-bash: __git_ps1: command not found

Question

I tried to install Ruby 2.0. My command line urped and now looks like the following:

-bash: __git_ps1: command not found
[11:58:28][whatever@whatever ~]$ 

I have not a clue how to get rid of the __git_ps1 command not found error. I've searched my .bash_profile and my .bashrc to see if it's trying to set a variable or something and am not seeing anything. The only place I can find git_ps1 mentioned is in ~/.dotfiles/.bash_prompt. I replace the content of that file completely, logout and log back in and it fixes nothing.

I saw this, but I'm pretty new to command line so I just confused myself.

Any ideas?

Answer 1

Run the following:

$ curl -L https://raw.github.com/git/git/master/contrib/completion/git-prompt.sh > ~/.bash_git

And add this to the top of your ~/.bashrc:

source ~/.bash_git

Re-login to your shell and you should be set.

Answer 2

Search your system for a git-prompt.sh, you need to source that for the __git_ps1 function to be available. In Arch, it is currently located at /usr/share/git/completion/git-prompt.sh. Add

source /path/to/git-prompt.sh

to some suitable shell script. If you're unsure where, add it to your ~/.bashrc.

If you have locate installed, you can use that to find the git-prompt.sh file, but you may need to run updatedb as root first.

Answer 3

BASH has a whole slew of ways of automatically setting your prompt to give you nice information. You set the prompt by setting the PS1 environment variable. For example, if I set PS1="$ " my prompt will look like this:

$ 

Not too informative. All I can tell is that the command line is prompting me.

However, If I set PS1=\u@\h: \w$, my prompt will now look like this:

david@vegibank:/usr/bin$ 

That tells me how I'm logged in (the \u), the machine I'm onto (\h), and the directory I'm in (the \w). If I use git, it would be nice if the git branch I'm in is also part of my prompt.

This is exactly what is going on with your .profile, your .bashrc file, your .bash_login or your .bash_profile script. Or, what some system admin did in /etc/profile.

There are a couple things you can do. Either:

• Download the missing __git_ps1 and make sure it's in your $PATH environment variable (which is set by a combination of the various initialization files mentioned above)
• Change your PS1 environment variable in whatever initialization file is being executed (I believe it is probably .bash_profile.

Just add this as the last line:

PS1="\u@\h:\w\n$ "

The added \n prints the dollar sign prompt on the line below like this:

david@vegibank:/usr/bin
$ 

I like to do that because the prompt can get rather long and editing the command line gets tricky when the prompt is longer than 30 to 50 characters. Otherwise, it's pretty much the standard prompt that most users use. You can see more about setting BASH prompts in the man pages. (Search for the word Prompting on that page).

If you find it a bit confusing, be glad you're not using Kornshell. I use Kornshell and to get the same prompt PS1=\u@\h:\w\n$ does, I set my prompt as:

export PS1='$(print -n "`logname`@`hostname`:";if [[ "${PWD#$HOME}" != "$PWD" ]] then; print -n "~${PWD#$HOME}"; else; print -n "$PWD";fi;print "\n$ ")'

Answer 4

Quoting from /usr/lib/git-core/git-sh-prompt:

# This script allows you to see repository status in your prompt.
#
# To enable:
#
#    1) Copy this file to somewhere (e.g. ~/.git-prompt.sh).
#    2) Add the following line to your .bashrc/.zshrc:
#        source ~/.git-prompt.sh
#    3a) Change your PS1 to call __git_ps1 as
#        command-substitution:
#        Bash: PS1='[\u@\h \W$(__git_ps1 " (%s)")]\$ '
#        ZSH:  setopt PROMPT_SUBST ; PS1='[%n@%m %c$(__git_ps1 " (%s)")]\$ '
#        the optional argument will be used as format string.
#    3b) Alternatively, for a slightly faster prompt, __git_ps1 can
#        be used for PROMPT_COMMAND in Bash or for precmd() in Zsh
#        with two parameters, <pre> and <post>, which are strings
#        you would put in $PS1 before and after the status string
#        generated by the git-prompt machinery.  e.g.
#        Bash: PROMPT_COMMAND='__git_ps1 "\u@\h:\w" "\\\$ "'
#          will show username, at-sign, host, colon, cwd, then
#          various status string, followed by dollar and SP, as
#          your prompt.
#        ZSH:  precmd () { __git_ps1 "%n" ":%~$ " "|%s" }
#          will show username, pipe, then various status string,
#          followed by colon, cwd, dollar and SP, as your prompt.
#        Optionally, you can supply a third argument with a printf
#        format string to finetune the output of the branch status

Following these steps should fix your issue!!

Answer 5

As of 2019, the prompt helper function should be installed when installing the git package and can be found at /usr/lib/git-core/git-sh-prompt.

If it is not loaded, install bash-completion package and have a look into your ~/.bashrc.

In my case I had to uncomment this:

if [ -f /etc/bash_completion ] && ! shopt -oq posix; then
    . /etc/bash_completion
fi

and open a new shell, and all was well.

Root cause was 'bash-completion` not being set up properly in the first place on a fresh install.

Answer 6

I solved it simply using

sudo apt install git

This appears because git is not installed and therefore the environment variable is not defined.