Re: Bash History Behavior Suggestion

[support]

Bash or no bash, spreading history over dozens of files in 
`bash_history.d/` is yuck.  We already have a comment with the timestamp 
in `.bash_history`. If I were implementing the suggestion, I would add 
more information to the comment, then add two new flags to the `history` 
command that filter+output the file (i.e. not the internal history 
list): `--global` to display everything in `.bash_history`, and 
`--local` to restrict output to entries from the current session.  
Everything else would remain as-is.

So this:

    #1724136363
    man bash

Becomes this:

    #1724136363 [sess create time] [sess PID] [sess TTY]
    man bash

I think it is important to add the local/global flags because it gives 
us some leeway as to how that comment is structured.  If you take the 
line of "that's what grep is for", then we're committed to the v1 format 
forever after.

The problem with the stackoverflow solutions is that they are 
all-or-nothing: either mash the history together across all sessions, 
but get strange behavior on history nav & expansion, or don't mash, be 
cut-off from information in concurrent sessions, and end up with the 
occasional unsaved session.  Being able to filter the file directly lets 
us look things up without having to slice-and-splice into the internal 
history.

On 2024-08-20 6:14 am, Martin D Kealey wrote:
> "Missing/disappearing history" is entirely down to the lack of "writing
> history as you go", and yes that would be reasonable to offer as a new
> opt-in feature.
>
> As for separation of sessions, I strongly suspect that anything between
> *total* separation and *none* will result in so many ugly compromises 
> that
> in the end almost nobody will be happy with it. So if there's to be an
> additional option - which I'm not convinced of - I suggest that it 
> simply
> be to set HISTFILE by default to either
> $HOME/.bash_history.d/{some-pattern-here} (if the directory exists) or
> ~/.bash_history (matching the current behaviour when that directory 
> does
> not exist). I would recommend that the pattern include most or all of 
> $$,
> $TTY, $LOGNAME, and $((EPOCHSECONDS-SECONDS)).
>
> Lastly, an awful lot of "default behaviour" is down to whatever
> /etc/skel/.bashrc and /etc/bash/bashrc that are shipped with Bash by 
> the
> various distros. Maybe Bash should start shipping some kind of 
> "standard
> library" of functions that are *expected* to be included with any 
> distro,
> but are not actually built into the binary.
>
> -Martin
>
> PS: complaining about "inelegant" in relation to Bash seems a bit 
> pointless.
>
> On Tue, 20 Aug 2024 at 16:48, <support@eggplantsd.com> wrote:
>
> > I wouldn't consider dozens of stackoverflow/askubuntu/etc complaints 
> > of
> > missing/disappearing history "cherry-picked".  There were far more 
> > than
> > I sent.
> >
> > I understand not wanting to pull the rug out from under people, but 
> > the
> > kludges Kealey posted were inelegant.  An opt-in for the suggested
> > behavior would be good enough.
> >
> > JS
> >
> > On 2024-08-20 2:17 am, Lawrence Velázquez wrote:
> > > On Tue, Aug 20, 2024, at 1:42 AM, support@eggplantsd.com wrote:
> > >> The suggestion is that the default behavior needs some work
> > >
> > > The default behavior is unlikely to change.  For every cherry-picked
> > > example of someone unsatisfied with it (bugs aside), there is likely
> > > someone else who prefers it as is (or at least would not appreciate
> > > it changing out from under them).  New shopt settings may be doable.