Zsh vs bash syntax reddit. Agnoster polls git status synchronously .
Zsh vs bash syntax reddit zshrc. In this blog, we’ll explore the key features of Zsh and Bash, helping you decide which one suits your workflow best. Personally, I find scripting in FISH easier than in BASH or ZSH, the syntax just feels a bit more modern and consistent (hence the minor incompatibilites with BASH). The most popular and the default of 99. As a default bash user who want to switch from bash why should i use fish instead of zsh ? I was told fish and bash have diffrent syntax but learned that even bash and sh syntax are not all same and people recomends using dash instead of bash . sh or script. As a free and open-source replacement for the Bourne Shell, it aimed to offer several enhancements, such as improved interactive features, command history, and shell functions. In terms of python, it can be used in the same domain as sh / bash, but in many instances it can be overkill. ZSH vs BASH, a question about wildcards. Like saying "car" is generic where "Toyota Corolla" is the specific car. Shell script is a generic term for bash, csh, fish, zsh, sh, etc scripts. Both offer impressive improvements over the default Bash shell. Also plugins for things like syntax highlighting commands on the fly (if you type in the command name wrong, the syntax highlighting will show you it is the wrong color before you even run it) Regarding the syntax, fish can still source . more fancy features, 7. On Windows the default shell is 'cmd' and a secondary one is Windows Powershell. Thanks for the correction. It's really quite awesome indeed. Reply reply Awavian • As long as you're on Arch Linux, there're grml-zsh-config and zsh-syntax-highlighting package on the official repo. rc file Using the option –rcfile <filename> with bash allows you to execute commands from the specified file Mar 19, 2025 · Compare the Bash vs. If I need to run sh/bash scripts, the shebang at the start of the file automatically switches the shell. Changing the prompt (if you ever want) is easy in fish, just fish_config go to the prompt section and select one, or funced fish_promt (the name makes sense), for bash or zsh you have to google to understand the weird syntax. The three main ones out there are Bash, Zsh, and Fish. Fish does not try to be everything but it does try to have a great out-of-the-box experience. Whenever I copy and paste a line to terminal Zsh vs Bash: Which Shell Should You Choose? History of Bash and Dash Birth of Bash Bash was developed in 1987 by Brian Fox for the GNU Project. It makes Zsh so much useful without configuring. Is this still relevant in 2020, my understanding bash is on v5 so does it have the features that zsh has, like autocomplete… Hey guys! What's the current "ohmyzsh" of the zsh plugin managers? Which one is good maintained and fast at the same moment? 74 votes, 130 comments. CMD is actually a term that is mainly used under Windows and refers to the command prompt. Dash, meanwhile, is designed to meet the posix standard, no more, no less. Bash is the default shell installed on most Linux systems and macOS systems (though I hear macOS is switching to zsh soon or recently; but bash is still there as a fallback for scripting). This article will look at Bash vs May 21, 2025 · Bash strictly adheres to POSIX standards, which ensures broad compatibility across Unix-like systems. Bash is a shell (the standard for many distributions). What changes is the shell for interactive use, i. If you're planning cross platform, learn both. cleaner scripting language, 8. Unlike bash, it doesn't have arrays, doesn't have bash's extensions to parameter expansion, and doesn't support extended globs. Sep 29, 2023 · Explore the differences between Zsh and Bash, two powerful command-line shells. 99% distro is bash, but there are alternatives such as zsh, which is much more feature-full or dash, which gives up features for absolute speed, or fish, which came with a lot of nice to haves by default. If you want to use zsh, AVOID installing oh-my-zsh. However, if you do a lot of work with BASH scripts, Zsh is probably a better bet. I don't often find myself writing scripts when doing software development. Agnoster polls git status synchronously Two by far the most popular plugins are zsh-syntax-highlighting and zsh-autosuggestions. This is great because it means most commands and scripts you write will work in either shell, without modification. For example, it does syntax highlighting by default and tries to make Excellent autocomplete and syntax highlighting out of the box, proper XDG base path specification support, excellent configurability via a GUI, the ability to easily modify environment variables and have them immediately reflected across all shells