I like command line; I use git; I always have exactly no idea in which branch I am.

Adding the git branch to PS1 in bash:

Add this function to your .bashrc: function parse_git_branch { git branch –no-color 2> /dev/null | sed -e ‘/^[^]/d’ -e ‘s/ (.*)/(\1)/’ }

It is divided into the execution of two scripts. The first -e '/^[^*]/d' will delete every line without a star. The second -e 's/* \(.*\)/(\1)/' will get the branch name replacing the star and space by nothing.

And that will return our branch name. Cool. Next: embbed it into PS1.

PS1 is a very cool feature of bash. And I call it feature because it really helps me. Anyway, you should put something like that:

PS1='[\u@\h \w]$(parse_git_branch)\$ '

Well this is a bit of my PS1, in my real one, there colors everywhere. You can check it out on this link to my github account Just to let you know what means what, if you are reading this and have no ideia nor can find the man page :-)

• \u - your username
• @ - that is an @ sign, really
• \h - the host name
• \w - the relative path you are in

For a full reference to all PS1 options check out this link for the bash man page or simply $ man bash in any linux system and look for “PROMPTING”.