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lang-bash
PS1='\ \$ 'returns the same prompt... So there are actually three cases where the prompt returns the same.\$is not the same as just$, the former tells the shell to display a#if you're root, see gnu.org/software/bash/manual/html_node/…<backslash><backslash>should produce a backslash, so indeed it seems odd that<backslash><backslash><backslash><backslash>still produces only one, and not two. (Noting that you used single quotes, so the issue is not that one layer of backslash would be removed even beforePS1gets assigned.)PS1='\ $ '.\doing the same as\\makes sense in that backslash-space is an unsupported escape and gets copied as-is. Same as within double-quotes.