Learning Shell Scripting with Zsh

Gaston Festari

• Publisher: Packt Publishing
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781783282937
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Computer Science
• Subtopic: Programming in C
• Index: Computer Science

In Detail

Zsh has become incredibly popular in recent times and reasonably so; the shell boasts some really great features such as command completion, filename generation, and history sharing among instances of the shell. Learning to use them to your advantage will prove to be really valuable and will save you from lots of tedious and overly-complex tasks.

This hands-on guide will show you how to configure and use zsh for work and daily tasks. It provides a clear introduction to the more powerful features of the shell such as globbing and completion. This book will help you take advantage of the real power behind the UNIX shell on both desktops and servers through real-world examples.

This book will help you understand the features of zsh and make it one of the most valuable assets in your toolbox. It will teach you how to use the shell history to look up and edit previously typed entries and take advantage of the line-editor module to speed up your typing and editing of commands. You will be able to create your own completion functions and ensure you never mistype a command or have to look at the manpages again.

You will learn how to define your own aliases and learn about filename generation so you can do more by typing even less. You will also discover the essentials of zsh and go deeper with its more advanced features. When you are done with this book, your time with the command line will be much more enjoyable and productive.

Approach

A step-by-step tutorial that will teach you, through real-world examples, how to configure and use zsh and its various features.

Who this book is for

If you are a system administrator, developer, or computer professional involved with UNIX who are looking to improve on their daily tasks involving the UNIX shell, "Learning Shell Scripting with zsh" will be great for you. It's assumed that you have some familiarity with an UNIX command-line interface and feel comfortable with editors such as Emacs or vi.

Learning Shell Scripting with Zsh

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Table of Contents

Learning Shell Scripting with Zsh

Credits

About the Author

About the Reviewers

www.PacktPub.com

Support files, eBooks, discount offers and more

Why Subscribe?

Free Access for Packt account holders

Preface

What this book covers

What you need for this book

Who this book is for

Conventions

Reader feedback

Customer support

Downloading the example code

Errata

Piracy

Questions

1. Getting Started

Installing zsh

Installing on Linux

Installing on OS X

Compiling from source

First run

Making zsh your login shell

Shell options

The startup files

The shell prompt

The prompt command

Customizing the prompt

Using escape sequences

Shell state options

Login information options

Directory options

Date and time options

Text formatting options

Conditional expressions

Putting it all together

Summary

2. Alias and History

Working with aliases

Quoting characters

Single and double quoting aliases

Global aliases

Hashes

Putting it all together

Expansion

Parameter expansion

Command substitution

Arithmetic expansion

Brace expansion

Working with history

History expansion

History substitution

More useful options

Summary

3. Advanced Editing

Zsh line editor

Getting to know ZLE

Working with keymaps

Basic editing

Going back and forth with words

Yanking and transposing text

Revisiting history

Advanced editing

ZLE-related options

Defining your own keymaps

Don't call them widgets

Defining your own widgets

Special variables

Your first function

Working with regions

Multiline editing

Putting it all together

Summary

4. Globbing

Quoting your strings

Double quotes

Getting started with Globbing

Globbing with the stars

Questions for any single character

Brackets for a sequence of characters

Using safer ranges on your scripts

Avoiding characters

Handling mismatches

Extended Globbing

Special patterns

Recursive searching

Alternate patterns

Numeric ranges

Revisiting the caret operator

The tilde operator

Glob qualifiers

Timestamp qualifiers

File size qualifiers

The zmv function

Summary

5. Completion

Getting started with completion

Getting assertive with zstyle

Command correction

Completers

Ignoring matches

Function definitions

The path of the function

Summary

6. Tips and Tricks

Main resources

Helping tips

Directory substitution

Magic space

Random numbers

zcalc

Change and list directory contents

Finding your path through commands

Other projects

zsh-lovers

zsh-users

oh-my-zsh

Prezto

Explain Shell

Your dotfiles

Summary

Index

Learning Shell Scripting with Zsh

Copyright © 2014 Packt Publishing

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embedded in critical articles or reviews.

Every effort has been made in the preparation of this book to ensure the accuracy of the information presented. However, the information contained in this book is sold without warranty, either express or implied. Neither the author, nor Packt Publishing, and its dealers and distributors will be held liable for any damages caused or alleged to be caused directly or indirectly by this book.

Packt Publishing has endeavored to provide trademark information about all of the companies and products mentioned in this book by the appropriate use of capitals. However, Packt Publishing cannot guarantee the accuracy of this information.

First published: January 2014

Production Reference: 1080114

Published by Packt Publishing Ltd.

Livery Place

35 Livery Street

Birmingham B3 2PB, UK.

ISBN 978-1-78328-293-7

www.packtpub.com

Cover Image by Aniket Sawant (<[email protected]>)

Credits

Author

Gastón Festari

Reviewers

Takeshi Banse

Alice Ferrazzi

Chien-Wei Huang

Acquisition Editor

Rubal Kaur

Commissioning Editor

Govindan K

Technical Editors

Nikhil Potdukhe

Tarunveer Shetty

Copy Editors

Dipti Kapadia

Kirti Pai

Project Coordinator

Aboli Ambardekar

Proofreader

Bridget Braund

Indexer

Hemangini Bari

Production Coordinator

Alwin Roy

Cover Work

Alwin Roy

About the Author

Gastón Festari is a scripting language enthusiast with over five years of experience and a firm believer in free, open source software. Currently working as a developer for Globant, he likes to spread the word about zsh at different meetups and events when away from the keyboard.

The number of people who deserve their name on this page for making this possible would require a book of its own, so allow me to start by apologizing if your name isn't here by saying: I owe you a hug and a big "thank you".

To my grandparents and my family for allowing me to follow my ambitions. My friends, Xeba and his wonderful family, Mathías and Eliana, Bruno, Lore, Ce, and Dan for putting up with this project of mine. Without your encouragement and support, this could have never been completed.

My colleagues, particularly Gabriel, Diego, and Ale, for their feedback and for getting me through those particularly difficult times around Chapter Four. To the technical reviewers Al...

Table of contents

• Learning Shell Scripting with Zsh