Path: utzoo!utgpu!utstat!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!agate!violet.berkeley.edu!ilan343
From: ilan343@violet.berkeley.edu
Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions
Subject: Re: Getting UNIX prompt to display current directory
Keywords: UNIX  prompt directories pwd
Message-ID: <21813@agate.BERKELEY.EDU>
Date: 18 Mar 89 23:35:21 GMT
References: <5582@ncsugn.ncsu.edu>
Sender: usenet@agate.BERKELEY.EDU
Organization: University of California, Berkeley
Lines: 13

In article <5582@ncsugn.ncsu.edu> fristens@ncsugn.ncsu.edu (Brian Fristensky) writes:
>In MS-DOS there is a very easy way to get the current directory displayed as
>part of the prompt  (prompt $p).  In UNIX, there is certainly no
>straightforward way to do this.  Can anyone think of a tricky way?  My
>guess is that it would involve getting pwd output into the shell variable
>$PS1, but that would require somehow getting pwd to execute after each
>command you type. 

I use an idea plagiarized from a contribution by Daniel Bauer to the
Wizard's Grabbag (UnixWorld-August 1988). It creates a function to
replace "cd".  Everytime you change directory, PS1 is redefined.
It also changes the prompt whenever a sub-shell is open, keeping count
of what level your are.