[ILUG] return codes

[John P. Looney]

On Tue, Mar 07, 2000 at 10:40:29AM -0000, Aaron McDaid mentioned:
> i don't know if this has already been solved but!:
> PS1='$?'
> as opposed to PS1=$?
> you can do all sorts of cool stuff in the PS1 including backticks - so you
> could have it execute an arbitrary command each time and use the output as
> the prompt, but you would have to do PS1='`command`'

 Oh right. I didn't know backticks worked. Kick ass. 

> the important thing is to check the environment variable (using the "set"
> built in command)
> 
> the outer pair of ticks are to make sure that the inner pair actually get
> put into the environment variable
> 
> Nice idea, must use if myself. I spent sometime on saturday putting
> different colours into different parts of my PS1 !

 Heh. Well, if I'm using an xterm, my PS1 has the username, host & pwd in
the title bar of the xterm. It then has the username/host/pwd above the
prompt, and the date beside it (sorta rasterman style). Now it has the
return code there too;

|    jplooney : xena : ~/| Tue Mar  7 11:01:12  
xena [1]  

 The little bit between the '|' symbols is red on white, for clearness.

Kate

-- 
"The fool must be beaten with a stick, for an intelligent person 
the merest hint is sufficient"                -- Zen Master Greg