> I strongly recommend against putting a ">" in your prompt on Unix ... Another reason against using ">" in the definition of PS1 is that this is a typical cha

> I strongly recommend against putting a ">" in your prompt on Unix ... Another reason against using ">" in the definition of PS1 is that this is a typical character used in the definition of PS2[0]. > The :; has the advantage that, if you unintentionally include the prompt in your copy and paste, it usually has no effect. This is because colon (':') has a specific definition in POSIX shells[1], which is: Do nothing beyond expanding arguments and performing redirections. The return status is zero. Note that "performing redirections" can result in destructive file operations. 0 - https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/193659/in-which-situations-are-ps2-ps3-ps4-used-as-the-prompt https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/193659/in-which-sit... 1 - https://www.gnu.org/software/bash/manual/html_node/Bourne-Shell-Builtins.html https://www.gnu.org/software/bash/manual/html_node/Bourne-Sh...