Applying changes

To apply changes made in ~/.bashrc without restarting your shell, source the script.

Basic prompts

The following settings are useful for distinguishing the root prompt from non-root users.

Regular user

A green prompt for regular users:

~/.bashrc

#PS1='[\u@\h \W]\$ '  # Default
PS1='\[\e[1;32m\][\u@\h \W]\$\[\e[0m\] '

Root

A red prompt for root (copy from /etc/skel/, if not already):

/root/.bashrc

#PS1='[\u@\h \W]\$ '  # Default
PS1='\[\e[1;31m\][\u@\h \W]\$\[\e[0m\] '

Professional prompts

The following settings provides more professional prompts.

Regular user

A green/blue prompt for regular users:

PS1='\[\e[0;32m\]\u\[\e[m\] \[\e[1;34m\]\w\[\e[m\] \[\e[1;32m\]\$\[\e[m\] \[\e[1;37m\]'

This will give a very pleasing, colorful prompt and theme for the console with bright white text.

The string above contains color-set escape sequences (start coloring: \[\e[color\], end coloring: \[\e[m\]) and information placeholders:

• \u - Username. The original prompt also has \h, which prints the host name.
• \w - Current absolute path. Use \W for current relative path.
• \$ - The prompt character (eg. # for root, $ for regular users).
• \[ and \] - These tags should be placed around color codes so bash knows how to properly place the cursor.

The last color-set sequence, \[\e[1;37m\], is not closed, so the remaining text (everything typed into the terminal, program output and so on) will be in that (bright white) color. It may be desirable to change this color, or to delete the last escape sequence in order to leave the actual output in unaltered color.

Root

A red/blue prompt for root:

PS1='\[\e[0;31m\]\u\[\e[m\] \[\e[1;34m\]\w\[\e[m\] \[\e[0;31m\]\$ \[\e[m\]\[\e[0;32m\]'

This will give you a red designation and green console text.

Ultimate prompts

Load/Mem Status for 256colors

This is not even pushing the limits. Other than using sed to parse the memory and load average (using the -u option for non-buffering), and the builtin history to save your history to your HISTFILE after every command, which you may find incredibly useful when dealing with crashing shells or subshells, this is essentially just making BASH print variables it already knows, making this extremely fast compared to prompts with non-builtin commands.

This prompt is from AskApache.com's BASH Power Prompt article, which goes into greater detail. It is especially helpful for those wanting to understand 256 color terminals, ncurses, termcap, and terminfo.

This is for 256 color terminals, which is where the \033[38;5;22m terminal escapes come from.

802/1024MB      1.28 1.20 1.13 3/94 18563
[5416:17880 0:70] 05:35:50 Wed Apr 21 [srot@host.sqpt.net:/dev/pts/0 +1] ~

(1:70)$ _

PROMPT_COMMAND='history -a;echo -en "\033[m\033[38;5;2m"$(( $(sed -nu "s/MemFree:[\t ]\+\([0-9]\+\) kB/\1/p" /proc/meminfo)/1024))"\033[38;5;22m/"$(($(sed -nu "s/MemTotal:[\t ]\+\([0-9]\+\) kB/\1/Ip" /proc/meminfo)/1024 ))MB"\t\033[m\033[38;5;55m$(< /proc/loadavg)\033[m"'
PS1='\[\e[m\n\e[1;30m\][$$:$PPID \j:\!\[\e[1;30m\]]\[\e[0;36m\] \T \d \[\e[1;30m\][\[\e[1;34m\]\u@\H\[\e[1;30m\]:\[\e[0;37m\]${SSH_TTY} \[\e[0;32m\]+${SHLVL}\[\e[1;30m\]] \[\e[1;37m\]\w\[\e[0;37m\] \n($SHLVL:\!)\$ '

