Bash prompt line wrapping issue

Question

Newbie question, I recently changed my PS1 into this:

RESET=\"\\[\\017\\]\"
NORMAL=\"\\[\\033[0m\\]\"
YELLOW=\"\\[\\033[0;33m\\]\"
CYAN=\"\\[\\033[0;36m\\]\"         


        

Answer 1

The wrapping error occurs whenever a non-printing character is not escaped (such as the escape codes that change the prompt color). It also occurs when the locale is set to something that does not understand unicode characters and the prompt includes them. An example would be non-breaking spaces. When the locale is "C" and there are unicode characters in the prompt, the shell thinks more characters are being printed than truly are, and the prompt wraps around prematurely.