with no rc file fiddling needed, and the ability to source bash scripts using bass. If you need that, stay posix-compatible (but honestly, if you find yourself copying big scripts into interactive sessions a lot Apr 25, 2025 · Starting with macOS Catalina, Apple ditched Bash as the default shell and gave Zsh the crown. As another user has pointed out you can replicate most of the functionality of fish in zsh, but in my experience it is slower It is a better shell than Bash in my opinion, with 1. I installed ZSH autosuggestions and syntax highlight in the beginning. As a shell, fish will work just fine. I was quickly turned off by the long Verb-Name syntax since its really verbose. Uncover features, strengths, and tips to master your command line experience. Dec 28, 2022 · Like zsh, bash includes several advanced features and capabilities, such as command line editing, customizable prompts, and support for themes and plugins. What do you think? What are ways that using a shell like PowerShell, or even Nushell, would improve workflows or productivity? Sep 24, 2023 · Here's how to install one popular alternative, ZSH. syntax highlighting, 2. To be clear: to set up Homebrew, you do not need to install bash manually or anything. But I just saw in some videos the cool features of zsh (code-complete, folder name suggestion during cd, nothing else). I just use bash as its the default and figure its the default for a reason. Learn which shell aligns with your command-line needs in this comprehensive comparison. What is ZSH? ZSH, also called the Z shell, is an extended version of the Bourne Shell (sh), with new features and support for plugins and themes. Which made me question again if the syntax from bash and sh are diffrent and they mainly write using /bin/sh then why not use dash + fish combo? With zsh, I am working (with nearly) a superset of bash. Posted by u/Kummo666 - No votes and no comments Nov 26, 2024 · Zsh provides support for syntax highlighting which is useful for visually identifying different parts of a command or script based on their syntax. The last 25 years have been bash. I use fish. I don't feel any slowness, the terminal opens instantly, What slowness do you face, I just want to know, as I've read the same, but my experience is not like that. I have been using bash ever since I moved to linux but recently I thought about switching to Zsh for convenience, although I would still write server scripts in bash since bash is installed on almost all linux distros. Spelling correction It’s easy to have typos while working exclusively on the shell. Discover their unique features, customization options, scripting capabilities, and user preferences. I'm running ZSH on Git Bash on Windows 11. About Bash Line Editor―a full-featured line editor written in pure Bash! Syntax highlighting, auto suggestions, vim modes, etc. Bash: The Important Differences Mar 29, 2025 · Bash vs Zsh vs Fish: Learn the key differences between the top Linux shells in 2025. ZSH vs. Command prompt usually means a shell that runs in a terminal emulator. In bash, I can type the command "nmap 192. I am a new Linux user who just found out about ZSH having autocomplete from command history an had to try it. Discover the strengths and quirks of each shell to find your perfect command line companion. Comparing zsh with nushell is like comparing cars with lorries - their functionalities overlap, but ultimately they serve different purposes. It has specific differences in terms of scripting from Bash, but that doesn’t pose a problem. Many agnoster users fork it and modify/extend to satisfy their needs. Give it a try guys. Out of ten, how difficult would it be to support the same zsh themes in nu? Edit: oops, I was using bash not sh. It makes scripting in Zsh oh so much nicer. Zsh doesn't resort to Bash's IFS to make arrays or make strings from arrays, you just split and join like you would in a "real" programming language. e. The most popular standalone prompt/theme is likely powerlevel10k (disclaimer: my project). zsh has some super cool command completion stuff, but all the servers are bash. Same experience here. The difference is using arrays for very basic operations with a Apr 11, 2025 · Learn the key differences between Zsh and Bash—two powerful Unix shells. I wanted to know if my old shell scripts of bash will work with the same syntax in zsh or not ? The only point about fish is that it's syntax is different than bash so you need to know bash and fish to run any command you see on the internet in fish. All that changes is that zsh will be the default login shell for new accounts, and even then, you can select bash instead. Linux / BSD / OSX / Windows CLI and TUI apps or questions or comments, we're happy to take them all! MembersOnline • hentai_proxy ADMIN MOD Oct 23, 2023 · Bash and Zsh share a similar command line syntax. Differences like this means that if you have a more complex script written in bash, which is likely to use things like indirection and declared arrays to build up more complex data structures. Now I use bash 5. While they share many similarities, they also have some significant differences. 