How do you know what shell you're in? I'm not looking for my login shell, but the one that i'm in currently.


Example:

bash-2.03$ csh
aries% ksh
$

What indicates that i'm in the c shell or the korn shell?

at your shell prompt type echo $SHELL or take a look at your passwd entry in /etc/passwd to see what your default shell is.

hmm... I must not be asking my question correctly.. sorry... newbie.

I start out in a bash shell, I change to the korn shell... what tells me that i've changed shells? Can you tell by the prompt?

Bourne-type shells (that includes bash and ksh) have a $ in front of them. The C shell uses a %, and I think tcsh uses a >.

If you're a super-user or root, you're going to have a hash mark (#) in front no matter what.

You can grep the /etc/passwd file with your username to find out what shell starts up on default (it's the last field), but I'm not sure if there is a command or variable that tells the active shell.

I think you asked correctly, I missunderstood. I wouldnt go by the shell prompt since you can easily change that (though it may have historical significance as to the shell it represents) Here is a way to get what your after...using the PID from the shell that your in see who the owner of that process is.

echo $$ # Gives the Parent Process ID
ps -ef | grep $$ | awk '{print $8}' #use the PID to see what the process is.