command line - How to avoid tilde ~ in Bash prompt?
2013-12
Jirka
I have set my prompt in bash in a such way that I can use it directly in scp command:
My current PS1 string:
PS1="\h:\w\n$"
And the prompt looks like this:
lnx-hladky:/tmp/plugtmp
$
What I don't like at all is the fact that $HOME directory is displayed as tilde. Can this be avoided? It's causing problems when switching between different users.
Example:
lnx-hladky:~/DOC
$
Documentation says:
\w : the current working directory, with $HOME abbreviated with a tilde
\W: the basename of the current working directory, with $HOME abbreviated with a tilde
Is there any possibility to avoid $HOME being abbreviated with a tilde?
I have found one way around but I feel like it's overcomplicated:
PROMPT_COMMAND='echo -ne "\e[4;35m$(date +%T)\e[24m$(whoami)@$(hostname):$(pwd)\e[m\n"'
PS1=$
Can anyone propose a better solution? I have a feeling it's not quite OK to run so many commands just to get prompt. (date,whoami,hostname,pwd).
Thanks a lot!
Jirka
Ignacio Vazquez-Abrams
bash runs expansions in the prompt; just make sure to escape them.
PS1='\h:$(pwd)\n$'
Doug Harris
You don't need to run as many commands as you showed in your example. bash provides shortcuts for most of the things you mentioned.
Your example:
PROMPT_COMMAND='echo -ne "\e[4;35m$(date +%T)\e[24m$(whoami)@$(hostname):$(pwd)\e[m\n"'
PS1=$
can be rewritten as :
PS1='\e[4;35m\t\e[24m\u@\h:\w\e[m\n'
Where \t shows the time (in 24 hour format), \u shows the current username, '\h' shows the hostname -- the bash man page discusses these and the rest of the escapes available for your prompt.
Even if you expand the ~ to the full path, if you don't know which user is running the command and you're switching users regularly, you can create problems with file permissions or executable permissions.
obvio171
The way my bash prompt is currently configured, it shows the whole path to the current directory. This is annoying when I'm deep inside a directory tree, as the prompt becomes so long that every command wraps into the next line. How do I make it show only the last part of the path?
This is what I have in my .bashrc:
PS1='${debian_chroot:+($debian_chroot)}\[\033[01;32m\]\u@\h\[\033[00m\]:\[\033[01;34m\]\w\[\033[00m\]\$ '
# If this is an xterm set the title to user@host:dir
case "$TERM" in
xterm*|rxvt*)
PROMPT_COMMAND='echo -ne "\033]0;${USER}@${HOSTNAME}: ${PWD/$HOME/~}\007"'
;;
*)
;;
esac
quack quixote
Change the \w (lowercase) to \W (uppercase):
PS1='${debian_chroot:+($debian_chroot)}\[\033[01;32m\]\u@\h\[\033[00m\]:\[\033[01;34m\]\W\[\033[00m\]\$ '
^^
this one waaaaaay over here ------------------------------------------------+
Have a look at the Bash Prompt HOWTO for lots of fun details. example:
user@host:/usr/local/bin$ echo $PS1
${debian_chroot:+($debian_chroot)}\[\033[01;31m\]\u@\h\[\033[00m\]:\[\033[01;36m\]\w\[\033[00m\]\$
user@host:/usr/local/bin$ export PS1='${debian_chroot:+($debian_chroot)}\[\033[01;31m\]\u@\h\[\033[00m\]:\[\033[01;36m\]\W\[\033[00m\]\$ '
user@host:bin$
The PROMPT_COMMAND variable, if set, is a command that gets run before displaying the prompt specified in PS1. In your case, PROMPT_COMMAND runs an echo statement with certain ANSI escape sequences that manipulate the titlebar of an Xterm.
If you suspect your PROMPT_COMMAND is overriding your PS1 prompt, you can unset it and test things out:
$ unset PROMPT_COMMAND
Finally, be sure that you're changing the PS1 definition that actually gets used. Common locations are /etc/bash.bashrc, /etc/profile, ~/.bashrc, ~/.bash_profile, ~/.profile. The system files are generally (but not always) run before the user files.