How to Shorten Path in Zsh Prompt

promptzsh

Bash has the PROMPT_DIRTRIM option, e.g. when I set PROMPT_DIRTRIM=3, then a long path like:

user@computer: /this/is/some/silly/path

would show instead as:

user@computer: .../some/silly/path

Does a similar option exist for zsh?

Best Answer

To get a similar effect like in bash, that is including the ..., try:

%(4~|.../%3~|%~)

This checks, if the path is at least 4 elements long (%(4~|true|false)) and, if true, prints some dots with the last 3 elements (.../%3~), otherwise the full path is printed %~.

I noticed that bash seems to shorten paths in the home directory differently, for example: 

~/.../some/long/path

For a similar effect, you may want to use:

%(5~|%-1~/…/%3~|%4~)

This checks, whether the path is longer then 5 elements, and in that case prints the first element (%-1~), some dots (/…/) and the last 3 elements. It is not exactly the same as paths, that are not in your home directory, will also have the first element at the beginning, while bash just prints dots in that case. So

/this/…/some/silly/path

instead of 

.../some/silly/path

But this might not necessarily a bad thing.

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