[OS X TeX] path before prompt

[David Watson]

This works well if you only manage one machine; if you have multiple  
accounts on various machines, things can become confusing, which is  
why the machine name is listed. If you are trying to help a colleague  
and you have them logged in, in order to do something like edit  
their .bash_profile, and also copy some files between accounts, then  
the account owner name takes on the same sort of significance.

In cases where the prompt is not set up like with the host/owner name  
of the shell, I find the commands 'hostname', 'pwd', and 'whoami' to  
be very useful.

On Feb 18, 2008, at 10:02 AM, Robert Bruner wrote:

>> ................ [SNIP] ....................
>> I think, as I recall, that you are still under 10.4, where the  
>> default is
>> to have a prompt showing the entire path down to the current  
>> directory,
>> i.e., something like:
>>
>> XYZs-computer:~/Documents/papers/math220 xyz$
>>
>
> Adopting the point of view that information which changes
> frequently should be displayed lest it be forgotten, while
> information which is stable in time can be remembered, I
> removed the
>  XYZ's-computer
> from my prompt, saving about 24 characters.