Secondary Prompt String

$PS2 defines the secondary prompt string of your shell. It’s used for line continuations. Only shells running in interactive mode use it.

Links

• Bash manual
• Bash manual on “Controlling the Prompt”
• POSIX specification

Examples

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# Bash: lines, which continue a previous line, are prefixed with ">> "
# Enter `echo \` followed by enter in an interactive shell to see it 
export PS2=">> "