List of colors for prompt and Bash

Add this to your Bash file(s) to define colors for prompt and commands:

txtblk='\e[0;30m' # Black - Regular
txtred='\e[0;31m' # Red
txtgrn='\e[0;32m' # Green
txtylw='\e[0;33m' # Yellow
txtblu='\e[0;34m' # Blue
txtpur='\e[0;35m' # Purple
txtcyn='\e[0;36m' # Cyan
txtwht='\e[0;37m' # White
bldblk='\e[1;30m' # Black - Bold
bldred='\e[1;31m' # Red
bldgrn='\e[1;32m' # Green
bldylw='\e[1;33m' # Yellow
bldblu='\e[1;34m' # Blue
bldpur='\e[1;35m' # Purple
bldcyn='\e[1;36m' # Cyan
bldwht='\e[1;37m' # White
unkblk='\e[4;30m' # Black - Underline
undred='\e[4;31m' # Red
undgrn='\e[4;32m' # Green
undylw='\e[4;33m' # Yellow
undblu='\e[4;34m' # Blue
undpur='\e[4;35m' # Purple
undcyn='\e[4;36m' # Cyan
undwht='\e[4;37m' # White
bakblk='\e[40m'   # Black - Background
bakred='\e[41m'   # Red
bakgrn='\e[42m'   # Green
bakylw='\e[43m'   # Yellow
bakblu='\e[44m'   # Blue
bakpur='\e[45m'   # Purple
bakcyn='\e[46m'   # Cyan
bakwht='\e[47m'   # White
txtrst='\e[0m'    # Text Reset

Or if you prefer color names you will know how to spell without a special decoder ring and want high intensity colors:

# Reset
Color_Off='\e[0m'       # Text Reset

# Regular Colors
Black='\e[0;30m'        # Black
Red='\e[0;31m'          # Red
Green='\e[0;32m'        # Green
Yellow='\e[0;33m'       # Yellow
Blue='\e[0;34m'         # Blue
Purple='\e[0;35m'       # Purple
Cyan='\e[0;36m'         # Cyan
White='\e[0;37m'        # White

# Bold
BBlack='\e[1;30m'       # Black
BRed='\e[1;31m'         # Red
BGreen='\e[1;32m'       # Green
BYellow='\e[1;33m'      # Yellow
BBlue='\e[1;34m'        # Blue
BPurple='\e[1;35m'      # Purple
BCyan='\e[1;36m'        # Cyan
BWhite='\e[1;37m'       # White

# Underline
UBlack='\e[4;30m'       # Black
URed='\e[4;31m'         # Red
UGreen='\e[4;32m'       # Green
UYellow='\e[4;33m'      # Yellow
UBlue='\e[4;34m'        # Blue
UPurple='\e[4;35m'      # Purple
UCyan='\e[4;36m'        # Cyan
UWhite='\e[4;37m'       # White

# Background
On_Black='\e[40m'       # Black
On_Red='\e[41m'         # Red
On_Green='\e[42m'       # Green
On_Yellow='\e[43m'      # Yellow
On_Blue='\e[44m'        # Blue
On_Purple='\e[45m'      # Purple
On_Cyan='\e[46m'        # Cyan
On_White='\e[47m'       # White

# High Intensity
IBlack='\e[0;90m'       # Black
IRed='\e[0;91m'         # Red
IGreen='\e[0;92m'       # Green
IYellow='\e[0;93m'      # Yellow
IBlue='\e[0;94m'        # Blue
IPurple='\e[0;95m'      # Purple
ICyan='\e[0;96m'        # Cyan
IWhite='\e[0;97m'       # White

# Bold High Intensity
BIBlack='\e[1;90m'      # Black
BIRed='\e[1;91m'        # Red
BIGreen='\e[1;92m'      # Green
BIYellow='\e[1;93m'     # Yellow
BIBlue='\e[1;94m'       # Blue
BIPurple='\e[1;95m'     # Purple
BICyan='\e[1;96m'       # Cyan
BIWhite='\e[1;97m'      # White

# High Intensity backgrounds
On_IBlack='\e[0;100m'   # Black
On_IRed='\e[0;101m'     # Red
On_IGreen='\e[0;102m'   # Green
On_IYellow='\e[0;103m'  # Yellow
On_IBlue='\e[0;104m'    # Blue
On_IPurple='\e[0;105m'  # Purple
On_ICyan='\e[0;106m'    # Cyan
On_IWhite='\e[0;107m'   # White

To use in commands from your shell environment:

PS1="\[$txtblu\]foo\[$txtred\] bar\[$txtrst\] baz : "

Double quotes enable $color variable expansion and the \[ \] escapes around them make them not count as character positions and the cursor position is not wrong.

