Informative git prompt for zsh in Linux

This prompt is a specialisation of repository called "Informative git prompt for zsh" for Kali Linux, which you can find here. Thanks to its author for the idea and implementation!

A zsh prompt that displays information about the current git repository. In particular the branch name, difference with remote branch, number of files staged, changed, etc.

Designations

You can find all the repository state designations in the zsh-git-kali-prompt.zsh file by copying the repository.

Dependencies

In order for git prompt for Linux to work, the following components must be installed on your local machine:

1. Git.
2. Python 3. In scripts, references to Python 3 appear as python3. If you have python installed, create a symbolic or hard-drive link with the ln command to python3, or simply rename them in the zsh-git-kali-prompt.zsh file.
3. For the git information prompt to work correctly, your Kali Linux must use the zsh UNIX command shell.
4. GCC (optional). If you are going to use the faster C script compiled to a binary file, you will need gcc for the compilation.

Install

Using the plugin manager under zsh:

1. Use the standard installation methods specific to your plugin under zsh.

Edit your ~/.zshrc file:

1. Clone this repository to the $HOME directory or some other location (I'll do it in $HOME, and use that as the path in the future).

2. Source the file zsh-git-kali-prompt.plugin.zsh from your ~/.zshrc config file, and configure your prompt. So, somewhere (might be in the end of the file) in ~/.zshrc (recommended at the end of the file), you should have:

   # zsh git prompt setup.
   source $HOME/zsh-git-kali-prompt/zsh-git-kali-prompt.plugin.zsh

3. Restart the console, or write the zsh command to start a new session with the applied changes to the ~/.zshrc settings.

4. Go in a git repository and test it! This only works if you are in a repository.

Run the plugin faster with the C-lang script (optional)

If you want to reduce delay when reloading the prompt shown in the terminal, you can switch from the python script that collects the git information from the current repository to a binary file coming from a C script. The ulity works the same, it just changes the way of executing the same instructions.

To do this follow the next steps:

1. From the directory where you cloned the repo, compile the C script into a binary file with the next command:

gcc -O2 -o gitstatus gitstatus.c

2. From the shell script zsh-git-kali-prompt.zsh replace the env variable GIT_PROMPT_EXECUTABLE found in line 9 to binary. The line should look like this:

export GIT_PROMPT_EXECUTABLE=${GIT_PROMPT_EXECUTABLE:-"binary"}

3. Restart the console so the changes are applied.
4. Go in a git repository and test it! This only works if you are in a repository.

Deletion

To remove the git command prompt, you need to remove the entire zsh-git-kali-prompt directory (where all the prompt scripts are located), and lines in ~/.zshrc that you added there during installation.

Customisation

• You may redefine the function git_super_status (after the source statement) to adapt it to your needs (to change the order in which the information is displayed).
• Define the variable ZSH_THEME_GIT_PROMPT_CACHE in order to enable caching.
• You may also change a number of variables (which name start with ZSH_THEME_GIT_PROMPT_) to change the appearance of the prompt. Take a look in the file zsh-git-kali-prompt.zsh to see how the function git_super_status is defined, and what variables are available.