On Mon, May 29, 2017 at 04:17:16PM -0400, Chet Ramey wrote: [...] > So the bug is that readline doesn't print an error message if the history > file isn't a regular file?
Correct. Another problem is that the history builtin doesn't propagate back a meaningful return code indicating that there was a problem. A simple example is that you're trying to seed your history by appending the output of a command using `history -r'. So you might try: | $ history -cr <(echo a complex command); echo $?; history | 0 But for some reason that doesn't work and there is no apparent problem with it. Whereas the following does work: | $ history -cr /dev/stdin <<<'a complex command'; echo $?; history | 0 | 1 a complex command Or, which indicates that something went wrong: | $ history -cr /tmp; echo $?; history | 1 In my opinion it should at least return an error code. And if possible an error message. The other option is to implement support for reading from non-regular files, but I'm not sure if it's worth it. -- Eduardo Bustamante https://dualbus.me/