235K subscribers in the linuxquestions community. I even started using zsh and some of my scripts had zsh specific syntax and those were less portable too. May 12, 2025 · The command-line shell is an essential tool for interacting with the operating system, allowing users to execute commands, automate tasks, and run scripts efficiently. PowerShell includes a command-line shell, object-oriented scripting language, and a set of tools for executing scripts/cmdlets and managing modules. Explore the nuances of zsh vs bash in this comprehensive guide. Edit: Don't know if that was good analogy, but should get the point. It's easy to write pipelines, loops, command subs, etc because I'm used to bash already from script-writing. I don't do much bash programming anymore these days. Agnoster is a classic time-tested theme with powerline look. See this tables comparing shells for specific examples. At These days, you can run Powershell and Git Bash on Windows 10. I've found Starship, a cross-shell prompt and Spaceship, a zsh prompt. ), REST APIs, and object models. I think starship might offer it too. While both the shells are perfect for regular use, when you want to move into more specific use cases, both the shells perform differently because of the default features. Using it just felt like an uphill battle, always having to port dev environments and such to work with fish. auto-suggestion, 3. Let’s check the individual features now. At first I thought it's just another terminal, but turns out it's a customisation prompt like omz. POSIX/bash compliance is relatively moot for an interactive shell, imho. Other than that, there are not many different from bash as interactive shell. Autocompletion & autosuggestion are just like Hello, I've switched to a MacBook after using Xubuntu in a VM (on a Windows machine) for a while (I'm currently on the RPS UI) and I wonder if anyone is using zsh instead of bash (since they're similar) and how it affects things. exe) and PowerShell are shells. easier to configure, 5. (I might be wrong) Zsh because it can emulate posix shells and I love command-line completion and it’s more customisable than bash We would like to show you a description here but the site won’t allow us. very nice help on command options automatically extracted from help and listed, 4. For the first 13 years of using Linux, I only used bash. Granted on linux that's most of them. But even for bash scripts it's good form to always use a shebang. It's old, bloated, known for being slow (slowing down Zsh), it's very poorly organized, it contains lots of "directly ported" Bash scripts instead of more efficient Zsh scripts, the code is messy (most of its code issues are summed up well here), and its author wasn't interested in cleaning up the code. So it would have been better if someone told me in the beginning to write all scripts in sh to have them work universally. If you favour linux, favour bash. I am of the understanding that these are mainly due to Oh My Zsh. You type in commands and it does things. This difference matters when you‘re writing scripts that need to run on multiple systems: # This works in both Bash and Zsh This article dives into the differences between Bash and Zsh, comparing their features, scripting capabilities, performance, and customization options to help users choose the right shell for their needs in 2025. While there are various shell options available, Bash, Zsh, and Fish stand out as the most popular choices, each offering a unique set of features, making it crucial to understand their differences in order to select the right Jul 8, 2024 · The –norc command-line option, which allows the user to proceed with the shell initialization without reading the bash. Jun 8, 2019 · First, some important things: Bash isn't going away. 1. When I press 'esc' and then ':' instead of allowing things like :q etc. While Bash is a robust, reliable shell widely used for scripting and basic command-line tasks, Zsh takes things further with modern enhancements, customizability, and interactivity. Windows Terminal (or Console Host) can "host" any console window, be it Command Prompt, PowerShell, Far Manager, bash/zsh (via WSL) etc. In this article, Zsh vs Bash we will try to draw a line between the two shells and show the differences so that you can understand why you should use one Typically bash shell is the terminal shell provided