------------------------------------- CHANGES FROM PREVIOUS VERSIONS OF ZSH ------------------------------------- Note also the list of incompatibilities in the README file. Changes from 5.1.1 to 5.2 ------------------------- The new module zsh/param/private can be loaded to allow the shell to define parameters that are private to a function scope (i.e. are not propagated to nested functions called within this function). The parameter flag ${(P)...} is now more useful when it appears in a nested expansion. For example, typeset -A assoc=(one un two deux three trois) name=assoc print ${${(P)name}[one]} now prints "un". In previous versions of the shell the value of the substitution was fully expanded on return from ${(P)name}, making associative array subscripting difficult. As a side effect, flags for formatting appearing in the inner substitution now affect the substitution of the name (into "assoc" in this case), which is not normally useful: flags that should apply to the value must be in the outer substitution. The GLOB_STAR_SHORT option allows the pattern **/* to be shortened to just ** if no / follows. so **.c searches recursively for a file whose name has the suffix ".c". The effect of the WARN_CREATE_GLOBAL option has been significantly extended, so expect it to cause additional warning messages about parameters created globally within function scope. Changes from 5.1 to 5.1.1 ------------------------- 5.1.1 is primarily a bug fix release; however, a few minor features were added. The ZLE variables YANK_ACTIVE, YANK_START and YANK_END have been added and are useful for managing highlighting. The zsh-specific pattern match range tests have been supplemented with [:INCOMPLETE:] and [:INVALID:] to help detect the state of partially read multibyte character strings. Changes from 5.0.8 to 5.1 ------------------------- The builtins declare, export, local, readonly and typeset now have corresponding reserved words. When used in this form, the builtin syntax is extended so that assignments following the reserved word are treated similarly to assignments that appear at the start of the command line. For example, local scalar=`echo one word` array=(several words) creates a local "scalar" containing the text "one word" and an array "array" containing the words "several" "words". - The print builtin has new options -x and -X to expand tabs. - Several new command completions and numerous updates to others. - Options to "fc" to segregate internal and shared history. - All emulations including "sh" use multibyte by default; several repairs to multibyte handling. - ZLE supports "bracketed paste" mode to avoid interpreting pasted newlines as accept-line. Pastes can be highlighted for visibility and to make it more obvious whether accept-line has occurred. - Improved (though still not perfect) POSIX compatibility for getopts builtin when POSIX_BUILTINS is set. - New setopt APPEND_CREATE for POSIX-compatible NO_CLOBBER behaviour. - Completion of date values now displays in a calendar format when the complist module is available. Controllable by zstyle. - New parameter UNDO_LIMIT_NO for more control over ZLE undo repeat. - Several repairs/improvements to the contributed narrow-to-region ZLE function. - Many changes to child-process and signal handling to eliminate race conditions and avoid deadlocks on descriptor and memory management. - New builtin sysopen in zsh/system module for detailed control of file descriptor modes. Changes from 5.0.0 to 5.0.8 --------------------------- - Global aliases can be created for syntactic tokens such as command separators (";", "&", "|", "&&", "||"), redirection operators, etc. Use at your own risk! The POSIX_ALIASES option is interpreted more strictly to prevent expansion of these and other alias names containing quotes, glob metacharacters, parameter references, etc. - There have been various further improvements to builtin handling with the POSIX_BUILTINS option (off by default) for compatibility with the POSIX standard. - 'whence -v' is now more informative, and 'whence -S' shows you how a full chain of symbolic links resolves to a command. - The 'p' parameter flag now allows an argument to be specified as a reference to a variable, e.g. ${(ps.$sep.)foo} to split $foo on a string given by $sep. - The option FORCE_FLOAT now forces variables, not just constants, to floating point in arithmetic expressions. - The type of an assignment in arithmetic expressions, e.g. the type seen by the variable res in $(( res = a = b )), is now more logical and C-like. - The default binding of 'u' in vi command mode has changed to undo multiple changes when invoked repeatedly. '^R' is now bound to redo changes. To revert to toggling of the last edit use: bindkey -a u vi-undo-change - Compatibility with Vim has been improved for vi editing mode. Most notably, Vim style text objects are supported and the region can be manipulated with vi commands in the same manner as Vim's visual mode. - Elements of the watch variable may now be patterns. - The logic for retrying history locking has been improved. - Some rationalisations have been made to the zsh/db/gdbm module that should make it more useful and predictable in operation. - Numeric constants encountered in mathematical expressions (but not other contexts) can contain underscores as separators that will be ignored on evaluation, as allowed in other scripting languages. For example, 0xFFFF_FFFF, or 3.141_592_654. From 5.0.6 this is also available in output, e.g. setopt cbases zmodload zsh/mathfunc print $(( [#16_4] 2**32 - 1 )) $(( [#_3] 4 * atan(1.0) )) - "functions -T" turns on tracing for the specified function(s) only, similar to "functions -t" except that tracing is turned off for any functions called from the specified one(s) that don't also have the -t or -T flag. - The option FORCE_FLOAT has