Hack 36. Display output of any command in the prompt

You can display output of any Linux command in the prompt. The following example displays three items separated by | (pipe) in the command prompt:

  • \!: The history number of the command
  • \h: hostname
  • $kernel_version: The output of the uname -r command from $kernel_version variable
  • \$?: Status of the last command
ramesh@dev-db ~> kernel_version=$(uname -r)

ramesh@dev-db ~> export PS1="\!|\h|$kernel_version|\$?> "

473|dev-db|2.6.25-14.fc9.i686|0>