Show only current directory name (not full path) on bash prompt

Question

The way my bash prompt is currently configured, it shows the whole path to the current directory. This is annoying when I'm deep inside a directory tree, as the prompt becomes so long that every command wraps into the next line. How do I make it show only the last part of the path?

This is what I have in my .bashrc:

PS1='${debian_chroot:+($debian_chroot)}\[\033[01;32m\]\u@\h\[\033[00m\]:\[\033[01;34m\]\w\[\033[00m\]\$ '

# If this is an xterm set the title to user@host:dir
case "$TERM" in
xterm*|rxvt*)
    PROMPT_COMMAND='echo -ne "\033]0;${USER}@${HOSTNAME}: ${PWD/$HOME/~}\007"'
    ;;
*)
    ;;
esac

Solution 1

Change the \w (lowercase) to \W (uppercase):

PS1='${debian_chroot:+($debian_chroot)}\[\033[01;32m\]\u@\h\[\033[00m\]:\[\033[01;34m\]\W\[\033[00m\]\$ '
                                                                                       ^^
           this one waaaaaay over here ------------------------------------------------+    

Have a look at the Bash Prompt HOWTO for lots of fun details. example:

user@host:/usr/local/bin$ echo $PS1
${debian_chroot:+($debian_chroot)}\[\033[01;31m\]\u@\h\[\033[00m\]:\[\033[01;36m\]\w\[\033[00m\]\$ 

user@host:/usr/local/bin$ export PS1='${debian_chroot:+($debian_chroot)}\[\033[01;31m\]\u@\h\[\033[00m\]:\[\033[01;36m\]\W\[\033[00m\]\$ '

user@host:bin$

The PROMPT_COMMAND variable, if set, is a command that gets run before displaying the prompt specified in PS1. In your case, PROMPT_COMMAND runs an echo statement with certain ANSI escape sequences that manipulate the titlebar of an Xterm.

If you suspect your PROMPT_COMMAND is overriding your PS1 prompt, you can unset it and test things out:

$ unset PROMPT_COMMAND

Finally, be sure that you're changing the PS1 definition that actually gets used. Common locations are /etc/bash.bashrc, /etc/profile, ~/.bashrc, ~/.bash_profile, ~/.profile. The system files are generally (but not always) run before the user files.

Solution 2

Simple bash replace command is

${VAR/pattern_to_find/pattern_to_replace}

For showing the last directory you can just do ${PWD/*\//}, i.e. find any thing before and including the last '/' and replace it with nothing.

On my ubuntu machine I use:

export PS1='$(whoami):${PWD/*\//}#'. 

Solution 3

My solution is to show the top three and bottom 2 directories when there are more than 5

So my prompt (which has other info too) looks like:

08:38:42 durrantm U2017 /home/durrantm/Dropbox/_/rails/everquote

when my pwd is actually

/home/durrantm/Dropbox/93_2016/work/code/ruby__rails/rails/everquote

My PS1 prompt is setup as follows:

HOST='\[\033[02;36m\]\h'; HOST=' '$HOST
TIME='\[\033[01;31m\]\t \[\033[01;32m\]'
LOCATION=' \[\033[01;34m\]`pwd | sed "s#\(/[^/]\{1,\}/[^/]\{1,\}/[^/]\{1,\}/\).*\(/[^/]\{1,\}/[^/]\{1,\}\)/\{0,1\}#\1_\2#g"`'
BRANCH=' \[\033[00;33m\]$(git_branch)\[\033[00m\]\n\$ '
PS1=$TIME$USER$HOST$LOCATION$BRANCH

git_branch is a function which shows current git branch, I keep it in my dotfiles, it is:

git_branch () {
  git branch 2> /dev/null | sed -e '/^[^*]/d' -e 's/* \(.*\)/\1/'
  }

Solution 4

My solution for this is slightly different in regards to how do I export it, so thought I'd share it here:

Create another prompt string variable; PS5 and export the following string in your .profile / .bash_profile file:

\u: Display the current username .

\W: Print the base of current working directory.

# Display username and current directory only.
export PS5='export PS1="\u:\W$";';

Now whenever you need to use the shorthand-ed PS, just run: eval $PS5

---

Or even better yet, create an alias in your .bash_aliases file: (thanks to @muru)

alias PS5='export PS1="\u:\W$";';

source again, and now you can just type PS5 to switch.

Solution 5

I believe this option is much easier, by simply doing:

echo $PWD | rev | cut -d '/' -f 1 | rev

So assign this to the PS1 variable in your .bashrc file:

PS1='$(PWD | rev | cut -d '/' -f 1 | rev)'

View more solutions

Comments

[agentofuser]

Hm... I'm afraid it's already \w, but it seems like that case statement overrides it when i'm on an xterm, and the problem seems to be with the PWD in the PROMPT_COMMAND line. Do you know what I should put there?

[quack quixote]

\w (lower case) sets it to full path, \W (uppercase) trims to the final bit. the PROMPT_COMMAND is setting the window title in an xterm. check your TERM variable; if it doesn't start with "xterm" or "rxvt" then PROMPT_COMMAND isn't even getting run.

[agentofuser]

Oh, yeah, duh. Sorry, I mixed upper and lowercase. That worked. Thanks! :)

[Combine]

Great answer. Make sure you reboot in order this to take effect. Thanks!

[Roy F. Fear]

I like this answer better than the accepted one because it's generic to any situation instead of just the special parsing logic of $PS1. Fewer more powerful tools are easier to remember and compose. :)

[muru]

This looks like a frankenalias. Why not just use an alias or a function?

[Carlos F]

This is awesome! Thanks a lot for this answer.