Special characters in prompt variables changed?-CodePudding

I'm currently trying to learn more about CLI with my new Macbook Pro M1 and try to customize my promt.

In my home directory it is showing:

johndoe@Johns-MacBook-Pro ~ %

in order to find out more about this prompt, I've typed:

echo $PS1  
// output: %n@%m %1~ %#

The variables n and m do not fit the explanation found online: https://www.howtogeek.com/307701/how-to-customize-and-colorize-your-bash-prompt/

As they refer to a list of following env variables:

\h = Hostname
\u = User name
\w = Current directory
\W = Basename of current directory
\d = Current date
\n = Newline
...

According to these source, this command:

PS1="\u:\w\$ "

should lead to following prompt:

user:working_directory$

It seems the variables have changed and so did the character from \ to %. And unfortunately I can not find any information about the new variables.

Does anybody know more about it or has a link to an explanation?

CodePudding user response：

You're using zsh, not bash. Description of prompt sequences is explained in zshmisc(1) (type man 1 zshmisc too see it). For reference, it says:

   %n     $USERNAME.
   %m     The hostname up to the first `.'.  An integer may follow the `%'
          to  specify  how  many  components  of the hostname are desired.
          With a negative integer, trailing components of the hostname are
          shown.
   %~     As  %d  and %/, but if the current working directory starts with
          $HOME, that part is replaced by a `~'. Furthermore, if it has  a
          named  directory  as  its prefix, that part is replaced by a `~'
          followed by the name of the directory, but only if the result is
          shorter  than the full path; see Dynamic and Static named direc‐
          tories in zshexpn(1).