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Midrange Guru - Tech Tips
OS/400 Edition
Volume 2, Number 29 - April 17, 2002

Show Current Directory in Qshell Prompt

Hey, Ted:

Back in my old MS-DOS days, the default prompt was something like a drive letter and a greater-than ( > ) sign. I don't remember the default because I never used it; I had a line in the autoexec.bat file that made the system include the current directory in the prompt.

Now I'm using the Qshell interpreter, and the prompt is a dollar ( $ ) sign. Is there a way to make the prompt show me the current directory?

-- Harmon

Yes there is. Create a file called .profile in your current directory. Add these two lines to it:

PS1='$PWD $'
export PS1

The .profile file is similar to the MS-DOS autoexec.bat file. The commands within it run when you start Qshell. PS1 is a predefined variable that contains the primary Qshell prompt. By setting it to $PWD, the prompt displays the current directory. The export command is necessary to make the value of PS1 carry over into your interactive session.

Your prompt will look something like this:

/home/jsmith $

I learned this one from Heiner Steven's SHELLDorado Web site .

-- Ted
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