4 ms·

Why logging to a file when you could just set the HITSIZE variable in your .bashrc ? (plus this will give you ctrl+r search which is a must)

by efyx 10y ago

sp332 10y ago
You would also need to unset HISTFILESIZE, export PROMPT_COMMAND="history -a", export HISTTIMEFORMAT="%d/%m/%y %T ", and set up log rotation to get the behavior listed in the article.
raldi 10y ago
Because that doesn't include timestamps or working directories.
jerf 10y ago
I have many shells open at once, sometimes dozens. Only one of them "wins" when saving history. If Bash has out-of-the-box support for merging multiple shell history, it's not obvious in the man page. And I have them open precisely because they're different contexts and I don't really want them sharing history. If you want a log of everything you run, you need to make it some other way. So, basically, in combination with sp332's and raldi's points, the answer is that it is completely not the same.
- jrochkind1 10y ago
  I took the bash-history related stuff from https://github.com/mrzool/bash-sensible https://github.com/mrzool/bash-sensible and have been VERY happy with it. Among other things, it makes sure all your histories from various open terminals get merged, not overwrite each other -- I think maybe just `shopt -s histappend` is enough for that? But I was messing around with my settings regarding history settings for a while tweaking and tweaking, until I found bash-sensible, tried it out cut and paste, and found it was perfect. ## SANE HISTORY DEFAULTS ## # Append to the history file, don't overwrite it shopt -s histappend # Save multi-line commands as one command shopt -s cmdhist # Record each line as it gets issued PROMPT_COMMAND='history -a' # Huge history. Doesn't appear to slow things down, so why not? HISTSIZE=500000 HISTFILESIZE=100000 # Avoid duplicate entries HISTCONTROL="erasedups:ignoreboth" # Don't record some commands export HISTIGNORE="&:[ ]*:exit:ls:bg:fg:history" # Useful timestamp format HISTTIMEFORMAT='%F %T '

Why logging to a file when you could just set the HITSIZE variable in your .bashrc ? (plus this will give you ctrl+r search which is a must)

by efyx 10y ago

Why logging to a file when you could just set the HITSIZE variable in your .bashrc ? (plus this will give you ctrl+r search which is a must)

sp332 10y ago

You would also need to unset HISTFILESIZE, export PROMPT_COMMAND="history -a", export HISTTIMEFORMAT="%d/%m/%y %T ", and set up log rotation to get the behavior listed in the article.

raldi 10y ago

Because that doesn't include timestamps or working directories.

jerf 10y ago

I have many shells open at once, sometimes dozens. Only one of them "wins" when saving history. If Bash has out-of-the-box support for merging multiple shell history, it's not obvious in the man page. And I have them open precisely because they're different contexts and I don't really want them sharing history. If you want a log of everything you run, you need to make it some other way. So, basically, in combination with sp332's and raldi's points, the answer is that it is completely not the same.

jrochkind1 10y ago
I took the bash-history related stuff from https://github.com/mrzool/bash-sensible https://github.com/mrzool/bash-sensible and have been VERY happy with it. Among other things, it makes sure all your histories from various open terminals get merged, not overwrite each other -- I think maybe just `shopt -s histappend` is enough for that? But I was messing around with my settings regarding history settings for a while tweaking and tweaking, until I found bash-sensible, tried it out cut and paste, and found it was perfect. ## SANE HISTORY DEFAULTS ## # Append to the history file, don't overwrite it shopt -s histappend # Save multi-line commands as one command shopt -s cmdhist # Record each line as it gets issued PROMPT_COMMAND='history -a' # Huge history. Doesn't appear to slow things down, so why not? HISTSIZE=500000 HISTFILESIZE=100000 # Avoid duplicate entries HISTCONTROL="erasedups:ignoreboth" # Don't record some commands export HISTIGNORE="&:[ ]*:exit:ls:bg:fg:history" # Useful timestamp format HISTTIMEFORMAT='%F %T '