed separately, so if the hosts style is set hosts can be completed without reference to the urls style. See the description in the function _urls itself for more information (e.g. `more $^fpath/_urls(N)'). use-cache If this is set, the completion caching layer is activated for any completions which use it (via the _store_cache, _retrieve_cache, and _cache_invalid functions). The directory containing the cache files can be changed with the cache-path style. use-compctl If this style is set to a string _not_ equal to false, 0, no, and off, the completion system may use any completion specifications defined with the compctl builtin command. If the style is unset, this is done only if the zsh/compctl module is loaded. The string may also contain the substring `first' to use completions defined with `compctl -T', and the substring `default' to use the completion defined with `compctl -D'. Note that this is only intended to smooth the transition from compctl to the new completion system and may disappear in the future. Note also that the definitions from compctl will only be used if there is no specific completion function for the command in question. For example, if there is a function _foo to complete arguments to the command foo, compctl will never be invoked for foo. However, the compctl version will be tried if foo only uses default completion. use-perl Various parts of the function system use awk to extract words from files or command output as this universally available. However, many versions of awk have arbitrary limits on the size of input. If this style is set, perl will be used instead. This is almost always preferable if perl is available on your system. Currently this is only used in completions for `make', but it may be extended depending on authorial frustration. users This may be set to a list of usernames to be completed. If it is not set or the string on the line doesn't match any of the strings in this list, all usernames will be completed. users-hosts The values of this style should be of the form `USER@HOST' or `USER:HOST'. It is used for commands that need pairs of user- and hostnames. These commands will complete usernames from this style (only), and will restrict subsequent hostname completion to hosts paired with that user in one of the values of the style. It is possible to group values for sets of commands which allow a remote login, such as rlogin and ssh, by using the my-accounts tag. Similarly, values for sets of commands which usually refer to the accounts of other people, such as talk and finger, can be grouped by using the other-accounts tag. More ambivalent commands may use the accounts tag. users-hosts-ports Like users-hosts but used for commands like telnet and containing strings of the form `USER@HOST:PORT'. verbose If set, as it is by default, the completion listing is more verbose. In particular many commands show descriptions for options if this style is `true'. word This is used by the _list completer, which prevents the insertion of completions until a second completion attempt when the line has not changed. The normal way of finding out if the line has changed is to compare its entire contents between the two occasions. If this style is true, the comparison is instead performed only on the current word. Hence if completion is performed on another word with the same contents, completion will not be delayed.