been added to force all arithmetic constants to be treated as floating point. This is most useful locally within functions or scripts performing floating point calculations. - The default $fpath/$FPATH is now designed to include /usr/local/share/zsh/site-functions unless the installer has specifically decided to use another path, i.e. regardless of the standard installation location. This directory does not need to exist. Sites that set an explicit site directory can put that in /etc/zshenv as before. The intention of the new path element is to increase the likelihood that locally added functions can be found with the shell running "out of the box", unless the shell has been deliberately configured differently by the installer for some special purpose. - Individual pattern characters can be disabled. For example, to allow '^' to be an ordinary character even if the option EXTENDED_GLOB is set, use "disable -p '^'". - The variable editing builtin vared can be given custom editing widgets for initialisation and finishing. - The line editor's capability for listening on file descriptors additional to the terminal has been enhanced so that the handler for such file descriptors can be a line editor widget. Previously the handler always behaved as a standard shell function. - Hooks for adding history (the function zshaddhistory and the array zshaddhistory_functions) can return status 2 to indicate that history is to be saved internally within the shell but not written. - In file completion, the recursive-files style can be set to an array of patterns to match against "$PWD/". In any matched location, it is possible to complete files in arbitrarily deep subdirectories without needing to type the directory prefix. See example in the zshcompsys manual. - The _user_expand completer now allows expansion functions in the user-expand files to return a string in REPLY that will be used to name the set of expansions returned. - The parameter HISTORY_IGNORE may be set to a pattern which matches lines in the internal history that are to be omitted from the history file at file write time. This differs from history changes made in the zshaddhistory hook or by the HIST_IGNORE_* options, all of which take effect immediately on the internal history list itself. - The parameter ZLE_RPROMPT_INDENT can be set to 0 to remove the space before the right hand side of the screen (this causes problems with some terminals). It is not special and is not set by default; the effect in that case is as if it was 1, as in previous versions. - If the option EXTENDED_GLOB is in effect, it is possible to force globbing within conditional code using the [[ ... ]] syntax by flagging that a certain string is a glob using the (#q) glob qualifier syntax. The resulting glob is treated as a single argument. For example, [[ -n *.c(#qN) ]] tests whether there are any .c files in the current directory. - In prompt strings, the %N(l.true.false) conditional (line length) and the %N<..< and %N>..> truncation operators now accept negative values of N, which count the remaining space to the opposite margin (positive values of N still count the space used since the start of the prompt). In PS1 and PROMPT, this counts to the right margin, whereas in RPS1 and RPROMPT, it counts to the left margin (not to the opposite prompt). - Also in prompt strings, %e or the equivalent test %(e..) are used to output or test the execution / evaluation depth of a shell construct within functions etc. This is useful in $PS4. - Another new prompt feature is the %. escape within time strings, for example %D{%H:%M:%S.%.}. It provides zero-padded decimal fractions of a second; by default milliseconds are shown, but the number of digits may be indicated from 1 to 6, e.g. "%6.". (Note this is part of the extensions to strftime() formats rather than basic prompt escapes.) - The operators :^ and :^^ in parameter substitution allow for array zipping in the form ${name:^array}. With the :^ operator, all entries in $name and $array will be output in alternating order. With :^ the longer array is trimmed whereas the :^^ operator repeats the shorter array enough to match the longer array. - The value of $? when a job becomes stopped is now the signal number plus 128, for compatibility with other shells. Note that different operating systems use different values e.g. for SIGTSTP, so it is not possible in portable scripts to detect stopped jobs by comparing to a fixed number. Also, the value of $pipestatus is now updated when a job stops, not just when it exits. - Redirections applied to function definitions take effect when the function is executed, not when it is defined. Other shells already work this way. For example, fn() { echo hello } >~/logfile Running fn writes "hello" to logfile. In older versions of the shell it would create an empty file at the point of definition. Changes between 4.2 and 5.0.0 ----------------------------- The following changes first appeared in the 4.3 series of releases; see also the file Etc/NEWS-4.3. Here is a summary of the most significant changes: - Multibyte characters strings are supported throughout the shell. Various options, editor features, and expansion flags have been added to aid in using them. - The following new options have appeared: COMBINING_CHARS, DEBUG_BEFORE_CMD, HASH_EXECUTABLES_ONLY, HIST_FCNTL_LOCK, HIST_LEX_WORDS, HIST_SAVE_BY_COPY, MULTIBYTE, NO_MULTI_FUNCDEF, PATH_SCRIPT, POSIX_ALIASES, POSIX_CD, POSIX_JOBS, POSIX_STRINGS, POSIX_TRAPS, PROMPT_SP, SOURCE_TRACE. - Highlighting and colouring of the command line is supported. - Job control is supported in non-interactive shells and subshells. - The zshroadmap manual page provides a slightly more helpful introduction to the shell manual than was previously available. - There have been some notable enhancements to POSIX comptability when the