Re: multi-line command history does not work when new terminal opened

[Chet Ramey]

On 8/16/20 2:39 AM, Hyunho Cho wrote:

> Bash Version: 5.0
> Patch Level: 17
> Release Status: release
> 
> ####################################################################
> 
> 
> I have enabled the shell options for multi-line command history like this
> 
> shopt -s lithist
> shopt -s cmdhist
> 
> and it works well in current terminal
> 
> bash$ history
>  8651  echo history test 1
>  8652  echo history test 2
>  8653  echo history test 3
>  8654  cat << EOF
> 111
> 222                              # multi-line command history works well
> 333
> EOF
> 
>  8655  history
> 
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> if i opened new terminal then the multi-line commands all changed to
> single lines like this
> 
> bash$ history
>  7819  echo history test 1
>  7820  echo history test 2
>  7821  echo history test 3
>  7822  cat << EOF
>  7823  111                                      # the multi-line
> commands changed to single lines
>  7824  222
>  7825  333
>  7826  EOF
>  7827  history

When you enable `lithist', each line of a multi-line command is saved to
the history list with a trailing newline, and written to the history file
as a separate line. With the traditional readline history file format,
that makes each line a separate history entry unless the application uses
a delimiter to logically separate commands. With bash, that delimiter is
the timestamp that is controlled by HISTTIMEFORMAT.

Here are a couple of messages that explain the issue in detail:

https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-bash/2016-09/msg00112.html
https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-bash/2017-06/msg00119.html


-- 
``The lyf so short, the craft so long to lerne.'' - Chaucer
                 ``Ars longa, vita brevis'' - Hippocrates
Chet Ramey, UTech, CWRU    chet@case.edu    http://tiswww.cwru.edu/~chet/