What's the newline symbol in zsh's PS1?

Question

I'm trying to setup a multiple line PS1, for zsh, but \n doesn't was parsed by zsh,

PS1="%~\n %> "

How should I set it up?

score 97 · Answer 1 · edited Apr 24 '14 at 14:15

97

Use $'\n'

For example,

PROMPT="firstline"$'\n'"secondline "

or

NEWLINE=$'\n'
PROMPT="firstline${NEWLINE}secondline "

edited Apr 24 '14 at 14:15

Anthon

79,293

answered Apr 24 '14 at 13:42

n5c

1,071

1

Worked just like I needed it too. – Justin May 12 '15 at 17:09
6

using NEWLINE makes it a lot easier to edit the prompt – cmcginty Dec 12 '15 at 03:20
2

What's the difference between PS1 and PROMPT variable? – Didier A. Feb 26 '16 at 02:26
3

@DidierA. PROMPT, and PROMPT2-4 are aliases of PS1-4 respectively, except that the PROMPT aliases "[do] not exist when the shell initializes in sh or ksh emulation mode." – Victor Oct 27 '17 at 10:43
Awesome. That works. Thanks a lot, buddy. – JavaRunner Jun 01 '20 at 17:35

score 33 · Answer 2 · answered Nov 04 '12 at 04:21

33

PS1="firstline
secondline "

or

PS1=$'Hi Joe,\nwhat now?%# '

Taken from FAQ, item 3.13

answered Nov 04 '12 at 04:21

int

574

2

This can cause problem. See the link. https://superuser.com/questions/382503/how-can-i-put-a-newline-in-my-zsh-prompt-without-causing-terminal-redraw-issues – kirin Feb 02 '19 at 13:33

score 3 · Answer 3 · answered Mar 15 '19 at 22:58

I know this is an old question, but I was looking for this as well. If you load prompinit (autoload -Uz promptinit && promptinit) you get the option for free: $prompt_newline which is $'\n%{\r%}'.

On a Debian system you can find the source code in /usr/share/zsh/functions/Prompts/promptinit and/or https://github.com/zsh-users/zsh/blob/master/Functions/Prompts/promptinit

score 3 · Answer 4 · answered Nov 04 '12 at 04:17

3

Like this (I know, looks awkward):

PS1="%~
 %> "

answered Nov 04 '12 at 04:17

Emanuel Berg

6,903
8
44
65

What's the newline symbol in zsh's PS1?

4 Answers4

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