Having just installed VScode I have noticed as it uses Bash by default on OSX, with the shell's default prompt of bash-3.2$; consequently, I cannot see the current working directory. It means having to type 'pwd' and 'ls' quite frequently which is obvious quite tedious.
I have tried changing the default shell in the settings to
"terminal.integrated.shell.osx": "/Applications/Utilities/Terminal.app"
or
"terminal.integrated.shell.osx": "/Applications/iTerm.app"
This doesn't seem to work, have I made a mistake here?
I would also like to know if I am limited to bash, can I configure it to display the working directory instead of simply bash-3.2$ ?
See this screenshot of how the VSCode integrated terminal looks by default
Thanks in advance!
I use Ubuntu, and only add the following lines to the end of ~/.bashrc:
if [ "$TERM_PROGRAM" = "vscode" ]; then
PS1='\$ '
fi
Try it and let me know if it works on your OS.
You can set your prompt to contain the current working directory by defining PS1 as follows:
PS1="\w $"
The $ is just some visual sugar. There all manner of things you can have your prompt display. Put the definition in your ~/.bashrc or ~/.profile for it to be set when you login.
Check out the Controlling the Prompt section of the GNU Bash manual for details.
If you are not accustomed to editing your bash init files you can do it with Visual Studio Code by going to View->Command Palette and execute the following command (one-time only):
Install 'Code' command in path
Then open the integrated terminal and type the following:
code ~/.bashrc
Then add the PS1 definition to the bottom of that file.
Hi I've recently installed zsh using cygwin on my Windows machince but when I type zsh to start this I get the following:
GG#GG-PC ~
$ zsh
\[\e]0;\w\a\]\n\[\e[32m\]\u#\h \[\e[33m\]\w\[\e[0m\]\n\$
On my mac I am using iTerm2 and this is so much easier to setup on here. Also I am having trouble in setting up the aliases and this is becauses its not setup properly in terms of config file where I can set this up in a separate file.
Any ideas how I can resolve?
It looks like zsh is inheriting the value of PS1 from the previous shell. The PS1 environment variable sets the shell prompt, and zsh used a different format for prompt substitutions than other shells. Try entering the following command after you start zsh:
PS1=$'%{\e]0;%d\a%}\n%F{green}%n#%m %F{yellow}%d%f\n%# '
If that works, add that line to your ~/.zshrc file.
That's also probably a good place to put your aliases.
There might be an issue because you launch zsh from bash actually and not cygwin.
One thing you can do is to launch zsh as the starting shell of mintty (the window that wraps your shell)
Create a shortcut with this inside:
c:\<cygwin-folder>\bin\mintty.exe -i /Cygwin-Terminal.ico /usr/bin/zsh --login -
Yo need to update .zshrc with your required theme and then
source .zshrc
I've used bash for two years, and just tried to switch to zsh shell on my OS X via homebrew. And I set my default (login) shell to zsh, and I confirmed it's set properly by seeing that when I launch my Terminal, it's zsh shell that is used in default.
However, when I try to enter bash shell from within zsh, it looks like not loading ~/.bash_profile, since I cannot run my command using aliases, which is defined in my ~/.bash_profile like alias julia="~/juila/julia", etc.. Also, the prompt is not what I set in the file and instead return bash-3.2$.
For some reasons, when I set my login shell to bash, and enter zsh from within bash, then ~/.zshrc is loaded properly.
So why is it not loaded whenever I run bash from within zsh? My ~/.bash_profile is symbolic linked to ~/Dropbox/.bash_profile in order to sync it with my other computers. Maybe does it cause the issue?
Open ~/.zshrc, and at the very bottom of the file, add the following:
if [ -f ~/.bash_profile ]; then
. ~/.bash_profile;
fi
Every time you open the terminal, it will load whatever is defined in ~/.bash_profile (if the file exist). With that, you can keep your custom settings for zsh (colors, and etc). And you get to keep your custom shell settings in .bash_profile file.
This is much cleaner than using bash -l IMO.
If you prefer putting your settings in .bashrc, or .bash_login, or .profile , you can do the same for them.
Similarly, you could also move the common profile settings to separate file, i.e. .my_common_profile, and add the following to both .bash_profile and .zshrc:
if [ -f ~/.my_common_profile ]; then
. ~/.my_common_profile;
fi
An interactive bash reads your ~/.bash_profile if it's a login shell, or your ~/.bashrc if it's not a login shell.
A typical .bash_profile will contain something like:
if [ -f ~/.bashrc ]; then . ~/.bashrc; fi
so .bashrc can contain commands to be executed by either login or non-login shells.
If you run bash -l rather than just bash, it should read your .bash_profile.
Reference: https://www.gnu.org/software/bash/manual/html_node/Bash-Startup-Files.html
For those who have just installed zsh and want their alias from bash to work on zsh do the following
Open .zshrc file in vim like so
vi ~/.zshrc
Scroll to the bottom
click "i" to enable write mode
Tell zsh to load items from bash_profile when needed like so
source ~/.bash_profile
Write and quit like so
:wq
Refresh your zsh like so
source ~/.zshrc
That's it. Now all your saved alias in .bash_profile will be ready to use in zsh.
