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> The point of the above two was that __git_ps1 does not have to set
> PS1 as long as the insn says user to use PROMPT_COMMAND that sets
> PS1 himself, exactly as illustrated above. In other words, replace
> the last PS1=... in the "prompt command" mode with an echo or
> something and make the user responsible for assigning it to PS1 in
> his PROMPT_COMMAND.
>
> Or put it in another way, I was hoping that we can do without adding
> the prompt command mode---if there is no two modes, there is no need
> to switch between them.
>
> But as I said, there probably is a reason why that approach does not
> work, that is why I said...
>
The only reason to my knowledge is that bash's handling of zero-length strings, like terminal colour commands, is producing a PS1 that outputs less visible characters than bash thinks and thus bash makes mistakes when wrapping the commandline. The way to prevent that is to use \[ and \] around those and that doesn't seem to work from a string produced from command-substitution. (BTW, the colours come through just fine, just the \[ and \] don't)
Another approach could be to split up the functionality and have a few support functions to set various variables (corresponding with the gitstring features, like *%+ characters and colour hints). These variables could then be used by a custom PROMPT_COMMAND function or a command substitution function to produce a gitstring. I suppose that would mean a complete rewrite or very close to it ;-)
/Simon
Simon Oosthoek <s.oosthoek@xs4all.nl>