Prompt escapes

The various Bash prompt escapes listed in the manpage:

Bash allows these prompt strings to be customized by inserting a
number of backslash-escaped special characters that are
decoded as follows:

	\a		an ASCII bell character (07)
	\d		the date in "Weekday Month Date" format (e.g., "Tue May 26")
	\D{format}	the format is passed to strftime(3) and the result
			  is inserted into the prompt string an empty format
			  results in a locale-specific time representation.
			  The braces are required
	\e		an ASCII escape character (033)
	\h		the hostname up to the first `.'
	\H		the hostname
	\j		the number of jobs currently managed by the shell
	\l		the basename of the shell's terminal device name
	\n		newline
	\r		carriage return
	\s		the name of the shell, the basename of $0 (the portion following
			  the final slash)
	\t		the current time in 24-hour HH:MM:SS format
	\T		the current time in 12-hour HH:MM:SS format
	\@		the current time in 12-hour am/pm format
	\A		the current time in 24-hour HH:MM format
	\u		the username of the current user
	\v		the version of bash (e.g., 2.00)
	\V		the release of bash, version + patch level (e.g., 2.00.0)
	\w		the current working directory, with $HOME abbreviated with a tilde
	\W		the basename of the current working directory, with $HOME
			 abbreviated with a tilde
	\!		the history number of this command
	\#		the command number of this command
	\$		if the effective UID is 0, a #, otherwise a $
	\nnn		the character corresponding to the octal number nnn
	\\		a backslash
	\[		begin a sequence of non-printing characters, which could be used
			  to embed a terminal control sequence into the prompt
	\]		end a sequence of non-printing characters

	The command number and the history number are usually different:
	the history number of a command is its position in the history
	list, which may include commands restored from the history file
	(see HISTORY below), while the command number is the position in
	the sequence of commands executed during the current shell session.
	After the string is decoded, it is expanded via parameter
	expansion, command substitution, arithmetic expansion, and quote
	removal, subject to the value of the promptvars shell option (see
	the description of the shopt command under SHELL BUILTIN COMMANDS
	below).

Positioning the cursor

The following sequence sets the cursor position:

\[\033[<row>;<column>f\]

The current cursor position can be saved using:

\[\033[s\]

To restore a position, use the following sequence:

\[\033[u\]

The following example uses these sequences to display the time in the upper right corner:

PS1=">\[\033[s\]\[\033[1;\$((COLUMNS-5))f\]\$(date +%H:%M)\[\033[u\]"

The environment variable COLUMNS contains the number of columns of the terminal. The above example substracts 5 from its value in order to justify the five-character wide output of date at the right border.

Return value visualisation

Use the following prompt to see the return value of last command:

#return value visualisation
PS1="\$? \$(if [[ \$? == 0 ]]; then echo \"\[\033[0;32m\];)\"; else echo \"\[\033[0;31m\];(\"; fi)\[\033[00m\] : "

Zero is a green smiley and non-zero a red one. So your prompt will smile if the last operation was successful.

But you will probably want to include the username and hostname as well, like this:

#return value visualisation
PS1="\[\033[01;37m\]\$? \$(if [[ \$? == 0 ]]; then echo \"\[\033[01;32m\];)\"; else echo \"\[\033[01;31m\];(\"; fi) $(if [[ ${EUID} == 0 ]]; then echo '\[\033[01;31m\]\h'; else echo '\[\033[01;32m\]\u@\h'; fi)\[\033[01;34m\] \w \$\[\033[00m\] "

Or, if you want, you can build your prompt using the ✓ unicode symbol for a zero status and the ✗ unicode symbol for a nonzero status:

#return value visualisation
PS1="\[\033[01;37m\]\$? \$(if [[ \$? == 0 ]]; then echo \"\[\033[01;32m\]\342\234\223\"; else echo \"\[\033[01;31m\]\342\234\227\"; fi) $(if [[ ${EUID} == 0 ]]; then echo '\[\033[01;31m\]\h'; else echo '\[\033[01;32m\]\u@\h'; fi)\[\033[01;34m\] \w \$\[\033[00m\] "

