system variables question

[Nick T.]

In the process of teaching myself how to use terminal I found something that probably makes no difference at all, but has aroused my curiosity. Here’s the setup:

Entering echo “$PS1” shows \h:\W \u\$
This is what I expect since there is no .profile or .bash_profile or other start-up file in my home directory.

If I make any change to the command prompt, even duplicating the existing prompt - - for example:
export PS1=“\h:\w \u\$ “ changes the prompt, but entering echo “$PS1” now gives \h:\w \u$

What happened to the backslash between the u and the $?

Am I using bad methodology to change the contents of PS1?

It’s a clean install 10.5.1 on an Intel Mac-mini.

Please keep your response pretty simple. I’ve been playing with OS X for less than a year, and trying to learn the Unix side for about a month. My knowledge layer is pretty thin - - but chasing down interesting trivialities seems a good way to learn Unix.

thanks,
- Nick T.

 

[ScoobyMcDoo]

I'm not sure exactly what's going on there, but you got me curious for a minute. One thing I did notice is that if you type

PS1="\h:\w \u\\\$ "

you will see what you saw before in the echo, however it doesn't seem to affect the actual displayed prompt.

Oh well outta time for this stuff.

 

[Nick T.]

One thing I did notice is that if you type

PS1="\h:\w \u\\\$ "

you will see what you saw before in the echo, however it doesn't seem to affect the actual displayed prompt.

very interesting