ZSH history truncator

readme.md

ZSH History Pruner

Overview

When using ZSH as a shell, the history file can become cluttered with long commands that were accidentally pasted into the terminal. This particularly becomes problematic when you increase the history size since reverse search can begin to take multiple seconds to complete. This script addresses this problem by letting you easily prune your ZSH history.

Usage

git clone <gist_url> zsh-history-pruner
python3 zsh-history-pruner/prune_zsh_history.py ~/.zsh_history pruned_zsh_history --char-limit 6000

# Validate pruning result is acceptable
du --human --apparent-size ~/.zsh_history pruned_zsh_history

# Repplace current ZSH history with pruned file
cp ~/.zsh_history ~/.zsh_history.bak
exec mv pruned_zsh_history ~/.zsh_history

License

This script is released under public domain.

prune_zsh_history.py

import argparse


def process_history(input_file, output_file, char_limit):
    prune_count = 0
    with open(input_file, 'rb') as infile, open(output_file, 'wb') as outfile:
        current_entry = b''
        for line in infile:
            current_entry += line
            if not line.endswith(b'\\\n'):  # End of an entry
                if len(current_entry) <= char_limit:
                    outfile.write(current_entry)
                else:
                    prune_count += 1
                current_entry = b''
    print('Pruned', prune_count, 'entries.')


def main():
    parser = argparse.ArgumentParser(description='Filter zsh history file.')
    parser.add_argument(
        'input_file', type=str, help='Input zsh history file path'
    )
    parser.add_argument(
        'output_file', type=str, help='Output zsh history file path'
    )
    parser.add_argument(
        '--char-limit',
        type=int,
        default=6000,
        help='Character limit for removal (default: 6000)',
    )

    args = parser.parse_args()
    process_history(args.input_file, args.output_file, args.char_limit)


if __name__ == '__main__':
    main()