venv: Make activate et al. export custom prompt prefix as an envvar

[jwodder]

BPO	45264
Nosy	@jwodder

^{Note: these values reflect the state of the issue at the time it was migrated and might not reflect the current state.}

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GitHub fields:

assignee = None
closed_at = None
created_at = <Date 2021-09-22.15:23:41.614>
labels = ['type-feature', 'library', '3.11']
title = 'venv: Make activate et al. export custom prompt prefix as an envvar'
updated_at = <Date 2021-09-22.15:23:41.614>
user = 'https://github.com/jwodder'

bugs.python.org fields:

activity = <Date 2021-09-22.15:23:41.614>
actor = 'jwodder'
assignee = 'none'
closed = False
closed_date = None
closer = None
components = ['Library (Lib)']
creation = <Date 2021-09-22.15:23:41.614>
creator = 'jwodder'
dependencies = []
files = []
hgrepos = []
issue_num = 45264
keywords = []
message_count = 1.0
messages = ['402444']
nosy_count = 1.0
nosy_names = ['jwodder']
pr_nums = []
priority = 'normal'
resolution = None
stage = None
status = 'open'
superseder = None
type = 'enhancement'
url = 'https://bugs.python.org/issue45264'
versions = ['Python 3.11']

Linked PRs

• gh-89427: Set VIRTUAL_ENV_PROMPT even when VIRTUAL_ENV_DISABLE_PROMPT… #106643
• gh-89427: Provide the original prompt value for VIRTUAL_ENV_PROMPT #106726

[jwodder]

I use a custom script (and I'm sure many others have similar scripts as well) for setting my prompt in Bash. It shows the name of the current venv (if any) by querying the VIRTUAL_ENV environment variable, but if the venv was created with a custom --prompt, it is unable to use this prompt prefix, as the activate script does not make this information available.

I thus suggest that the activate et al. scripts should set and export an environment variable named something like VIRTUAL_ENV_PROMPT_PREFIX that contains the prompt prefix (either custom or default) that venv would prepend to the prompt. Ideally, this should be set even when VIRTUAL_ENV_DISABLE_PROMPT is set in case the user wants total control over their prompt.

(This was originally posted as an issue for virtualenv at <https://github.com/pypa/virtualenv/issues/2194\>, and it was suggested to post it here for feedback.)