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<H1><A NAME="SEC1" HREF="zsh_toc.html#TOC1">The Z Shell Guide</A></H1>

<P>
This document has been produced from the texinfo file <TT>`zsh.texi'</TT>, 
included in the <TT>`Doc'</TT> sub-directory of the Zsh distribution.

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<H2><A NAME="SEC2" HREF="zsh_toc.html#TOC2">Origins</A></H2>

<P>
The texinfo guide was originally put together by Jonathan Hardwick,
<CODE>jch@cs.cmu.edu</CODE>, who converted the <TT>`zsh.1'</TT> file distributed
with zsh v2.5.0.  After a period of neglect it was updated by Clive Messer,
<CODE>clive@epos.demon.co.uk</CODE> to reflect the many changes made to both the
shell, the original <TT>`zsh.1'</TT>, (which due to its size and ever
increasing number of options has since been split into several man-pages:
<TT>`zsh.1'</TT>, <TT>`zshall.1'</TT>, <TT>`zshbuiltins.1'</TT>, <TT>`zshcompctl.1'</TT>,
<TT>`zshcompctl.1'</TT>, <TT>`zshexpn.1'</TT>, <TT>`zshmisc.1'</TT>, <TT>`zshoptions.1'</TT>,
<TT>`zshparam.1'</TT>, <TT>`zshzle.1'</TT>), and also now includes other useful
information from the <CODE>META-FAQ</CODE>.

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<H2><A NAME="SEC3" HREF="zsh_toc.html#TOC3">Producing documentation from zsh.texi.</A></H2>

<P>
Whilst this guide for the most part duplicates the man-pages,
(suitably marked-up into texinfo), and is not intended to replace them, it 
does offer several advantages over them, not least that the texinfo source 
may be converted into several formats, e.g.,

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<DL COMPACT>

<DT>The Info guide.
<DD>
The Info format allows searching for topics, commands, functions, etc.
from the many Indices. The command <CODE>makeinfo zsh.texi</CODE> is used to
produce the Info documentation.

<DT>The printed guide.
<DD>
The command <CODE>texi2dvi zsh.texi</CODE> will output <TT>`zsh.dvi'</TT> which can 
then be processed with <CODE>dvips</CODE> and optionally <CODE>gs</CODE> (Ghostscript) to 
produce a nicely formatted printed guide.

<DT>The html guide.
<DD>
An HTML version of this guide is available at the Zsh web site via
<CODE>http://sunsite.auc.dk/zsh/Doc/index.html</CODE>.  Note that the on-line
guide may describe a different (usually more recent) version of Zsh.
(The HTML version is produced with <CITE>texi2html</CITE>, which may be obtained
from <CODE>http://wwwcn.cern.ch/dci/texi2html/</CODE>. The command is
`<CODE>texi2html -split_chapter -expandinfo zsh.texi</CODE>'.)

</DL>

<P>
For those who do not have the necessary tools to process texinfo,  
precompiled documentation, (PostScript, dvi, info and html formats),
is available from the zsh archive site or its mirrors in the file, 
<TT>`zsh-doc.tar.gz'</TT>. (See section <A HREF="zsh_2.html#SEC6">Availability</A>, for a list of sites.)

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