When I have terminal escape sequences in my prompt, why does bash wrap lines at the wrong column?

When I have terminal escape sequences in my prompt, why does bash wrap lines at the wrong column? 


Readline, the line editing library that bash uses, does not know

that the terminal escape sequences do not take up space on the

screen.  The redisplay code assumes, unless told otherwise, that

each character in the prompt is a `printable' character that

takes up one character position on the screen. 



You can use the bash prompt expansion facility (see the PROMPTING

section in the manual page) to tell readline that sequences of

characters in the prompt strings take up no screen space. 



Use the \[ escape to begin a sequence of non-printing characters,

and the \] escape to signal the end of such a sequence.

Home FAQ