Customizing the command line prompt in Mac OS X
You may have noticed that many Linux based machines has colored output for the ls command by default whereas Mac OS X based machines do not.
[edit] 1 Setting your terminal type in Terminal
If you are using Terminal on a Mac OS X computer you will have to set you terminal type. Select "Preferences..." from the Terminal menu and set the "Declare terminal type ($TERM) as:" option to xterm-color.
Restart your terminal to have this setting take effect.
[edit] 2 Creating the color and prompt settings
Open or create ~/.bash_profile (perhaps with nano) and adding these lines:
export CLICOLOR=1 export LSCOLORS=ExFxCxDxBxegedabagacad
This will make directories blue and executables bold (see Unix file permissions).
You can also edit your shell prompt to make it stand out more. That's the little bit of text on the command line that appear before where you type. If you add this line to your ~/.bash_profile you can get the same prompt you get on Oceanus:
PS1="\[\033[01;32m\]\u@\h\[\033[01;34m\] \w \$\[\033[00m\] "
Your prompt will be bold and look like this (if you use a black background like me):
ajohnson@oceanus ~/databases $
The first part stands for your username and the machine you are on, the second part is the 24 hour based time, and the last part contains your current directory. (See pwd.)
If you want the time included in your prompt, use this in your ~/.bash_profile:
PS1="\[\033[01;32m\]\u@\h \[\033[01;33m\]\t \[\033[01;34m\]\w \$\[\033[00m\] "
This prompt includes the twenty four hour based time:
ajohnson@oceanus 13:07:18 ~/databases $
After you have changed your ~/.bash_profile, you will either have to restart your terminal or type:
source ~/.bash_profile
[edit] 3 References
- Tip: Prompt magic (Enhancing the system prompt) -- An in depth tutorial of customizing the text and colors of the prompt
- Color Your OS X Command Prompt