Alternatively, this can be made more readable with PROMPT_COMMAND:

set_prompt () {
    Last_Command=$? # Must come first!
    Blue='\[\e[01;34m\]'
    White='\[\e[01;37m\]'
    Red='\[\e[01;31m\]'
    Green='\[\e[01;32m\]'
    Reset='\[\e[00m\]'
    FancyX='\342\234\227'
    Checkmark='\342\234\223'

    # Add a bright white exit status for the last command
    PS1="$White\$? "
    # If it was successful, print a green check mark. Otherwise, print
    # a red X.
    if [[ $Last_Command == 0 ]]; then
        PS1+="$Green$Checkmark "
    else
        PS1+="$Red$FancyX "
    fi
    # If root, just print the host in red. Otherwise, print the current user
    # and host in green.
    if [[ $EUID == 0 ]]; then
        PS1+="$Red\\h "
    else
        PS1+="$Green\\u@\\h "
    fi
    # Print the working directory and prompt marker in blue, and reset
    # the text color to the default.
    PS1+="$Blue\\w \\\$$Reset "
}
PROMPT_COMMAND='set_prompt'

Here is an alternative that only includes the error status, if non-zero:

PROMPT_COMMAND='es=$?; [[ $es -eq 0 ]] && unset error || error=$(echo -e "\e[1;41m $es \e[40m")'
PS1="${error} ${PS1}"

Tips and tricks

Different colors for text entry and console output

If you do not reset the text color at the end of your prompt, both the text you enter and the console text will simply stay in that color. If you want to edit text in a special color but still use the default color for command output, you will need to reset the color after you press Enter, but still before any commands get run. You can do this by installing a DEBUG trap, like this:

~/.bashrc

trap 'printf "\e[0m" "$_"' DEBUG

Random quotations at logon

For a brown Fortune prompt, add:

~/.bashrc

[[ "$PS1" ]] && echo -e "\e[00;33m$(/usr/bin/fortune)\e[00m"

Colorized Arch latest news at logon

To read 10 latest news items from the Arch official website, user grufo has written a small and coloured RSS escaping script (scrollable):

~/.bashrc

# Arch latest news
if [ "$PS1" ] && [[ $(ping -c1 www.google.com 2>&-) ]]; then
	# The characters "£, §" are used as metacharacters. They should not be encountered in a feed...
	echo -e "$(echo $(curl --silent https://www.archlinux.org/feeds/news/ | sed -e ':a;N;$!ba;s/\n/ /g') | \
		sed -e 's/&/\&/g
		s/&lt;\|&#60;/</g
		s/&gt;\|&#62;/>/g
		s/<\/a>/£/g
		s/href\=\"/§/g
		s/<title>/\\n\\n\\n   :: \\e[01;31m/g; s/<\/title>/\\e[00m ::\\n/g
		s/<link>/ [ \\e[01;36m/g; s/<\/link>/\\e[00m ]/g
		s/<description>/\\n\\n\\e[00;37m/g; s/<\/description>/\\e[00m\\n\\n/g
		s/<p\( [^>]*\)\?>\|<br\s*\/\?>/\n/g
		s/<b\( [^>]*\)\?>\|<strong\( [^>]*\)\?>/\\e[01;30m/g; s/<\/b>\|<\/strong>/\\e[00;37m/g
		s/<i\( [^>]*\)\?>\|<em\( [^>]*\)\?>/\\e[41;37m/g; s/<\/i>\|<\/em>/\\e[00;37m/g
		s/<u\( [^>]*\)\?>/\\e[4;37m/g; s/<\/u>/\\e[00;37m/g
		s/<code\( [^>]*\)\?>/\\e[00m/g; s/<\/code>/\\e[00;37m/g
		s/<a[^§|t]*§\([^\"]*\)\"[^>]*>\([^£]*\)[^£]*£/\\e[01;31m\2\\e[00;37m \\e[01;34m[\\e[00;37m \\e[04m\1\\e[00;37m\\e[01;34m ]\\e[00;37m/g
		s/<li\( [^>]*\)\?>/\n \\e[01;34m*\\e[00;37m /g
		s/<!\[CDATA\[\|\]\]>//g
		s/\|>\s*<//g
		s/ *<[^>]\+> */ /g
		s/[<>£§]//g')\n\n";
fi

