8 Useful and Interesting Bash Prompts

Now how do you show the extended char set via a mingetty sshd session?

PS1=”\[33[01;32m\]\u@\h\[33[01;34m\] \w \[33[00m\]\$(git branch 2>/dev/null | grep ‘^*’ | colrm 1 2)\[33[01;34m\] \$\[33[00m\] ”

The interesting thing about my prompt is the git repository branch is named in the prompt

What do I need to do to get the lovely interstitial characters on prompt 7 to display?

Find here my bash prompt that displays git branch and changed files:
http://code.extension.ws/post/181469611/git-prompt-rb

After reading this i took the time to make my promt, and remembered why i am using zsh.
even though zsh syntax is easier to read i took the idea from one of the /. replies and made this file which i then source from .zshrc
————————setpromt-zsh———————–
RESET_COLOR=”%f”
COLOURED_RETURN_VAL=”%(?,%F{green},%F{red})(%?)”
SHORT_PWD=”%3~”
ROOT_OR_NOT=”%#”
WHITE=”%F{white}”

# Throw it all together
PROMPT=”${COLOURED_RETURN_VAL}${WHITE}${SHORT_PWD}${ROOT_OR_NOT}>${RESET_COLOR}”
RPROMPT=”%F{yellow}%T%f[%!]”
—————————–EOF————————-

gives me this
(0)~%> 0:36[3081]
(0)~%>return 123 0:37[3081]
(123)~%> 0:37[3082]

you can’t see the colors here
but the return number turns red when not zero

I use bashstyle for this purpose.
http://blog.amit-agarwal.co.in/2009/06/17/bashstyle-rpm-for-fedora-11-style-up-your-bash-prompt/

I just found this article and decided to piece together from what I could figure out from these examples

PS1=”\[\e[37;1m\]-{\[\e[34;1m\]\u@\h\[\e[37;1m\]}-\n\[\e[37;1m\](\[\e[34;1m\]\w: \$(/bin/ls -1 | /usr/bin/wc -l | /bin/sed ‘s: ::g’) files, \$(/bin/ls -lah | /bin/grep -m 1 total | /bin/sed ‘s/total //’)b\[\e[37;1m\])\n–> \[\e[0m\]”

It’s a three line prompt. Name and host at the top, directory in the middle and prompt on the last line.

It is basically imbecile to put terminal-dependent escape sequences into prompts. For some reason terminfo and termcap were invented.

Raymond

Use termcap or terminfo for escape secuences.

Continuing the version-control discussion, I posted the bash function which displays the current branch for Git, Mercurial, Subversion and even RCS:

http://improbable.org/chris/index.php?ID=227

This is awesome!

The #7 is *really* expensive resources wise if used in any server environment. Use it with caution and carefully or you may be in trouble someday when less expected (although an unset PS1; exec bash will solve your problem)

I use a multi line prompt that begins with a # as such:

PS1=”n#–[[e[1;36m]u@h[e[m]]-[[e[1;34m]w[e[m]]-[$(date +%k:%M)]–>n”

This prompt displays as:

#–[user@host]-[/path/to/working/dir]-[13:46]–>
(with the cursor being down here on a new line)

This prompt gives me (IMHO) the most important info at a quick glance, what machine I’m on, where I am in it, and the times each of my commands started and finished.

The real treat in this prompt, is that I can copy a whole screen worth of terminal and just paste it into a shell script with no editing necessary: the # at each prompt line comments it out!

Try it, you’ll like it, or your money back!

Another (superior IMHO) way to allow copy/paste of a whole line is a prompt that looks something like

: your info here ;

e.g.

: /path/[vc rev] : exit status ;

because the : is the bash command that does nothing and the ; terminates that command and allows your command to execute. I use it since I hate multi-line prompts (no offense to those who like them of course).

A lot of interesting ideas here, I’m gonna have to change my .bashrc in the immediate future.

For the moment this is my bash prompt, after accidentally rebooting my laptop instead of my server for the eighth time in 12 hours, I decided to have separate command promts for a local login and a SSH login:

if [ -z "$SSH_CLIENT" ]; then
PS1=’[e[0;32m]u[e[m] [e[1;34m]w[e[m] [e[1;32m]$ [e[m][e[0;37m]‘
else
PS1=’[e[0;32m]u[e[m][e[1;31m]@[e[m][e[1;33m]h[e[m] [e[1;34m]w[e[m] [e[1;32m]$ [e[m][e[0;37m]‘
fi

As far as I know (I haven’t done any in depth searching), not many people have done separate prompts for different logins. Does anyone know of anyone else who does this?

P.S. Sorry for the late comment, I always seam to arrive late to these blog posts. Why does nobody tell me anything until AFTER it happens?

can somebody help me to combine #8 and #2 ?
i like the information provided by #8 but also the gimick turning red on a bad command of #2: so how would the code look like for a version of number 8 where all the green parts are turning red after a bad command? can t figure it out on my own.

how about something like this

if [[ $? = "0" ]]; then color=”\[33[32m\]“; else color=”\[33[31m\]“; fi
you can put this condition to get the color to set and use the variable color in #8 to set the color.

I use this on most of my accounts, the first line sets the terminal window to read “hostname:username – workingdir” an absolute must when you’ve got 20+ xterm/aterm/rxvt windows open to multiple machines, in one taskbar.

PS1=”[33]0;h:u – w07]
[33[1;37m][
[33[1;35m]$(date +%H:%M)
[33[1;36m]h
[33[1;31m]:
[33[1;32m]w
[33[1;37m]]
[33[0m] “

Thanks! I love these! Now I am using number 2 :)

It’s hard to decide what use now…

When I use the number 2 I can’t copy remote files using scp.
I can do an ssh but I can’t copy files, why is that?

Its very weird because I use that prompt for almost a week :)
and I lost a two days looking for the error!

I need some help, here is the scp debug:
debug1: Next authentication method: password
password:
debug1: Authentication succeeded (password).
debug1: channel 0: new [client-session]
debug1: Entering interactive session.
debug1: Sending environment.
debug1: Sending env LANG = en_US.UTF-8
debug1: Sending command: scp -v -t /tmp
……….
I’m stuck here.

Ps: Solved using the old PS1 bash prompt :)

I love the happy face one!

Just to clarify for MacOS X:

If you want to apply these changes permanently, you don’t need to search or create a .bashrc file, just append the .profile file in you home directory, since MacOS reads this file for environment variables

Just to clarify for MacOS X:

If you want to apply these changes permanently, you don’t need to search or create a .bashrc file, just append the .profile file in you home directory, since MacOS reads this file for environment variables