The following parameters are used by the shell. Again, ‘<S>’ indicates
that the parameter is special and ‘<Z>’ indicates that the parameter does
not exist when the shell initializes in sh or ksh emulation mode.
In cases where there are two parameters with an upper- and lowercase
form of the same name, such as path and PATH, the lowercase form
is an array and the uppercase form is a scalar with the elements of the
array joined together by colons. These are similar to tied parameters
created via ‘typeset -T’. The normal use for the colon-separated
form is for exporting to the environment, while the array form is easier
to manipulate within the shell. Note that unsetting either of the pair
will unset the other; they retain their special properties when
recreated, and recreating one of the pair will recreate the other.
ARGV0If exported, its value is used as the argv[0] of external commands.
Usually used in constructs like ‘ARGV0=emacs nethack’.
BAUDThe rate in bits per second at which data reaches the terminal. The line editor will use this value in order to compensate for a slow terminal by delaying updates to the display until necessary. If the parameter is unset or the value is zero the compensation mechanism is turned off. The parameter is not set by default.
This parameter may be profitably set in some circumstances, e.g. for slow modems dialing into a communications server, or on a slow wide area network. It should be set to the baud rate of the slowest part of the link for best performance.
cdpath <S> <Z> (CDPATH <S>)An array (colon-separated list)
of directories specifying the search path for the cd command.
COLUMNS <S>The number of columns for this terminal session. Used for printing select lists and for the line editor.
CORRECT_IGNOREIf set, is treated as a pattern during spelling correction. Any
potential correction that matches the pattern is ignored. For example,
if the value is ‘_*’ then completion functions (which, by
convention, have names beginning with ‘_’) will never be offered
as spelling corrections. The pattern does not apply to the correction
of file names, as applied by the CORRECT_ALL option (so with the
example just given files beginning with ‘_’ in the current
directory would still be completed).
CORRECT_IGNORE_FILEIf set, is treated as a pattern during spelling correction of file names.
Any file name that matches the pattern is never offered as a correction.
For example, if the value is ‘.*’ then dot file names will never be
offered as spelling corrections. This is useful with the
CORRECT_ALL option.
DIRSTACKSIZEThe maximum size of the directory stack, by default there is no limit. If the
stack gets larger than this, it will be truncated automatically.
This is useful with the AUTO_PUSHD option.
ENVIf the ENV environment variable is set when zsh is invoked as sh
or ksh, $ENV is sourced after the profile scripts. The value of
ENV is subjected to parameter expansion, command substitution, and
arithmetic expansion before being interpreted as a pathname. Note that
ENV is not used unless the shell is interactive and zsh is
emulating sh or ksh.
FCEDITThe default editor for the fc builtin. If FCEDIT is not set,
the parameter EDITOR is used; if that is not set either, a builtin
default, usually vi, is used.
fignore <S> <Z> (FIGNORE <S>)An array (colon separated list) containing the suffixes of files to be ignored during filename completion. However, if completion only generates files with suffixes in this list, then these files are completed anyway.
fpath <S> <Z> (FPATH <S>)An array (colon separated list)
of directories specifying the search path for
function definitions. This path is searched when a function
with the -u attribute is referenced. If an executable
file is found, then it is read and executed in the current environment.
histchars <S>Three characters used by the shell’s history and lexical analysis
mechanism. The first character signals the start of a history
expansion (default ‘!’). The second character signals the
start of a quick history substitution (default ‘^’). The third
character is the comment character (default ‘#’).
The characters must be in the ASCII character set; any attempt to set
histchars to characters with a locale-dependent meaning will be
rejected with an error message.
HISTCHARS <S> <Z>Same as histchars. (Deprecated.)
HISTFILEThe file to save the history in when an interactive shell exits. If unset, the history is not saved.
HISTORY_IGNOREIf set, is treated as a pattern at the time history files are written.
Any potential history entry that matches the pattern is skipped. For
example, if the value is ‘fc *’ then commands that invoke the
interactive history editor are never written to the history file.
Note that HISTORY_IGNORE defines a single pattern: to
specify alternatives use the
‘(first|second|...)’ syntax.
