5 ms·

Ask HN: Is there a way to make bash history dir specific?

5 points by andrewfromx 10y ago

so when type history in dir foo I get only stuff I've run in that dir

zzenon 10y ago
Unfortunately I don't remember exactly how I did it at past but I'll try to help: On my previous machine, with zsh, I could define my .zsh_history to be created per dir. That way I could see the history per dir. The downside is multiple .zsh_history files per dir plus no universal .zsh_history (the default) EDIT: I think I have found how I have done it. I have this currently on my .zsrch HISTFILE=~/.zhistory removing the ~, will force zsh to create a .zhistory file on your current dir. Hope this helps.
brbsix 10y ago
Bear in mind I think this is pretty crazy and I haven't tested the following, but something along these lines added to your .bashrc should work: set_per_dir_history(){ history -a # append new history lines to the existing history file history -c # clear history list in memory export HISTFILE=$PWD/.bash_history # set new history file (uses .bash_history in the current directory) history -r # read the new history file into memory } export PROMPT_COMMAND="set_per_dir_history;$PROMPT_COMMAND" Personally I'd add some additional logic to the set_per_dir_history function, defaulting to ~/.bash_history and only whitelisting specific directories.
- andrewfromx 10y ago
  i wonder why this isn't default bash history behavior? Wouldn't it be way more useful this way?
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
devnonymous 10y ago
There isn't an builtin way to do this in bash but what you are asking for is 2 things: * Trigger an action on changing a directory * That action should be to change your bash history file The second part is pretty easy to do -- you just change the $HISTFILE environment variable and export it. For the first part though, you can either use a naive little function that replaces bash's builtin `cd`[1] or you can use any one of the many tools specifically created for this sort of a thing: http://swapoff.org/ondir.html https://github.com/kennethreitz/autoenv http://direnv.net/ https://github.com/cxreg/smartcd Note however, that most unix tools are angnostic to the current working dir so... $ /path/to/cmd /some/other/path/to/argument $ cd /path/to && ./cmd /some/other/path/to/argument $ cd /some/other/path/to && /path/to/cmd argument ...might all do the same thing but will be saved in different history files if you implement what you need. [1] http://superuser.com/a/296554/267793 http://superuser.com/a/296554/267793

5 points by andrewfromx 10y ago

so when type history in dir foo I get only stuff I've run in that dir

Unfortunately I don't remember exactly how I did it at past but I'll try to help: On my previous machine, with zsh, I could define my .zsh_history to be created per dir. That way I could see the history per dir. The downside is multiple .zsh_history files per dir plus no universal .zsh_history (the default) EDIT: I think I have found how I have done it. I have this currently on my .zsrch HISTFILE=~/.zhistory removing the ~, will force zsh to create a .zhistory file on your current dir. Hope this helps.

brbsix 10y ago

Bear in mind I think this is pretty crazy and I haven't tested the following, but something along these lines added to your .bashrc should work: set_per_dir_history(){ history -a # append new history lines to the existing history file history -c # clear history list in memory export HISTFILE=$PWD/.bash_history # set new history file (uses .bash_history in the current directory) history -r # read the new history file into memory } export PROMPT_COMMAND="set_per_dir_history;$PROMPT_COMMAND" Personally I'd add some additional logic to the set_per_dir_history function, defaulting to ~/.bash_history and only whitelisting specific directories.

andrewfromx 10y ago
i wonder why this isn't default bash history behavior? Wouldn't it be way more useful this way?

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

devnonymous 10y ago

There isn't an builtin way to do this in bash but what you are asking for is 2 things: * Trigger an action on changing a directory * That action should be to change your bash history file The second part is pretty easy to do -- you just change the $HISTFILE environment variable and export it. For the first part though, you can either use a naive little function that replaces bash's builtin `cd`[1] or you can use any one of the many tools specifically created for this sort of a thing: http://swapoff.org/ondir.html https://github.com/kennethreitz/autoenv http://direnv.net/ https://github.com/cxreg/smartcd Note however, that most unix tools are angnostic to the current working dir so... $ /path/to/cmd /some/other/path/to/argument $ cd /path/to && ./cmd /some/other/path/to/argument $ cd /some/other/path/to && /path/to/cmd argument ...might all do the same thing but will be saved in different history files if you implement what you need. [1] http://superuser.com/a/296554/267793 http://superuser.com/a/296554/267793