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Do not use redirection characters in your shell prompt

(tanelpoder.com)
217 points tanelpoder | 1 comments | 17 Mar 21 14:38 UTC | HN request time: 0.204s | source
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teddyh ◴[17 Mar 21 17:28 UTC] No.26494310[source]▶
When I moved from DOS to Unix, I quickly got used to the default prompt of "$" instead of DOS’s default ">". Whenever I see ">" in someone’s custom prompt I assume they are DOS or Windows people who couldn’t get used to change when they started using Unix-like systems.

(This is how normal DOS and Unix command prompts looked, for reference:)

    C:\DOS> chkdsk c:

    server$ vmstat
replies(3): >>26495376 #>>26496080 #>>26498505 #
1. ben0x539 ◴[17 Mar 21 19:57 UTC] No.26496080[source]▶
">" prompts aren't that uncommon outside of DOS, though

    $ telnet
    telnet> 

    $ irb
    irb(main):001:0>

    $ echo look at me i'm an unterminated string
    >
I guess python's ">>>" prompt is more robust against accidentally being interpreted as a redirection, at least.