How did I get > in my shell.

joemc3

I was practicing commands and going through lessons. I was going to input another command and it wouldn't compute. My login didn't show. Typically you see the following.
[email][email protected][/email]d I see a right arrow.

Example.

> ls, hit enter here
> pws, Hit enter
> exit hit enter
>
>

It won't accept commands. At this point I close out my terminal and restart. What is this and how do I get back into inputting commands without restarting terminal.

Xavor

You can type history to see what commands got you to that point. That > happens to me if I'm doing anything with mysql and forget the semicolon at the end of the command.

Verities

Use Ctrl+C (SIGINT) to get back. Once you're out, you can use the history command, as Xavor said, to see what you did to cause the issue.

lsud00d

As @Xavor mentioned, it typically happens when a command or sequence of commands is incomplete. This is typically when you transition to a different interpreter in the shell, like mysql, perl, python, etc.

CTRL + C (terminate) and CTRL + Z (suspend/stop) are both shortcuts to try, unless your terminal is hung for some other reason.