Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ORION.MC.DUKE.EDU!bet
From: bet@ORION.MC.DUKE.EDU (Bennett Todd)
Newsgroups: gnu.bash.bug
Subject: History, actually not a bug, but a documentation suggestion
Message-ID: <8907262102.AA15543@orion>
Date: 26 Jul 89 21:02:12 GMT
Sender: bob@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu
Distribution: gnu
Organization: GNUs Not Usenet
Lines: 59

I started off with the following bug complaint:

|I include the history number in my prompt so that, if a command is still
|on the screen, I can refer to it via
|
|	!number
|
|Bash 1.01 didn't handle that. In particular, using 55-line-long MGR
|windows (my normal window size -- boy are they addictive!) I looked
|halfway up the screen and saw that the command I wanted to re-execute
|was number 19, and here's what happened:
|
|	bent[29] !19
|	19: Event not found.
|
|Drat.
|
|Hey, waitaminit, I just typed "history", and (a loooong time later,
|after much scrolling) I found that command at *519*!!! And, sure enough,
|"!519" worked! Either the reference (in features) to:
|
|        \#      the command number of this command
|
|(in the section on "the comment next to the decode_prompt_string
|function") or the reference:
|
|	`!n'
|	     Refer to command line N.
|
|(in "Event Designators" in "History Expansion") has a problem. Frankly,
|I wish that they both were true. However, it looks like they are at odds
|with attempting to have the command history persist via the external
|file, in the face of multiple bashes on multiple windows.
|
|Waitaminitagain!
|Hmmm...

... and I figured it all out! Brian, terrific job!

Some folks *like* C-shells property of lacking externally recorded
history, having totally separate and unrelated histories for each
invocation of a shell. I confess to being one of these poor old
inflexible lusers. You might mention in the docs that such folks can
keep their defective preferences if they

	(1) Create a directory "~/.bash-histories" (for example)
	(2) Add to .bashrc the incantation:
	    	HISTFILE=~/.bash-histories/$$
	    (making sure of course that .bashrc is sourced from
	    .profile).
	(3) Add to .bash_logout the following:
	    	rm ~/.bash-histories/*

Far out! Now *everybody* can be happy!

Thanks again for the great shell!

-Bennett
bet@orion.mc.duke.edu