First, you need to copy the bash-completion script somewhere appropriate.

cd /usr/local/git/contrib/completion/
cp git-completion.bash ~/.git-completion.sh

Now add the following line to your ~/.bash_profile

source ~/.git-completion.sh

Next time you login, autocompletion in Git should work just fine. If you want to take it one step further, here’s how you add the current branch to your command line. The bash-completion script tells you to change your PS1 to the following.

PS1='[\u@\h \W$(__git_ps1 " (%s)")]\$ '

Which is cool, but I already had my PS1 set up, complete with colors and shit. Here’s what I ended up doing.

GIT_PS1_SHOWDIRTYSTATE=1
GIT_PS1_SHOWSTASHSTATE=1
GIT_PS1_SHOWUNTRACKEDFILES=1
export GIT_PS1_SHOWDIRTYSTATE
export GIT_PS1_SHOWSTASHSTATE
export GIT_PS1_SHOWUNTRACKEDFILES


PS1='[\e[1;32m]$(__git_ps1 " (%s)")[\e[m]'
PS1="[\e[1;36m]\h:\W[\e[m]$PS1[\e[1;36m]> [\e[m]"
export PS1

What a mess! I’m never going to be able to remember what I did here unless I write it down here.

First off, the GIT_PS1_ variables add an indicator to your command line letting you know that you’re in a dirty working directory, you have something stashed or there are untracked files. Handy.

Second, anything between [\e[1;32m] and [\e[m] is given a color. You can read more about it here.

Finally, the function $(__git_ps1 " (%s)") will replace %s with the current branch (plus a flag if you’ve set those variables I described earlier) if you are currently in a directory under Git source control.

The final result:

I’ll be updated my recent post on my .bash_profile to reflect these changes.

Oh, and this isn’t in my profile, but just learned this trick last week and which I had known about it years ago. In OS X, ‘open ./’ opens the current directory in Finder.

!/bin/bash

This is the preferred file for running init commands

This file will be run on any login

echo
echo "######################################"
echo "#                                    #"
echo "#     Welcome to Jim's Macbook       #"
echo "#                                    #"
echo "######################################"
echo

setting up bash completion

source ~/.git-completion.sh
GIT_PS1_SHOWDIRTYSTATE=1
GIT_PS1_SHOWSTASHSTATE=1
GIT_PS1_SHOWUNTRACKEDFILES=1
export GIT_PS1_SHOWDIRTYSTATE
export GIT_PS1_SHOWSTASHSTATE
export GIT_PS1_SHOWUNTRACKEDFILES

PATH=$PATH:/Users/jkubicek/bin
export PATH

PS1='[\e[1;32m]$(__git_ps1 " (%s)")[\e[m]'
PS1="[\e[1;36m]\h:\W[\e[m]$PS1[\e[1;36m]> [\e[m]"
export PS1

alias ls='ls -G'
alias imac='ssh jimk@imac.local'
alias gc='git commit -m'
alias ga='git add .'
alias gs='git status'
alias grso='git remote show origin'
alias gl='git log --oneline --graph'

Updated: I added a bunch of stuff related to git autocomplete, in light of my recent post.