Strange behavior with PS1 prompt

[Cameron Simpson]

On 18Oct2009 00:44, Petrus de Calguarium <kwhiskerz at gmail.com> wrote:
| Todd wrote:
| > The \[ and \] begin and end a series of non-printable
| > characters. This tells bash not to count those
| > characters when determining the length of the
| > prompt. So the color escape sequences are wrapped
| > in \[ and \].
| By Jove, you are right! No wonder I have seen the 
| problem on and off over the years! I just tested this 
| solution and it appears to work!
| 
| Cameron Simpson wrote:
| > This is all beautiful, but I think you need to use 
| > single quotes instead of doubles.
| So far, it appears that double quotes work.

\x inside double quotes remains ok if "x" isn't a special character,
but ${PWD} will definitely be expanded at assignment time instead of
"display the prompt" time. Try the double quoted thing and then cd
somewhere else and see how it behaves to check this.

Generally, since inside double quotes \\ means just \, and \$ means $
and so forth, you should _always_ use single quotes unless you want
sloshing and parameter substituion to be interpreted. Safer, more
reliable.

Cheers,
-- 
Cameron Simpson <cs at zip.com.au> DoD#743
http://www.cskk.ezoshosting.com/cs/

... and I say to them,
   `Where the hell were you
    when the page was blank?'
                Harlan Ellison