How do I change my history size?

How do I change my history size? - Printable Version

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+---- Thread: How do I change my history size? (/showthread.php?tid=4704574)

How do I change my history size? - u534D - Feb 25, 2015

How does a guy change his history size? By default there's 1000 lines. I want to go back and review my history for scripting later so I can be more productive. Here's the problem I'm running into. Every tutorial or article I find about this seems to be written by someone who has no idea what they are doing?

What files do I need to edit? Variables to change? stuff to comment out?

From what I could find the file I'm supposed to edit is bash.bashrc. If I make changes to it, it does nothing. There are a few articles that say I'm supposed to edit environment. This is something that really seems like it should be easy to do. 🤝

* - Benign - Feb 26, 2015

Are you working directly from the command line or connecting in with putty over ssh?

See here if on cli http://stackoverflow.com/questions/9457233/unlimited-bash-history

If it's putty it's under the session settings I can't remember off the top of my head but I can look if you need it, I use it daily but I have it set globally now.

Final point, it's .bashrc in your home directory, not bash.bashrc

* - u534D - Feb 26, 2015

It's still clear as mud. When I edit /etc/bash.bashrc it does nothing for me. Is there another file I'm supposed to edit?

* - Benign - Feb 26, 2015

Edit /home/yourusername/.bashrc or /etc/.bashrc

Note the lack of the bash before the . This is not a typo.

* - u534D - Feb 26, 2015

There's nothing like that in my home folder. Is it in /Home/usr/ ? /usr/share/

* - Betty Blue - Feb 26, 2015

(Feb 26, 2015 12:02 PM)u534D Wrote: There's nothing like that in my home folder. Is it in /Home/usr/ ? /usr/share/

Yes there is

PHP Code 


<?php 
ls -al | grep .bash 

It is a hidden file.

* - u534D - Feb 26, 2015

(Feb 26, 2015 02:21 PM)Zack de la Rocha Wrote: Yes there is

PHP Code
<?php ls -al | grep .bash
It is a hidden file.

Cool. I found it with:

Code 
ls -al | grep .bash

Then I opened with

Code 
gedit .bashrc

Am I to understand that changing these two lines will give me unlimitted history?
Change this:

Quote:HISTSIZE=1000
HISTFILESIZE=1000

To this:

Quote:HISTSIZE=
HISTFILESIZE=

Or is there something else I have to do?

* - Betty Blue - Feb 26, 2015

(Feb 26, 2015 05:11 PM)u534D Wrote: Cool. I found it with:

Code
ls -al | grep .bash

Then I opened with

Code
gedit .bashrc

Am I to understand that changing these two lines will give me unlimitted history?
Change this:

To this:

Or is there something else I have to do?

That should do it, you can either do that or set it to some high number.

* - u534D - Feb 26, 2015

Totally worked!

If I run

Code 
echo $HISTSIZE

I get a blank output and that's exactly what I need.

* - Benign - Feb 27, 2015

This may default to a system wide history limit from the global bashrc. Setting it to -1 will force it to be unlimited.

It may be fine now though now and you can ignore the above :)

* - u534D - Feb 28, 2015

Good to know. I always forget about -1.