Customize colors for __git_ps1 with GIT_PS1_SHOWCOLORHINTS

Question

What I have tried

I have updated my prompt to include the branch name using __git_ps1. In addition, I set GIT_PS1_SHOWCOLORHINTS.

Th

Answer 1

I was able to achieve a decent solution by:
1. Cloning the latest git source, to obtain and install a recent git-prompt.sh (Your distro may already have an up-to-date script)
2. Removing the check that is stopping the script from inserting color codes in the output string.
3. Altering my .bashrc to include a call to __git_ps1 with some formatting options to alter my terminal prompt text.

Commit and documentation, including specific files and edits I made: https://github.com/karlapsite/git/commit/b34d9e8b690ec0b304eb794011938ab49be30204#diff-a43cc261eac6fbcc3578c94c2aa24713R449

Now, my console has all of the information I wanted: I can open a terminal, and cd into any git repo:
$ cd ~/Github/git user@hostname:~/Github/git:(master)$ # 'master' is green

And the when I checkout a hash, and move into a detached head state:
$ git checkout bca18110 user@hostname:~/Github/git:(bca1811...)$ # the commit hash is red

I needed to follow this answer: https://stackoverflow.com/a/13997892/4717806 to have bash properly re-interpret the color codes after each command, but my terminal is intact, linewrapping still works, and my prompt is colored the way I wanted!

Answer 2

The colours shown by __git_ps1 for dirty branches don't affect the branch name; they affect the "dirty state indicator". In addition to enabling colours, if you enable this indicator you will see a red asterisk for a dirty branch:

old-prompt $ bash --noprofile --norc
bash-4.2$ source /etc/bash_completion.d/git-prompt
bash-4.2$ export GIT_PS1_SHOWCOLORHINTS=1
bash-4.2$ export GIT_PS1_SHOWDIRTYSTATE=1
bash-4.2$ export PROMPT_COMMAND='__git_ps1 "\u@\h:\w" "\\\$ "'
chris@machine:~/path/to/dir (master *)$

There is no way to change the colour of the branch name based on dirty status without modifying the git-prompt.sh code, or providing your own function.

Note that this works with export PROMPT_COMMAND but not export PS1.