shell is in a corresponding emulation (e.g. "emulate sh"). Expansion (parameters, globbing, etc.) and redirection -+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ - The character group tests [[:IDENT:]], [[:IFS:]], [[:IFSSPACE:]], [[:WORD:]] in patterns allow testing if a character can be part of an identifier, is an IFS character, is an IFS whitespace character, or is considered part of the word using the line editor's logic based on the shell variable WORDCHARS. - In extended globbing, "(#cN,M)" means "match the preceding group at least N but no more than M times". - The glob qualifier P can be used with an argument to add an extra word before each glob match. - The syntax ~[...] provides dynamic directory naming by means of the shell function zsh_directory_name or associated hook functions. This is useful for expanding paths with many variable components as commonly found in software development. - Parameter substitution has the ${NAME:OFFSET} and ${NAME:OFFSET:LENGTH} syntax for compatibility with other shells (and zero-based indexing is used to enhance compatibility). LENGTH may be negative to count from the end. - The arbitrary limit on parameter subscripts (262144) has been removed. As it was not configurable and tested in an inconvenient place it was deemed preferable to remove it completely. The limit was originally introduced to prevent accidental creation of a large parameter array by typos that generated assignments along the lines of "12345678=0". The general advice is not to do that. - The parameter substitution flag (D) abbreviates directories in parameters using the familiar ~ form. - The parameter substitution flag (g) can take delimited arguments o, e and c to provide echo- and print-style expansion: (g::) provides basic echo-style expansion; (g:e:) provides the extended capabilities of print; (g:o:) provides octal escapes without a leading zero; (g:c:) additionally expands "^c" style control characters as for bindkey. Options may be combined, e.g. (g:eoc:). - The parameter substitution flag (m) indicates that string lengths used calculated by the (l) and (r) flags or the # operator should take account of the printing width of characters in multibyte mode, whether 0, 1 or more. (mm) causes printing characters to count as 1 and non-printing chracters to count as 0. - The parameter substitution flag (q-) picks the most minimal way of quoting the parameter words, to make the result as readable as possible. - The parameter substitution flag (Z), a variant of (z), takes arguments describing how to split a variable using shell syntax: (Z:c:) parses comments as strings (the default is not to treat comment characters specially); (Z:C:) parses comments and strips them; (Z:n:) treats newlines as ordinary whitespace (the default is to turn unquoted newlines into semicolons; this is now documented). - The parameter subscript flag (e) forces the argument to be treated as a string, never a pattern, e.g. ${array[(ie)*]} looks for the index of the array element containing the literal string "*". - The operators :| and :* in parameter substitution allow for array subtraction and intersection in the form ${name:|array}. With the :| operator, all entries in $name that are also in $array will be removed from the substitution. Conversely for the :* operation only the entries that are in both arrays will be substituted. - Numeric expansions can have a positive or negative step e.g. "{3..9..2}". Negative start and end of ranges are also now supported. - =(<<<...) is optimised to eliminate the need for an external process. It writes the given string to a file and substitutes the name on the command line. - The redirection operations "{myfd}>file" and "{myfd}>&-" open and close a new file descriptor (at least 10) contained in the shell variable myfd, which can be written to with ">&$myfd". This allows arbitrary file descriptors rather than the explicit range 0 to 9. - New prompt escapes: %x and %I show source file and line number, useful in $PS4 (the existing %N and %i show names and lines in the execution environment rather than the source file). %F, %K, %f, %k allow colouring of prompts both using ANSI colour names and values supported by individual terminal emulators. Builtins and shell functions -+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ - Directory-changing builtins take an option -q to suppress side effects such as printing directories or calling the chpwd hook functions. - Various enhancements have been made to traps: - The option DEBUG_BEFORE_CMD is on by default, so DEBUG traps can be used to debug code about to be run - $ZSH_DEBUG_CMD in such a trap gives the code to be run - "setopt ERR_EXIT" in a DEBUG trap causes the code not to be executed - The "fc" builtin is now more useful non-interactively. Shell variables (parameters) -+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ - New variables: CORRECT_IGNORE can be set to a pattern to be ignored in spelling correction. KEYBOARD_HACK defines characters to be ignored if typed unmatched at the end of the line (an extension of the SUN_KEYBOARD_HACK option, but note that setting the option will override the variable). ZSH_PATCHLEVEL provides a unique indication of the code compiled to make the shell, even between releases. ZSH_SUBSHELL indicates the subshell level, incremented once per fork, at which the code is being run. Options -+-+-+- - New options: COMBINING_CHARS: assume that the terminal displays combining characters correctly. The shell cannot determine this by itself, hence the option. This is highly recommended for MacOS X where file names are stored with accented characters split into basic and combining characters. DEBUG_BEFORE_CMD (on by default): execute debug traps before the code they refer to. This is a change of the default behaviour as the new behaviour is much more