Chapter 21. tcsh: An Extended C Shell
This
chapter describes tcsh, an enhanced version of
the C shell. tcsh is also used as the C shell;
in that case, the tcsh features described in
this chapter work even when you run csh. The C
shell was so named because many of its programming constructs and
symbols resemble those of the C programming language.
The
default shell is bash. However, earlier versions
of Mac OS X used tcsh as the default shell. If
you want to use tcsh, you first need to change
your default. To change your default shell, launch the Terminal
application (/Applications/Utilities), and then
change the shell to /bin/tcsh in the
Terminal’s Preferences (Terminal→Preferences).
Overview of Features
Features of tcsh include:
Input/output redirection
Wildcard characters (metacharacters) for filename abbreviation
Shell variables for customizing your environment
Integer arithmetic
Access to previous commands (command history)
Command-name abbreviation (aliasing)
A built-in command set for writing shell programs
Job control
Command-line editing and editor commands
Word completion (tab completion)
Spellchecking
Scheduled events, such as logout or terminal locking after a set idle period and delayed commands
Read-only variables
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