customize terminal prompt

[JTPete]

Hi All,

I am interested to find out if I can customize the prompt in my terminal.
Specifically I would like it NOT to display the complete path to the working directory as this is often quite long and I really don't like it when my commands wrap around, but I do want to still see the complete path in the title,

any help is greatly appreciated.

[sedawk]

Some very "old style" prompt

export PS1="> "

Current path is still viewed in window title.

[JTPete]

Oh my that was easy!

Thank you, I sure wish I did not have to ask these easy questions...

[johnl]

If you want to display specific information in the prompt you can use the following escape sequences:
(more at this link)
\u -- user
\h -- hostname
\d -- date
\t -- time
\w -- current working directory
\W -- abbreviated working directory (just the current directory)

Right now your prompt is probably set to something like:
"\u@\h:\w$ " changing it to "\u@\h:\W$ " will save you some space and still display the current directory.
(eg, "user@host:/usr/share/doc/foo-bar$" would become "user@host:foo-bar$")