Re: [PATCH] local history support, take 2

[Peter Stephenson <pws@csr.com>]

Wayne Davison wrote:
> OK, I checked it in.  I also started to work on an auto-pop feature
> from a function.  Attached is a patch that almost works right, but has a
> couple areas that need to be improved.  Perhaps someone can chime in
> here with some advice on how to either do this the right way or fix the
> problems.

Is this going to be optional eventually?  It's a little confusing having
`fc -P' as well, otherwise.  You can use them as a pair at the command
line but I think it should be deliberate to select one behaviour or the
other.

You can also reject attempts to use `fc -P' if the history is marked for
automatic restoration which gets around the other problem.

> function bar {
>     fc -p
>     local HISTFILE=~/.newhist HISTSIZE=2223
>     echo $HISTFILE $HISTSIZE
> }
> 
> However, in function bar the history-list push saves off the global
> value of the HISTFILE and HISTSIZE variables, which are then made local.
> When the function exits, the history-list pop first restores the global
> values of the variables to the environment, and then the local-variable
> restoration unsets HISTFILE and makes HISTSIZE=30 (the default value).
> 
> Is this something we can easily fix?  Perhaps with a different way of
> saving the environment values?  Or is this something where we tell users
> that they can't both use "fc -p" and make the variables local?

I think it needs to be documented that if you're using commands you
shouldn't touch the variables by hand, otherwise confusion like this is
inevitable.

-- 
Peter Stephenson <pws@csr.com>                  Software Engineer
CSR Ltd., Science Park, Milton Road,
Cambridge, CB4 0WH, UK                          Tel: +44 (0)1223 692070


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