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| Chapter 7 Setting Your Shell Prompt |

## 7.2 Basics of Setting the Prompt

The prompt displayed by your shell is contained in a shell variable (6.8) called prompt in the C shell and PS1 in the Bourne shell. As such, it can be set like any other shell variable. [bash and tcsh have plenty of extra features for those two variables. There are examples in later articles. -JP]

So, for example, if I wanted to change my C shell prompt to include my login name, I might put the following command into my .cshrc file:

>     set prompt="tim % "

(It's helpful to leave the `%` at the end so that it remains obvious that this is a C shell. The space after the `%` makes the command you type stand out from the rest of the prompt.)

Or if I wanted to put in the name of the system I was currently logged in on, I might say:

    `...` uname -n
    set prompt="`uname -n` % "

If I wanted to include the history number for each command, (11.1) I'd say:

>     set prompt="\! % "

Or if I wanted all three things:

>     set prompt="tim@`uname -n` \!% "

This will give me a prompt like this:

>     tim@isla 43%

- TOR

7.1 Why Change Your Prompt? |  | 7.3 C Shell Prompt Causes Problems in vi, rsh, etc.