Question

I’m trying to get my iTerm prompt set up the same way as Paul Irish

So far I have the following in ~/.profile:

# Add git branch name to prompt
parse_git_branch() {
  git branch 2> /dev/null | sed -e '/^[^*]/d' -e 's/*\(.*\)/ on \1/'
}

PS1='\n\[\033[0:35m\]\u\[\033[0;32m\]\w\[033[0m\]$(parse_git_branch)\n\$\[\033[0m\] '

I don’t know how to make just the branch appear in a different colour and not the preceding “on”

As well as this there are other features such as:

• Displaying an “o” at the prompt when not in a git branch
• Displaying a “±” when in a branch
• Displaying the date at the end of the line

Any help would be appreciated

Answer 1

I’ve just written a post about how to do all this. I’ve covered all the basics but had to guess a couple of things, e.g. how Paul uses the symbols etc. If you want to read it, check out http://digitalformula.net/articles/pimp-my-prompt-like-paul-irish.

There’s also an article on digitalformula.net that shows a couple of other prompt examples – see http://digitalformula.net/articles/a-couple-more-bash-prompt-examples.

EDITED:
The code part is as follows:

PATH=$PATH:~/Data/Scripts:~/Data/Utils/rar:~/_Applications:~/_Applications/lynx

# alias to quickly show if any Handbrake processes are running
alias hb='sudo ps -aef | grep HandBrakeCLI'

# alias for quick DNS cache flushing
alias fc='sudo dscacheutil -flushcache'

# enable the git bash completion commands
source ~/.git-completion

# enable git unstaged indicators - set to a non-empty value
GIT_PS1_SHOWDIRTYSTATE="."

# enable showing of untracked files - set to a non-empty value
GIT_PS1_SHOWUNTRACKEDFILES="."

# enable stash checking - set to a non-empty value
GIT_PS1_SHOWSTASHSTATE="."

# enable showing of HEAD vs its upstream
GIT_PS1_SHOWUPSTREAM="auto"

BLACK=$(tput setaf 0)
RED=$(tput setaf 1)
GREEN=$(tput setaf 2)
YELLOW=$(tput setaf 3)
LIME_YELLOW=$(tput setaf 190)
POWDER_BLUE=$(tput setaf 153)
BLUE=$(tput setaf 4)
MAGENTA=$(tput setaf 5)
CYAN=$(tput setaf 6)
WHITE=$(tput setaf 7)
BRIGHT=$(tput bold)
NORMAL=$(tput sgr0)
BLINK=$(tput blink)
REVERSE=$(tput smso)
UNDERLINE=$(tput smul)

# set the prompt to show current working directory and git branch name, if it exists

# this prompt is a green username, black @ symbol, cyan host, magenta current working directory and white git branch (only shows if you're in a git branch)
# unstaged and untracked symbols are shown, too (see above)
# this prompt uses the short colour codes defined above
# PS1='${GREEN}\u${BLACK}@${CYAN}\h:${MAGENTA}\w${WHITE}`__git_ps1 " (%s)"`\$ '

# this is a cyan username, @ symbol and host, magenta current working directory and white git branch
# it uses the shorter , but visibly more complex, codes for text colours (shorter because the colour code definitions aren't needed)
# PS1='\[\033[0;36m\]\u@\h\[\033[01m\]:\[\033[0;35m\]\w\[\033[00m\]\[\033[1;30m\]\[\033[0;37m\]`__git_ps1 " (%s)"`\[\033[00m\]\[\033[0;37m\]\$ '

# return the prompt prefix for the second line
function set_prefix {
    BRANCH=`__git_ps1`
    if [[ -z $BRANCH ]]; then
        echo "${NORMAL}o"
    else
        echo "${UNDERLINE}+"
    fi
}

# and here's one similar to Paul Irish's famous prompt ... not sure if this is the way he does it, but it works  :)
# \033[s = save cursor position
# \033[u = restore cursor position

PS1='${MAGENTA}\u${WHITE} in ${GREEN}\w${WHITE}${MAGENTA}`__git_ps1 " on %s"`${WHITE}\r\n`set_prefix`${NORMAL}${CYAN}\033[s\033[60C (`date "+%a, %b %d"`)\033[u${WHITE} '