To complement #Keith Thompson's excellent answer:
macOS:
As #chepner puts it succinctly (emphasis mine):
In OS X, bash is not used as part of the initial [at boot time] login process, and the Terminal.app (or other terminal emulators) process exists outside any pre-existing bash sessions, so each new window [or tab - read: interactive bash shell] (by default) treats itself as a new login session.
As a result, some OSX users only ever create ~/.bash_profile, and never bother with ~/.bashrc, because ALL interactive bash shells are login shells.
Linux:
On Linux, the situation is typically reversed:
bash shells created interactively are [interactive] NON-login shells, so it is ~/.bashrc that matters.
As a result, many Linux users only ever deal with ~/.bashrc.
To maintain bash profiles that work on BOTH platforms, use the technique #Keith Thompson mentions:
Put your definitions (aliases, functions, ...) in ~/.bashrc
Add the following line to ~/.bash_profile
[[ -f ~/.bashrc ]] && . ~/.bashrc
Copy the contents from ~/.bash_profile and paste them at the bottom of ~/.zshrc file.
For ZSH users on MacOs, I ended up with a one liner.
At the very bottom of the ~/.zshrc I added the following line :
bash -l
What it does is simply load the .bash_profile settings(aliases, function, export $PATH, ...)
If you decide to get rid of ZSH and go back to plain BASH, you'll be back to normal with no hassle at all.
If this is something that you do infrequently, or it just isn't appropriate to make changes, you can also 'source' the .bash_profile after launching the child bash shell.
. ~/.bash_profile
This will pull in the settings you make in the .bash_profile script for the life of that shell session. In most cases, you should be able to repeat that command, so it's also an easy way to test any changes that you make without needing to do a full login, as well as bring all of your existing shell sessions up-to-date if you make upgrades to the .bash_profile &/or .bashrc files.
For macOS Big Sur (Version 11.5.2)
Open .zshrc
For example: sudo nano ~/.zshrc
At the end of the file add source ~/.bash_profile
Every time you open the terminal the contents inside the bash profile will be loaded.
Recently I installed oh-my-zsh on OS X and set zsh as default shell and faced the same problem.
I solved this problem by adding source ~/.bash_profile at the end of .zshrc file.
I am using a zsh framework called oh my zsh and I have tried most of the solutions listed here and it broke the format for my custom theme. However, these steps worked for me.
Add new alias(es) at the bottom of my .bash_profile
vi ~/.bash_profile
Make zsh to load items from .bash_profile
source ~/.bash_profile
Refresh zsh
source ~/.zshrc
Restart OSX Terminal app
Try your new alias!
If you'd like to be "profile-centric", you can create .profile as a single source of truth, then load it from both .bash_profile and .zprofile.
.profile
export PATH="/usr/local/opt/python/libexec/bin:$PATH"
# etc., etc.
.bash_profile and .zprofile
if [ -f ~/.profile ]; then
. ~/.profile;
fi
I found this helped bash scripts find the right PATH, etc., and helped me keep configuration in one place.
to use lilypond from the command line, you are supposed to make a script, chmod it, and put its location on the PATH (see right-hand column here). you are supposed to use .profile for the PATH change, but that didn't work for me, so i used .bash_profile.
that worked (why didn't .profile work? and should i prefer .bashrc?), but which lilypond doesn't see the script, and i assume the reason is the same reason i can't see it with findExecutable in haskell's System.Directory.
is this so, and how do i fix it?
Bash doesn't expand ~ inside double quotes. Use export PATH=~/bin:"$PATH" instead.
If both ~/.bash_profile and ~/.profile exist, Bash only reads ~/.bash_profile when invoked as an interactive login shell. Terminal and iTerm 2 open new shells as login shells, so Bash reads ~/.bash_profile but not ~/.bashrc. See http://www.gnu.org/software/bash/manual/html_node/Bash-Startup-Files.html.
I installed emacs in ubuntu (using sudo apt-get install emacs). I am havine the problem that when I try to run a shell command from within emacs (for example M-! ls) the output is preceded by this:
bash: cannot set terminal process group (-1): Invalid argument
bash: no job control in this shell
In my .emacs I have the option (setq shell-command-switch "-ic") . This is so that I can presumably use my aliases as well as commands. This has not given me issues at work and it lets me use my aliases. How can I use my aliases but avoid this problem?
I guess that by setting your shell-command-switch like that, you are executing code paths in your .profile or system profile which depend on job control in shells.
I would fix this error by defining the aliases you need in the correct code paths so that that appear in shells which are not started with -i
You could try to swap -i with --rcfile .aliases or something similar so that alias in emacs does not differ from alias in your login shells. If your .bashrc has important stuff for your work, create a file like .bashrc.emacs with the content
source .bashrc
source .aliases
and point to that file with --rcfile .bashrc.emacs in your (setq) instruction.
Where did you define your aliases? Ubuntus .bashrc reads .bash_aliases and that should happen also to non-interactive shells.