a command line question

I'm a little new at all of this. As such, there have been times when
I stray mistakenly from the # prompt on my terminal into some vague
areas on certain programs where all I get is something like this:

>

or I'll tap the Return key a few times and:

>
>
>
>
>

If I type "quit" or "exit" or hit <Esc> or hit every F key on at the
top of the board I still keep getting:

>

So what gives? In the final analysis I can only dissociate from that
">" prompt by just taking my mouse and clicking into the [X] button at
the upper right portion of the window, or Alt F4, to kill the program
entirely.

What I'm I supposed to type when presented with a

>

prompt in order to legitimately get something going in order to close
out er whatever? Thanks a lot for any assistance that you can
provide.

(No I'm not using perl. These are sometimes just the odd editor
program and the like.)

On Sat, 20 Dec 2003 22:26:43 -0800, Rob wrote:

> I'm a little new at all of this. As such, there have been times when I
> stray mistakenly from the # prompt on my terminal into some vague areas
> on certain programs where all I get is something like this:
>
>
> >
> or I'll tap the Return key a few times and:
>
>
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> If I type "quit" or "exit" or hit <Esc> or hit every F key on at the top
> of the board I still keep getting:
>
>
> >
> So what gives? In the final analysis I can only dissociate from that
> ">" prompt by just taking my mouse and clicking into the [X] button at
> the upper right portion of the window, or Alt F4, to kill the program
> entirely.
>
> What I'm I supposed to type when presented with a
>
>
> >
> prompt in order to legitimately get something going in order to close
> out er whatever? Thanks a lot for any assistance that you can provide.
>
> (No I'm not using perl. These are sometimes just the odd editor program
> and the like.)

Ctrl-C (Ctrl-D will also work).

bash, the shell, is waiting further instructions due to an incomplete
statement, and a Ctrl-C will abort the entire command that initiated the
">" prompt.

On 20 Dec 2003 22:26:43 -0800, Rob wrote:
> I'm a little new at all of this. As such, there have been times when
> I stray mistakenly from the # prompt on my terminal into some vague
> areas on certain programs where all I get is something like this:
>
> >
>
> or I'll tap the Return key a few times and:
>
> >

Can be caused because you have mismatched quotes. Try a ' or "
you pick by looking above the first >

Thank you both.

Rob wrote:
> I'm a little new at all of this. As such, there have been times when
> I stray mistakenly from the # prompt on my terminal into some vague
> areas on certain programs where all I get is something like this:
>
> >
[snip]
>
> So what gives?

You've started a shell command that /it/ (the shell) thinks is continued on the
next line. Finish the command or abort it, and you'll get back to the normal prompt.

Some hints:

1) Environment variable PS1 ($PS1) contains your normal prompt
You can set this to whatever makes sense for you, and export it.
Take a look at this example...

~ $

~ $ echo $PS1
\w \$

~ $ export PS1="Your wish is my command...:"

Your wish is my command...:echo "-->" $PS1 "<--"
--> Your wish is my command...: <--

Your wish is my command...:


2) Environment variable PS2 ($PS2) contains the line-continuation prompt
Like PS1, you can set this to whatever makes sense for you and export it.
Here's an example (continueing from above)

Your wish is my command...:echo $PS2
>

Your wish is my command...:export PS2="Please continue...: "

Your wish is my command...:if [ true ]
Please continue...: echo TRUE
Please continue...: fi
bash: syntax error near unexpected token `fi'

Your wish is my command...:

3) stty(1) will tell you what the various line editing characters are. On my
system, stty -a reports

~ $ stty -a
speed 38400 baud; rows 24; columns 80; line = 0;
intr = ^C; quit = ^\; erase = ^H; kill = ^U; eof = ^D; eol = <undef>;
eol2 = <undef>; start = ^Q; stop = ^S; susp = ^Z; rprnt = ^R; werase = ^W;
lnext = ^V; flush = ^O; min = 1; time = 0;
-parenb -parodd cs8 -hupcl -cstopb cread -clocal -crtscts
-ignbrk -brkint -ignpar -parmrk -inpck -istrip -inlcr -igncr icrnl ixon
-ixoff -iuclc -ixany -imaxbel
opost -olcuc -ocrnl onlcr -onocr -onlret -ofill -ofdel nl0 cr0 tab0 bs0 vt0
ff0 isig icanon iexten echo echoe echok -echonl -noflsh -xcase -tostop
-echoprt echoctl echoke

The "intr" line edit command is a ^C (control C), so

Your wish is my command...:if [ true ]
Please continue...: echo TRUE
Please continue...: ^C
Your wish is my command...:

--
Lew Pitcher

Master Codewright and JOAT-in-training
Registered Linux User #112576 (http://counter.li.org/)
Slackware - Because I know what I'm doing.

Lew, thank you. This helps further my understanding of what's going on.