Zsh Tricks to Blow Your Mind

> Do people... actually use this font in their terminal?

seems so. recently discussed: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25520510 https://dtinth.github.io/comic-mono-font/

http://www.comicneue.com/

As many others here have noted, terse syntax for things like `repeat` loops or normal `for`/`while` loops or shell var expansion can all be addictive, but some specific things I miss in Bash that are easy in Zsh are:

    1) auto cd to any evar just from its name
       e.g. lb=/usr/local/bin; lb
       ($lb works in bash, but I always forget
       the $.  I know I could do aliases...Yuck.)

    2) auto cd does not seem to use $CDPATH
       this is a real pain since I am used to
       never typing "cd ".

    3) **c instead of **/*c for a recursive glob
       At 2 vs. 4 chars (or 3 vs. 6 keydowns) it
       may not *look* much briefer, but it feels
       much easier to type once you're used to it.

    4) On the fly command line colorization along
       the lines of zsh-syntax-highlighting.
       Spot syntax errors/missing cmds *before*
       you hit .

    5) vared MyVar
       Use the ZLE to easily modify any evar.

    6) Zsh's REPORTTIME
       *automatically* report time/memory of only
       "expensive" programs/pipelines.

    7) Zsh's extended history format that includes
       both the time started as well as *duration*
       of all my commands.

    8) Floating point arithmetic and $[]
       forget all this calculator jazz.  I just
       do `alias ec=echo` and go `ec $[1234./56]`
       or even just : $[1234./56]

    9) glob qualifiers (forget `find` or `fd`)
       My main use cases are *(.) *(@) & *(/),
       sometimes with a ^ for "not" in there,
       e.g. *(^/).  The codes are mostly the
       old ls -F codes to be easy to recall.

If anyone knows how to make Bash do any of those, I would appreciate the tip. Otherwise, maybe they count as "killer" features to someone.

Also, I tend to use a global alias "/n" for "/dev/null". I know I could just use $n with n=/dev/null, but I enjoy having it look like a path in / that never actually exists.

I agree. I have been using Zsh since about early 1993. I went through a pretty thorough "first I'll convert to tcsh!" then "to Bash!" then "to Zsh!" evaluation back then and Zsh was absolutely the clear winner.

While Bash has "caught up" some in the ensuing decades by copying features (some poorly as you note), I think it still misses quite a few nice "usability" features. I've listed some here [1] from memory, but I am probably forgetting other pretty nice ones. Like maybe ${(f)"$(mycmd)"} to split the output of `mycmd` strictly by newlines. (or ps:\0: for even stricter splitting).

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26176897

I personally don't think the typography in the page itself is bad, it's the screenshots (and indeed their color schemes and types) and the lack of vertical rhythm of the whole thing that pose the biggest problems.

Using fzf and ctrl+r for fuzzy finding commands is a godsend.

Basically all snippets of code that I ever run are straight from this.

Forget how to exactly reset a committed local file that you want to place into another commit? Not something I do everyday, so may require some Googling if I can't remember exactly.

What I do know, is that I use something with `git reset`.

I ctrl+r and type `git reset` and here is what comes up:

> 9488 git reset HEAD^

> 10535* git reset --hard

> 10555* git reset HEAD file

> 10999* git reset --soft HEAD

Oh right, I need to reset the commits and then remove that file from the commit and I can recommit.

It is a complete gamechanger.