bash history and keeping track of current working directory

andrews-mark · 06-08-2010, 05:08 PM

Hi all,
I would like to keep track of not only what bash commands I used and when, but also where they were issued from, i.e. what was the current working directory when I issued "foobar" on a particular day and time. Can we ask bash history to keep track of working directories too? I have tried to get an idea of this reading the enormous "man bash", but I don't seem to have an answer yet either way.
-mark

unSpawn · 06-08-2010, 05:46 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by andrews-mark

I would like to keep track of not only what bash commands I used and when, but also where they were issued from, i.e. what was the current working directory when I issued "foobar" on a particular day and time.

AFAIK there's no variable, switch or configuration option for it. Why on earth would you want to do that anyway?

bigrigdriver · 06-08-2010, 07:21 PM

Add this to your .bashrc: export HISTTIMEFORMAT="$PWD %d %h %Y %H:%M:%S ".

Notice the $PWD in the format. That's the command ( as in echo $PWD) to show the current working directory. It does not give you exactly what you want. It shows the home directory, but the sequence of commands that include the cd command should allow you to keep track on where the commands were issued, as in this example from my history:

Quote:

454 /home/bigrigdriver08 Jun 2010 19:14:44 cd Documents
455 /home/bigrigdriver08 Jun 2010 19:14:45 ls
456 /home/bigrigdriver08 Jun 2010 19:15:39 less "HELPFUL HINTS.txt"
457 /home/bigrigdriver08 Jun 2010 19:15:46 cd personal
458 /home/bigrigdriver08 Jun 2010 19:15:47 la
459 /home/bigrigdriver08 Jun 2010 19:15:56 history | tail

Note the cd command followed by commands in that directory, then cd to another directory.

unSpawn · 06-09-2010, 02:22 AM

Nice one however it doesn't display the real one, the value of PWD stays at "~".

Agrouf · 06-09-2010, 04:05 AM

Code:

alias cd="export HISTTIMEFORMAT=\"$PWD %d %h %Y %H:%M:%S \" && cd"

unSpawn · 06-09-2010, 04:11 AM

Nope. Doesn't work either. Plus the "fun" part of it all is if you remove the "$PWD" part from HISTTIMEFORMAT and view 'history' afterwards you'll find the PWD part didn't stick in history entries...

Agrouf · 06-09-2010, 04:26 AM

Code:

alias cd="pwd >> ~/.bash_history && cd"

unSpawn · 06-09-2010, 05:00 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Agrouf

Code:

pwd >> ~/.bash_history

One shouldn't write to the file like that. Don't ask me why but if that would be the default then there would be no "-a" and "-n" switch to the 'history' built-in...

andrews-mark · 06-12-2010, 08:47 AM

thanks for the help.
In brief, it seems that keeping track of the directory from which a command was made is not an option with bash history, but there are various ways to keep track of the current working directory using file redirection.
My primary interest was really just to log my activity, that includes knowing where in the filesystem I was at any time.
-mark

Kenhelm · 06-12-2010, 04:47 PM

The 'script' command can be used to log a terminal session.
http://linux.die.net/man/1/script
The log includes the shell prompts which can be customised to display the date and the current working directory.
http://www.cyberciti.biz/tips/howto-...up-prompt.html
'script' is different to bash history because it not only logs a command but also any output the command puts into the terminal window.

Example:
Enter this into a terminal and then enter some commands:
script -a -f

Terminal text will be appended (-a) to the default file 'typescript' keeping the file up to date (-f).
Use CTRL d to exit 'script'.

Tinkster · 06-12-2010, 05:18 PM

DOH ... removed ... didn't work either :/

andrews-mark · 06-13-2010, 07:24 AM

kenhelm - thanks for the 'script' tip
-m