Bayu Setiawan
What additional features does Zsh offer compared to Bash?

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What additional features does Zsh offer compared to Bash?

Bayu Setiawan's photo
Bayu Setiawan
·

2 min read

ZSH has many useful features compared to Bash. Here are some of the major ones:

  • Automatic cd: ZSH can automatically change directories when you type the name of the directory without the cd command. Bash does not have this feature.
# In ZSH:  
directory  

# Changes to "directory" folder

  • Recursive path expansion: ZSH can expand recursive paths, for example expanding /u/lo/b to /usr/local/bin.

  • Spelling correction: ZSH can correct minor spelling mistakes when completing file and directory names.

  • Approximate completion: ZSH can complete filenames even if you only type part of the name.

  • Plugin and theme support: ZSH has a robust plugin system with many available plugins. This allows for additional functionality and customization.

  • Glob qualifiers: ZSH allows matching files based on attributes like time stamp, size, etc. It also allows modifying glob expansions.

# Only match regular files
*(.)

# Match files larger than 1MB
*(Lm+1)

  • zmv: ZSH has a built-in command zmv for mass renaming files. Bash does not have an equivalent.

  • History: ZSH has more advanced history features than Bash like history modifiers, numeric arguments, and more.

  • Variables: ZSH has more expansions and manipulations available for variable values compared to Bash.

  • Convenience features: ZSH has convenience features like vared for interactively editing variables, zle widgets for line editing, and zcalc for calculations.

In summary, while Bash and ZSH have many similarities, ZSH offers a number of useful additional features and functionality that power users may appreciate. The automatic cd, glob qualifiers, plugin system, and advanced variable manipulation are some of the most notable ZSH features compared to Bash.

Hope this helps explain the major ZSH features compared to Bash! Let me know if you have any other questions.

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