Lukasz Stelmach: question about functions in zsh

Lukasz Stelmach: question about functions in zsh

[Peter Stephenson]

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Date: Tue, 18 Feb 2003 15:24:34 +0100
From: Lukasz Stelmach <Lukasz.Stelmach@k.telmark.waw.pl>
To: coordinator@zsh.org
Subject: question about functions in zsh
Message-ID: <20030218142434.GA2376@tygrys.home.astercity.net>
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Greetings!!!

First of all, I have searched the documentation and I haven't found
the answer so I write to you.

Is there any way in zsh to make a function declared with "function
name() {..." syntax a global one? That is exported to environment
of child processes of zsh which means also other instances of zsh.
I would like to define a function in /etc/zlogin or zprofile (a *login*
scrpit) and not in zshrc and make it defined for all subprocesses.

Have nice day...
- -- 
|/       |_,  _   .-  --,  Ju¿ z ka¿dej strony pe³zn±, potworne rz±dze
|__ |_|. | \ |_|. ._' /_.         Bêdê uprawia³ nierz±d, za pieni±ze


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RE: Lukasz Stelmach: question about functions in zsh

[Borzenkov Andrey]

 
> Greetings!!!
> 
> First of all, I have searched the documentation and I haven't found
> the answer so I write to you.
> 
> Is there any way in zsh to make a function declared with "function
> name() {..." syntax a global one? That is exported to environment
> of child processes of zsh which means also other instances of zsh.
> I would like to define a function in /etc/zlogin or zprofile (a *login*
> scrpit) and not in zshrc and make it defined for all subprocesses.
> 

There is no way. The problem is, environment is just a list of flat
var=value string. There is no way to mark "var" as being a function as
opposed to plain variable (the same problem with "exporting" arrays BTW ...)
Shells that do support it (I guess bash, anyone else?) introduce a hack -
they parse environment and if a value _looks_ like a function definition
they basically eval it.

First, it is a hack. It prevents legitimate variable assignment. Second, it
opens up the whole new can of worms w.r.t. security ... functions take
precedence over external commands so consider a hacker redefining /bin/grep
and calling suid program ... and there is no way to easily filter such
function definition as opposed to well known variables like LD_LIBRARY_PATH
& co.

Could you show the situation when you do need exporting functions? Frankly
speaking I cannot think of a case when it is needed (and cannot be solved
just as easily in other way).

-andrey

Re: Lukasz Stelmach: question about functions in zsh

[Pavol Juhas]

On Tue, Feb 25, 2003 at 11:04:37PM +0000, Peter Stephenson wrote:
> 
> ------- Forwarded Message
> 
> Date: Tue, 18 Feb 2003 15:24:34 +0100
> From: Lukasz Stelmach <Lukasz.Stelmach@k.telmark.waw.pl>
> Subject: question about functions in zsh
>
> Is there any way in zsh to make a function declared with "function
> name() {..." syntax a global one? That is exported to environment
> of child processes of zsh which means also other instances of zsh.
> I would like to define a function in /etc/zlogin or zprofile (a *login*
> scrpit) and not in zshrc and make it defined for all subprocesses.

You can define your function in /etc/zshenv, then it should be
available to all zsh processes.

Pavol