Compare the HIST_NO_STORE option or the zshaddhistory hook,
either of which would prevent such commands from being added to the
interactive history at all. If you wish to use HISTORY_IGNORE to
stop history being added in the first place, you can define the
following hook:
zshaddhistory() {
emulate -L zsh
## uncomment if HISTORY_IGNORE
## should use EXTENDED_GLOB syntax
# setopt extendedglob
[[ $1 != ${~HISTORY_IGNORE} ]]
}
HISTSIZE <S>The maximum number of events stored in the internal history list.
If you use the HIST_EXPIRE_DUPS_FIRST option, setting this value
larger than the SAVEHIST size will give you the difference as a
cushion for saving duplicated history events.
If this is made local, it is not implicitly set to 0, but may be explicitly set locally.
HOME <S>The default argument for the cd command. This is not set automatically
by the shell in sh, ksh or csh emulation, but it is typically
present in the environment anyway, and if it becomes set it has its usual
special behaviour.
IFS <S>Internal field separators (by default space, tab, newline and NUL), that
are used to separate words which result from
command or parameter expansion and words read by
the read builtin. Any characters from the set space, tab and
newline that appear in the IFS are called IFS white space.
One or more IFS white space characters or one non-IFS white space
character together with any adjacent IFS white space character delimit
a field. If an IFS white space character appears twice consecutively
in the IFS, this character is treated as if it were not an IFS white
space character.
If the parameter is unset, the default is used. Note this has a different effect from setting the parameter to an empty string.
KEYBOARD_HACKThis variable defines a character to be removed from the end of the
command line before interpreting it (interactive shells only). It is
intended to fix the problem with keys placed annoyingly close to return
and replaces the SUNKEYBOARDHACK option which did this for
backquotes only. Should the chosen character be one of singlequote,
doublequote or backquote, there must also be an odd number of them
on the command line for the last one to be removed.
For backward compatibility, if the SUNKEYBOARDHACK option is
explicitly set, the value of KEYBOARD_HACK reverts to backquote.
If the option is explicitly unset, this variable is set to empty.
KEYTIMEOUTThe time the shell waits, in hundredths of seconds, for another key to be pressed when reading bound multi-character sequences.
LANG <S>This variable determines the locale category for any category not
specifically selected via a variable starting with ‘LC_’.
LC_ALL <S>This variable overrides the value of the ‘LANG’ variable and the value
of any of the other variables starting with ‘LC_’.
LC_COLLATE <S>This variable determines the locale category for character collation information within ranges in glob brackets and for sorting.
LC_CTYPE <S>This variable determines the locale category for character handling
functions. If the MULTIBYTE option is in effect this variable or
LANG should contain a value that reflects the character set in
use, even if it is a single-byte character set, unless only the
7-bit subset (ASCII) is used. For example, if the character set
is ISO-8859-1, a suitable value might be en_US.iso88591 (certain
Linux distributions) or en_US.ISO8859-1 (MacOS).
LC_MESSAGES <S>This variable determines the language in which messages should be written. Note that zsh does not use message catalogs.
LC_NUMERIC <S>This variable affects the decimal point character and thousands separator character for the formatted input/output functions and string conversion functions. Note that zsh ignores this setting when parsing floating point mathematical expressions.
LC_TIME <S>This variable determines the locale category for date and time formatting in prompt escape sequences.
LINES <S>The number of lines for this terminal session. Used for printing select lists and for the line editor.
LISTMAXIn the line editor, the number of matches to list without asking first. If the value is negative, the list will be shown if it spans at most as many lines as given by the absolute value. If set to zero, the shell asks only if the top of the listing would scroll off the screen.
MAILIf this parameter is set and mailpath is not set,
the shell looks for mail in the specified file.
MAILCHECKThe interval in seconds between checks for new mail.
mailpath <S> <Z> (MAILPATH <S>)An array (colon-separated list) of filenames to check for
new mail. Each filename can be followed by a ‘?’ and a
message that will be printed. The message will undergo
parameter expansion, command substitution and arithmetic
expansion with the variable $_ defined as the name
of the file that has changed. The default message is
‘You have new mail’. If an element is a directory
instead of a file the shell will recursively check every
file in every subdirectory of the element.
manpath <S> <Z> (MANPATH <S> <Z>)An array (colon-separated list)
whose value is not used by the shell. The manpath
array can be useful, however, since setting it also sets
MANPATH, and vice versa.
matchmbeginmendArrays set by the shell when the b globbing flag is used in pattern
matches. See the subsection Globbing flags in
Filename Generation.
