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From: Jim Dennis <jim@starshine.org>
Message-Id: <199607060922.CAA06354@starshine>
Subject: Re: Changing prompt
To: gif@loop.com (Gifka Sovereign)
Date: Sat, 6 Jul 1996 02:22:48 -0700 (PDT)
Cc: rcutter@ctgusa.com, questions@FreeBSD.org, jadestar@rahul.net
In-Reply-To: <Pine.BSI.3.94.960705233358.588A-100000@loop.com> from "Gifka Sovereign" at Jul 5, 96 11:43:08 pm
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> 
> On Fri, 5 Jul 1996, Ryan Cutter wrote:
> >         How can I change my prompt in FreeBSD to reflect the current
> > directory I'm in?
>   Seeing that someone has already shown you how to do it in CSH, I'll give
> you the BASH answer:
> In $HOME/.profile type: PS1='$PWD '
>   You can do a: PS1='$PWD> ' 

	You could but bash offers much better options.

	BASH Prompt Mini-HOWTO

	You could use PS1='\w' or PS1='\w>' or PS1='\W' etc
	(depends on whether you want a full path or just the tail of
	the working path).  Here's my favorite:

		PS1='\! \h:\w\$'

	Which translates to:

		Current history number (handy for !-xxx subsititions)
		Current hostname
		Current working path
		"Proper" prompt = '#' for root or '$' for any other user

	If you wanted to go overboard you could use:

		PS1='\# \d \t\n\! \u@\h:\w\$'

	Which uses all but a couple of the bash "PROMPTING" meta
	characters.  It produces output like:

		112 Sat Jul 6 02:32:55
		1502 jim@starhome:~/Mail$ 

	(The number of this command within this session, the date, 
	the time, my current user name, host, and directory, and 
	the tradition '$'|'#' depending on my user status).

	The only ones I left out are the \s (shell's base name) and
	\[\] (non-printing character, for terminal control sequences)
	\xxx (octal? -- arbitrary ASCII character) and \\ (for a 
	literal 'backslash'

	If you *really* want to have fun look at the man page
	entry for bash and read about the $PROMPT_COMMAND 
	variable -- you can set that to a custom program to be 
	executed prior to each issuance of your prompt.

	(One practical application for that might be to set the EXINIT
	variable depending on whether you're in a "safe" directory
	or not -- to prevent the old .exrc exploit but still allowing
	you to have custom .exrc files for some directories).