Question

The shell has ____ prompts.

(a) 1

(b) 4

(c) many

(d) 2

The question was posed to me during an interview.

The origin of the question is Shell Variables topic in section Customizing the Environment & More File Attributes of Unix

Answer 1

Correct answer is (d) 2

Explanation: The shell has two prompts (PS1 and PS2). The primary prompt string PS1 is the one we normally see i.e. ($). The > is the secondary prompt stored in PS2 which is used by the shell while responding to a multiline command.