Show the exit status in your $PS1

As an update to my earlier article, a friend gave me an idea of how to make my $PS1 even better… First, the relevant part of my ~/.bashrc:

ps1_prompt() {
	local ps1_exit=$?

	if [ $ps1_exit -eq 0 ]; then
		#ps1_status=`echo -e "\[\033[32m\]"'\$'"\[\033[0m\]"`
		ps1_status='\$'
	else
		ps1_status=`echo -e "\[\033[1;31m\]"'\$'"\[\033[0m\]"`

	fi

	ps1_git=''
	if [ "$(__git_ps1 %s)" != '' -a "$(__git_ps1 %s)" != 'master' ]; then
		ps1_git=" (\[\033[32m\]"$(__git_ps1 "%s")"\[\033[0m\])"
	fi

	PS1="${debian_chroot:+($debian_chroot)}\u@\h:\[\033[01;34m\]\w\[\033[00m\]${ps1_git}${ps1_status} "
}

# preserve earlier PROMPT_COMMAND entries...
PROMPT_COMMAND="ps1_prompt;$PROMPT_COMMAND"

james@computer:~$ cdmkdir /tmp/ttboj # yes, i built cdmkdir
james@computer:/tmp/ttboj$ false
james@computer:/tmp/ttboj$ echo ttboj
ttboj
james@computer:/tmp/ttboj$ ^C
james@computer:/tmp/ttboj$ true
james@computer:/tmp/ttboj$ cd ~/code/puppet/puppet-gluster/
james@computer:~/code/puppet/puppet-gluster$ # hack, hack, hack...

You can still:

$ echo $?
42

if you want more specifics about what the exact return code was, and of course you can edit the above ~/.bashrc snippet to match your needs.

Hopefully this will help you be more productive, I know it’s helping me!

Happy hacking,

James

You can follow James on Mastodon for more frequent updates and other random thoughts.
You can follow James on Twitter for more frequent updates and other random thoughts.
You can support James on GitHub if you'd like to help sustain this kind of content.
You can support James on Patreon if you'd like to help sustain this kind of content.

January 29, 2014
238 words

• technical