Colouring in bash for OS-X

01st September 2011

This blog post is more than 6 years old, so the content may be out of date.

I like colours. I like things to stand out. Most of all, I like to be very very clear which computer I'm using when I'm typing in commands (init 0; wait-no-that wasn't the production server, was it?!)

So I want my bash-prompt to look something like this:

deimos:~ marcus$

And production servers are even more apparent:

web1:~ marcus$

(OK, you probably shouldn't ever have to manually ssh into production servers...but just in case).

The bash prompt is controlled by the variable PS1. And OS-X reads the file ~/.profile when starting a new bash session. So you simply set PS1 in ~/.profile, and you're away.

echo "PS1='\[\e[1;32;40m\]\h\[\e[0m\]:\W \u\$ '" | cat >> ~/.profile

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Comments

Sam de Freyssinet (not verified)

September 1, 2011 - 4:14pm

Get some git love on your CLI

source ~/.bash_addons/git-completion.bash
PS1='\[\033[01;32m\]\u@\h\[\033[00m\]:\[\033[01;36m\]\W\[\033[00m\]$(__git_ps1 "(%s)") \$ '

marcus

September 1, 2011 - 4:20pm

@TODO Man, I need to fix my theme :-(

Nice tool tho!

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