10

I have a specific method for my bash prompt, let's say it looks like this:

CHAR="༇ "
my_function="
    prompt=\" \[\$CHAR\]\"
    echo -e \$prompt"

PS1="\$(${my_function}) \$ "

To explain the above, I'm builidng my bash prompt by executing a function stored in a string, which was a decision made as the result of this question. Let's pretend like it works fine, because it does, except when unicode characters get involved

I am trying to find the proper way to escape a unicode character, because right now it messes with the bash line length. An easy way to test if it's broken is to type a long command, execute it, press CTRL-R and type to find it, and then pressing CTRL-A CTRL-E to jump to the beginning / end of the line. If the text gets garbled then it's not working.

I have tried several things to properly escape the unicode character in the function string, but nothing seems to be working.

Special characters like this work:

COLOR_BLUE=$(tput sgr0 && tput setaf 6)

my_function="
    prompt="\\[\$COLOR_BLUE\\] \"
    echo -e \$prompt"

Which is the main reason I made the prompt a function string. That escape sequence does NOT mess with the line length, it's just the unicode character.

Community
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Andy Ray
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3 Answers3

5

The \[...\] sequence says to ignore this part of the string completely, which is useful when your prompt contains a zero-length sequence, such as a control sequence which changes the text color or the title bar, say. But in this case, you are printing a character, so the length of it is not zero. Perhaps you could work around this by, say, using a no-op escape sequence to fool Bash into calculating the correct line length, but it sounds like that way lies madness.

The correct solution would be for the line length calculations in Bash to correctly grok UTF-8 (or whichever Unicode encoding it is that you are using). Uhm, have you tried without the \[...\] sequence?

Edit: The following implements the solution I propose in the comments below. The cursor position is saved, then two spaces are printed, outside of \[...\], then the cursor position is restored, and the Unicode character is printed on top of the two spaces. This assumes a fixed font width, with double width for the Unicode character.

PS1='\['"`tput sc`"'\]  \['"`tput rc`"'༇ \] \$ '

At least in the OSX Terminal, Bash 3.2.17(1)-release, this passes cursory [sic] testing.

In the interest of transparency and legibility, I have ignored the requirement to have the prompt's functionality inside a function, and the color coding; this just changes the prompt to the character, space, dollar prompt, space. Adapt to suit your somewhat more complex needs.

tripleee
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  • I have tried without \\[ \\] and I get the same garbled result. However, if I replace ༇ with a normal character like x, I do not see the problem (again, not using the escape sequence). I have also tried △ as a different character, but same thing – Andy Ray Aug 19 '11 at 20:28
  • You could perhaps wrap the problematic sequence in a pair of curses commands, something like `tput sc`, print two spaces, `tput rc`, print your Unicode character. The two spaces (or some other sequence with the correct width) would have to be outside `\[...\]`, all the rest inside. See also http://tldp.org/HOWTO/Bash-Prompt-HOWTO/x405.html – tripleee Aug 20 '11 at 06:59
4

@tripleee wins it, posting the final solution here because it's a pain to post code in comments:

CHAR="༇"
my_function="
    prompt=\" \\[`tput sc`\\]  \\[`tput rc`\\]\\[\$CHAR\\] \"
    echo -e \$prompt"

PS1="\$(${my_function}) \$ "

The trick as pointed out in @tripleee's link is the use of the commands tput sc and tput rc which save and then restore the cursor position. The code is effectively saving the cursor position, printing two spaces for width, restoring the cursor position to before the spaces, then printing the special character so that the width of the line is from the two spaces, not the character.

Zach Valenta
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Andy Ray
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  • What's with the nested variables, though? Assigning a value to `prompt` just to `echo` and discard it seems particularly wasteful. – tripleee Aug 23 '11 at 05:30
  • I was providing a snippet from a larger function to show the use case. The whole thing (now working, thanks to you) is the big string at the bottom of my file: git, svn and hg information beautifully formatted in the prompt: https://github.com/DelvarWorld/configs/blob/master/.bashrc – Andy Ray Aug 23 '11 at 07:01
0

(Not the answer to your problem, but some pointers and general experience related to your issue.)

I see the behaviour you describe about cmd-line editing (Ctrl-R, ... Cntrl-A Ctrl-E ...) all the time, even without unicode chars.

At one work-site, I spent the time to figure out the diff between the terminals interpretation of the TERM setting VS the TERM definition used by the OS (well, stty I suppose).

NOW, when I have this problem, I escape out of my current attempt to edit the line, bring the line up again, and then immediately go to the 'vi' mode, which opens the vi editor. (press just the 'v' char, right?). All the ease of use of a full-fledged session of vi; why go with less ;-)?

Looking again at your problem description, when you say

my_function="
    prompt=\" \[\$CHAR\]\"
    echo -e \$prompt"

That is just a string definition, right? and I'm assuming your simplifying the problem definition by assuming this is the output of your my_function. It seems very likely in the steps of creating the function definition, calling the function AND using the values returned are a lot of opportunities for shell-quoting to not work the way you want it to.

If you edit your question to include the my_function definition, and its complete use (reducing your function to just what is causing the problem), it may be easier for others to help with this too. Finally, do you use set -vx regularly? It can help show how/wnen/what of variable expansions, you may find something there.

Failing all of those, look at Orielly termcap & terminfo. You may need to look at the man page for your local systems stty and related cmds AND you may do well to look for user groups specific to you Linux system (I'm assuming you use a Linux variant).

I hope this helps.

shellter
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