Re: [TUHS] Origins of shell prompt suffixes % $ > #

The early shells (Thompson, Mashey) used "% " for regular user (and # for root). The Thompson shell didn't have a setable prompt. The Bourne shell (V7) had setable PS1 (start of command) and PS2 (continuation prompts) and set the to "$ " and "> " respectively. Again # was used for root. -----Original Message----- From: TUHS <tuhs-bounces(a)minnie.tuhs.org> On Behalf Of Brian Zick Sent: Monday, August 6, 2018 4:54 PM To: tuhs(a)minnie.tuhs.org Subject: [TUHS] Origins of shell prompt suffixes % $ > # Hi, I usually just lurk on this list, but I've been curious lately about the origin of the symbols at the end of various interactive prompts. ksh (etc), bash, sh use $ for non-root, and # for root csh, tcsh and zsh use % for non-root and # for root fish and things like mysql, ftp, and interactive shells for a lot of scripting languages use > rc uses ; Where do these different conventions originate? B