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From: gwyn@brl-tgr.ARPA (Doug Gwyn <gwyn>)
Newsgroups: net.unix,net.unix-wizards
Subject: Re: Bourne shell modifications, past and future
Message-ID: <156@brl-tgr.ARPA>
Date: Thu, 28-Nov-85 20:27:29 EST
Article-I.D.: brl-tgr.156
Posted: Thu Nov 28 20:27:29 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 30-Nov-85 00:57:21 EST
References: <1943@gatech.CSNET> <10@druri.UUCP> <21@pixdoc.UUCP>
Organization: Ballistic Research Lab
Lines: 26
Xref: watmath net.unix:6433 net.unix-wizards:15902

> > ....Functions subsume aliases very nicely, so chuck
> >aliases!  Don't have funny % sequences in prompt strings when `uname`
> >or `pwd` will work fine.
> 
> The problem is that PS1="`pwd` " will only evaluate pwd once, and one would
> want whatever the directory is now. Same with PS1="$PWD ". Which is why I
> use funny % sequences. At least no one else uses them.

But you can get this to work nicely if you redefine the "cd"
built-in as a shell function (if your shell functions work like
8th Ed. UNIX and not like SVR2).  Since I have an SVR2 shell,
I can't redefine "cd", so I use "ch" instead.  Here `tis:

ch(){			# should be cd
	if [ $# -lt 1 ]
	then	cd	# should be built-in cd
	else	cd $1	# ditto
	fi
	PS1=`uname | sed s/\^brl-// | tr '[a-z]' '[A-Z]'`:`pwd`'$ '
}

Yes, this is a more elaborate PS1, but it makes the point.

Berkeley users just have to suffer, but then they are so used to that
that they have probably convinced themselves that everything is great.
It's nice of you to try to help them out.