[zsh] Prevent glob expansion in history widget

[udf]

I have some lines in my history that break the new multiline history widget, when pressing ctrl+r I get

zsh: no matches found: cd \M-cÂ\M-+クシ\M-c~ィ\M-c\nイズ

and no prompt is shown, the issue is with the expansion of the history array, since when I run echo "${(vk)history[@]}", I get the same error.

zsh is trying to expand the (improperly) encoded line for some reason, which can be fixed by setting the noglob option.

I am not sure if any of the other widgets would need this option too, or if the issue only arises from zsh's metafied format for history files.

[junegunn]

Thanks!

[LangLangBart]

I have some lines in my history that break the new multiline history widget, when pressing ctrl+r I get

Can you share a minimal version of your .zsh_history file and your zsh version? I'm just curious to try and reproduce it on my machine as well, and learn from it.

If I use a glob, zsh encloses it in quotes when retrieving the value from the associative history array.

# start a new zsh session without reading your config files and xtrace enabled
 zsh -fx

# glob 
@*
zsh: no matches found: @*

printf '%s\t%s\n' "${(vk)history[@]}" 
+zsh:2> printf '%s\t%s\n' 1 '@*'
1   @*

[udf]

@LangLangBart

% zsh --version
zsh 5.9 (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu)

I'm not sure if you can reproduce this normally, I think what happened is I renamed my .bash_history file when I switched to zsh, so my .zsh_history contained lines that were not encoded the way zsh expected them to be. You can reproduce it by having a .zsh_history file containing this line:

echo 'メカクシティデイズ'

If you actually run that command from zsh, the resulting history line will be encoded as echo 'ャ\ufffd\ufffdカクシャ\ufffd\ufffdィャ\ufffd\ufffdイズ', which doesn't result in zsh trying to perform a glob. So you have to edit the history file manually to get it to happen. I suspect it might be a zsh bug, because expanding an associative array shouldn't try to glob, but I didn't investigate further.

[LangLangBart]

Thanks for sharing. I can now reproduce it as well. I narrowed it down to one letter:

Character Name	Unicode
KATAKANA LETTER DE	U+30C7

# Ensure that these options are enabled to get the error
setopt nomatch glob
# 'fc -p': pushes entries from the temporary file onto a stack and uses this history
# '=(<<<arg)' is a shortcut for creating a temporary file with the passed argument
fc -p =(<<<デ)

printf "%s\n" "${history[@]}"
zsh: no matches found: \M-c\n

# The precommand modifier 'noglob', similar to 'command' or 'builtin',
# disables globbing on the command, and 'bat' is used to show non-printable characters
noglob printf "%s\n" "${history[@]}" | bat -pA
\xE3␊

# 'V' flag makes special characters in the resulting words visible.
noglob printf "%s\n" "${(V)history[@]}"
\M-c\n

---

I suspect it might be a zsh bug, because expanding an associative array shouldn't try to glob, but I didn't investigate further.

I will update you if I find anything. For now, your solution to disable globbing seems effective in preventing the error. However, as you mentioned, one needs to manipulate the history file to encounter this issue.

[LangLangBart]

The issue was eventually posted on the Zsh Mailing List Archive, where a user provided a compelling reason to cease pursuing it further. @udf had tentatively hinted in this direction.

Mikael Magnusson: History files are stored in metafied form, this character probably happens to correspond to the metafied form of the internal token for some glob symbol.

Source: Re: Unexpected globbing when expanding history