Modify Bash prompt prefix in OS X terminal [closed]

Question

I have a massive prompt taking my Terminal's space "names-MacBook-Pro" on the same line where the command is entered on every line.

Is there a way I can remove this or make it shorter?

Answer 1

Your prompt is set by the environment variable PS1. This is set by the system in /private/etc/bashrc, but it is usually modified by the user in your dotfiles within your home directory.

Check what it is currently set as using this command:

echo $PS1 

Modify it by setting the variable in your ~/.bash_profile (or wherever you have defined it previously):

export PS1="$" 

Reload the settings from your dotfiles by doing:

source ~/.bash_profile 

This will make your new shell prompt simply a $

---

Prompt variables

• PS1 : Primary prompt string. The default value is \s-\v\$ .
• PS2 : Secondary prompt string. The default is >
• PS3 : Prompt for the select command
• PS4 : Printed before each command Bash displays during an execution trace. The first character of PS4 is replicated multiple times, as necessary, to indicate multiple levels of indirection. The default is +

Syntax (from the Bash manual)

\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 ‘.’ \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 characters