On Sun, Jan 27, 2008 at 05:27:26PM -0600, Denny White wrote:

quoted text
>

> I've read the ksh man page, googled for days, & can't seem to come

> up with the answer. Either I put no mention of HISTFILE and HISTSIZE

> in $HOME/.profile and I don't have a lasting history file of previous

> commands. Or, I put it in and I do have a history file, but the

> HISTSIZE setting has no effect. It doesn't change and the file grows

> and grows. Currently I have it set as shown below to save my command

> line history:

>

> HISTFILE=.ksh_history

> HISTSIZE="50"

>

> I've tried using .ksh_history$$ to have a different file each login,

> and know I can run a cronjob nightly to clean them up if I want to,

> but I can't figure out how to make the history turn over just like

> it's supposed to with the HISTSIZE value without all that other mess.

> Thanks for any help I can get on this.

> 

notice that the variable is named "HISTSIZE", not "HISTFILESIZE" :)
HISTSIZE affects how many commands are kept in history (in memory - not

file). so, for example, if you set HISTSIZE=3 you'll only be able to

recall the past 3 commands in history. it does not turn over HISTFILE,

however.
i'm a bit confused by this myself, though - it does seem logical that

the HISTFILE not store more commands than history itself is able to

recall. i can;t tell by looking at the code what goes on in there -

maybe someone else can chip in...
jmc