FPATH in Zsh – Managing Functions and Site-Functions

zsh

I noticed I have the following line near the beginning of my .zshrc file:

export FPATH=/usr/share/zsh/site-functions:/usr/share/zsh/4.2.6/functions:$FPATH

I can't remember if I typed this myself or if this line was automatically generated by zsh-newuser-install.

Is it assumed that the user types those paths in FPATH in a startup file? What's the difference between functions and site-functions?

Best Answer

The 4.2.6/functions directory contains functions shipped with zsh 4.2.6. The site-functions directory contains functions that are added by third-party packages or by the local administrator; under Linux the local administrator would usually use a site-functions directory under /usr/local.

Normally these directories would be in the default fpath setting built into the zsh executable, it's strange that you would need to add them. I don't see any code in zsh-newuser-install that would add these lines; it looks like something your site administrator or you wrote.

Note that the FPATH string variable is tied to the fpath array variable, so you could write

fpath=(/some/extra/directory $fpath)

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Overridable functions in Zsh

You can define a function anywhere. To chain another function, just call it with the same parameters.

redefine_git_prompt_info () {
  git_prompt_info () { branch_name_only_git_prompt_info "$@"; }
}

If branch_name_only_git_prompt_info is later redefined, a call to redefine_git_prompt_info will call the new definition. If you want to copy the current definition, in zsh, you can do it easily thanks to the functions array.

redefine_git_prompt_info () {
  functions[git_prompt_info]=$functions[branch_name_only_git_prompt_info]
}

Binding key shortcuts to shell functions in zsh

It won't take the functions raw. They need to be wrapped in a "widget" by doing

zle -N widgetname funcname

The two can have the same name:

 zle -N hw{,}

Then it's possible to do:

bindkey ^h hw

, causing Ctrl+h to run the hw widget which runs the hw function.

Best Answer

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