Using csh & tcsh

Getting To Know .cshrc and .login

If you're not familiar with your .cshrc and .login files, you should run the ls command in your home directory to find out if they exist. Specify the –a ("show all") option since ls doesn't normally show dot files (files with names that begin with a period):

% ls -a
.           .cshrc     .mailrc    Letters      Papers    calendar   src
..          .exrc      .msgsrc    Mail         Projects  junk       tmpfile
.Xdefaults  .login     .plan      Misc         bin       mbox

If you don't have .cshrc and .login files, you can create them with any text editor, but it's likely that generic versions of .cshrc and .login were installed in your home directory when your account was created. The generic versions might look something like this:

% more .cshrc
if ($?prompt) then
    set prompt = "% "
    set history = 20
    set cdpath = ( ˜ ˜/Projects ˜/Papers )
endif
alias h history
alias ll ls -l
alias print 'pr \!* | lpr'
set path = ( /bin /usr/bin /usr/ucb ˜/bin . )
% more .login
tset -I -Q
stty erase ^h intr ^c
setenv TERM vt100
biff y

It's okay if you don't understand the contents of .cshrc and .login the first time you look at them, but you should strive to understand them eventually. If you see commands in your startup files that you're not familiar with, check for them in the index of this handbook, read their manual pages, or ask a knowledgeable user on your system about them. Also, it's a good idea to see how other people use their startup files. Ask more experienced users for copies of their files, and ask them to explain the parts that you don't understand. You may even decide to copy some of what you find into your own files.