Customizing the Shell Prompt

• Use an environment variable to customize.

• Bash, ksh, and sh use $PS1.

• Csh, tcsh, and zsh use $prompt.

Customizing the Prompt with PS1

\d Date in "Weekday Month Date" format
"Tue May 26"
\h Hostname up to the first period
\H Hostname
\n Newline
\t Current time in 24-hour HH:MM:SS format
\T Current time in 12-hour HH:MM:SS format
\@ Current time in 12-hour am/pm format
\A Current time in 24-hour HH:MM format
\u Username of the current user
\w Current working directory
\W Basename of the current working
directory
\$ if the effective UID is 0, a #, otherwise a $

#example 
$echo $PS1
[\u@\h \W]\$
$PS1="\u@\h \$ "
$PS1="<\t \u@\h \w>\$"
#we can write to  ~/.bash_profile  
#export $PS1="<\t \u@\h \w>\$"