MATCHMBEGINMENDSet by the shell when the m globbing flag is used in pattern
matches. See the subsection Globbing flags in
Filename Generation.
module_path <S> <Z> (MODULE_PATH <S>)An array (colon-separated list)
of directories that zmodload
searches for dynamically loadable modules.
This is initialized to a standard pathname,
usually ‘/usr/local/lib/zsh/$ZSH_VERSION’.
(The ‘/usr/local/lib’ part varies from installation to installation.)
For security reasons, any value set in the environment when the shell
is started will be ignored.
These parameters only exist if the installation supports dynamic module loading.
NULLCMD <S>The command name to assume if a redirection is specified
with no command. Defaults to cat. For sh/ksh
behavior, change this to :. For csh-like
behavior, unset this parameter; the shell will print an
error message if null commands are entered.
path <S> <Z> (PATH <S>)An array (colon-separated list) of directories to search for commands. When this parameter is set, each directory is scanned and all files found are put in a hash table.
POSTEDIT <S>This string is output whenever the line editor exits. It usually contains termcap strings to reset the terminal.
PROMPT <S> <Z>PROMPT2 <S> <Z>PROMPT3 <S> <Z>PROMPT4 <S> <Z>Same as PS1, PS2, PS3 and PS4,
respectively.
prompt <S> <Z>Same as PS1.
PROMPT_EOL_MARKWhen the PROMPT_CR and PROMPT_SP options are set, the
PROMPT_EOL_MARK parameter can be used to customize how the end of
partial lines are shown. This parameter undergoes prompt expansion, with
the PROMPT_PERCENT option set. If not set, the default behavior is
equivalent to the value ‘%B%S%#%s%b’.
PS1 <S>The primary prompt string, printed before a command is read.
It undergoes a special form of expansion
before being displayed; see
Prompt Expansion. The default is ‘%m%# ’.
PS2 <S>The secondary prompt, printed when the shell needs more information
to complete a command.
It is expanded in the same way as PS1.
The default is ‘%_> ’, which displays any shell constructs or quotation
marks which are currently being processed.
PS3 <S>Selection prompt used within a select loop.
It is expanded in the same way as PS1.
The default is ‘?# ’.
PS4 <S>The execution trace prompt. Default is ‘+%N:%i> ’, which displays
the name of the current shell structure and the line number within it.
In sh or ksh emulation, the default is ‘+ ’.
psvar <S> <Z> (PSVAR <S>)An array (colon-separated list) whose elements can be used in
PROMPT strings. Setting psvar also sets PSVAR, and
vice versa.
READNULLCMD <S>The command name to assume if a single input redirection
is specified with no command. Defaults to more.
REPORTMEMORYIf nonnegative, commands whose maximum resident set size (roughly
speaking, main memory usage) in kilobytes is greater than this
value have timing statistics reported. The format used to output
statistics is the value of the TIMEFMT parameter, which is the same
as for the REPORTTIME variable and the time builtin; note that
by default this does not output memory usage. Appending
" max RSS %M" to the value of TIMEFMT causes it to output the
value that triggered the report. If REPORTTIME is also in use,
at most a single report is printed for both triggers. This feature
requires the getrusage() system call, commonly supported by
modern Unix-like systems.
REPORTTIMEIf nonnegative, commands whose combined user and system execution times
(measured in seconds) are greater than this value have timing
statistics printed for them. Output is suppressed for commands
executed within the line editor, including completion; commands
explicitly marked with the time keyword still cause the summary
to be printed in this case.
REPLYThis parameter is reserved by convention to pass string values between
shell scripts and shell builtins in situations where a function call or
redirection are impossible or undesirable. The read builtin and the
select complex command may set REPLY, and filename generation both
sets and examines its value when evaluating certain expressions. Some
modules also employ REPLY for similar purposes.
replyAs REPLY, but for array values rather than strings.
RPROMPT <S>RPS1 <S>This prompt is displayed on the right-hand side of the screen
when the primary prompt is being displayed on the left.
This does not work if the SINGLE_LINE_ZLE option is set.
It is expanded in the same way as PS1.
RPROMPT2 <S>RPS2 <S>This prompt is displayed on the right-hand side of the screen
when the secondary prompt is being displayed on the left.