useful. HASH_EXECUTABLES_ONLY: don't insert non-executable files into the command hash used e.g. by completion; this is optional as the resulting behaviour may be very slow on network paths. HIST_FCNTL_LOCK: Use the system's file locking mechanism instead of an ad-hoc mechanism for locking history files. HIST_LEX_WORDS: Perform lexical analysis on history lines read from files, so the words are more accurately determined. May be very slow. HIST_SAVE_BY_COPY (on by default): if unset, write a history file in place by truncating the old one. Only needs to be turned off in special circumstances. MULTIBYTE (on by default if available): both variables and editor command lines are treated as sequences of multibyte characters rather than raw bytes depending on the locale. May be turned off within functions to perform bytewise operations. MULTI_FUNCDEF (on by default): "foo bar () { ... }" defines two functions. This is often found to be confusing and bug-prone, so you may want to unset it. PATH_SCRIPT: search the path for a script specified as the first argument to the shell on invocation. POSIX_ALIASES: reserved words are not candidates for alias expansion. POSIX_CD: make directory changing more POSIX-compatible. POSIX_JOBS: make job control more POSIX compliant. POSIX_STRINGS: $'...\0...' always processes \0 as a NULL, but if the option is set the remainder of the string is ignored. POSIX_TRAPS: EXIT traps are not executed on return from shell functions. PROMPT_SP: improves display of lines not ending with newlines when PROMPT_CR is in effect. SOURCE_TRACE: print information as files are executed with ".", "source", or as startup or shutdown files. Line editor -+-+-+-+-+- - Supports multibyte characters, including characters wider than one screen cell and (with the COMBINING_CHARS option) combining characters. - New builtin widgets: arguments-base: allow non-decimal numeric arguments history-incremental-pattern-search-{backward,forward}: support patterns in incremental searches. - New special variables: region_highlight allows arbitrary highlighting of parts of the command line; it is maintained dynamically. UNDO_CHANGE_NO gives a unique record of the current change state of the command line, for undoing back to a particular point using the undo widget. zle_highlight provides master control of highlighting for special modes, e.g. unprintable characters. ZLE_LINE_ABORTED records an editor line that was aborted by an error or C-g. It can be used to recover aborted lines. ZLE_STATE give miscellaneous information, currently whether the line editor is in insert or overwrite mode. - The undo widget takes an argument, a previous value of $UNDO_CHANGE_NO. Completion -+-+-+-+-+ - Many new and enhanced completion functions - New styles: accept-exact-dirs: suppress path expansion of directory components that already exist, speeding up completion significantly on slow network directories. path-completion: can be used to suppress directory components before the current one completely, so e.g. /u/b only completes after the "b", not the "u". - New special variables: ZLE_REMOVE_SUFFIX_CHARS, ZLE_SPACE_SUFFIX_CHARS provide enhanced flexibility over suffix removal. - Matching control, typically handled with the matcher-list style, supports named character ranges, such as [:upper:], wherever ranges were allowed, for example 'm:{[:upper:]}={[:lower:]}'. However, matching control does not yet handle multibyte characters properly, so this is currently limited to ASCII. Syntax and compatibility -+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ - Substitutions of the form ${var:-"$@"} and ${var:+"$@"} now behave much more like other shells when appropriate (e.g. with the SH_WORD_SPLIT option). - Assignments within variable substitutions, such as ${var=value}, are also more compatible with other shells where appropriate. - The emulate command can now be passed an expression to be evaluated in a "sticky" emulation, so that functions defined there always behave in the appropriate emulation. - "emulate sh" and similar modes have improved compatibility with respect to deciding whether the shell should exit on errors. - Signals now accept SIG as part of the name. Modules -+-+-+- - Modules now present "features", specific builtins (b:), parameters (p:), conditions (c:) and math functions (f:), allowing more control over what is imported from a module. - The zsh/curses module provides access to the "curses" screen manipulation package. - The zsh/datetime module has a calendar utility, although it is not as robust as standalone calendar utilities. - The zsh/newuser module and associated functions has facilities for setting up startup files for a first-time user. - The zsh/parameter module contains some new arrays to aid in tracing of the shell's call stack: $funcsourcetrace and $funcfiletrace. - The zsh/parameter module provides $usergroups, an associative arrays whose keys are the names of groups the current user belongs to, with the group identifier as the corresponding value. - The zsh/system module has a zsystem builtin which provides file locking and also a forward-compatible means for testing subcommands supported. Internal improvements -+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+- - High resolution timestamps are used internally for certain comparisons when available. Add-on functions -+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ - The VCS_Info system provides a way of keeping track of the state of numerous version control systems within the shell. - cdr etc.: change to a directory from a list that persists between shell instances, with completion support. - regexp-replace replaces text in variables using regular expressions; it may be used by zle function widgets based on the functions replace-string and replace-string-again to provide regular expression