The tip "Changing your Command Prompt (the PS1 shell variable)" showed how to customize the command prompt by redefining the PS1 shell variable.  The example used for this tip demonstrated how you could add your username and the hostname to the prompt.

Another desirable command prompt customization is to display the current directory (also known as the working directory) as part of the prompt.  When the cd command is used to change to another directory, the prompt should automatically be updated to reflect the change.

This functionality can be achieved by defining PS1 as follows:

export PS1=[${LOGNAME}@$(hostname)]'$PWD>'

Similar to the first tip on the PS1 variable, the username and hostname have also been included in this example.

Taking this new definition for a test drive illustrates how it is updated each time the cd command is executed:

$ pwd
/export/home/livefire
$ export PS1=[${LOGNAME}@$(hostname)]'$PWD>'
[livefire@hawk]/export/home/livefire>cd /tmp
[livefire@hawk]/tmp>cd /usr/bin
[livefire@hawk]/usr/bin>cd ..
[livefire@hawk]/usr>cd
[livefire@hawk]/export/home/livefire>

Notice that using cd with no arguments is a quick way to return to your home directory.  Over time you will discover how useful this feature is.