by default in Linux Distros . They are equivalent to zsh/bash etc. sh, csh, tcsh, ksh, zsh, bash. And then there is syntax highlighting. However, in Unix, there was always a lot of shells. After removing it everything seemed to be fixed. I have some experience with Mac OS and Apple has adopted Z Shell as their terminal shell of choice from now on. Some syntax is different and that will impact shortcuts, but those can be learned later. Dec 27, 2023 · As a fellow Linux power user, you may have heard advanced shell replacements like Zsh or Oh My Zsh referenced when people discuss customizing command line environments. Mar 12, 2024 · Here in this article, we are going to differentiate between the two most popular shells bash and zsh. I believe both have the necessary plugins and themes I need, so it all just comes down to speed. Hi everyone, i have issue with my output when using zsh with oh-my-posh theme, i want the result to display below but its always display on top with "zsh>". I do use oh-my-fish too though, but it definitely doesn't have as many plugins as oh-my-zsh. Zsh, while mostly compatible with Bash, prioritizes features and user experience over strict POSIX compliance. 20 votes, 10 comments. I do know a bit of bash (used it back in the day 5-8 years ago) but honestly I didn’t find zsh and bash all that much different just a bit of syntax here n there. transient prompt feature, available in powerlevel10k for zsh (and now in tide for fish), is one I consider essential. Reply reply CommandaaPanda • Zsh is more or less a superset of bash If you already know how to use bash, then congratulations, pretty much everything you know from bash still works in zsh. Jan 11, 2025 · The Zsh vs Bash debate boils down to their unique features, strengths, and intended use cases. I will 100% be using bash as my shell until the heat death of the universe. Syntax highlighting made my terminal act very weirdly as whenever I typed something or removed a character the whole terminal flashed. Bash is a flavor is shell, and zsh and csv are flavors of bash, and bash is a way to run commands on something be it an OS or an application/game. As far as the user experience, I can have syntax-highlighting, case-insensitive completion, nice completion ui, custom widgets (with zle). Things like command substitution have a slightly different syntax. I want to share which one I chose and how I went about setting it up. 29 votes, 83 comments. However PowerShell is about working with objects while shells like Bash are about working with streams of text. better way than aliases by having abbreviations. Plus, current versions of bash or zsh can be configured to do most of what I like about fish. So if you're planning on specializing in linux you should learn bash instead of powershell. A subreddit for asking question about Linux and all things pertaining to it. Wiki article. Optimizing Performance in Zsh and Bash I've been checking out ways to improve our shell environments for quite some time, focusing on both Zsh and Bash in particular. Bash vs Zsh vs Fish. It's equally easy to make any of these shells slow through user-defined customizations. Also tab completion for the beginnings of commands and filenames, rather than only the end. Completion in general is instantaneous on zsh, whereas in bash it takes like 5 seconds to tab complete things Basically any time a shell comes up with a new feature, it also ends up in zsh. Just recently a colleague told me he's using starship. What's weird is, when on Windows, I find myself just using the Windows command shell rather than installing and using Bash for Windows. However, it lacks some of the more advanced features of zsh, such as improved globbing and auto-correction. JSON, CSV, XML, etc. How to solve this, thanks Dive into the debate of fish vs bash. bash became popular because of Linux, but if you had other shells installed, you could use them. Here are all popular alternatives of powerlevel10k with their pros and cons. Discover which shell suits your workflow—scripting, customization, or beginner-friendly use. Zsh for interactive, because it's amazing and bash for scripts because it's kinda default on Linux world Dec 27, 2023 · Have you ever wondered what exactly sets the Zsh and Bash scripting languages apart on Linux and macOS systems? As someone who regularly works on the command line, understanding the core distinctions will enable you to choose the right tool for your needs. I then found out you could use VIM keybinds with bindkey -v in the . Git Bash is a tool for git version management that uses the shell. However, this is obviously a matter of opinion. I switched to zsh less than a year ago now, and have fallen in love with the great customization that oh my zsh provides. Fish