Persistent history not working

Persistent history not working

[Thorsten Kampe]

Hi,

I have one Windows 2003 R2 SP1 Terminal Server running zsh under 
Cygwin (all latest versions[1]). It uses the same .zshrc as all my 
other installation but for some reason history is not saved across 
sessions.

This is what I tried: deleted all zsh config files and set manually 
"HISTFILE=~/.zsh_history". No success.

I ran Process Monitor and saw that zsh was accessing (or looking for) 
.zhistory.lock and some files like .zhistory.xyzs but it never tried 
to access .zhistory[1].

Bash (just as a sidenote) does save history on this server.

What else could I do or try to find the reason for this behaviour?


Thorsten
[1] that's taken from memory. I could provide more accurate details

Re: Persistent history not working

[Frank Terbeck]

Thorsten Kampe <thorsten@thorstenkampe.de>:
> I have one Windows 2003 R2 SP1 Terminal Server running zsh under 
> Cygwin (all latest versions[1]). It uses the same .zshrc as all my 
> other installation but for some reason history is not saved across 
> sessions.
> 
> This is what I tried: deleted all zsh config files and set manually 
> "HISTFILE=~/.zsh_history". No success.
[...]
> What else could I do or try to find the reason for this behaviour?

Before looking any further, could you check if this FAQ entry helps?
    <http://zsh.sunsite.dk/FAQ/zshfaq03.html#l38>

Regards, Frank

-- 
In protocol design, perfection has been reached not when there is
nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.
                                                  -- RFC 1925

Re: Persistent history not working

[Thorsten Kampe]

* Frank Terbeck (Sat, 19 Jan 2008 13:23:45 +0100)
> Thorsten Kampe <thorsten@thorstenkampe.de>:
> > I have one Windows 2003 R2 SP1 Terminal Server running zsh under 
> > Cygwin (all latest versions[1]). It uses the same .zshrc as all my 
> > other installation but for some reason history is not saved across 
> > sessions.
> > 
> > This is what I tried: deleted all zsh config files and set manually 
> > "HISTFILE=~/.zsh_history". No success.
> [...]
> > What else could I do or try to find the reason for this behaviour?
> 
> Before looking any further, could you check if this FAQ entry helps?
>     <http://zsh.sunsite.dk/FAQ/zshfaq03.html#l38>

Yeah, I did that. As far as I remember HISTSIZE and HISTFILE have 
defaults so they don't need to be set manually. But I definitely set 
them in my .zshrc.

Thorsten

Re: Persistent history not working

[Bart Schaefer]

On Jan 19, 12:18pm, Thorsten Kampe wrote:
}
} I ran Process Monitor and saw that zsh was accessing (or looking for) 
} .zhistory.lock and some files like .zhistory.xyzs but it never tried 
} to access .zhistory[1].

I wonder if it's failing because it can't create a file with more than
three characters after the dot?  What filesystem type contains your home
directory?

Re: Persistent history not working

[Frank Terbeck]

Thorsten Kampe <thorsten@thorstenkampe.de>:
> * Frank Terbeck (Sat, 19 Jan 2008 13:23:45 +0100)
> > Thorsten Kampe <thorsten@thorstenkampe.de>:
> > > I have one Windows 2003 R2 SP1 Terminal Server running zsh under 
> > > Cygwin (all latest versions[1]). It uses the same .zshrc as all my 
> > > other installation but for some reason history is not saved across 
> > > sessions.

I didn't quite get this, when I first read your mail, sorry. Does this
mean, history saving does work for you on other operating systems? If
so, my babbling here is useless. :-)
See Bart's reply then.

> > > This is what I tried: deleted all zsh config files and set manually 
> > > "HISTFILE=~/.zsh_history". No success.
> > [...]
> > > What else could I do or try to find the reason for this behaviour?
> > 
> > Before looking any further, could you check if this FAQ entry helps?
> >     <http://zsh.sunsite.dk/FAQ/zshfaq03.html#l38>
> 
> Yeah, I did that. As far as I remember HISTSIZE and HISTFILE have 
> defaults so they don't need to be set manually. But I definitely set 
> them in my .zshrc.

As for the default values:

[snip]
% zsh -fc 'print -$SAVEHIST- -$HISTSIZE- -$HISTFILE-'
-0- -30- --
[snap]

If you set HISTFILE and HISTSIZE, that's fine (and for HISTFILE it's
even required); As you can see however, $SAVEHIST is 0 by default,
which means, nothing will be saved.

Regards, Frank

-- 
In protocol design, perfection has been reached not when there is
nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.
                                                  -- RFC 1925

Re: Persistent history not working

[Thorsten Kampe]

* Bart Schaefer (Sat, 19 Jan 2008 10:38:02 -0800)
> On Jan 19, 12:18pm, Thorsten Kampe wrote:
> } I ran Process Monitor and saw that zsh was accessing (or looking for) 
> } .zhistory.lock and some files like .zhistory.xyzs but it never tried 
> } to access .zhistory[1].
> 
> I wonder if it's failing because it can't create a file with more
> than three characters after the dot? What filesystem type contains
> your home directory?

NTFS. According to the modification date, .zhistory was used until 
June or so last year.

Thorsten

Re: Persistent history not working

[Thorsten Kampe]

* Frank Terbeck (Sat, 19 Jan 2008 21:37:24 +0100)
> Thorsten Kampe <thorsten@thorstenkampe.de>:
> > * Frank Terbeck (Sat, 19 Jan 2008 13:23:45 +0100)
> > > Thorsten Kampe <thorsten@thorstenkampe.de>:
> > > > I have one Windows 2003 R2 SP1 Terminal Server running zsh under 
> > > > Cygwin (all latest versions[1]). It uses the same .zshrc as all my 
> > > > other installation but for some reason history is not saved across 
> > > > sessions.
> 
> I didn't quite get this, when I first read your mail, sorry. Does this
> mean, history saving does work for you on other operating systems?

Yes, sure.

> > > > This is what I tried: deleted all zsh config files and set manually 
> > > > "HISTFILE=~/.zsh_history". No success.
> > > [...]
> > > > What else could I do or try to find the reason for this behaviour?
> > > 
> > > Before looking any further, could you check if this FAQ entry helps?
> > >     <http://zsh.sunsite.dk/FAQ/zshfaq03.html#l38>
> > 
> > Yeah, I did that. As far as I remember HISTSIZE and HISTFILE have 
> > defaults so they don't need to be set manually. But I definitely set 
> > them in my .zshrc.
> 
> As for the default values:
> 
> [snip]
> % zsh -fc 'print -$SAVEHIST- -$HISTSIZE- -$HISTFILE-'
> -0- -30- --
> [snap]
> 
> If you set HISTFILE and HISTSIZE, that's fine (and for HISTFILE it's
> even required); As you can see however, $SAVEHIST is 0 by default,
> which means, nothing will be saved.

I set these values in my .zshrc. But when I started zsh without .zshrc 
(to rule out config file issues) I only set $HISTFILE. So I will 
repeat my test on Monday with the three history settings to see if it 
makes a difference.


Thorsten