Re: history trouble

[Bart Schaefer <schaefer@brasslantern.com>]

On Jan 28,  8:04pm, Thomas Richter wrote:
} Subject: Re: history trouble
}
} Hi Bart Schaefer <schaefer@brasslantern.com>,
} you wrote on Saturday, 2006-01-28 15:53:51 +0000:
} > On Jan 28,  8:41am, Thomas Richter wrote:  
} > }
} > } The options look ok for me:
} > 
} > I don't see "login".  Only login shells read the history automatically.
} 
} On my other computer (zsh 4.1.1 (i386-suse-linux)) there also no 
} login set - but it read my history ...

Sorry, I'm being dense this morning.  I forgot that it's my own setup
that skips history settings for non-login shells.

Possible reasons for the history not to be read are:

- the NO_RCS option is set (the doc says this prevents history from
  being written, but it also suppresses reading it)

- the INTERACT option is not set

- lockhistfile() fails because
  + a temporary lock file can't be created in the same directory
    as the HISTFILE
  + a link to that temp file can't be created
  + something else [possibly several somethings] has the file locked
    for more than about 10 seconds (but this shouldn't apply at shell
    startup, only for incremental history)

- the file can't be opened for reading

- some part of the file is corrupt

- HISTSIZE is zero (in which case, I believe, the file is read but all
  the contents are discarded)

My (new, ahem) guess is that the problem is with the lock file.