How to modify linux console prompt line ( for a while )

Question

For example I typed such commands:

user@my-machine:~$ cd ABC
user@my-machine:~/ABC$ cd long-name
user@my-machine:~/ABC/long-name$ cd another-long-name
user@my-machine:~/ABC/long-name/another-long-name$ ls

So, I've chosen directory I need, and I need to work in it ( lots of commands ). But half of my console line is the prompt line. It's not very comfortable. Can I shorten it for a while? For example I'll make it user@my-machine:~foo$ and when I finish working in this directory - I'll turn this shortness off.

Is there a way to do this?

Answer 1

The prompt format is in the PS1 environment variable; see the bash manpage, prompting section for format specifiers.

10:50:39 user@host:1996 ~$ echo $PS1
\t \u@\h:\! \W$

The \W only prints the top directory like you (?) want. (\w prints the whole thing like you have now).

10:50:45 user@host:1997 ~$ PS1='\u@\h:\W$ '
user@host:~$ cd test
user@host:test$ cd testdir/
user@host:testdir$ 

You'll probably want to save the old PS1 in a variable (say, $ export OLDPS1=$PS1) first so you can restore it when you're done ($ PS1=$OLDPS1).

Answer 2

I just put the prompt on a second line, and the user/directory information is put on the first.

Example of my bash prompt:

birryree@momohime:/usr/bin
$ command-here

If you're using bourne-shell or bash, the environment variable PS1 determines the formatting of the prompt.

I have this in my ~/.bash_profile (you might use .bashrc, I have my .bashrc source my .bash_profile).

# ~/.bash_profile
PS1="\u@\h:\w\n$ " # \u means user name
                   # \h means hostname
                   # \w is working directory
                   # \n is newline
                   # $ is my prompt

And my .bashrc

# ~/.bashrc
source ~/.bash_profile

For fun, my zsh prompt looks like this:

birryree@momohime:~/.oh-my-zsh master* 
λ > 

The master* means I'm on the master branch of a git repository (~/.oh-my-zsh is a git-controlled directory), and the directory is unclean.

---

You can get extremely fancy with your bash prompts, I used to do colors and everything before I switched to zsh.

• https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Color_Bash_Prompt

This section has all the escapes:

• https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Color_Bash_Prompt#Prompt_escapes