Getting prompt to "expand" symbolic links?

[scootermaster]

So, I have some links on my unix install, and my .bashrc has something like this that I lifted from the Internet:


function fastprompt()
{
unset PROMPT_COMMAND
case $TERM in
*term | rxvt )
# PS1="${HILIT}[\h:$NC\w] \[\033]0;\${TERM} [\u@\h] \w\007\]" ;;
PS1='[\u $(pwd)] ';;

linux )
PS1="${HILIT}[\h:$NC \w] " ;;
*)
PS1="[\h:\w] " ;;
esac
}

The problem is, my prompt then gets things like [server: /home/Link To Directory/here] which isn't great when your whole Linux install is actually a VMWare machine, and what you're linking to is a Dropbox directory on your host directory. I also [mistakenly] had dropbox running on the VMware image, and I literally had to put "FINDME" files in various directories to figure out where the hell I was and to figure out what was dropbox syncing with what.

Anyway, that stupidity has been fixed, but I'd still like my prompt to show the real path. I have a solution for a "real" Linux box, but that's using .csh is a lot clunkier than
\w and I don't know how to port it to bash (it involves setting a variable every time you call "cd", and then displaying that in the prompt, I think or something).

Any ideas?

 

[Khyron320]

Doesn't pwd - P resolve links and display it to stdout

 

[scootermaster]

Doesn't pwd - P resolve links and display it to stdout

Yes, yes it does. So how do I get that in my prompt?

 

[Khyron320]

Add this in. 1st is my favorite tool. My history is appended one every single command. So if i lose power or somehow kick out of the box without a proper exit i dont lose command history. Also when you run say 7 screen sessions the history is shared this way.

Second i just added PWD=`pwd -P` to the front of my PROMPT_COMMAND. I believe some scripts rely on $PWD for running directories. Not quite sure if this will break things. If you run into issues. Comment it out.

Also

source ~/.bashrc

will reload your settings

shopt -s histappend
PROMPT_COMMAND='PWD=`pwd -P`;echo -ne "\033]0;${USER}@${HOSTNAME%%.*}:${PWD/#$HOME/~}"; echo -ne "\007"'
PROMPT_COMMAND="$PROMPT_COMMAND;history -a"