Date: Wed, 26 May 1999 20:00:51 -0700 (PDT) From: Annelise Anderson <andrsn@andrsn.stanford.edu> To: Bart Trzynadlowski <trzy@powernet.net> Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: shell problems Message-ID: <Pine.BSF.3.96.990526194851.16127A-100000@andrsn.stanford.edu> In-Reply-To: <3.0.5.32.19990526175052.008712a0@powernet.net>
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On Wed, 26 May 1999, Bart Trzynadlowski wrote: > Thanks, I was able to set the path and some variables such as EDITOR and > PAGER by doing: export EDITOR=ee > > Is that the correct way to set environment variables? This is typical of shells using the sh method--sh, bash, zsh. And sh is what's used, often, to write shell scripts. csh and tcsh would use a different format, both in configuration files and at the command line. > Is there a description somewhere of how this kind of configuration works > under UNIX? All of the setting stuff and everything? I'd really like to get > an understanding of this stuff instead of just memorizing it. Mostly in books; in excruciating detail and difficult language, manual pages. Shell manual pages can be 75 pages long. Those for zsh are broken up into separate pages, but it may be difficult to answer a question like "how do I?". I use man zsh | col -b > zsh.txt to create a text file, I put all the zsh man pages in text form in a subdirectory called zsh, and then I can go there and do something like "grep prompt *" to find out where the references to setting the prompt are (for example). Tab completion of commands and directory names, up and down arrows for recalling commands (and editing them on the command line), a prompt that can be easily made to show you who you are (i.e., if you're root) and where you are (the directory), and switching to the directory you last visited with "cd -" are some of the features people like that aren't readily available in sh and csh, the two basic shells. Annelise > Thanks! > > Bart Trzynadlowski > To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
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