Hello everybody,

I have noticed a strange thing with colored prompts in bash:
they reduce the length of input lines. AFAIK, an input line
normally consists of 80 characters. As soon as I make PS1
colored (e.g., like PS1='\033[1;33m\h:\W$\033[0m ') the line
reduces to less than 70 characters.

Does this happen to you? Can this be fixed? Configuration
HOWTO keeps silence on the subject :-/

Regards,
Mikhail

muxaul@lenta.ru (Mikhail Zotov) wrote:
>Hello everybody,
>
>I have noticed a strange thing with colored prompts in bash:
>they reduce the length of input lines. AFAIK, an input line
>normally consists of 80 characters. As soon as I make PS1
>colored (e.g., like PS1='\033[1;33m\h:\W$\033[0m ') the line
>reduces to less than 70 characters.

Well... look at all the added characters you have! Even though
they are not printable characters, '\033[1;33m' sends 7 characters,
and '\033[0m' sends for, so you are down to 69 on a line.

>Does this happen to you? Can this be fixed? Configuration
>HOWTO keeps silence on the subject :-/

See the Bash-Prompt-HOWTO, which will show that what you want
is

PS1='\[\033[1;33m\]\h:\W$\[\033[0m\] ')

Where the escaped square brackets cause the enclosed text not to
be counted.

--
FloydL. Davidson <http://web.newsguy.com/floyd_davidson>
Ukpeagvik (Barrow, Alaska) floyd@barrow.com

Floyd L. Davidson wrote:
> muxaul@lenta.ru (Mikhail Zotov) wrote:
>>normally consists of 80 characters. As soon as I make PS1
>>colored (e.g., like PS1='\033[1;33m\h:\W$\033[0m ') the line
>>reduces to less than 70 characters.
>
> Well... look at all the added characters you have! Even though
> they are not printable characters, '\033[1;33m' sends 7 characters,
> and '\033[0m' sends for, so you are down to 69 on a line.

so *that's* what's wrong! man, this annoyed the heck out of me for i don't
know how long!

--
Joost Kremers joostkremers@yahoo.com
Selbst in die Unterwelt dringt durch Spalten Licht
EN:SiS(9)

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_.-In alt.os.linux.slackware, Floyd L. Davidson wrote the following -._
> Well... look at all the added characters you have! Even though
> they are not printable characters, '\033[1;33m' sends 7 characters,
> and '\033[0m' sends for, so you are down to 69 on a line.
<snip>
> See the Bash-Prompt-HOWTO, which will show that what you want
> is
>
> PS1='\[\033[1;33m\]\h:\W$\[\033[0m\] ')

Exactly. Another option which works is to add a new line at the end
of the prompt. Which is how I fixed the issue.

PS1="\e[0;36m+\e[1;36m-(\e[0;36m\u@\e[0;36m\h\e[1;36m)-(\e[0;36m\#/\e[0;36m\l\e[1;36m)-(\e[0;36m\t:\e[0;36m\d\e[1;36m)-\n\e[0;36m+\e[1;36m-(\e[0;36m\$:\e[0;36m\w\e[1;36m)-\e[0;0m\n"

- --
.-')) http://asciipr0n.com/fp ('-. | It's a damn poor mind that
' ..- .:" ) ( ":. -.. ' | can only think of one way to
((,,_;'.;' UIN=66618055 ';. ';_,,)) | spell a word.
((_.YIM=Faux_Pseudo :._)) | - Andrew Jackson
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floyd@barrow.com (Floyd L. Davidson) wrote in message news:<87y8i9tfzr.fld@barrow.com>...
> muxaul@lenta.ru (Mikhail Zotov) wrote:
> >Hello everybody,
> >
> >I have noticed a strange thing with colored prompts in bash:
> >they reduce the length of input lines. AFAIK, an input line
> >normally consists of 80 characters. As soon as I make PS1
> >colored (e.g., like PS1='\033[1;33m\h:\W$\033[0m ') the line
> >reduces to less than 70 characters.
>
> Well... look at all the added characters you have! Even though
> they are not printable characters, '\033[1;33m' sends 7 characters,
> and '\033[0m' sends for, so you are down to 69 on a line.
>
> >Does this happen to you? Can this be fixed? Configuration
> >HOWTO keeps silence on the subject :-/
>
> See the Bash-Prompt-HOWTO, which will show that what you want
> is
>
> PS1='\[\033[1;33m\]\h:\W$\[\033[0m\] '
>
> Where the escaped square brackets cause the enclosed text not to
> be counted.

Superb! Thanks a lot!!

Regards,
Mikhail