Skip to content

Prompt

ps stands for prompt statement

Types of prompt statement

  • PS1 - Default Interactive prompt
  • PS2 - Continuation interactive prompt
  • PS3 - Prompt used by "select" inside shell script
  • PS4 - Used by "set -x" to prefix tracing output
  • PROMPT_COMMAND - Bash shell executes the content of the PROMPT_COMMAND just before displaying the PS1 variable.

Editing the PS1 variable

  • \u - username
  • \u - hostname
  • \w - full path of current working directory
  • \$(command) - the output of command \ is used to escape the $
  • \t - current time
  • \e[ - Indicates the beginning of color prompt
  • x;ym - Indicates color code. Use the color code values.
  • \e[m - indicates the end of color prompt
  • \a an ASCII bell character (07)
  • \d the date in "Weekday Month Date" format (e.g., "Tue May 26")
  • \D {format} - the format is passed to strftime(3) and the result is inserted into the prompt string; an empty format results in a locale-specific time representation. The braces are required
  • \e an ASCII escape character (033)
  • \h the hostname up to the first part
  • \H the hostname
  • \j the number of jobs currently managed by the shell
  • \l the basename of the shell's terminal device name
  • \n newline
  • \r carriage return
  • \s the name of the shell, the basename of $0 (the portion following the final slash)
  • \t the current time in 24-hour HH:MM:SS format
  • \T the current time in 12-hour HH:MM:SS format
  • \@ the current time in 12-hour am/pm format
  • \A the current time in 24-hour HH:MM format
  • \u the username of the current user
  • \v the version of bash (e.g., 2.00)
  • \V the release of bash, version + patch level (e.g., 2.00.0)
  • \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
  • \! the history number of this command
  • \# the command number of this command
  • \$ if the effective UID is 0, a #, otherwise a $
  • \nnn the character corresponding to the octal number nnn
  • \\ a backslash
  • \[ begin a sequence of non-printing characters, which could be used to embed a terminal control sequence into the prompt
  • \] end a sequence of non-printing character