replacements in the line editor. Changes in 4.2 since version 4.2.0 ---------------------------------- - The autoload and related builtins take options -k and -z to indicate ksh or zsh autoloading style for given functions, making it possible to mix and match. - Assignments to associative arrays can use the i and r index flags. For example, assoc[(i)alpha*]=bravo sets the value for the element whose key matches the pattern `alpha*'; assoc[(r)activ*]=passive sets the value for the element whose current value matches the pattern `activ*'. - The glob qualifier F indicates a non-empty directory. Hence *(F) indicates all subdirectories with entries, *(/^F) means all subdirectories with no entries. - fc -p and fc -P provide push/pop for the status of the shell's history (both internal and using the history file). With automatic scoping (fc -ap) it becomes easy to use a temporary history in a function. This has been added to the calculator function zcalc to make its internal history work more seamlessly. - A new `try block' and `always block' syntax has been introduced to make it easier to ensure the shell runs important tidy-up code in the event of an error. It also runs after a break, continue, or return, including a return forced by the ERR_RETURN option (but not an exit, which is immediate). The syntax is: `{' try-block-list `}' `always' `{' always-block-list `}' where no newline or semicolon may appear between `}' and `always'. This is compatible with all previous valid zsh syntax as an `always' at that point used to be a syntax error. For example, { echo Code run in current shell } always { echo Tidy-up code } - A new zle widget reset-prompt has been added to re-expand the current prompt. Changes to the variable in use as well as changes in its expansions are both taken into account. The same effect is now forced by a job change notification, making the %j prompt escape and %(j..) ternary expression more useful. - The zftp module supports ports following the hostname in the normal suffix notation, `host:port'. This requires IPv6 colon-style addresses to be specified in suitably quoted square brackets, for example: zftp open '[f000::baaa]' zftp open '[f000::baaa]:ftp' (the two are equivalent). - Special traps, those that don't correspond to signals, i.e. ZERR, DEBUG and EXIT are no longer executed inside other traps. This caused unnecessary confusion if, for example, both DEBUG and EXIT traps were set. The new behaviour is more compatible with other shells. - New option TRAPS_ASYNC which if set allows traps to run while the shell is waiting for a child process. This is the traditional zsh behaviour; POSIX requires the option to be unset. In sh/ksh compatibility mode the option is turned off by default and the option letter -T turns it on, for compatibility with FreeBSD sh. - New WIDGETSTYLE, WIDGETFUNC parameters in ZLE. - Glob qualifier (+func) is shorthand for (e:func:) (calls a command, typically a shell function, with no argument). New features between zsh versions 4.0 and 4.2 --------------------------------------------- Configuration: - upgraded to use autoconf post-2.50 - improved compatibility with other shells through shell options, builtin arguments and improved builtin option parsing Syntax and builtins: - new printf builtin - `+=' to append to parameters which works for scalars, arrays and (with pairs) associative arrays. - enhanced multiple parameter `for' loops: for key value in key1 value1 key2 value2 ... maintaining full compatibility with POSIX syntax. - Suffix aliases allow the shell to run a command on a file by suffix, e.g `alias -s ps=gv' makes `foo.ps' execute `gv foo.ps'. Supplied function zsh-mime-setup uses existing mailcap and mime.types files to set up suitable aliases. Supplied function pick-web-browser is suitable for finding a browser to show .html etc. files by suffix alias. - new option `no_case_glob' for case-insensitive globbing. Add-on modules and functions: - zsh/datetime modules makes date formatting and seconds since EPOCH available inside the shell. - zsh/net/tcp module provides builtin interface to TCP through ztcp builtin. Function suite for interactive and script use with expect-style pattern matching. - zsh/net/socket module provides zsocket builtin. - zcalc calculator function with full line editing. - builtin interface to pcre library - zsh/zselect module provides zselect builtin as interface to select system call Completion system: - general improvements to command and context support, low-level functions, display code. - in verbose mode, matches with the same description are grouped - highly configurable completions for values of specific parameters, specific redirections for specific commands - support for bash completion functions (typically zsh native functions are more powerful where available) - New completions provided for (some of these may be in later 4.0 releases): valgrind, tidy, texinfo, infocmp, Java classes, larch, limit, locale parameters, netcat, mysqldiff, mt, lsof, elinks, ant, debchange (dch), email addresses, file system types, Perforce, xsltproc. Plus many others. Line editor: - special parameters $PREDISPLAY, $POSTDISPLAY available in function widgets to configure uneditable text (for narrowing) - recursive editing - supplied widgets read-from-minibuffer, replace-string use these features (more intuitive prompting and argument reading than 4.0) - access to killed text via $CUTBUFFER and $killring - supplied highly configurable word widgets forward-word-match etc., can set what constitutes a word interactively or in startup script (implement bash-style behaviour, replacing previous bash-* word widgets) - interface to incremental search via $LASTSEARCH - better handling of keymaps in zle and widgets - better support for output from user-defined widgets while zle is active - tetris game which runs