history

Introduction

Here is a way to create a secondary shell history log (i.e., one that supplements the primary "~/.bash_history") that tracks a range of other information, such as the working directory, hostname, time and date etc. Using the "HISTTIMEFORMAT" variable, it is in fact possible to store the time and date with the primary history, but the storing of the other information is not as readibly do-able.

Most of us know about using the bang operator (`!`) to recall an entry from our bash history:

$ ! # repeat last command
$ !22 # repeat command 22

You can use "!:" followed by a number to substitute in arguments from previous commands. So, for example, to run the command "dosomething" on the first argument of the previous command: