On Mon, 1 Aug 2011, Ken Bloom wrote: > [bloom at zuni dtaa]$ echo $PS1 > [\u@\h \W]\$ This is a known bug with how the \W special character parses the directory string in certain versions of bash on certain OSes. Here's the bug (and fix) thread: http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-bash/2011-02/msg00101.html