I am trying to have the ksh prompt display the current working directory WITHOUT displaying all the directories above it. I checked online, and everywhere it says I should use ${PWD##*/}, so in both my .profile and .kshrc, i added this:

PS1="${PWD##*/} $ "
export PS1

i then used . .kshrc and . .profile, but noticed that it only displayed my home folder, and when I would change folders, it still displayed that same home folder. What could the problem be?

IOW, if my home folder (where my .profile and .kshrc are) was "home", the prompt looks like:

home $

but when I switch to a different directory, the prompt is still:

home $


Thanks for any help.

I don't have an answer, just a question:
Why are you using ksh rather than bash?

Your chances of getting help with bash
would dramatically increase ;)

Cheers,
Tink

You need the $ sign directly in front of the PWD something like this:

PS1=`logname`@`hostname -s`:'$PWD>'

Your Korn shell will resemble this:

whoami@hostname:current working directory>