Htykuut

Bash's builtin read command has a -i option, which specifies an initial input, which the user can accept as it is or edit or add to. I cannot find anything similar for Zsh's read command.

None of the options listed in the zshbuiltins man page seem relevant:

read [ -rszpqAclneE ] [ -t [ num ] ] [ -k [ num ] ] [ -d delim ]

    [ -u n ] [ name[?prompt] ] [ name ...  ]

      Read  one line and break it into fields using the characters in $IFS as separators, except as noted below.  The first field is assigned to the first name, the second field to

      the second name, etc., with leftover fields assigned to the last name.  If name is omitted then REPLY is used for scalars and reply for arrays.



      -r     Raw mode: a `' at the end of a line does not signify line continuation and backslashes in the line don't quote the following character and are not removed.



      -s     Don't echo back characters if reading from the terminal.



      -q     Read only one character from the terminal and set name to `y' if this character was `y' or `Y' and to `n' otherwise.  With this flag set the return status is zero only

             if  the  character  was `y' or `Y'.  This option may be used with a timeout (see -t); if the read times out, or encounters end of file, status 2 is returned.  Input is

             read from the terminal unless one of -u or -p is present.  This option may also be used within zle widgets.



      -k [ num ]

             Read only one (or num) characters.  All are assigned to the first name, without word splitting.  This flag is ignored when -q is present.  Input is read from the  ter-

             minal unless one of -u or -p is present.  This option may also be used within zle widgets.



             Note that despite the mnemonic `key' this option does read full characters, which may consist of multiple bytes if the option MULTIBYTE is set.



      -z     Read  one  entry from the editor buffer stack and assign it to the first name, without word splitting.  Text is pushed onto the stack with `print -z' or with push-line

             from the line editor (see zshzle(1)).  This flag is ignored when the -k or -q flags are present.



      -e

      -E     The input read is printed (echoed) to the standard output.  If the -e flag is used, no input is assigned to the parameters.



      -A     The first name is taken as the name of an array and all words are assigned to it.



      -c

      -l     These flags are allowed only if called inside a function used for completion (specified with the -K flag to compctl).  If the -c flag is given, the words of  the  cur-

             rent command are read. If the -l flag is given, the whole line is assigned as a scalar.  If both flags are present, -l is used and -c is ignored.



      -n     Together  with  -c, the number of the word the cursor is on is read.  With -l, the index of the character the cursor is on is read.  Note that the command name is word

             number 1, not word 0, and that when the cursor is at the end of the line, its character index is the length of the line plus one.



      -u n   Input is read from file descriptor n.



      -p     Input is read from the coprocess.



      -d delim

             Input is terminated by the first character of delim instead of by newline.



      -t [ num ]

             Test if input is available before attempting to read.  If num is present, it must begin with a digit and will be evaluated to give a number of seconds, which may be  a

             floating point number; in this case the read times out if input is not available within this time.  If num is not present, it is taken to be zero, so that read returns

             immediately if no input is available.  If no input is available, return status 1 and do not set any variables.



             This option is not available when reading from the editor buffer with -z, when called from within completion with -c or -l, with -q which clears the input queue before

             reading, or within zle where other mechanisms should be used to test for input.



             Note  that  read does not attempt to alter the input processing mode.  The default mode is canonical input, in which an entire line is read at a time, so usually `read

             -t' will not read anything until an entire line has been typed.  However, when reading from the terminal with -k input is processed one key at a time;  in  this  case,

             only  availability of the first character is tested, so that e.g. `read -t -k 2' can still block on the second character.  Use two instances of `read -t -k' if this is

             not what is wanted.



      If the first argument contains a `?', the remainder of this word is used as a prompt on standard error when the shell is interactive.



      The value (exit status) of read is 1 when an end-of-file is encountered, or when -c or -l is present and the command is not called from a compctl function,  or  as  described

      for -q.  Otherwise the value is 0.



      The  behavior  of some combinations of the -k, -p, -q, -u and -z flags is undefined.  Presently -q cancels all the others, -p cancels -u, -k cancels -z, and otherwise -z can-

      cels both -p and -u.



      The -c or -l flags cancel any and all of -kpquz.

How can I achieve the same goal in Zsh?

In zsh you could manually set the variable and use vared instead of read:

name=iconoclast

vared -p "Enter your name: " name

This is the equivalent of the following in bash:

read -p "Enter your name: " -e -i iconoclast name