linux prompt: show current branch?

Question

I want to have my command prompt to not display my username, but to show what git branch I am currently in. In other words, this is what I want:

[master]$ ls
README    INSTAL    whatever.py
[master]$ git checkout other-branch
[other-branch]$ 

Is there a way to have the prompt customized that much?

Answer 1

PS1='[`git rev-parse --abbrev-ref HEAD 2> /dev/null`]$ '

see here for help on the particular git command used. The key for me was to realize that I can plug arbitrary commands into the PS1 environment variable :)