git bash prompt

Hi.

I tried many different bash git prompt solutions, all of which were either too complicated, too buggy or too ugly. So…

I didn’t want to invent too much myself, so I used the git prompt provided by git as a basis. This script does all the magic already, so the only thing left to do was to make it look nicer. This is the whole section in my .bash_profile:

# bash git prompt
GIT_PS1_SHOWDIRTYSTATE=true
GIT_PS1_SHOWUNTRACKEDFILES=true
GIT_PS1_SHOWUPSTREAM="verbose"

git_current_branch_name="\$(__git_ps1 '%s' | sed 's/ .\+//' | sed -e 's/[\\\\/&]/\\\\\\\\&/g')"
git_status_substitutes=(
    "s/$git_current_branch_name//;" # remove branch temporarily
    "s/u//;" # upstream
    "s/+\([0-9]\+\)/▴\1/;" # outgoing
    "s/-\([0-9]\+\)/▾\1/;" # incoming
    "s/%/?/;" # untracked
    "s/+/✓/;" # staged
    "s/*/✕/;" # unstaged
    "s/\(.\+\)/($git_current_branch_name\1)/;" # insert branch again
)
git_status_command="\$(__git_ps1 '%s'| sed \"${git_status_substitutes[@]}\")"

if [ "$color_prompt" = yes ]; then
PS1="${debian_chroot:+($debian_chroot)}\[\033[0;37m\] \w \[\033[34m\]$git_status_command\[\033[37m\]\$\[\033[00m\] "
else
PS1="${debian_chroot:+($debian_chroot)} \w $git_status_command\$ "
fi
unset git_status_substitutes git_status_command git_current_branch_name

And now, step by step:

• Increase the detail level of the output of the script __git_ps1.

  GIT_PS1_SHOWDIRTYSTATE=true
  GIT_PS1_SHOWUNTRACKEDFILES=true
  GIT_PS1_SHOWUPSTREAM="verbose"
  

• Extract the branch name. We’ll strip it out in order to make the symbol substitutions less fragile.

  git_current_branch_name="\$(__git_ps1 '%s' | sed 's/ .\+//;s/(//')"
  

• Define all substitutions that should be performed. This is the main part of my script, which substitutes the git prompt output with nicer utf-8 symbols. “remove branch” first strips out the branch name and “insert branch” inserts it back after all other substitutions are done.

  git_status_substitutes=(
      "s/$git_current_branch_name //;" # remove branch temporarily
      "s/u//;" # upstream
      "s/+\([0-9]\+\)/▴\1/;" # outgoing
      "s/-\([0-9]\+\)/▾\1/;" # incoming
      "s/%/?/;" # untracked
      "s/+/✓/;" # staged
      "s/*/✕/;" # unstaged
      "s/\(.\+\)/($git_current_branch_name \1)/;" # insert branch again
  )
  

• Now we generate the command that will produce the desired output. ${git_status_substitutes[@]} joins all symbol substitutions to one string.

  git_status_command="\$(__git_ps1 '%s'| sed \"${git_status_substitutes[@]}\")"
  

• Finally we construct two versions, one with colors and one without.

  if [ "$color_prompt" = yes ]; then
      PS1="${debian_chroot:+($debian_chroot)}\[\033[0;37m\] \w \[\033[34m\]$git_status_command\[\033[37m\]\$\[\033[00m\] "
  else
      PS1="${debian_chroot:+($debian_chroot)} \w $git_status_command\$ "
  fi
  

The final output looks like this:

~/src/dotfiles (master ✕✓? ▴1▾5)$

The original output of __git_ps1 looks like this, which is much more cryptic:

~/src/dotfiles (master *+% u+1-5)$

The meaning of the symbols:

You can see the whole thing in action in my .bash_profile.

Update 2019-05-11

I extracted the bash and the git prompt to their own projects:

• Git prompt for bash
• Bash prompt