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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: 0.338s | source
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jandrese ◴[17 Mar 21 15:32 UTC] No.26492618[source]▶
This seems to be more of "don't paste garbage into a terminal, especially as root." With a sidenote that it might be safer if your custom application command interpreter didn't use > as the prompt character. I note that Bourne shell defaults to the safer % and # characters for the prompt. The # character for root is especially safe.
replies(6): >>26492739 #>>26492951 #>>26494723 #>>26499063 #>>26499191 #>>26501459 #
rcarmo ◴[17 Mar 21 15:42 UTC] No.26492739[source]▶
Yeah. About the only relevant bit is that root prompts tend to use # as part of their prompt precisely to inject a comment character in case of mis-quotes/pastes.
replies(2): >>26492855 #>>26496214 #
minitoar ◴[17 Mar 21 15:51 UTC] No.26492855[source]▶
Wow I never heard that! I always thought it was just some arbitrary convention I guess.
replies(4): >>26494208 #>>26494966 #>>26494988 #>>26498663 #
1. Aeolun ◴[18 Mar 21 00:55 UTC] No.26498663[source]▶
Potentially, but I can pretty much guarantee that someone working on any shell has run into this problem before, and then decided not to change the # because it was so damned convenient for preventing mispastes.