Long lines overlap in Bash PS1 customized prompt

Question

I have configured a fancy two-line PS1 bash prompt, with server name, time, user name and other useful variables.

PS1="\n\[\033[1;34m\]\342\226\210\342\226\210 \u @ $SERVER_NAME""$BBlue"" \w""$Color_Off  \n\[\033[0;36m\]\342\226\210\342\226\210 \d \t $ \[\033[0;39m\]"

Full Github source here.

The problem is that long lines are often wrapped around themselves, meaning that the new line overlaps the previous one.

The problem is inconsistent: some lines are wrapped correctly, some are not.

Any idea how to fix this?

Answer 1

Here is my fancy two-line PS1 for bash prompt.

\[\e[1;32m\]\H\[\e[0m\] :: \[\e[1;30m\]\d\[\e[0m\] \@ :: \[\e[1;33m\]\w\n\[\e[1;34m\]\u $ \[\033[0m\]

So here is what I did. If this was my color:

\e[1;32m

I changed it to:

\[\e[1;32m\]

Essentially you need to enclose it in:

\[$mycolor\]

Checkout this answer.

Answer 2

Found this solution online, which suggested a closing brackets to color variables:

Change this:

Black='\e[0;30m'        # Black
Red='\e[0;31m'          # Red
Green='\e[0;32m'        # Green

to:

Black='\e[0;30m\]'        # Black
Red='\e[0;31m\]'          # Red
Green='\e[0;32m\]'        # Green

I've committed the change - hope it works as expected.

Answer 3

My preferred solution to the issue of long lines overlap in bash PS1 is to have a \n at the end of PS1 prompt line(s).

e.g.

If you want all my other stuff - time, user, host, directory and git branch(!) you can use this (mac or linux):

https://unix.stackexchange.com/a/124012/10043