Bash prompt not recognizing variables

Question

I'm customizing my bash prompt (I use iTerm on OS X Lion), and have tried something like:

PS1='\n[\u]-> '

Just for simplicity, but after reloading my ~/.bash_profile, my prompt now says:

\n[\u]->

and not what I'm expecting to (a new line, followed by my username).

Any ideas?

Answer 1

How is the shell being invoked? If it's as sh, or possibly other ways, it won't be interpreted. Try echo $0

Answer 2

Notice the single quotes in your prompt? Bash syntax treats single and double quotes differently. Use double quotes to allow the shell to expand the special chars.

Also, do you have promptvars set?

Answer 3

Try replacing the single quotes with double quotes, i.e. PS1="\n[\u]-> ".