cd -L ????

[vickey_20]

I was reading the man page cd and found this option confusing or rather I did even get anything of wat it meant.

[i92guboj]

-L means that symlinks will not be resolved *before* changing the directory. That in turn mean that if you cd into a symlink to a directory your prompt will show the path you cd'd into. On the contrary, if you use -P instead, the prompt will tell you the real location, and not the symlink one.

This has some implications. If you use "cd -L .." when cd'ed into a symlink to a directory it will take you to the directory where the symlink lives. If you use -P in this same case it will take you to the parent directory of the dir where the link resolves. Maybe an example here could help:

┌─(17:28:26)-(i92guboj@jesgue)-(~/discos)
└─[19]-SHLVL: 4-> $ cd conceptronicA1
┌─(17:28:29)-(i92guboj@jesgue)-(~/discos/conceptronicA1)
└─[20]-SHLVL: 4-> $ cd -P ..
┌─(17:28:34)-(i92guboj@jesgue)-(/mnt)
└─[21]-SHLVL: 4-> $ cd
┌─(17:29:47)-(i92guboj@jesgue)-(~)
└─[22]-SHLVL: 4-> $ cd discos/
┌─(17:29:48)-(i92guboj@jesgue)-(~/discos)
└─[23]-SHLVL: 4-> $ cd -P conceptronicA1
┌─(17:29:53)-(i92guboj@jesgue)-(/mnt/conceptronicA1)
└─[24]-SHLVL: 4-> $

[vickey_20]

Hey thanks for replying. Your prompt looks awesome though it confused me in the beginning. I understood some part of the code but could you please use the -L option as it would make things much easier to understand.

[i92guboj]

-L is the default behavior, that's why I didn't use it. If you don't use -P then you can assume that you are using -L.

[vickey_20]

and can u please tell me how to set my prompt like the one you have set. Have you changed the value of PS1???

[i92guboj]

Yes. Put this into your ~/.bashrc and ~/.bash_profile files:

# Colors
RED="\[\033[1;31m\]"
GREEN="\[\033[1;32m\]"
YELLOW="\[\033[1;33m\]"
BLUE="\[\033[1;34m\]"
PINK="\[\033[1;35m\]"
CYAN="\[\033[1;36m\]"
WHITE="\[\033[1;37m\]"
NC="\[\033[0m\]"
top="\[\033)0\016\]\[\]lq\[\017\033(B\]"
bottom="\[\033)0\016\]\[\]mq\[\017\033(B\]"

# Prompt
if [[ "$TERM" = "linux" ]] ; then
  # we are on the system console : no fancy characters allowed 
  if [[ ${EUID} == 0 ]]
  then
    # we are root 
    PS1="-${RED}(${CYAN}\t${RED})${NC}-${RED}(\u@\H)${NC}-${RED}(${BLUE}\w${RED})${NC}\n+${pink}[\#]${NC}-> # "
  else
    # we are not root 
    PS1="-${RED}(${CYAN}\t${RED})${NC}-${RED}(${GREEN}\u@\H${RED})${NC}-${RED}(${BLUE}\w${RED})${NC}\n+${pink}[\#]${NC}-> $ "
  fi  
else
  # not on the system console, fancy chars allowed 
  if [[ ${EUID} == 0 ]]
  then
    # we are root 
    PS1="${top}${RED}(${CYAN}\t${RED})${NC}-${RED}(\u@\H)${NC}-${RED}(${BLUE}\w${RED})${NC}\n${bottom}${pink}[\#]${NC}-> # "
  else
    # we are not root 
    PS1="${top}${RED}(${CYAN}\t${RED})${NC}-${RED}(${GREEN}\u@\H${RED})${NC}-${RED}(${BLUE}\w${RED})${NC}\n${bottom}${pink}[\#]${NC}-SHLVL: $SHLVL-> $ "
  fi
fi

[vickey_20]

thanks