does not, and tries to make an interactive-first shell from the ground up. Zsh shell command languages, explore their differences, and see how to use both successfully. As long as you are able to keep a recent version of zsh and do not mind all the configuration, stick with it, it's probably the best shell for you. Zsh in itself is also a compelling scripting language. If you're already using bash, nothing will change for you. Bash scripts are very common so depending on the conversation shell script might be synonymous with bash script. *" This command does not work on zsh. One of the main benefits of bash is its widespread adoption and support. Syntax looks similar like Bash. Which one is faster? starship is written in rust so maybe it has In my opinion the only reason to use bash is if you're working with a legacy linux package that hasn't been ported to something better. Let’s dive in! What Is a Shell? A shell is more Command Prompt (cmd. Under Linux, Terminal Emulator / Shell is meant again. The most common command shell is Bash, but there are other options available and widely used, such as the Z Shell or zsh. Since it's based on the same shell as Bash, ZSH has many of the same features, and switching over is a breeze. Bash is the default login shell for most Linux distributions. Zsh just has way more features, and IMHO is easier to customize (for functionality and aesthetics) and add plugins to. You actually don't need a bash shebang; if you name your script script. Cue the collective sighs and confusion. The new problem I now have is with autosuggestions. But here’s the deal—if you’re doing any real terminal work on macOS, it’s worth knowing why that switch happened and whether you should care. Would I be hindering myself by replacing bash with zsh or is it simply a matter of choice? Would love to read an article that objectively compares the two, I know there are more but limiting my choices The same goes for zsh which, while supporting most bash syntax, offers additional expansion and syntax that is not supported by the bash shell. I went back to the Unix Shell tutorial by the swcarpentry and I've done some research about this, but I'm still confused on something: The swcarpentry shell tutorial May 2, 2022 · Zsh was designed with better user interaction in mind. Somewhat recently, Mac started using zsh (you can change the shell as bash should still be installed). Hi, I'm new user to ZSH. Bash ( Bourne-Again shell ) Bash, or the Bourne-Again Shell, is by far the most popularly used shell and it comes installed as the default shell in the most popular Linux distributions. You can do everything you want with zsh easily without it. Zsh is an easy shell to use but its lot more difficult to work with than Bash, both in terms of its syntax and completion. Its code is easy to understand even if you don't have much experience with zsh. If I truly need to use an interactive bash shell I just open one inside fish. Dash, bash, and zsh all take their syntax from the Unix bourne shell. the shell in terminals (and also a few other things that use the login shell, such I use fish so I don't have to install oh-my-zsh, oh-my-bash to have something that works at least OK out of the box. Personally, I'd say use FISH. This is for anything regarding the command line, in any operating system. zsh will ruin your day whether by having to rewrite the script for very subtle differences in syntax, or because you are so used to bash your are Is Bash more powerful than Powershell ? or just less modern ? When Powershell will be able to manage a full production linux environment ? Learn "shell", prefer bash Make sure you install a modern version of bash Make sure when you put a #! xxx shebang at the start of a script it references the shell you are actually targeting (so sh for posix, bash for bash, zsh for zsh) Don't configure your system to use bash as a default shell, learn to live with and understand differences. better configured out of the box, 6. are available in Bash interactive sessions! I never post anything but I have become so impressed by its auto-completion in Bash that I thought I must share this. But what is Zsh, and what is Bash? Both are powerful Unix shells with unique capabilities, making them popular among developers. How the text is colored is language-dependent, but common things include changing the color inside quotation marks, dimming or graying-out comment lines, and altering the color of parentheses, braces, and brackets. I'm using the number of stars on github as a proxy for popularity. Zsh even has limited support for set operations. sure it has the best completion features but writing completion for your scripts is lot more difficult with zsh compared to bash. Transient prompt rewrites/clears the