How to change mc (midnight command) bash prompt on OS X

bashterminal

I observed that my custom bash prompt does not work on mc. How do I customize it?

Best Answer

The issue is that .bash_login files are only read when bash is run as the login shell. mc probably just calls a new shell which will read its startup from ~/.bashrc See bash documentation for details.

To make the shell run in a common way it is often suggested that you call .bashrc from .bash_login e.g.

if [ -f ~/.bashrc ]; then
   source ~/.bashrc
fi

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How to send the current working directory from bash to Terminal

Did you change PROMPT_COMMAND? The default PROMPT_COMMAND is defined in /etc/bashrc:

# Tell the terminal about the working directory at each prompt.
if [ "$TERM_PROGRAM" == "Apple_Terminal" ] && [ -z "$INSIDE_EMACS" ]; then
    update_terminal_cwd() {
        # Identify the directory using a "file:" scheme URL,
        # including the host name to disambiguate local vs.
        # remote connections. Percent-escape spaces.
        local SEARCH=' '
        local REPLACE='%20'
        local PWD_URL="file://$HOSTNAME${PWD//$SEARCH/$REPLACE}"
        printf '\e]7;%s\a' "$PWD_URL"
    }
    PROMPT_COMMAND="update_terminal_cwd; $PROMPT_COMMAND"
fi

Missing Bash Prompt on macOS – How to Restore

Setting aside the problem with your shell - there are lots of ways to get to a clean prompt:

make a new user account and use that command line to become root: sudo -s and then go in and nuke/fix/move your files

You also could try booting to single user mode, mounting the filesystem read+write and cleaning things. I'd go the new user route since you can log out of your user without needing a restart.

Best Answer

Related Solutions

How to send the current working directory from bash to Terminal

Missing Bash Prompt on macOS – How to Restore

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