On Sun, Jan 27, 2008 at 05:27:26PM -0600, Denny White wrote: > > I've read the ksh man page, googled for days, & can't seem to come > up with the answer. Either I put no mention of HISTFILE and HISTSIZE > in $HOME/.profile and I don't have a lasting history file of previous > commands. Or, I put it in and I do have a history file, but the > HISTSIZE setting has no effect. It doesn't change and the file grows > and grows. Currently I have it set as shown below to save my command > line history: > > HISTFILE=.ksh_history > HISTSIZE="50" > > I've tried using .ksh_history$$ to have a different file each login, > and know I can run a cronjob nightly to clean them up if I want to, > but I can't figure out how to make the history turn over just like > it's supposed to with the HISTSIZE value without all that other mess. > Thanks for any help I can get on this. >
notice that the variable is named "HISTSIZE", not "HISTFILESIZE" :) HISTSIZE affects how many commands are kept in history (in memory - not file). so, for example, if you set HISTSIZE=3 you'll only be able to recall the past 3 commands in history. it does not turn over HISTFILE, however. i'm a bit confused by this myself, though - it does seem logical that the HISTFILE not store more commands than history itself is able to recall. i can;t tell by looking at the code what goes on in there - maybe someone else can chip in... jmc
