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

Not so different from previous solutions. However, maybe a bit more readable/editable. However, no solution to the folder name boundary, only focusing on the length of the prompt.

### SET MY PROMPT ###
if [ -n "$PS1" ]; then
    # A temporary variable to contain our prompt command
    NEW_PROMPT_COMMAND='
        pwd_short=${PWD/#$HOME/\~};
        if [ ${#pwd_short} -gt 53 ]; then
            TRIMMED_PWD=${pwd_short: 0: 25}...${pwd_short: -25}
        else
            TRIMMED_PWD=${pwd_short}
        fi
    '

    # If there's an existing prompt command, let's not 
    # clobber it
    if [ -n "$PROMPT_COMMAND" ]; then
        PROMPT_COMMAND="$PROMPT_COMMAND;$NEW_PROMPT_COMMAND"
    else
        PROMPT_COMMAND="$NEW_PROMPT_COMMAND"
    fi

    # We're done with our temporary variable
    unset NEW_PROMPT_COMMAND

    # Set PS1 with our new variable
    # \h - hostname, \u - username
    PS1='\u@\h: $TRIMMED_PWD\$ '
fi

added to the .bashrc file. All parts of the prompt is updated properly. The first part is shortened if you're in your home directory. Example:

user@computer: ~/misc/projs/solardrivers...src/com/mycompany/handles$