entirely in zle - several other contributed widgets Local internal improvements: - disowned jobs are automatically restarted - \u and \U print escapes for Unicode - read -d allows a custom line ending. - read -t . - line numbers in error messages and $PS4 output are more consistent - `=prog' expands only paths, no longer aliases for consistency - job display in prompts; `jobs' command output can be piped - prompts: new $RPROMPT2, %^, %j, %y, enhanced %{, %}, %_. - rand48() function in zsh/mathfunc for better randomness in arithmetic (if the corresponding math library function is present) - $SECONDS parameter can be made floating point via `typeset -F SECONDS' for better timing accuracy - improvements to command line history mechanism - job table is dynamically sized, preventing overflow (typically seen previously in complex completions). - many bugfixes New features in zsh version 4.0.1 --------------------------------- Compared with 3.1.9, there are mostly incremental improvements to - the new completion system --- more functions, completers, styles... - the line editor - handling of signals and traps - the configuration system, particularly for modules - Cygwin support (now essentially complete) - arithmetic evaluation - the zpty (pseudoterminal handling) module - the test suite plus various bug fixes and compatibility improvements. The alias modules (zle.so as an alias for zsh/zle.so, etc.) have been removed; use `zmodload -A' to load modules under other names. This is irrelevant if you are upgrading from 3.0. Compared with the 3.0 series of releases (the last stable set), the most significant of a large number of improvements in the shell are: - Dynamically loadable modules with hierarchical naming system - Shell functions as editor functions, with much additional builtin support - Incredibly rich new completion system; just needs a single initialization command to provide completion for all sorts of commands and contexts - Associative arrays - Lots of new features in parameter substitution and globbing; more logical handling of nested parameter substitutions - Rewritten pattern-matching (globbing) code supports approximate and case-insensitive matching and backreferences - Various custom modules for pty's, FTP, special parameters, etc. - Rewrites of many internal parts of the code: execution code to provide compilation to internal representation, pattern matching - Floating point arithmetic and mathematical functions module - A test suite - Various new options for compatibility with this, that and the other See the 3.1.x changes below for more detail. New features in zsh version 3.1.8 and 3.1.9 ------------------------------------------- These are primarily bug-fix versions. There are only a few user-visible changes. - Array slices ${array[a,b]} with b < a now correctly have zero length. New features in zsh version 3.1.7 --------------------------------- Further enhancements to new completion system: - Comprehensive context-sensitive configuration via `styles', which can be set by the menu-driven front end in compinstall - General mechanism for setting patterns to be ignored in a completion; overriding of patterns to be matched for functions - New completers: _prefix to complete word before cursor, _ignored to complete using words so far ignored (like $fignore but more powerful), _history to complete words from shell history - Multiple use of completers with different options, similarly splitting of different types of completion (`tags') so they are considered with different styles - Many more supplied completions for standard commands which work out of the box, and better handling of command line options/arguments which behave in the usual way - $fpath now set up to use installed functions by default; functions can be loaded just by `autoload -U compinit; compinit' - Much improved handling of nested quoting and nested braces - New LIST_PACKED and LIST_ROWS_FIRST completion options and corresponding styles - compctl library separated out (frozen but still supported) - User-friendly introduction available at zsh website http://zsh.sourceforge.net/ Additions to complist listing library (coloured completion and menu selection): - Listings can be shown page by page (are by default for new completion) - Menu selection allows full up and down scrolling of long lists Other editing features: - new parameters $PENDING, $MARK, $BUFFERLINES - Easy display of a prompt from within an editing widget Code parsing, storing and execution: - Completely new system of storing code internally, greatly optimised - Much less memory for shell functions etc. - Can compile shell functions to .zwc `wordcode' functions for fast loading - Can create `digest' files of entire directories in .zwc format Parameters: - Floating point support added, similar to ksh93, `typeset -F' and `typeset -E' declare floating point variables; usual C/Fortran-like rules for integer/float conversion - Mathematical library zsh/mathfunc contains all the standard mathematical functions for use in arithmetical expressions - Improved parsing of arithmetical expressions and better error messages - Special parameters can be made local - `typeset -h' hides specialness of parameters, either as parameter attribute or when declaring new local variable - Local parameters can now be exported as in other shells; new option GLOBAL_EXPORTS on by default provides old behaviour that `typeset -x' referred to global parameters. - zsh/parameter module enhanced: now needed for new completion; parameters provided have `-h' flag set so that they are hidden by `typeset', so that existing functions don't need to be changed - Quotes can be stripped from parameter values with ${(Q)...}, providing reverse of ${(q...)...