This does not work if the SINGLE_LINE_ZLE option is set.
It is expanded in the same way as PS2.
SAVEHISTThe maximum number of history events to save in the history file.
If this is made local, it is not implicitly set to 0, but may be explicitly set locally.
SPROMPT <S>The prompt used for spelling correction. The sequence
‘%R’ expands to the string which presumably needs spelling
correction, and ‘%r’ expands to the proposed correction.
All other prompt escapes are also allowed.
The actions available at the prompt are [nyae]:
n (‘no’) (default)Discard the correction and run the command.
y (‘yes’)Make the correction and run the command.
a (‘abort’)Discard the entire command line without running it.
e (‘edit’)Resume editing the command line.
STTYIf this parameter is set in a command’s environment, the shell runs the
stty command with the value of this parameter as arguments in order to
set up the terminal before executing the command. The modes apply only to the
command, and are reset when it finishes or is suspended. If the command is
suspended and continued later with the fg or wait builtins it will
see the modes specified by STTY, as if it were not suspended. This
(intentionally) does not apply if the command is continued via ‘kill
-CONT’. STTY is ignored if the command is run in the background, or
if it is in the environment of the shell but not explicitly assigned to in
the input line. This avoids running stty at every external command by
accidentally exporting it. Also note that STTY should not be used for
window size specifications; these will not be local to the command.
If the parameter is set and empty, all of the above applies except
that stty is not run. This can be useful as a way to freeze the tty
around a single command, blocking its changes to tty settings,
similar to the ttyctl builtin.
TERM <S>The type of terminal in use. This is used when looking up termcap
sequences. An assignment to TERM causes zsh to re-initialize the
terminal, even if the value does not change (e.g., ‘TERM=$TERM’). It
is necessary to make such an assignment upon any change to the terminal
definition database or terminal type in order for the new settings to
take effect.
TERMINFO <S>A reference to your terminfo database, used by the ‘terminfo’ library when the
system has it; see terminfo(5).
If set, this causes the shell to reinitialise the terminal, making the
workaround ‘TERM=$TERM’ unnecessary.
TERMINFO_DIRS <S>A colon-seprarated list of terminfo databases, used by the ‘terminfo’ library
when the system has it; see terminfo(5). This variable is only
used by certain terminal libraries, in particular ncurses; see
terminfo(5) to check support on your system. If set, this
causes the shell to reinitialise the terminal, making the workaround
‘TERM=$TERM’ unnecessary. Note that unlike other colon-separated
arrays this is not tied to a zsh array.
TIMEFMTThe format of process time reports with the time keyword.
The default is ‘%J %U user %S system %P cpu %*E total’.
Recognizes the following escape sequences, although not all
may be available on all systems, and some that are available
may not be useful:
%%A ‘%’.
%UCPU seconds spent in user mode.
%SCPU seconds spent in kernel mode.
%EElapsed time in seconds.
%PThe CPU percentage, computed as
100*(%U+%S)/%E.
%WNumber of times the process was swapped.
%XThe average amount in (shared) text space used in kilobytes.
%DThe average amount in (unshared) data/stack space used in kilobytes.
%KThe total space used (%X+%D) in kilobytes.
%MThe maximum memory the process had in use at any time in kilobytes.
%FThe number of major page faults (page needed to be brought from disk).
%RThe number of minor page faults.
%IThe number of input operations.
%OThe number of output operations.
%rThe number of socket messages received.
%sThe number of socket messages sent.
%kThe number of signals received.
%wNumber of voluntary context switches (waits).
%cNumber of involuntary context switches.
%JThe name of this job.
A star may be inserted between the percent sign and flags printing time
(e.g., ‘%*E’); this causes the time to be printed in
‘hh:mm:ss.ttt’
format (hours and minutes are only printed if they are not zero).
Alternatively, ‘m’ or ‘u’ may be used (e.g., ‘%mE’) to produce
time output in milliseconds or microseconds, respectively.
TMOUTIf this parameter is nonzero, the shell will receive an ALRM
signal if a command is not entered within the specified number of
seconds after issuing a prompt. If there is a trap on SIGALRM, it
will be executed and a new alarm is scheduled using the value of the
TMOUT parameter after executing the trap. If no trap is set, and
the idle time of the terminal is not less than the value of the
TMOUT parameter, zsh terminates. Otherwise a new alarm is
scheduled to TMOUT seconds after the last keypress.
