Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!njin!uupsi!rodan!rodan.acs.syr.edu!jdpeek
From: jdpeek@rodan.acs.syr.edu (Jerry Peek)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions
Subject: csh quoting question: nested command substitution
Message-ID: <4031@rodan.acs.syr.edu>
Date: 26 Jul 90 00:51:08 GMT
Sender: jdpeek@rodan.acs.syr.edu
Reply-To: jdpeek@rodan.acs.syr.edu (Jerry Peek)
Organization: Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY
Lines: 18

Okay, I can tell that I obviously don't understand csh quoting.
I want to set the csh prompt, but this question is really more generic
than prompt-setting.

In the Bourne shell, I can do:
	PS1="`/bin/expr \`/bin/hostname\` : '\([^.]*\)'`$ "
which runs basename, then strips off anything after the local host name.
So, if /bin/hostname prints rodan.acs.syr.edu, the prompt is rodan$.
And, if /bin/hostname prints rodan, the prompt is still rodan$.

I know there are lots of other ways to do this (pipe to sed, store
hostname output in a shell variable first, etc.).
But I want to do it in csh, in a nice one-liner like sh lets me.
No matter what I do, I get some kind of syntax error.
Can someone at least tell me how... and, better, tell me *why*?  Thanks.

--Jerry Peek; Syracuse University Academic Computing Services; Syracuse, NY
  jdpeek@rodan.acs.syr.edu, JDPEEK@SUNRISE.BITNET        +1 315 443-3995