Question

If I do this:

echo foo
PS1='\e[0;30mtest \e[0m'

and then presses the up arrow test PS1='\e[0;30mtest \e[0m' appears (as expected).
But if I press up arrow, so I should have echo foo, it results in test PS1='\e[0;3echo foo

If I set the PS1 to anything which doesn’t include color it works:

echo foo
PS1='\e[0;30mtest \e[0m'
PS1='test '

• triple press up arrow, results in echo foo

Note: echo foo is still the command executed if I press Enter

I have tried this in both iTerm2 and the apple Terminal.

Why is it doing that and how do I fix it?

Answer 1

Try this:

PS1="\[\e[0;30m\]test \[\e[0m\]"

By using extra \[ and \] brackets, you are telling bash that you’ve got some non-printing characters, which it may be misinterpreting when you press the up-arrow.