Path: utzoo!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!romp!auschs!awdprime!doorstop.austin.ibm.com!tif
From: tif@doorstop.austin.ibm.com (Paul Chamberlain)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.shell
Subject: Re: ksh prompt
Message-ID: <5859@awdprime.UUCP>
Date: 12 Mar 91 19:34:55 GMT
References: <1991Mar8.234706.15343@cbnewsk.att.com> <1991Mar12.180408.26450@nijmeg>
Sender: news@awdprime.UUCP
Reply-To: tif@doorstop.austin.ibm.com (Paul Chamberlain)
Organization: IBM AWD, Austin
Lines: 21

In article <1991Mar12.180408.26450@nijmeg> clercqm@nijmeg (Marien de Clercq) writes:
>           PS1=`tput smso`'${SYSNAME} ${PWD#HOME/}-> '`tput rmso`

This has caused me problems on some terminals since you never know what
the escape sequence is gonna be.  Sometimes it includes an exclamation
point which causes many troubles (seems like a dollar sign might cause
some problems too but I haven't had that problem ... yet).  Furthermore,
I seem to recall having problems when trying to do this in-line so I use:

	so="`tput smso`"
	so="`echo $so | sed -e 's/!/!!/g'`"
	ro="`tput rmso`"
	ro="`echo $ro | sed -e 's/!/!!/g'`"
	typeset PS1="$so${HOST}:\${PWD#\${PWD%/*/*/*}/}->$ro "
	unset so ro

Obviously, that does some other things too.  I'm not sure why I have
the word "typeset" in there.  (I even simplified this for posting!)

Paul Chamberlain | I do NOT speak for IBM.          IBM VNET: PAULCC AT AUSTIN
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