Re: which file should have my bash prompt, .profile vs .bashrc

Wolfgang Agnes <wagnes@example.com> writes:

I installed bash and have been trying to set up my prompt.  I notice
that if I add
>
  PS1='# '; export PS1
>
to my .profile, then I get the prompt when I log in, not when I /sudo
su/ from a regular user.  If I add
>
  PS1='# '; export PS1
>
to ~/.bashrc, then I get the prompt when I ``sudo su'', but not when I
log in.  I can add the prompt set up to both files, but I'm asking
myself---how do you guys avoid such redundancy?  (Thanks!)

How you do this depends on how you use your shells. There are
"interactive" shells, and "login" shells, and .bashrc is only invoked
under specific conditions. See the bash manual for details, which
afford even more flexibility than most other shells.

Also note that .profile is read and executed by /bin/sh, should you
invoke that shell, and that on FreeBSD, /bin/sh is *not* bash.

--
Lowell Gilbert, embedded/networking software engineer
http://be-well.ilk.org/~lowell/