Re: git-branch --print-current

> Karl Chen <quarl@cs.berkeley.edu> writes:
>
>> For example: Google for how to add the name of the git branch to
>> the bash prompt and you'll find countless examples of people using
>> git-branch.  And they're all different, so people aren't just
>> blindly copying one guy; here is a small sample:
>> ...
>> There were a few using git-symbolic-ref but most used git-branch.
>
> That is a good point about user education, and is a demonstration why a
> new option to cover a very narrow-special case to symbolic-ref will not
> help the situation.  People will add their own embellishments around the
> name of the branch anyway, and the most generic symbolic-ref output is
> just as useful as a special case option to show without refs/heads/.
>
> What you quoted are all inferior implementations of showing the name of
> the current branch in the bash prompt.  The most correct way (in the sense
> that it won't be broken in future git) is always found in the bash
> completion script in contrib/completion/git-completion.bash and it reads:
>
>    PS1='[\u@\h \W$(__git_ps1 " (%s)")]\$ '
>
> You can of course change this to suit your taste.  For example, here is a
> variant I personally use:
>
>    PS1=': \h \W$(__git_ps1 "/%s"); '
>
> The point is that __git_ps1 shell function is defined to be used for this
> exact purpose and is documented in the completion script.
>
> Besides showing the current branch, it knows how to interpret the various
> state clues git operations leave in the repository and the work tree, and
> reminds them what you are in the middle of (e.g. applying patch series
> using "git am", rebasing interactively, resolving conflicts after a merge
> did not autoresolve, etc.), and also knows how to show the detached HEAD.