CODEWITHSUNDEEP
macosterminal
User 17670
User 17670

Reputation: 243

How can I add a vertical space in 'Terminal' after each command?

I've just started using Terminal (the CLI for Mac OS X).

When I run a command, get some information back, run another command, get more info etc., it is hard (on the eyes) to find a certain point on the screen (e.g. the output for the command before last).

Is there a way of adding a vertical empty space to the end of each output/ after each command is run that has no output?

Upvotes: 7

Views: 7300

Answers (4)

Benjamin W.
Benjamin W.

Reputation: 52291

If you use Bash 4.4 and you want a blank line after your prompt, you could set the PS0 prompt to a newline:

PS0="\n"

Now, this will be inserted every time you run a command:

$ echo "Hello"

Hello

Upvotes: 1

Joel Balmer
Joel Balmer

Reputation: 1479

I wanted to solve exactly the same, and for anyone interested in doing the same, I used what tripleee said in his comment here - I created a .bash_profile (see details here) with the line export PS1="\n\n$ ".

Hopefully that helps someone else too!

Upvotes: 0

Pierre Houston
Pierre Houston

Reputation: 1641

Wondering this too, I've looked at the menu options in Terminal & most of the control characters one can type in and nothing does this on a keystroke. You can however enter an echo command, it alone to leave a single blank line below it before the next prompt. echo \n will add an extra blank line to that, echo \n\n to do 2 extra, ie. 3 blank lines, etc. (you can also do echo;echo;echo getting the same effect)

You can create a shell alias like alias b='echo;echo' (i couldn't seem to get the \n notation to work in a alias), then entering b on a prompt will leave a double-blank line, not bad. Then you gotta figure out how to save aliases in your .profile script.

I tried making an alias for the command ' ' ie. space character, which I though you could type like \ (hmm, stack overflow not formatting this well, that's backslash followed by a space, then return to execute it), but the bash shell doesn't seem to allow an alias with that name. It probably wouldn't allow a function named that either (similar to alias), though I didn't check.

I often use the fish shell, and I found that it does allow a function with that name! Created with function ' '; echo \n; end and indeed it works; at the shell prompt, typing the command \ (again backslash space) leaves a double blank line.

Cool, but.. I tried saving this function using funcsave ' ' (how you save functions in fish, no messing with startup scripts!) and afterwards the function no longer works :^( This is probably a bug in the fish shell. It's in active development right now though, I think I'll report this as a bug since I would kind of like this to work myself.

One could also send Apple a feature request through their bug reporter for an Insert Blank Line menu/keyboard command in Terminal. If someone pays attention to your request it might be implemented in a year maybe.

Upvotes: 0

Kevin Grant
Kevin Grant

Reputation: 5431

Each new command that you enter is preceded by a "prompt", and these can be customized (though the exact way to customize depends on the shell). Since you mention Mac OS X I'm assuming you are using the default bash shell, in which case the absolute simplest way to add a blank line is like this: PROMPT_COMMAND=echo. You can run that command to try it out, or add it to a startup file (like .profile in your home folder) to have it done automatically each time.

Upvotes: 6

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