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@jan-warchol
Last active October 19, 2024 08:12
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Synchronize history across bash sessions
# Synchronize history between bash sessions
#
# Make history from other terminals available to the current one. However,
# don't mix all histories together - make sure that *all* commands from the
# current session are on top of its history, so that pressing up arrow will
# give you most recent command from this session, not from any session.
#
# Since history is saved on each prompt, this additionally protects it from
# terminal crashes.
# keep unlimited shell history because it's very useful
export HISTFILESIZE=-1
export HISTSIZE=-1
shopt -s histappend # don't overwrite history file after each session
# on every prompt, save new history to dedicated file and recreate full history
# by reading all files, always keeping history from current session on top.
update_history () {
history -a ${HISTFILE}.$$
history -c
history -r # load common history file
# load histories of other sessions
for f in `ls ${HISTFILE}.[0-9]* 2>/dev/null | grep -v "${HISTFILE}.$$\$"`; do
history -r $f
done
history -r "${HISTFILE}.$$" # load current session history
}
if [[ "$PROMPT_COMMAND" != *update_history* ]]; then
export PROMPT_COMMAND="update_history; $PROMPT_COMMAND"
fi
# merge session history into main history file on bash exit
merge_session_history () {
if [ -e ${HISTFILE}.$$ ]; then
cat ${HISTFILE}.$$ >> $HISTFILE
\rm ${HISTFILE}.$$
fi
}
trap merge_session_history EXIT
# detect leftover files from crashed sessions and merge them back
active_shells=$(pgrep `ps -p $$ -o comm=`)
grep_pattern=`for pid in $active_shells; do echo -n "-e \.${pid}\$ "; done`
orphaned_files=`ls $HISTFILE.[0-9]* 2>/dev/null | grep -v $grep_pattern`
if [ -n "$orphaned_files" ]; then
echo Merging orphaned history files:
for f in $orphaned_files; do
echo " `basename $f`"
cat $f >> $HISTFILE
\rm $f
done
echo "done."
fi
@babanga
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babanga commented Feb 3, 2024

Is there a way to record only direct inputs? Now it seems it catches all inputs, history file is full of mc's outputs like:
cd "printf '%b' '\0057home"

@babanga
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babanga commented Feb 3, 2024

Still trying to fix this to use with tmux. Now it catches all the commands sent from random apps, but later this breaks the input ending up with:
$ mc
$ ls -la
$ ls -latop
can't remove that ^ ls -la
upd: Ok, that part probably was caused by cyd01/KiTTY and fixed by changing termtype to tmux-256color

MC's internal commands has a leading space so it won't be saved in history, but it still gets saved. Fixed it by checking for leading space and exiting the function. But is there a better solution to rrecord only user inputs?

update_history () {
    lastCmd=$(fc -lnr | head -n1)
    # clean the spaces left by fc
    lastCmdReal=${lastCmd:2}
    # remove all leading spaces
    lastCmdRealClean=${lastCmd##+([[:space:]])}

    if [[ "$lastCmdReal" == " $lastCmdRealClean"  ]]; then
       return 0
    fi

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