How can I shortern my command line prompt's current directory?

Question

I am using Ubuntu and I am tired of this long prompts in bash when I am working with some deep directory hierarchy. So, I would like to tweak my PS1 to shorten the working d

Answer 1

This is what I use based on the solutions from anubhava. It sets both the prompt and the windows title. The awk script is more readable so it can be tweaked/customized easily.

It will fold the path if it's more than 16 chars and 4 levels deep. Furthermore, it will also indicate in the ... how many directories were folded, so you get a sense of how deep the path is, ie: ~/usr/..4../path2/path1 indicates 4 levels were folded.

# define the awk script using heredoc notation for easy modification
MYPSDIR_AWK=$(cat << 'EOF'
BEGIN { FS = OFS = "/" }
{ 
   sub(ENVIRON["HOME"], "~");
   if (length($0) > 16 && NF > 4)
      print $1,$2,".." NF-4 "..",$(NF-1),$NF
   else
      print $0
}
EOF
)

# my replacement for \w prompt expansion
export MYPSDIR='$(echo -n "$PWD" | awk "$MYPSDIR_AWK")'

# the fancy colorized prompt: [0 user@host ~]$
# return code is in green, user@host is in bold/white
export PS1='[\[\033[1;32m\]$?\[\033[0;0m\] \[\033[0;1m\]\u@\h\[\033[0;0m\] $(eval "echo ${MYPSDIR}")]$ '

# set x/ssh window title as well
export PROMPT_COMMAND='echo -ne "\033]0;${USER}@${HOSTNAME%%.*} $(eval "echo ${MYPSDIR}")\007"'

Here's what it looks like in action. The green 0 is the return code of last command: