I am on Lubuntu and I am using bash. My PS1 (in .bashrc) is : PS1="\w> " I like it because I need to paste the working directory all the time. The problem is that the path is always very long and since I use terminator I only have half of my screen's width available to display it... it is ugly and annoying. My command prompt looks like that : /this/is/a/very/long/path/that/i/want/to/make/shorter > I'd like to set in my environment variables : $tiavl=/this/is/a/very/long And then I'll get : $tiavl/path/that/i/want/to/make/shorter > The goal is to have something shorter in the command prompt but I still want to be able to copy paste it and do : cd $tiavl/path/that/i/want/to/make/shorter It is a bit like with $HOME : ~/path/that/i/want/to/make/shorter > I know where I am and I can copy paste the ~. Thanks.