short date in bash PS1 prompt

Try this:

PS1="\$(date +%d.%m.%Y) > "
export PS1

Use \D{format} where format is a strftime format code. For example:

$ export PS1='\D{%d.%m.%Y}$ '
08.02.2012$

Try including \D{%d.%m.%Y}. You can use any time format supported by strftime(3).