Bash Prompt Coloring – Fix Carriage Return Issues in Linux

bashbashrcps1terminalubuntu 11.10

When I try to colorize the bash prompt like this:

export PS1="\e[0;31m[\u@\h \W]\$ \e[m "

it breaks the carriage return (instead of going to a new line when line is full, it starts in the same line and erases the input text).

If I remove the color sequence it works fine.
I use Ubuntu 11.10 and terminal (guake has the same bug too).

Best Answer

You must wrap all escape sequences between \[ and \] in order for 'readline' to correctly calculate the prompt's visible length. Without them, 'readline' thinks the prompt is longer than it is, and doesn't know when the text reaches the margin.

PS1="\[\e[;31m\][\u@\h \W]\$ \[\e[m\]"

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Linux – how to change the color of the terminal

The terminal color is set by a flag on the xterm command (if you're running X of course):

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How to fix the colour bash prompt wrapping

bash uses \[ \] to determine the "displayed length": text between those two escapes is considered unprintable and not counted in the total length; everything else is.

There seems to be a problem with your variables: bright='\[[01m\]' doesn't actually include an ESC character, so [01m gets printed as normal text but is not counted in the length. It should be '\[\e[01m\]'. Same for all other variables.

in Bash, you can put \$(hg_status) to $PS1 directly, without the need for a separate PROMPT_COMMAND.

Best Answer

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