TMPPREFIXA pathname prefix which the shell will use for all temporary files.
Note that this should include an initial part for the file name as
well as any directory names. The default is ‘/tmp/zsh’.
TMPSUFFIXA filename suffix which the shell will use for temporary files created
by process substitutions (e.g., ‘=(list)’).
Note that the value should include a leading dot ‘.’ if intended
to be interpreted as a file extension. The default is not to append
any suffix, thus this parameter should be assigned only when needed
and then unset again.
WORDCHARS <S>A list of non-alphanumeric characters considered part of a word by the line editor.
ZBEEPIf set, this gives a string of characters, which can use all the same codes
as the bindkey command as described in
The zsh/zle Module, that will be output to the terminal
instead of beeping. This may have a visible instead of an audible effect;
for example, the string ‘\e[?5h\e[?5l’ on a vt100 or xterm will have
the effect of flashing reverse video on and off (if you usually use reverse
video, you should use the string ‘\e[?5l\e[?5h’ instead). This takes
precedence over the NOBEEP option.
ZDOTDIRThe directory to search for shell startup files (.zshrc, etc),
if not $HOME.
zle_bracketed_pasteMany terminal emulators have a feature that allows applications to identify when text is pasted into the terminal rather than being typed normally. For ZLE, this means that special characters such as tabs and newlines can be inserted instead of invoking editor commands. Furthermore, pasted text forms a single undo event and if the region is active, pasted text will replace the region.
This two-element array contains the terminal escape sequences for enabling and disabling the feature. These escape sequences are used to enable bracketed paste when ZLE is active and disable it at other times. Unsetting the parameter has the effect of ensuring that bracketed paste remains disabled.
zle_highlightAn array describing contexts in which ZLE should highlight the input text. See Character Highlighting.
ZLE_LINE_ABORTEDThis parameter is set by the line editor when an error occurs. It
contains the line that was being edited at the point of the error.
‘print -zr -- $ZLE_LINE_ABORTED’ can be used to recover the line.
Only the most recent line of this kind is remembered.
ZLE_REMOVE_SUFFIX_CHARSZLE_SPACE_SUFFIX_CHARSThese parameters are used by the line editor. In certain circumstances suffixes (typically space or slash) added by the completion system will be removed automatically, either because the next editing command was not an insertable character, or because the character was marked as requiring the suffix to be removed.
These variables can contain the sets of characters that will cause the
suffix to be removed. If ZLE_REMOVE_SUFFIX_CHARS is set, those
characters will cause the suffix to be removed; if
ZLE_SPACE_SUFFIX_CHARS is set, those characters will cause the
suffix to be removed and replaced by a space.
If ZLE_REMOVE_SUFFIX_CHARS is not set, the default behaviour is
equivalent to:
ZLE_REMOVE_SUFFIX_CHARS=$' \t\n;&|'
If ZLE_REMOVE_SUFFIX_CHARS is set but is empty, no characters have this
behaviour. ZLE_SPACE_SUFFIX_CHARS takes precedence, so that the
following:
ZLE_SPACE_SUFFIX_CHARS=$'&|'
causes the characters ‘&’ and ‘|’ to remove the suffix but to
replace it with a space.
To illustrate the difference, suppose that the option AUTO_REMOVE_SLASH
is in effect and the directory DIR has just been completed, with an
appended /, following which the user types ‘&’. The default result
is ‘DIR&’. With ZLE_REMOVE_SUFFIX_CHARS set but without including
‘&’ the result is ‘DIR/&’. With ZLE_SPACE_SUFFIX_CHARS set to
include ‘&’ the result is ‘DIR &’.
Note that certain completions may provide their own suffix removal or replacement behaviour which overrides the values described here. See the completion system documentation in Completion System.
ZLE_RPROMPT_INDENT <S>If set, used to give the indentation between the right hand side of
the right prompt in the line editor as given by RPS1 or RPROMPT
and the right hand side of the screen. If not set, the value 1 is used.
Typically this will be used to set the value to 0 so that the prompt appears flush with the right hand side of the screen. This is not the default as many terminals do not handle this correctly, in particular when the prompt appears at the extreme bottom right of the screen. Recent virtual terminals are more likely to handle this case correctly. Some experimentation is necessary.