What is PS2 - Continuation Interactive Prompt in Linux

A very long command can be broken down to multiple lines by giving \ at the
end of the line. The default interactive prompt for a multi-line command is
“> “. Let us change this default behavior to display “continue->” by using PS2
environment variable as shown below.

ramesh@dev-db ~> myisamchk --silent --force --fast --
update-state \
> --key_buffer_size=512M --sort_buffer_size=512M \
> --read_buffer_size=4M --write_buffer_size=4M \
> /var/lib/mysql/bugs/*.MYI

[Note: This uses the default ">" for continuation
prompt]

ramesh@dev-db ~> export PS2="continue-> "
ramesh@dev-db ~> myisamchk --silent --force --fast --
update-state \
continue-> --key_buffer_size=512M --
sort_buffer_size=512M \
continue-> --read_buffer_size=4M --write_buffer_size=4M
\
continue-> /var/lib/mysql/bugs/*.MYI
[Note: This uses the modified "continue-> " for

continuation prompt]
I found it very helpful and easy to read, when I break my long commands into
multiple lines using \. I have also seen others who don’t like to break-up long
commands.