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smauel
Asked: 2010-12-17 03:46:58 +0800 CST

trim the terminal command prompt working directory

  • 772

When using the terminal in a deep folder structure sometimes the prompt can take up most of the line. Is there any way in which I can trim the working directory? I know I can do

PS1="\W >"

to only print the current directory and not the full path, but is there a way to have something like:

/home/smauel/de...ther/folder >
command-line bash prompt

9 Answers

  1. If you are using bash4 (Ubuntu 9.10 and newer has bash4), the easiest option is to just set the PROMPT_DIRTRIM variable. e.g.:

    PROMPT_DIRTRIM=2

    For one similar to João Pinto's example, (that'll work in older bash versions and ensures that the path component is never longer than 30 characters), you could do something like this: 

    PS1='[\u@\h:$(p=${PWD/#"$HOME"/~};((${#p}>30))&&echo "${p::10}…${p:(-19)}"||echo "\w")]\$ '
    • 79
  2. Best Answer

    Create a small python script which implements the desired trimming logic.

    Example: ~/.short.pwd.py

    import os
from socket import gethostname
hostname = gethostname()
username = os.environ['USER']
pwd = os.getcwd()
homedir = os.path.expanduser('~')
pwd = pwd.replace(homedir, '~', 1)
if len(pwd) > 33:
    pwd = pwd[:10]+'...'+pwd[-20:] # first 10 chars+last 20 chars
print '[%s@%s:%s] ' % (username, hostname, pwd)

    Now test it, from a terminal:

    export PROMPT_COMMAND='PS1="$(python ~/.short.pwd.py)"'

    If you are ok with the result just append the command to your ~/.bashrc.

    • 32

  3. Another way around that problem is to include a line break into PS1, so that the working directory and the actual prompt appear on separate lines, for example:

    PS1="\w\n>"
    • 12

  4. Add this to the bottom of your ~/.bashrc

    split_pwd() {
        # Only show ellipses for directory trees -gt 3
        # Otherwise use the default pwd as the current \w replacement
        if [ $(pwd | grep -o '/' | wc -l) -gt 3 ]; then
                pwd | cut -d'/' -f1-3 | xargs -I{} echo {}"/../${PWD##*/}"
        else
                pwd
        fi
}


export PS1="\$(split_pwd) > "

    Admittedly this could probably be cleaner, but I wanted to get a crack at it.

    Expected output for directories more than three layers deep. 

    /home/chris/../Node Projects >

    Expected output for directories from Desktop and back. 

    /home/chris/Desktop > 
/home/chris >  
/home
    • 4

  5. Based on Cris Sullivan's answer, but keeping the ~ for the home folder

    get_bash_w() {
  # Returns the same working directory that the \W bash prompt command
  echo $(pwd | sed 's@'"$HOME"'@~@')
}

split_pwd() {
  # Split pwd into the first element, elipsis (...) and the last subfolder
  # /usr/local/share/doc --> /usr/.../doc
  # ~/project/folder/subfolder --> ~/project/../subfolder
  split=2
  W=$(get_bash_w)
  if [ $(echo $W | grep -o '/' | wc -l) -gt $split ]; then
    echo $W | cut -d'/' -f1-$split | xargs -I{} echo {}"/../${W##*/}"
  else
    echo $W
  fi
}

export PS1="\$(split_pwd) > "
    • 2

  6. Just to update slightly (for Python3) and enhance the selected answer to add colours to the prompt as per a BASH prompt (in Linux Mint 18.3 anyway):

    #! /usr/bin/python3

import os, getpass
from socket import gethostname

username = getpass.getuser()
hostname = gethostname()
pwd = os.getcwd()
homedir = os.path.expanduser('~')
pwd = pwd.replace(homedir, '~', 1)

if len(pwd) > 40:
    # first 10 chars+last 30 chars
    pwd = pwd[:10] + '...' + pwd[-30:] 

# Virtual environment being used? Essential not to omit!
ve = os.getenv('VIRTUAL_ENV')
venv = '(`basename \"$VIRTUAL_ENV\"`)' if ve else ''

# colours as per my current BASH Terminal: 
# username + hostname: bold green
# path and $: bold blue
print( '\[\e[;1;32m\]%s%s@%s \[\e[;1;34m\]%s $\[\e[0m\]  ' % (venv, username, hostname, pwd) )

    More on colour codes in a BASH Terminal here. There's probably some way of finding out what colours your Terminal uses automatically, but I haven't got a clue what that might be.

    With the shebang line the export line for inclusion in .bashrc then becomes:

    export PROMPT_COMMAND='PS1="$(~/.local/bin/manage_prompt.py)"' # adjust path to .py file

    NB1 these "\e" escape codes must always be enclosed in "\[ ... \]", otherwise line-returns get completely messed up.

    NB2 to get your full path at any time just go 

    ... $ pwd

    of course...

    • 2

  7. This small addition to @joão-pinto's excellent answer adds in the virtual environment name when you run the workon command.

    import os
from platform import node
hostname = node().split('.')[0]
username = os.environ['USER']
pwd = os.getcwd()
homedir = os.path.expanduser('~')
pwd = pwd.replace(homedir, '~', 1)

# check for the virtualenv
ve = os.getenv('VIRTUAL_ENV')

if ve:
    venv = '(`basename \"$VIRTUAL_ENV\"`)'
else:
    venv = ''

if len(pwd) > 33:
    pwd = pwd[:10]+'...'+pwd[-20:] # first 10 chars+last 20 chars
print '%s[%s@%s:%s] ' % (venv, username, hostname, pwd)
    • 1

  8. I like this one most, PS1="[\W]\\$ "

    • 0

  9. this prompt shortens all names except the current line this: 

    user:/h/t/D/C/current$ 

    sps() {
    echo `dirname $PWD` | sed -r 's|/(.)[^/]*|/\1|g'
}

PS1='\u:$$(eval "sps")/\W\$ '
    • 0