Question

The UNIX ‘/usr/bin/script’ command will create a running transcript of your shell session (see ‘man script’ for more info).

However, when inside a script instance, it seems to forget the parent shell’s env vars, aliases, etc.

The following example demonstrates how the ‘ll’ alias I define is ignored inside ‘script’:

zsh> mkdir temp zsh> cd temp  zsh> alias 'll=ls -alF'  zsh> ll total 24 drwxr-xr-x   2 me   mygroup    4096 Feb 18 13:32 ./ drwxr-xr-x  28 me   mygroup    8192 Feb 18 13:32 ../  zsh> script a.out Script started, file is a.out 

$ ll

zsh: command not found: ll 

$ exit Script done, file is a.out  zsh> ll total 32 drwxr-xr-x   2 me   mygroup    4096 Feb 18 13:32 ./ drwxr-xr-x  28 me   mygroup    8192 Feb 18 13:32 ../ -rw-r--r--   1 me   mygroup     182 Feb 18 13:32 a.out 

So, how can I get the ‘script’ process to inherit the env settings from the parent shell?

[EDIT:] Okay, env vars are not forgotten. Just the aliases. Re-sourcing the .profile or something would work… but how can I make that happen automatically?

Answer 1

It works OK when I start it under bash. Maybe there’s something in your zsh configuration that’s mucking it up, or it’s not sourcing your zsh’s startup files. You could try: script -c zsh

Which may force it to start a new zsh shell and have it source your zsh config files.