Hack 39. Display multiple colors in the prompt

by Ramesh

You can also display multiple colors in the same prompt. Add the following function to your ~/.bash_profile

function prompt {
  local BLUE="\[\033[0;34m\]"
  local DARK_BLUE="\[\033[1;34m\]”
  local RED=”\[\033[0;31m\]”
  local DARK_RED=”\[\033[1;31m\]”
  local NO_COLOR=”\[\033[0m\]”
  case $TERM in
    xterm*|rxvt*)
      TITLEBAR=’\[\033]0;\u@\h:\w\007\]’
      ;;
    *)
      TITLEBAR=”"
      ;;
  esac
  PS1=”\u@\h [\t]> ”
  PS1=”${TITLEBAR}\
  $BLUE\u@\h $RED[\t]>$NO_COLOR ”
  PS2=’continue-> ‘
  PS4=’$0.$LINENO+ ‘
}

You can re-login for the changes to take effect or source the .bash_profile as shown below.

$. ./.bash_profile
 
$ prompt
 
ramesh@dev-db [13:02:13]>