To only get the absolute latest item, use this:

# Arch latest news
if [ "$PS1" ] && [[ $(ping -c1 www.google.com 2>&-) ]]; then
	# The characters "£, §" are used as metacharacters. They should not be encountered in a feed...
	echo -e "$(echo $(curl --silent https://www.archlinux.org/feeds/news/ | awk ' NR == 1 {while ($0 !~ /<\/item>/) {print;getline} sub(/<\/item>.*/,"</item>") ;print}' | sed -e ':a;N;$!ba;s/\n/ /g') | \
		sed -e 's/&amp;/\&/g
		s/&lt;\|&#60;/</g
		s/&gt;\|&#62;/>/g
		s/<\/a>/£/g
		s/href\=\"/§/g
		s/<title>/\\n\\n\\n   :: \\e[01;31m/g; s/<\/title>/\\e[00m ::\\n/g
		s/<link>/ [ \\e[01;36m/g; s/<\/link>/\\e[00m ]/g
		s/<description>/\\n\\n\\e[00;37m/g; s/<\/description>/\\e[00m\\n\\n/g
		s/<p\( [^>]*\)\?>\|<br\s*\/\?>/\n/g
		s/<b\( [^>]*\)\?>\|<strong\( [^>]*\)\?>/\\e[01;30m/g; s/<\/b>\|<\/strong>/\\e[00;37m/g
		s/<i\( [^>]*\)\?>\|<em\( [^>]*\)\?>/\\e[41;37m/g; s/<\/i>\|<\/em>/\\e[00;37m/g
		s/<u\( [^>]*\)\?>/\\e[4;37m/g; s/<\/u>/\\e[00;37m/g
		s/<code\( [^>]*\)\?>/\\e[00m/g; s/<\/code>/\\e[00;37m/g
		s/<a[^§|t]*§\([^\"]*\)\"[^>]*>\([^£]*\)[^£]*£/\\e[01;31m\2\\e[00;37m \\e[01;34m[\\e[00;37m \\e[04m\1\\e[00;37m\\e[01;34m ]\\e[00;37m/g
		s/<li\( [^>]*\)\?>/\n \\e[01;34m*\\e[00;37m /g
		s/<!\[CDATA\[\|\]\]>//g
		s/\|>\s*<//g
		s/ *<[^>]\+> */ /g
		s/[<>£§]//g')\n\n";
fi

Colors overview

The page at http://ascii-table.com/ansi-escape-sequences.php describes the various available color escapes. The following Bash function displays a table with ready-to-copy escape codes.

~/.bashrc

colors() {
	local fgc bgc vals seq0

	printf "Color escapes are %s\n" '\e[${value};...;${value}m'
	printf "Values 30..37 are \e[33mforeground colors\e[m\n"
	printf "Values 40..47 are \e[43mbackground colors\e[m\n"
	printf "Value  1 gives a  \e[1mbold-faced look\e[m\n\n"

	# foreground colors
	for fgc in {30..37}; do
		# background colors
		for bgc in {40..47}; do
			fgc=${fgc#37} # white
			bgc=${bgc#40} # black

			vals="${fgc:+$fgc;}${bgc}"
			vals=${vals%%;}

			seq0="${vals:+\e[${vals}m}"
			printf "  %-9s" "${seq0:-(default)}"
			printf " ${seq0}TEXT\e[m"
			printf " \e[${vals:+${vals+$vals;}}1mBOLD\e[m"
		done
		echo; echo
	done
}

Colorized git prompt

Source /usr/share/git/completion/git-prompt.sh for your shell:

~/.bashrc

source /usr/share/git/completion/git-prompt.sh

and use __git_ps1 inside PS1 or PROMPT_COMMAND. See Don't Reinvent the Wheel for details.

See also

• Community examples and screenshots in the Forum thread: What's your PS1?
• The original not modified Gentoo's /etc/bash.bashrc file can be found here^{[dead link 2014-08-05]}. See also the gentoo-bashrc^AUR package from AUR.
• tput(1)
  • tput reference on bash-hackers.org
  • Colours and Cursor Movement With tput
• Nice Xresources color schemes collection
• Bash Prompt HOWTO
• Giles Orr's collection of sample prompts
• Bash tips: Colors and formatting