Supported Zsh Features

Zsh has an extensible set of features which are also supported, maintained and used in other operating systems such as Windows®, UNIX® and OSX®.

Zsh supports the following features:

• Configurability :

  • Shell variables: These are variables that are set, stored in the shell and available to shell applications. The set is a command that creates new shell variables and sets new values for existing shell variables.

  • alias and unalias : For more information on these commands refer to the Zsh Command Syntax section.

  • Shell functions: These are read in and stored internally. They are executed like a regular command. The following is the syntax for a shell function:

              
               
              
              shell_function1()
    {
    //definition of the function will go here....
    }
             

    The syntax for invoking the above function is

              
               
              
              shell_function1
             

  • Input files: Zsh supports the execution of commands through script files and these script files can be passed as input to the shell.

• Execution of commands : Zsh supports the execution of both built-in commands and external programs. For further details see the Zsh Command Syntax and External Programs sections.

• Redirection : Redirection is a function that allows the standard streams to be re-directed to a specified location. For example,

          
           
          
          pwd > file1
         

  which executes pwd , placing the output in file1 .

• Piping : The output of one command can be the input to another command without an intermediate file. For example,

          
           
          
          cmd1 | cmd2
         

  which executes cmd1 and the output of cmd1 will be the input for cmd2 . The character | is known as a pipe.