Unix Programming - How can you recognize a shell (C / Korn / Bourne) just by looking at the prompt?

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How can you recognize a shell (C / Korn / Bourne) just by looking at the prompt?

Total Answers and Comments: 6

Last Update: January 15, 2008 Asked by: sreedevichandran

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June 21, 2007 08:59:29

Gopi K

RE: How can you recognize a shell (C / Korn / Bourne) ...

C shell - @
Bourne - %
Ksh - $

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June 22, 2007 10:00:06

sreedevichandran

Member Since: June 2007 Contribution: 2

RE: How can you recognize a shell (C / Korn / Bourne) ...

Hi gopi
Thanks for your response
I know the answer which u have mentioned here but we can also change the command prompt using the chsh command ,at this point, again this becomes a question?

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July 13, 2007 00:05:01

Pruthvi

RE: How can you recognize a shell (C / Korn / Bourne) ...

Hi

If we type any not existed command then the shell tell you that the command is not existed along with the shell name

Ex:
$ hello
then it says
bash:command not found
means that you are working with bash shell

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August 08, 2007 03:21:01

Rakesh

RE: How can you recognize a shell (C / Korn / Bourne) ...

echo $SHELL will give you the shell name as well as the path.

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January 06, 2008 05:23:51

nareshbhatm

Member Since: January 2008 Contribution: 2

RE: How can you recognize a shell (C / Korn / Bourne) just by looking at the prompt?

$echo $SHELL

/bin/ksh

$csh

% echo $SHELL

/bin/ksh

% hello

hello: Command not found.

-->> The variable $SHELL doesn't show the shell when I changed the shel from ksh to csh

-->> Even trying to execute a non shell command (like hello) didn't tell the name of the shell as you can see here above.

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January 15, 2008 01:49:06

jana05

Member Since: January 2008 Contribution: 26

RE: How can you recognize a shell (C / Korn / Bourne) just by looking at the prompt?

I dont think so just by looking at the prompt one can recognize the shell [inputs pls, if otherwise], however you can run small commands to get the shell that you are using
ps -p $$

should be your answer.

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