How can I display the current git branch in the terminal command prompt?

Question

zsh has a plugin for showing the active git branch in the command prompt when the current working directory is a git repository. It looks like $ full/repository/path :master >.
Can I have the same without zsh? My $TERM is rxvt-unicode-256color

Answer 1

You have to modify the PS1 variable. PS1 is the primary prompt string, read more here. You should find it defined in either /etc/bashrc or ~/.bashrc. Inside this file, create a new function that returns the current branch name

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

then simply append $(get_branch) to your PS1 string.

Answer 2

zPlus's answer is correct if you want only the branch name - this is the sort of thing you can find in many people's dotfiles collections - you can use mine if youd like a more informative prompt

https://github.com/bill-auger/git-status-prompt
https://gitlab.com/bill-auger/git-status-prompt
https://notabug.org/bill-auger/git-status-prompt
https://pagure.io/git-status-prompt