Is it possible to make history file unlimited?

penguinator · 11-20-2012, 08:53 PM

hello all,

I did a google search but there is no mention of making the history file unlimited. For now, I have set it to 3000. But, I don't want a limit on the history file, I want it to continue on and on until I clear it myself. Is it possible.

btmiller · 11-21-2012, 01:02 AM

According to some googling, unsetting the HISTSIZE and HISTFILESIZE environment variables should do what you want it to do. Oddly, the bash man page mentions unsetting HISTFILESIZE, but doesn't say anything about unsetting HISTSIZE.

penguinator · 11-21-2012, 01:51 AM

The only variables I have for history in my /etc/profile are

HISTCONTROL=ignoredups
HISTSIZE=3000

I am going to make HISTSIZE=3000 into HISTSIZE= and see what happens. Thank you for replying

Habitual · 11-21-2012, 01:34 PM

Code:

HISTCONTROL=ignoredups:erasedups
HISTSIZE=300000
HISTFILESIZE=300000
export HISTTIMEFORMAT='%F %T '

and I get

Code:

-rw-r--r-- 1 jj users 272K Nov 21 2012  1:50 PM .bash_history

6875 commands in bash_history, so far.

Yes, I timestamp my history.

penguinator · 11-21-2012, 02:40 PM

Just edited my /etc/profile with your suggested codes. Thanks Habitual

Habitual · 11-21-2012, 05:25 PM

You're quite Welcome.

It should be noted that if/when you turn 'on'
HISTTIMEFORMAT, all your previous history will have the same timestamp, after that, it behaves as one expects.

In Summary:
HISTTIMEFORMAT stamps forward

I don't know how those entries will behave in a .profile, I've always used .bashrc

Good luck.