Terminal Shell Startup Files

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Level 1

101 points

Terminal Shell Startup Files

Where in Apple documentation can I find the order in which the shell startup files are executing?

The macOS implementation of the zsh shell appears to be slightly different from the Sourceforge "standard".

For example, /etc/zshenv "should" always load first; however, macOS does not seem to have that file in /etc/ : the only 2 files I see in that directory are zprofile and zshrc although I also have a file zshrc_Apple_Terminal -- this is after I have opened the Terminal app and verified that

bernard@Bernards-iMac ~ % echo $SHELL
/bin/zsh

Incidentally, the only 2 zsh-related files I have in my home directory are:

.zsh_history
.zsh_sessions

Should there not be a file ~/.zshrc ?

Where could I read up more on the zsh shell and Apple's implementation of the shell?

iMac 21.5″ 4K, macOS 11.6

Posted on Sep 16, 2021 4:35 AM

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Answer 1

VikingOSX

Level 10

123,036 points

Sep 16, 2021 5:22 AM in response to BernardMR

I use two files, ~/.zshrc and ~/.zshenv which are read when you launch the Terminal application or switch between Bash and Zsh shells. Zsh does not read Bash startup files.

I put the PATH, PS1, aliases, history, etc in the ~/.zshrc file, and keep all Zsh shell functions and any default zmodload module entities in the ~/.zshenv.

Because Zsh is huge, its man page is articulated in multiple man pages. You can see these from the Terminal:

man zsh

Once your default shell is Zsh, the AppleScript do shell script is defaulting to Zsh, not Bash. Apple has for some unknown reason choosen to omit the PCRE Zsh module, even though the licensing is MIT. Apple does not provide any implementation details for Zsh. Use the PDF Manual documentation from the Zsh Sourceforge site.

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Answer 2

Sep 16, 2021 4:41 AM in response to BernardMR

I don't know about those in /etc, but the ~/.zshrc is one you can create yourself, if you want to, just like ~/.bash_profile when using bash, or the corresponding file for other shells. It is not created automatically.

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