branch.
Major changes between versions 4.2 and 4.3
------------------------------------------
- There is support for multibyte character sets in the line editor,
though not the main shell. See Multibyte Character Support in INSTALL.
- The shell can now run an installation function for a new user
(one with no .zshrc, .zshenv, .zprofile or .zlogin file) without any
additional setting up by the administrator.
- The manual now has a Roadmap section (manual page zshroadmap) to
give new users an indication of the most interesting parts of the manual.
- New option PROMPT_SP, on by default, to work around the problem that the
line editor can overwrite output with no newline at the end.
- New option HIST_SAVE_BY_COPY (on by default): history is saved by
copying and renaming instead of directly overwriting.
- New redirection syntax e.g. {myfd}>file opens a new file descriptor
and stores the number in $myfd, so that >&$myfd will work. Chosen not to
break existing code (and to be compatible with proposals for the Korn
shell).
- Substitutions of the form ${var:-"$@"}, ${var:+"$@"} and similar where
word-splitting is applied to the text after the :- or :+ (in particular,
where the SH_WORD_SPLIT option is in effect for compatibility) now behave
as in other Bourne- and POSIX-compatible shells when in the appropriate
emulation mode.
- New Posix-style zsh-specific tests [[:IDENT:]], [[:IFS:]],
[[:IFSSPACE:]], [[:WORD:]] test if character can appear in identifier, is
an IFS character, is an IFS whitespace character, or is considered as part
of a word (is alphanumeric or appears in $WORDCHARS). Note the pattern
code doesn't yet handle multibyte characters.
- The idiom =(<<<...) is optimised so that the shell internally turns
the ... into the contents of a file whose name is then substituted.
- Supplied functions catch and throw provide limited support for
exception handling using the `{ ... } always { ... }' syntax.
- Signals now accept the SIG as part of the name for compatibility with
other shells.
- Editor function argument-base allows non-decimal arguments for
editor widgets.
- As always, there are many enhancements to completion functions.
Use INSTALL_TARGET to install info files: this gives a proper
environment for USE_NEW_TEXINFO framework to work.
Fix makeinfo invocation for zsh-current via patch file so that
only _one_ info file is generated as PLIST seems to want it.
This is a development version of Zsh having more features than 4.0.x releases.
New features between zsh versions 4.0 and 4.1.1
-----------------------------------------------
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
Add-on modules and functions:
- 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.
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
Local internal improvements:
- disowned jobs are automatically restarted
- \u and \U print escapes for Unicode
- 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 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
- many bugfixes
Zsh is a UNIX command interpreter (shell) which of the standard shells
most resembles the Korn shell (ksh), although it is not completely
compatible. It includes enhancements of many types, notably in the
command-line editor, options for customising its behaviour, filename
globbing, features to make C-shell (csh) users feel more at home and
extra features drawn from tcsh (another `custom' shell).
Package provided in private mail by Masao Uebayashi <uebayasi@soum.co.jp>
as a followup to pkg/12721.