prompt before writing the command to the terminal history. But exactly what distinguishes these two options? What do they each bring to the table when it comes to […] Unix Shells: Bash, Fish, Ksh, Tcsh, Zsh -- Great comparison matrix doubling as cheat sheet : r/linux r/linux Current search is within r/linux Remove r/linux filter and expand search to all of Reddit. So now I was wondering what other archlinux users use as their default shell ? May 6, 2020 · When I set up my Windows computer, I had the chance to take another look at the shell I'm using. Personally, I have too much scripting Mar 24, 2024 · 52 Bash vs Fish vs Zsh vs Nushell? ☶ ask unix authored by curiositry 1 year ago | 81 comments I use a linux laptop for work and I have zsh on it, but connect to many many machines and they all have bash. When comparing Bash with Zsh, Zsh can for example be set up to show all sorts of completions, you can even toggle through them for example. Syntax highlighting is when symbols and words are given different colors to help you more easily parse the code visually. it bring up a menu of what is ZLE (Zsh Line Editor) indicated with 'execute:' user Bash, Zsh and Fish allow you to call arbitrary functions and programs on startup, before every command, on completions, etc. The features that default Zsh has over default Bash are aimed to make the shell more interactive, making it much more accessible and usable for users of all experience levels. Zsh has much, much better support for arrays in syntax and functions that can use arrays. The Zsh documentation is pretty nice Zsh syntax is less intuitive, but more consise - once learnt, you can achieve similar results with much less keystrokes. Zsh Jan 10, 2025 · When it comes to command-line interfaces, the debate between Zsh vs Bash often takes center stage. They are of high quality and quite useful. This is the "Grand daddy" project. For copy-pasting scripts from the internet: well, there's no easy solution to that. Jun 25, 2019 · Bash vs Z shell: A Tale of Two Command Line Shells Recently, Apple announced that as of the next version of macOS, Catalina, they will be adopting zsh as their default shell in replacement of bash … It's a shell. Why would I want to use one or the other more than the other personally I have been using default bash but I'm curious abt Zsh I've similar setup and this is my plugins git dirhistory zsh-autosuggestions zsh-syntax-highlighting and zoxide with `p10k` theme. Having a verbose prompt is nice but having that clutter up the terminal history is terrible. sh file that use bash in the shebang, right? it will automatically use bash to parse it? or do i need to convert my script to fish equivalent? I use zsh because of Vim mode and its amazing autocompletion and fish-like syntax highlighting and suggestion. Plugins like fzf completion, syntax highlighting, etc. I've always been using oh-my-zsh (omz) on mac/linux and oh-my-bash on windows. Finally, if you need to run anything in bash or zsh then switch shells or add a shebang to the top of your command to get it to run with the correct interpreter. Bash vs. Scripts are not affected. Nov 30, 2022 · Zsh vs Bash Let’s now look at the comparison between ZSH vs BASH for your command-line. Why? I'm searching for a shell prompt, preferably cross-shell, but both bash and zsh are fine. Apple includes a bash install with macOS, it's just an older version (tl;dr Apple doesn't want to deal with GPLv3 licensing and therefore switched to zsh by default rather than bundle newer versions of bash). Fish is nice, but came on the scene about 20 years too late. All questions (including dumb ones), tips, and links to interesting programs/console applications you've found or made yourself are welcome. PowerShell is a cross-platform (Windows, Linux, and macOS) automation tool and configuration framework optimized for dealing with structured data (e. bash, fish will run it with bash. 168. The advantages of zsh over bash are more in its use as an interactive shell in your terminal, things like syntax highlighting, etc. With both Bash and Zsh providing compelling advantages, selecting the right shell for scripting can significantly shape your productivity, and simplify your daily tasks. g. Does zsh and csh do about the same thing that the command prompt does in windows? Aug 3, 2020 · Zsh vs Bash When we talk about UNIX-based programming we usually mean consoles, terminals and command line interfaces. Apr 29, 2024 · Bash and Zsh are popular Unix shell environments that provide command-line interfaces to the operating system. Discover which is better for scripting, performance, customization, and productivity in your terminal workflow. tuvw jelve mnkb qcvjmm djqctz pomjhf pqhyqx coeo dtmux nkjb dpxp canx amvou srjhc penc