I'm trying to change a few things in my profile for bash. I've been told that the following files affect everyone...

/etc/bashrc
/etc/profile

I've also been told that the following files are run out of each individual's home directory and that they have an affect on only that individual...

~/.bashrc
~/.bash_profile
~/.bash_login

Now, I wanted to change my prompt initally, but there are other things I want to do in the future. I wasn't even able to change the prompt, though. I added the following lines to my ~/.bashrc file first...

PROMPT="[\u | "'$PWD'"] "
export PROMPT

This didn't do the trick. Therefore, I assumed that the ~/.bashrc file was not being called. I was told that it was called from the ~/.bash_profile file via the $BASH_ENV variable. So, I added the following lines to my ~/.bash_profile file...

BASH_ENV="$HOME/.bashrc"
export BASH_ENV

This still doesn't work. In fact, no changes I make to any of the bash-related files in my home directory seem to make a difference. I looked through the files in /etc that I listed above and none of them appear to actually set the $PROMPT variable. They use it in some conditionals, but never actually set it that I see.

What am I missing here? Is there another file or two that I don't know about or is the hierarchy different than I was told or what?

I looked through the files in /etc that I listed above and none of them appear to actually set the $PROMPT variable.
Try looking for "PS1".

try putting:

source ~/.bashrc

in your ~/.bash_profile that should 'call' the file and activate aliases, etc...

~/.bashrc is the file that is edited for changes for a single user, but you first have to exit the shell you are in before any changes will take effect.

or simply source ~/.bashrc at the command line.
adding source ~/.bashrc to the .bash_profile will do it each time a new shell is opened.

and yeah this is just for a single user.

As Unspawn mentioned, its Prompt String 1 you need to set in:

~/.bashrc

ie

PS1=”\u \w $”

check out the PS1 options for further "tuning".

Alrighty, I did what you guys said, and it's working now. I was just being a moron and was using PROMPT instead of PS1 and PS2. I knew better, but just forgot. Thanks a bunch for the help!

I have a new question, though... Which of the files is run when you log in (not every new shell, but when you actually log in) and which when you log out (again, not the closing of each shell, but when you actually log out)? I ask because I would like to have the login script kill my VNC server if it's running and have the logout script start it back up.

Login=(if they exist) /etc/profile, ~/.bash_profile, ~/.bash_login, and ~/.profile in that order.
Logout=~/.bash_logout

Check the man page under Invocation to make sure. All this stuff is in there. I think if you invoke a shell as a login it will run ~/.bash_logout on exit even if it isn't your initial login shell, but I'm not sure how to avoid that. If it's just an interactive shell, it'll read ~/.bashrc going in and ignore ~/.bash_logout going out.