Plugin won't work if zsh is not shipped with pcre

[akire0ne]

Hi and thanks for your very nice zsh plugin.

I had issues insalling it on my 2021 Macbook Pro (M1 Max, Ventura 13.6.2)

After install, Auto complete failed with this error message

❯ ssh _parse_config_file:6: failed to load module `zsh/pcre': dlopen(/usr/lib/zsh/5.9/zsh/pcre.so, 0x0009): tried: '/usr/lib/zsh/5.9/zsh/pcre.so' (no such file), '/System/Volumes/Preboot/Cryptexes/OS/usr/lib/zsh/5.9/zsh/pcre.so' (no such file), '/usr/lib/zsh/5.9/zsh/pcre.so' (no such file, not in dyld cache)
_parse_config_file:6: -pcre-match not available for regex
  ssh

Thanks to some google I was able to find a similar issue / fix: zthxxx/jovial#12

Long story short: System installed zsh (/bin/zsh) does not include pcre

I was able to fix by using zsh from brew. You need to do the following commands

brew reinstall zsh 
brew reinstall pcre pcre2
sudo chsh -s `/opt/homebrew/bin/zsh` $USER
(launch new terminal and you should be good)

[jk779]

Sorry to raise this from the dead but none of the workarounds are doing it for me :/. I#ve tried all possible combinations of pcre, pcre2, zsh, compiling from source with pcre flag etc.

thats what happens when im trying to use auto complete on ssh:

~
❯ command -v zsh
/usr/local/bin/zsh

~
❯ /usr/local/bin/zsh --version
zsh 5.9 (x86_64-apple-darwin23.6.0)

~
❯ which zsh
/usr/local/bin/zsh

~
❯ ls /usr/lib/zsh/5.9/zsh/
attr.so         complete.so     datetime.so     langinfo.so     net             regex.so        system.so       zftp.so         zpty.so
cap.so          complist.so     deltochar.so    mapfile.so      newuser.so      rlimits.so      termcap.so      zle.so          zselect.so
clone.so        computil.so     example.so      mathfunc.so     param           sched.so        terminfo.so     zleparameter.so zutil.so
compctl.so      curses.so       files.so        nearcolor.so    parameter.so    stat.so         watch.so        zprof.so

~
❯ ssh a_parse_config_file:7: failed to load module `zsh/pcre': dlopen(/usr/lib/zsh/5.9/zsh/pcre.so, 0x0009): tried: '/usr/lib/zsh/5.9/zsh/pcre.so' (no such file), '/System/Volumes/Preboot/Cryptexes/OS/usr/lib/zsh/5.9/zsh/pcre.so' (no such file), '/usr/lib/zsh/5.9/zsh/pcre.so' (no such file, not in dyld cache)
_parse_config_file:7: -pcre-match not available for regex
  ssh a

(I tabbed after the ssh a)

[1stvamp]

Reinstalling zsh and pcre2 via brew still works but chsh in newer MacOS releases will no longer change user shells to "non-standard shells", you can instead use dscl:

sudo dscl . -create "/Users/${USER}" UserShell $(brew --prefix)/bin/zsh