Comments on: Best bash prompt. Ever.

By: William Dye ("willdye")

William Dye ("willdye") — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 18:34:55 +0000

For what it’s worth, I tend to avoid using the ASCII escape codes directly, preferring code such as “blue=$(tput setaf 4 2) instead. According to http://mywiki.wooledge.org/BashFAQ/037 and http://bash-hackers.org/wiki/doku.php?id=scripting:terminalcodes the tput method is preferred, though I can’t think of an instance in which either method caused a serious problem for me.

By: Ice

Ice — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 17:50:50 +0000

Great tip, thanks. I love your blog! I'm using it with some modifications (root in red, full path, shows svn revision):

export PS1='`if [ \\$? = 0 ];
    then
        echo -e "33[0m[$(test \u = root && echo 33[31mroot33[0m || echo \u)@\h $(pwd) $(svn info 2>&1 | grep Revision &> /dev/null && (echo -n "33[1;34m" ; echo -n $(svn info | grep Revision:) ; echo -n "33[0m"))]33[32m\$33[0m ";
    else
        echo -e "33[0m[$(test \u = root && echo 33[31mroot33[0m || echo \u)@\h $(pwd) $(svn info 2>&1 | grep Revision &> /dev/null && (echo -n "33[1;34m" ; echo -n $(svn info | grep Revision:) ; echo -n "33[0m"))]33[31m\$33[0m ";
    fi; `'

By: Tobias

Tobias — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 22:16:59 +0000

Saw it, used it (with modifications), love it. Bonta-kun’s suggestion is great.

By: Kathryn

Kathryn — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 18:09:47 +0000

This is great, totally using it. :)

By: Bonta-Kun

Bonta-Kun — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 21:11:33 +0000

It’s not so bad, especially the coloring by exit-code.

However, you might want to do something like: user@host:cwd (that is, put the current directory next to the host). Then you can use the whole string as an ssh/scp target/source…

Also, coloring the username differently depending on being root or not can really save you :)

By: Jamie Smith

Jamie Smith — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 15:18:28 +0000

I would like to prompt your bash.

By: Evan Farrer

Evan Farrer — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 16:10:32 +0000

For users of git I recommend a slight modification. This adds the current git branch when you're in a git controlled directory. It's not as elegant (multiple echo's) but more awesome.

export PS1="\`if [ \$? = 0 ];
              then
                  echo -en '$GREEN--( $LIGHT_CYAN\u$YELLOW@$LIGHT_CYAN\h$GREEN )--( $YELLOW\w$GREEN )--( $PURPLE'; __git_ps1 "%s"; echo -n '$GREEN )-- :)\n--\$$DEFAULT_COLOR ';
              else
                  echo -en '$LIGHT_RED--( $LIGHT_CYAN\u$YELLOW@$LIGHT_CYAN\h$LIGHT_RED )--( $YELLOW\w$LIGHT_RED )--( $PURPLE'; __git_ps1 "%s"; echo -n '$LIGHT_RED )-- :         (\n--\$$DEFAULT_COLOR ';
              fi; \`"

By: Dave

Dave — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 19:18:18 +0000

Yeah, my bash does handle the wrapping. However, if yours does not, you can just put all that “export PS1″ stuff on a single line.

By: Hans

Hans — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 18:25:18 +0000

Does your version of bash handle the wrapping ok when you do this? I used to have color on my input line and finally gave up. My current prompt is this:

$(r=$?; [ 0 == $r ] || echo "\[\e[0;33m\]$r\[\e[0m\] ")\u@\h \[\e[0;32m\]\w\[\e[0m\]\n\$

This gives me a little color, which makes finding previous prompts easy when scrolling up, and the return status is there in yellow if it's not 0. But no color on the actual input line, and also the longest input line possible, and so I have minimal issues with different versions of bash and their myriad wrapping bugs.