[kwlug-disc] bash: HISTTIMEFORMAT

[Alex Kleider]

Am I correct in assuming that zsh is an alternative to bash?
Not sure I'd want to change shells and run the risk of finding myself in very unfamiliar territory!
a

Alex Kleider (set from my current gizmo)

On Wednesday, March 4th, 2026 at 8:52 AM, Jason Eckert <jason.eckert at gmail.com> wrote:

> That option doesn't work in bash's history built-in function. You'd have to use zsh instead.
>
> On Wed, 4 Mar 2026 at 11:37, Alex Kleider via kwlug-disc <kwlug-disc at kwlug.org> wrote:
>
>> Doesn't seem to work on my Debian XFCE system (a release or two ago.)
>> $ history -i
>> bash: history: -i: invalid option
>> history: usage: history [-c] [-d offset] [n] or history -anrw [filename] or history -ps arg [arg...]
>>
>> Alex Kleider (set from my current gizmo)
>>
>> On Wednesday, March 4th, 2026 at 6:02 AM, Jason Eckert <jason.eckert at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Like Raymond, the 'history -i' command has been my go-to for ages.
>>> I switched to zsh long ago for aesthetic consistency... it matches zfs, zswap, etc… I’m nothing if not alphabetically aligned.
>>>
>>> On Wed, 4 Mar 2026 at 08:52, Raymond Chen <raymondchen625 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Very nice! BTW, in zsh it's `history -i`.
>>>>
>>>> On Wed, Mar 4, 2026 at 8:37 AM CrankyOldBugger <crankyoldbugger at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Nice one!
>>>>>
>>>>> On Wed, 4 Mar 2026 at 03:11, Chris Frey <cdfrey at foursquare.net> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> It turns out that by setting the environment variable HISTTIMEFORMAT
>>>>>> on startup to something like "%Y-%m-%dT%T " bash will both display
>>>>>> the timestamp of all commands when you use the 'history' command,
>>>>>> but also store the timestamps in the .bash_history file.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Now I have an automatic trail of timed breadcrumbs in case I need it,
>>>>>> for all my shell work.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Just passing along the tip.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> - Chris
>>>>>>
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