} facility Globbing and pattern matching: - Pattern matching rewritten for efficiency - Supports `backreferences', i.e. extracting parenthesised chunks of matches, e.g. [[ $foo = (#b)(*/)[^/]* ]] stores the part of $foo up to the last / in $match[1] and the indexes of the match in $mbegin[1], $mend[1]. (#m) is also available to set $MATCH to the entire match and corresponding $MBEGIN, $MEND: useful in parameter substitutions like ${.../.../...}. - (#s) and (#e) match start and end of pattern like ^ and $ in regular expression, useful in complex expressions such as ((#s)|/)dirname((#e)|/) and in parameter expressions. - Depth-first/last listing of recursive glob lists Functions etc.: - `autoload -X' inside a function body instructs the shell to bootstrap the function at that point - `autoload +X fn' says load the function fn but don't execute it - Prompt `themes' make customization of prompts easier Modules: - New hierarchical naming scheme for modules; supplied modules go into zsh subdirectory, so zle becomes zsh/zle etc.; aliases supplied for compatibility for existing code, but the new format should be used in future. - zmodload is more consistent between dynamically and statically linked shells - zsh/zftp and its function suite support multiple sessions (zfsession command); zftransfer allows transfer of files between two ftp sessions with no local file; use styles for e.g. progress style; IPv6 supported; recursive put `zfput -r' for uploads - zsh/zpty module creates pseudoterminal and allows builtin `expect'-like behaviour Other: - Test suite, not yet complete (`make test') - use of Linux task limits - Many fixes including output redirection with `setopt xtrace' and other redirection fixes; NIS+ problem. - Better null-command behaviour in sh and csh emulation - Internal memory usage optimisations New features in zsh version 3.1.6 (beta version) ------------------------------------------------ Note also the changes for 3.0.6, which include changes between 3.1.5. and 3.1.6. New completion system via shell functions; massive degree of programmability and configurability: - ready-made function suite to use, see zshcompsys(1) - approximate completion and spelling correction via completion - control over matching for case-independence, partial word completion, etc. - menu selection: choose a completion by moving the cursor - coloured completion lists - completion of filenames in quotes is now more reliable; splitting quoted strings into command arguments is also possible. Other editing changes: - enhancements to function/editing interface: new parameters, numeric arguments, string argument passing, reading keys from widgets. - the old history-search-{back,for}ward behaviour and bindings have returned (up to minor details). - BASH_AUTO_LIST option to show completion list only on second key press. - the ZBEEP parameter gives a string to output instead of beeping, allowing you to have a visual bell. History changes: new options HIST_NO_FUNCTIONS, HIST_EXPIRE_DUPS_FIRST, HIST_FIND_NO_DUPS, HIST_IGNORE_ALL_DUPS, INC_APPEND_HISTORY, HIST_SAVE_NO_DUPS, SHARE_HISTORY, allow better control of when history is read and written and how duplicates are handled. New format for history saves. Associative arrays plus enhanced parameter substitutions to retrieve keys and values. Globbing changes: - Case-insensitive and approximate globbing. - Ordering and indexing of globbing matches, e.g. *(om[1]) picks most recently modified file. - General file mode qualifier with chmod(1)-like syntax, e.g. *(f:u+wx:) New loadable modules: - zftp, plus associated function suite, for turning your zsh session into an FTP session too - parameter, for examining and altering shell hash tables via an associative array interface. - mapfile, for reading and writing external files via an associative array interface. Debugging and prompt enhancements: - $PS4 can contain %i for $LINENO as well as %N for script or function names (default PS4 changed), also %_ for current shell structure executing; - Prompt truncation %<...< is now more flexible: it applies to a whole section of the prompt, not just one escape. You need to put %<< after the truncated escape to get the old behaviour. - %20(l.yes.no) in prompts prints yes if at least 20 characters have been output, else no (e.g. for outputting extra newlines). Parameter and expansion changes - `typeset -t MYPATH mypath' creates tied path/PATH-like variables - `typeset -g' allows operations on parameters without making them local - New expansions - ${(t)param} prints type information for $param - ${(P)param} treats value of $param as the name of a param to substitute - ${foo:q} can quote replaced parameter text from expansion - ${foo/old/new} substitution, like bash; also (S) flag for shortest match - $foo[(b.2.i)bar] starts searching $foo for bar starting at 2nd match Builtin and function changes - stat module: `stat -H hash foo' gives you e.g. $hash[mtime] - `autoload -U' autoloads functions without alias expansion. Other new options: - LOCAL_TRAPS allows signal traps to be local to functions (as in ksh). - NO_RCS can now be turned on at any point in initialization files. - NO_GLOBAL_RCS can force /etc/z* files after /etc/zshenv to be skipped. (Please don't use this as an excuse to stuff more into /etc/zshenv!) - Existing MAGIC_EQUAL_SUBST option is more useful; any argument containing ...