How to custom display prompt in KornShell to show hostname and current directory?

Question

I am using KornShell (ksh) on Solaris and currently my PS1 env var is:

PS1=\"${HOSTNAME}:\\${PWD} \\$ \"

And the prompt displays: hostname:/fu

Answer 1

Okay, a little old and a little late, but this is what I use in Kornshell:

PS1='$(print -n "`logname`@`hostname`:";if [[ "${PWD#$HOME}" != "$PWD" ]] then; print -n "~${PWD#$HOME}"; else; print -n "$PWD";fi;print "\n$ ")'

This makes a prompt that's equivalent to PS1="\u@\h:\w\n$ " in BASH.

For example:

qazwart@mybook:~
$ cd bin
qazwart@mybook:~/bin
$ cd /usr/local/bin
qazwart@mybook:/usr/local/bin
$ 

I like a two line prompt because I sometimes have very long directory names, and they can take up a lot of the command line. If you want a one line prompt, just leave off the "\n" on the last print statement:

PS1='$(print -n "`logname`@`hostname`:";if [[ "${PWD#$HOME}" != "$PWD" ]] then; print -n "~${PWD#$HOME}"; else; print -n "$PWD";fi;print "$ ")'

That's equivalent to PS1="\u@\h:\w$ " in BASH:

qazwart@mybook:~$ cd bin
qazwart@mybook:~/bin$ cd /usr/local/bin
qazwart@mybook:/usr/local/bin$ 

It's not quite as easy as setting up a BASH prompt, but you get the idea. Simply write a script for PS1 and Kornshell will execute it.

---

For Solaris and other Older Versions of Kornshell

I found that the above does not work on Solaris. Instead, you'll have to do it the real hackish way...

• In your .profile, make sure that ENV="$HOME/.kshrc"; export ENV is set. This is probably setup correctly for you.

• In your .kshrc file, you'll be doing two things

  1. You'll be defining a function called _cd. This function will change to the directory specified, and then set your PS1 variable based upon your pwd.
  2. You'll be setting up an alias cd to run the _cd function.

This is the relevant part of the .kshrc file:

function _cd {
   logname=$(logname)   #Or however you can set the login name
   machine=$(hostname)  #Or however you set your host name
   $directory = $1
   $pattern = $2        #For "cd foo bar"

   #
   # First cd to the directory
   # We can use "\cd" to evoke the non-alias original version of the cd command
   #
   if [ "$pattern" ]
   then
       \cd "$directory" "$pattern"
   elif [ "$directory" ]
   then
       \cd "$directory"
   else
       \cd
   fi

   #
   # Now that we're in the directory, let's set our prompt
   #

   $directory=$PWD
   shortname=${directory#$HOME}  #Possible Subdir of $HOME

   if [ "$shortName" = "" ]  #This is the HOME directory
   then
        prompt="~$logname"   # Or maybe just "~". Your choice
   elif [ "$shortName" = "$directory" ] #Not a subdir of $HOME
   then
        prompt="$directory"
   else
        prompt="~$shortName"
   fi
   PS1="$logname@$hostname:$prompt$ "  #You put it together the way you like
}

alias cd="_cd"

This will set your prompt as the equivelent BASH PS1="\u@\h:\w$ ". It isn't pretty, but it works.