Introduction to zsh

This is a nice doc that explains the features that zsh brings to the table over and above the more standard choices such as bash:

Introduction to zsh

Some goodies of particular interest to me:

• An expression of the form matches a range of integers:

  % ls run<200-300>
  

• Giving directories short names in the prompt:

  ~inews> namedir () { $1=$PWD ;  : ~$1 }
  ~inews> cd /usr/princeton/bin
  /usr/princeton/bin> namedir pbin
  ~pbin> cd /var/spool/mail
  /var/spool/mail> namedir spool
  ~spool> cd .msgs
  ~spool/.msgs>
  

• A command name with a = prepended is replaced with its full pathname.

  % ls -l `which rn`
  -rwxr-xr-x  1 root       172032 Mar  6 18:40 /usr/princeton/bin/rn
  % ls -l =rn
  -rwxr-xr-x  1 root       172032 Mar  6 18:40 /usr/princeton/bin/rn
  

• Using process substitution, you can edit the output of a command:

  % ed =(who | fgrep -f ~/.friends)
  

• Most other shells have aliases of this kind (command aliases). However, zsh also has global aliases, which are substituted anywhere on a line. Global aliases can be used to abbreviate frequently-typed usernames, hostnames, etc:

  % alias -g PASS='<(ypcat passwd)'
  % grep pfalstad PASS
  pfalstad:*:3564:35:Paul John Falstad:/u/pfalstad:/usr/princeton/bin/zsh
  

• A variant of the fc command is r, which redoes the last command, with optional changes:

  % echo foo
  foo
  % r foo=bar
  echo bar
  bar
  

• ESC Q = put line on buffer stack
• ESC H = put line on buffer stack and run man with current command
• ESC A = execute current line and retain in buffer
• ESC ' = quote current command line.
• An easy way to change your path is to use the vared command:

  % vared PATH
  > /u/pfalstad/scr:/u/pfalstad/bin/sun4:/u/maruchck/scr:/u/subbarao/bin:/u/maruc
  hck/bin:/u/subbarao/scripts:/usr/princeton/bin:/usr/ucb:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/host
  s:/usr/princeton/bin/X11:/./usr/lang:/./usr/etc:/./etc
  

  You can now edit the path. When you press return, the contents of the edit buffer will be assigned to PATH

• Using the AUTOCD option, you can simply type the name of a directory, and it will become the current directory.

  % setopt cdablevars
  % foo=/tmp
  % cd foo
  /tmp