-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 
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.
-- 
Denny White 
All messages scanned by ClamAssassin

http://jameslick.com/clamassassin/

===============================================================

GnuPG key  : 0x1644E79A  |  http://wwwkeys.nl.pgp.net

Fingerprint: D0A9 AD44 1F10 E09E 0E67  EC25 CB44 F2E5 1644 E79A

===============================================================

iD8DBQFHnQ+ey0Ty5RZE55oRAm+IAJ4mFSIXHqORlxAmbuIu4VTOd7Z35QCgpwDP

X6R0e88UGv5D/5VGHG4rX6I=

=hMAH

-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

Have you tried it without the quotes?
HISTSIZE=50
Steve

Yeah, dumbass me, I just answered the same question in another reply.

Should've looked at the rest of the messages. ;) Anyway, yeah, I had

tried it both ways & it still didn't work. Like I said before, why

all of a sudden it started working, I don't know. But it now it works.

Each time I made changes, I tried various ways of getting it to take

effect. I did '. ./.profile' to get the system to reread it, exited

& logged back in, etc. Strange problem but now it's resolved. Thanks

for the help, Steve. 
-- 
Denny White
All messages scanned by ClamAssassin

http://jameslick.com/clamassassin/

===============================================================

GnuPG key  : 0x1644E79A  |  http://wwwkeys.nl.pgp.net

Fingerprint: D0A9 AD44 1F10 E09E 0E67  EC25 CB44 F2E5 1644 E79A

===============================================================

iD8DBQFHnr+4y0Ty5RZE55oRAmM3AKDRVZQx0wLMBbpXVPRIi3oqaDdouACgjtIN

sUKw7wiPZednI/fZvRCT1bw=

=nwNv

-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

Try it without double quotes on HISTSIZE value; and remember to export them.
--

Thanks,

Jordi Espasa Clofent

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1
Thanks for the reply, Jordi. Yeah, I saw that while googling around

& tried it, but by the time I'd posted my question, I'd taken the

quotes off. It still wasn't working. Why, all of a sudden it started

working last night, I don't know. I'm just glad it did. I think I

copied that in from a something other than the working file when I

posted to misc@. Probably a .profile~ in $HOME. My bad. Thanks for

answering, though.
-- 
Denny White
All messages scanned by ClamAssassin

http://jameslick.com/clamassassin/

===============================================================

GnuPG key  : 0x1644E79A  |  http://wwwkeys.nl.pgp.net

Fingerprint: D0A9 AD44 1F10 E09E 0E67  EC25 CB44 F2E5 1644 E79A

===============================================================

iD8DBQFHnr4Ly0Ty5RZE55oRAlbNAKCogEisCCKulQyADSlPVptb/Rd1fACgg2XG

n8nZLrmDibOfWCyJobqC3M0=

=Z76v

-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1
Thanks, Jason. Yeah, I tried the HISTFILESIZE too. What's really

weird is, just all of a sudden, it started working! But, instead

of it starting with the number 1 on the beginning, with HISTSIZE

set at 50, e.g., you run 'fc -l 0' & you might see the beginning

number 163 with the most current command number being 211. It

never goes all the way to 50 commands, usually just 48 before

dropping one off the tail end. This is no problem, I just must be

misunderstanding the man page. Another thing I found out is, after

copying $HOME/.profile to $HOME.kshrc, removing all mention of

HISTFILE & HISTSIZE from .kshrc & putting only the following in

.profile
HISTSIZE=50;export HISTSIZE

HISTFILE=.ksh_history;export HISTFILE

ENV=$HOME/.kshrc

export ENV
it works just the same as if there was no .kshrc file & everything

was still all in .profile. I've got it running one way on one box

& the other way on another box, & they're both working. Why they

didn't work before is a mystery to me. But, I learned something

anyway about being able to do it two different ways. Thanks for

the answer.
-- 
Denny White
All messages scanned by ClamAssassin

http://jameslick.com/clamassassin/

===============================================================

GnuPG key  : 0x1644E79A  |  http://wwwkeys.nl.pgp.net

Fingerprint: D0A9 AD44 1F10 E09E 0E67  EC25 CB44 F2E5 1644 E79A

===============================================================

iD8DBQFHnoXpy0Ty5RZE55oRAlWQAJ0dPTy8YPFpLUkFhwvffPPBGqQlegCgyCD/

wiyKY3CVLCv20grRO5N7dgc=

=lGiL

-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----