Are there variable bindings in the zsh shell?

I’m slightly confused about the variable bindings/usage in ZSH; for example: correctly outputs 2011-08-23 as I’d expect. And when run with what I’d be wanting the blog title to be (ignoring the fact the string needs to be manipulated to make it more url friendly and that the route path/to doesn’t exist)

Where to Place$ PATH variable assertions in zsh?

This seems to be incorrect – /etc/profile isn’t listed in any zsh documentation I can find. This turns out to be partially incorrect: /etc/profile may be sourced by zsh. However, this only occurs if zsh is “invoked as sh or ksh “; in these compatibility modes: The usual zsh startup/shutdown scripts are not executed.

Is there way to set path variable in Bash?

So a PATH variable is being set somewhere. EDIT: This does work, but ony’s answer below is better, as it takes advantage of the structured interface ZSH provides for variables like $PATH. This approach is standard for bash, but as far as I know, there is no reason to use it when ZSH provides better alternatives.

Why do I use zsh instead of Bash?

This approach is standard for bash, but as far as I know, there is no reason to use it when ZSH provides better alternatives. Actually, using ZSH allows you to use special mapping of environment variables. So you can simply do: For me that’s a very neat feature which can be propagated to other variables. Example:

Do you use zsh for your terminal shell?

I use ZSH for my terminal shell, and whilst I’ve written several functions to automate specific tasks, I’ve never really attempted anything that requires the functionality I’m after at the moment.

How can I assign a function to a variable using Bash?

VAR=scan (of course this doesn’t work – it makes VAR equal the string “scan”) Exactly the same way as for programs. You may use bash functions in commands/pipelines as you would otherwise use regular programs. The functions are also available to subshells and transitively, Command Substitution:

Is the invocation of date a variable assignment?

Because this: Is not a variable assignment – it’s an invocation of date with an auxiliary environment variable (the general syntax is VAR_NAME=VAR_VALUE COMMAND ). You mean this: Your second snippet will still fail, but differently.

Are there spaces around the = in variable assignments?

And there must be no spaces around the = in variable assignments. Since you asked in a comment where to learn shell programming, there are several options:

How to escape a variable in bash script?

Given a known variable that may contain special characters such as single quotes, I need to write that out as a fully escaped string literal, e.g. a variable foo containing bar’baz should appear in the generated script as: which would be written by appending “qux=$foo_esc” to the other lines of script.

How to use a variable name in Bash?

Some shells also rely on the locale’s character classification to decide what characters are valid in a variable name. So for instance Stéphane=1 could be interpreted as an assignment in one locale, or as the invocation of the Stéphane=1 command in another.

Is there a way to increment a variable in Bash?

There are more than one way to increment a variable in bash, but what you tried is not correct. See also: http://tldp.org/LDP/abs/html/dblparens.html. Note the spaces in the last example, also note that’s the only one that uses $i.

How do I keep functions / variables local to my zshrc?

Any variable that I declare in my zshrc is available in the shell as an environment variable. I don’t want this to happen. I tried putting the variables in a function and setting them as local, but then the function is available outside of the zshrc. How can I make it so what happens in my zshrc stays in my zshrc?

Are there variable bindings in the zsh shell?