Unix command help

[holycow]

Hi,

How do I clean the history of the xterm prompt? e.g. if i type 'history' in xterm, it shows me a list of commands that i typed before.. i'd like to reset/clean the list.. tia..

 

[drag]

The history is stored in a .history in your home directory of the user that your are using.


A simple way to clear it would be echo " " > ~/.history

I beleive that should clear any bash history. (note the space between the " ")

 

[Nothinman]

The problem with drag's command is that normally your history is saved to that file on logout, so while that will clear out that file when you type exit it'll be repopulated again. Before you logout you can set HISTFILE to either nothing via the bash 'unset' command or set it to /dev/null. And for bash the file is called .bash_history, not just .history, It probably varies from shell to shell.

 

[eigen]

I have a little script that does this for me (in a round about paranoid way)

#!/bin/bash
#
shred /home/(yourusername)/.bashistory
cp /home/(yourusername)/somefolder/newhistory.txt /home/(yourusername)/.bashistory
end 0


where shred is the builtin file shredder (under linux) and newhistory.txt is a file where i have generated some random crap.

Useless you bet . Fun to overwrite stuff 35 times and generate random data when your drunk, you bet.

 

[drag]

Originally posted by: Nothinman
The problem with drag's command is that normally your history is saved to that file on logout, so while that will clear out that file when you type exit it'll be repopulated again. Before you logout you can set HISTFILE to either nothing via the bash 'unset' command or set it to /dev/null. And for bash the file is called .bash_history, not just .history, It probably varies from shell to shell.

Well, I'll be darned.

Didn't realise that it only wrote to it on logout, your right.