=~...:~... will perform filename expansion on the ~ (previously, the string before `=' had to look like a parameter name). Configuration changes: - Generation of signal names should be more reliable - Customizable installation of shell functions from distribution. New features in zsh version 3.0.6 --------------------------------- Most of these changes are designed to improve compatibility with zsh version 3.1.6, the latest development release. However, this release also fixes all known Year 2000 (Y2K) bugs in zsh 3.0. History changes: - whitespace between words is ignored in history searches. - new option HIST_REDUCE_BLANKS removes extra whitespace in the stored history. - support for reading (but not writing) version 3.1.6 history files. Globbing changes: - the a, c, and m glob qualifiers can now test time in seconds. - globbing of number ranges behaves more like character ranges in that it can match a prefix of a number, e.g. `<1-5>*' matches 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 17, 23skiddoo, 5986, etc., but not 6, 7, 8ball, 911, etc. Parameter and expansion changes: - expansion of ~ and other globbing flags via ${~param} do not depend upon EXTENDED_GLOB (bug fix). - nested parameter substitutions require braces (this was always the documented behaviour, but previous parsers didn't enforce it). - quote only nested expansion, e.g. ${(f)"$(&file' is a redirection, not a NULLCMD. - any single complex command, such as `case ... esac', parses as if semicolon-terminated (bug fix). - the shell function `preexec', if defined, is run after parsing each command line but before executing the command. Other changes: - the option PRINT_EIGHT_BIT causes zsh to emit raw bytes in prompts and completion lists even if the system ctype(3) package says that those bytes are not "printable." Debugging enhancements: - LINENO is now very much more useful in scripts and functions and is reported correctly in most error messages. - ERREXIT behaviour is now consistent with newer Bourne-like shells, e.g. with respect to `if' tests that fail. Configuration changes: - Large file and 64-bit integers on 32-bit machines supported where provided by OS. - a few more system features, such as getpwnam/getpwuid, are tested for. New features in zsh version 3.1 (beta version) ---------------------------------------------- On most operating systems zsh can load binary modules dynamically at run-time. ZLE and the compctl builtin are now reside in a separate module which is loaded automatically on demand. for ((expr; expr; expr)) do ... done loop syntax from AT&T ksh93 is now supported. POSIX globbing character classes ([:alnum:] etc.) are now supported. ksh's case fall-through feature (;&) is supported. ksh93's $'' quoting syntax is supported. Restricted mode is now supported. This is controlled by the new option RESTRICTED (-r). New options BARE_GLOB_QUAL, HIST_NO_FUNCTIONS (alias NO_LOG), KSH_GLOB, PRINT_EIGHT_BIT, PROMPT_BANG, PROMPT_PERCENT, RM_STAR_WAIT. Options ALWAYS_LAST_PROMPT, APPEND_HISTORY, AUTO_LIST, AUTO_MENU, AUTO_PARAM_KEYS, AUTO_PARAM_SLASH, AUTO_REMOVE_SLASH, LIST_AMBIGUOUS and LIST_TYPES are now on by default. In ZLE, arbitrarily many keymaps can be defined. Multi-character keybindings now work. Completion can be performed within a brace expansion. EMACS-like universal-argument function. New features in zsh version 3.0 ------------------------------- Trailing "/" in a glob pattern now works like in other shell thus it can no longer be used as a shorthand for "(/)". Much improved sh/ksh emulation. When zsh is invoked as sh it mostly conforms to POSIX 1003.2. Enhanced parameter expansion features: new flags: A, @, e, W, p, f, F. Expansions can be nested. For example, "${${(M)${(f@)$( is a redirection operator which opens the standard input for both reading and writing. To match a number use <->. Option letters -1 and -C for PRINT_EXIT_VALUE and NO_CLOBBER are swapped: `set -C' sets NO_CLOBBER and `set -1' sets PRINT_EXIT_VALUE. AUTO_PUSHD behaviour is changed. Now cd without arguments will always go to the $HOME directory even if AUTO_PUSHD is set and PUSHD_TO_HOME is not set. If you preferred the old behaviour you can alias cd to pushd. IFS word splitting with SH_WORD_SPLIT and the splitting of the input in the read builtin has changed in cases when IFS contains characters other than , , . See the description of IFS in the zshparam manual page for more details. New features in zsh version 2.5 ------------------------------- Greatly expanded completion possibilities. Programmable completion allows detailed control over what arguments of what commands can be completed to what. See dots/zcomp in the distribution for examples. Expand filenames with ~ and = on the right hand side of parameter assignments. New option MAGIC_EQUAL_SUBST to do it in all identifier=expression arguments. ${+name} becomes 1 or 0 if name is set or unset. ${~spec} toggles GLOB_SUBST in substitution. Parameter substitution takes lots of flags in the format ${(flags)name}. New glob qualifiers for block/character special files, times in glob qualifiers can be in months, weeks, days, hours, minutes. Qualifiers can work on links or on what they point to. Qualifiers separated by commas are or-ed. New parameter substitution modifiers (fFwW) to repeat actions. New option CSH_JUNKIE_HISTORY. New line editor functions history-beginning-search-backward, history-beginning-search-forward, expand-or-complete-prefix, push-input, push-line-or-edit. Assign to part of a string, use qualifiers on string subscription with $foo[(qual)2,5] New parameters: EGID, EUID, KEYTIMEOUT New prompt escape sequence %_ to get constructs like for and while in the secondary prompt. %E in prompt clears to end of screen. Conditional expressions in PROMPT and WATCHFMT. New options ALWAYS_LAST_PROMPT, ALWAYS_TO_END, AUTO_PARAM_KEYS, COMPLETE_ALIASES, COMPLETE_IN_WORD, CSH_JUNKIE_HISTORY, GLOB_SUBST, LIST_AMBIGUOUS, MAGIC_EQUAL_SUBST, NO_FLOW_CONTROL, PROMPT_SUBST New option -m to many builtins makes arguments subject to pattern matching. Bindkey can now bind both key sequences and prefixes of those. You can for example bind ESC and function keys sending ESC sequences. Additional options to read builtin to use in functions called by completion. New options to print to sort arguments and print them in columns. Some additional resource limits can be specified. Some editor functions now work in the minibuffer.