add the following to your .zshrc to be able to use 'explain' Example Use: > explain ls -ltrsa list directory contents -l use a long listing format -t sort by modification time, newest first -r, --reverse reverse order while sorting -s, --size print the allocated size of each file, in blocks -a, --all do not ignore entries starting with .

explain.zshrc

explain(){ curl -s $(echo "http://explainshell.com/explain/$1?args=${@:2}" | sed -e 's/ /+/g') |
    sed -n '/<pre/,/<\/pre>/p' | sed -s 's/<[^>]*>//g' | sed -e 's/^ *//g;s/ *$//g' | grep '.' | cat }