NAME
zoid - a modular perl shell
SYNOPSIS
zoid [options] [-] [files]
DESCRIPTION
Zoidberg provides a modular Perl shell written, configured, and operated entirely in Perl. It aspires to be a fully operational login shell with all the features one normally expects. But it also gives direct access to Perl objects and data structures from the command line, and allows you to run Perl code within the scope of your commandline. Although Zoidberg does not do the language interpreting itself -- it uses perl to do this -- it supplies powerful language extensions aimed at creating an easy to use interface.
By default zoid runs an interactive commandline when both STDIN and STDOUT are terminal devices, or reads from STDIN till End Of Line and execute each line like it was entered interactively. When an action is specified by one of the commandline options this will suppress the default behavior and exit after executing that action. If any file names are given, these will be interpreted as source scripts and suppress default behavior. Be aware that these source scripts are expected to be Perl scripts and are NOT interpreted or executed the same way as normal input.
This document only describes the commandline script zoid, see zoiduser(1) and zoidfaq(1) for help on using the zoidberg shell.
OPTIONS
- -e command, --exec=command
-
Execute a string as interpreted by zoidberg. If non-interactive exits with exit status of command string. Multiple commands may be given to build up a multi-line script. Make sure to use semicolons where you would in a normal multi-line script.
- -c command, --command=command
-
Does the same as --exec but this is bound to change.
- -h, --help
- -u, --usage
-
Print a help message and exits.
- -Idir[,dir]
-
The specified directories are added to the module search path
@INC. - -i, --interactive
-
Start an interactive shell. This is the default if no other options are supplied.
- -l, --login
-
Force login behavior, this will reset your current working directory. This variable is also available to plugins and scripts, which might act on it.
- -s, --stdin
-
Read input from stdin. This is the default if no other options are supplied and neither stdin or stdout are terminal devices.
- -r file, --rcfile=file
-
Use an alternative rcfile.
- -v, --verbose
-
Sets the shell in verbose mode. This will cause each command to be echoed to STDERR.
- --norc
-
Skip all rcfiles.
- -C, --config
-
Print a list of configuration variable of this installation and exit. Most importantly this tells you where zoid will search for it's configuration and data files.
- -D, -DClass --debug
-
Set either the global debug bit or set the debug bit for the given class. Using the global variant makes zoid output a lot of debug information.
- -V, --version
-
Display version information.
ENVIRONMENT
Apart from the standard variables like $HOME and $USER, zoid uses the following environment variables:
- $XDG_CACHE_HOME
-
Defines the directory to write temporary files, it defaults to $HOME/.cache.
- $ZOID
-
Contains the filename by which zoid was executed. For 'sh-shells' this would be $SHELL, but due to this some programs expect $SHELL contain the path to a fully POSIX compliant shell.
- $ZOIDPID
-
Contains the process id of the current zoid, used for IPC.
- $ZOIDREF
-
Contains either a reference or a string representation of the current Zoidberg object, used for IPC.
FILES
Zoidberg uses rc files, data files and plugin files, use the --config switch to check the search paths in use for a particular installation.
DIAGNOSTICS
Error messages may be issued either by perl or by one any of the modules in use. The zoid utility itself will only complain when the commandline options are wrong. If the error was thrown by one of the core modules, the error message will either start with the module name or the name of the command that went wrong.
FIXME what about debugging and more verbose errors ?
See also splain(1).
RESTRICTIONS
Source files and command input are NOT interpreted the same way.
Use -e _or_ -c, do not mix them.
BUGS
Known bugs are listed in the BUGS file, which is included in the source package. Visit the web page to submit bug reports or mail the author.
SEE ALSO
perl(1), zoiduser(1), zoiddevel(1), zoidfaq(1), Zoidberg(3), http://zoidberg.sourceforge.net
AUTHORS
Jaap Karssenberg || Pardus [Larus] <pardus@cpan.org>
R.L. Zwart, <rlzwart@cpan.org>
COPYRIGHT
Copyright (c) 2002 Jaap G Karssenberg and RL Zwart. All rights reserved. This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl.
This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See either the GNU General Public License or the Artistic License for more details.
http://www.perl.com/language/misc/Artistic.html http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html