How to remove partial path from Get-Location output? - windows

Question

I'm trying to write a custom prompt for PowerShell and I was wondering how I would filter out the 1...n directories in the output of Get-Location.
function prompt {
"PS " + $(get-location) + "> "
}
So, if the path is too long I would like to omit some of the directories and just display PS...blah\blah> or something. I tried (get-container) - 1 but it doesn't work.

Answer 1

Use Split-Path with the -Leaf parameter if you want just the last element of a path:
function prompt {
"PS {0}> " -f (Split-Path -Leaf (Get-Location))
}

Answer 2

I wanted to make a more dynamic function. I do just basic string manipulation. You could do some logic nesting Split-Path but the string manipulation approach is just so much more terse. Since what you want to be returned wont be a fully validated path I feel better offering this solution.
Function Get-PartialPath($path, $depth){
If(Test-Path $path){
"PS {0}>" -f (($path -split "\\")[-$depth..-1] -join "\")
} else {
Write-Warning "$path is not a valid path"
}
}
Sample Function call
Get-PartialPath C:\temp\folder1\sfg 2
PS folder1\sfg>
So you can use this simple function. Pass is a string for the path. Assuming it is valid then it will carve up the path into as many trailing chunks as you want. We use -join to rebuild it. If you give a $depth number that is too high the whole path will be returned. So if you only wanted to have 3 folders being shown setting the $depth for 3.

Answer 3

Ansgar Wiechers' answer will give you the last directory but if you want a way to do multiple directories at the end of the filepath (using the triple dot notation) you can cast the directory path to a uri and then just get and join the segments:
function prompt {
$curPath = pwd
$pathUri = ([uri] $curPath.ToString())
if ($pathUri.Segments.Count -le 3) {
"PS {0}>" -f $curPath
} else {
"PS...{0}\{1}>" -f $pathUri.Segments[-2..-1].trim("/") -join ""
}
}
Or using just a string (no uri cast)
function prompt {
$curPath = pwd
$pathString = $curPath.Tostring().split('\') #Changed; no reason for escaping
if ($pathString.Count -le 3) {
"PS {0}>" -f $curPath
} else {
"PS...{0}\{1}>" -f $pathString[-2..-1] -join ""
}
}
$a = prompt
Write-Host $a
Then just change -2 to whatever you want to be the first directory and -le 3 to match. I typically use the uri cast when I have to run stuff through a browser or over connections to Linux machines (as it uses "/" as a path separator) but there is no reason to not use the string method for normal operations.