Where is Bash Prompt Set??

[Scott <harview@montana.com>]

Hi, I'm new to debian, but not to linux. (experimenting with lenny...)

This is the question I asked myself while seeing various prompts after
I thought I had customised them. Near as I can tell, there are three
different scripts which fiddle with the default bash prompt: 

  /etc/profile
  /etc/bashrc
  ~/.bashrc

I edited each one to replace the setting of PS1 with something like:

 PS1="<name of file>:$PS1"

Now, logging in in different ways as different users:

Regular user on ttyn:
   etc/profile:bash-3.2$

Root user on ttyn:
   ~/.bashrc:etc/profile:-bash-3.2#

      {why does root's bashrc get sourced, but not user's?}

****************************************************************************

Regular user in emacs shell:
   ~/.bashrc(nocolor):etc/bashrc:bash-3.2$

Root in emacs shell:
   ~/.bashrc:etc/bashrc:~/.bashrc:etc/profile:bash-3.2#

      {why is root's .bashrc read twice? Why no leading - on original
      root prompt? Why does /etc/profile get sourced for root but not
      for user?}

****************************************************************************

Regular user in xterm:
   ~/.bashrc(xterm):~/.bashrc(nocolor):etc/bashrc:bash-3.2$

Root in xterm:
   ~/.bashrc:etc/bashrc:~/.bashrc:etc/bashrc:bash-3.2#

       {I guess no questions here, other than, again, why does root's
       .bashrc get sourced two different times??}

If these aren't completely stupid questions, can anyone shed some
light?

TIA,
Scott Swanson