How can I uniqely record every new command I use, and possibly timestamp it?

I've been on Linux for more than 6 months now but never went too much into the CLI (command-line interface or terminal or shell)

Now as I ask questions here, get answers, or help from other sites, I learn new commands...

How can I can store every new command in a text file? Only new/unique commands, not repetitions of the same command.

Here's an example:

1. In the terminal, I enter the commands like this-

$  command1
$  command2
$  command3
$  command4
$  command1

2. Now, these commands should get saved in a text file say commandrec like this

command1
command2
command3
command4

NOTE: The last command in the terminal which was again command1 is not recorded/saved again in the text file.

And the next time I open the terminal, and enter a new command command 5, it should get appended to the list in commandrec

(but if the command was used earlier on some other date, it should still be ignored. For example, command 1 entered again along with command 5 on a new day/time but command1 not recorded as already used)

3. The commandrec file will be looking something like this

31/05/12 12:00:00
command1
command2
command3
command4
01/06/12 13:00:00
command 5

(the time and date thing would be great if possible, but okay even if that isn't there)

This way, I can have a record of all commands used by me to date.

How can this be done?

Solution 1:

How to successfully experiment with changing these settings in .bashrc

• Before experimenting: Save your current .bash_history to another file with cp.
• While experimenting with what works: rm ~/.bash_history after you change .bashrc with history control parameters, otherwise the combo of old and new entries may give you weird results.
  • e.g., all entries before timestamps were enabled will show the same current date/time!

• Once you find something that works, DO NOT rm any more!!

• Note also that any changes to .bashrc are reflected only when you exit and then instantiate a new terminal/shell.

Increasing history size and eliminating duplicates

• Add these lines to your ~/.bashrc:

  export HISTCONTROL=erasedups
  export HISTSIZE=10000

• History size is set to 10000, duplicates are automatically eliminated so it's plenty of space :)

Timestamping

• Time can be set easily by adding another line of the form export HISTTIMEFORMAT="%F %T", this will display the time/date before each line when using history
  • Example:

    izx@preciseunity:~$ history
    1  2012-06-01 07:16:22 rm ~/.bash_history
    2  2012-06-01 07:16:23 exit
    3  2012-06-01 07:16:27 ls
    4  2012-06-01 07:16:31 test
    5  2012-06-01 07:16:34 ls /etc
    6  2012-06-01 07:16:36 down
    7  2012-06-01 07:16:37 up
    8  2012-06-01 07:16:40 hustory
    9  2012-06-01 07:16:48 history
    

  • Note that because duplicates are eliminated, the time shown for a command is the latest (newest) time it was last executed.
  • You can customize the HISTTIMEFORMAT to your choice/locale based on strftime

Solution 2:

Your aim is to learn new commands? I recommand to use CLI Companion:

CLI Companion is a tool to store and run Terminal commands from a GUI. People unfamiliar with the Terminal will find CLI Companion a useful way to become acquainted with the Terminal and unlock its potential. Experienced users can use CLI Companion to store their extensive list of commands in a searchable list.

You get it by running:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:clicompanion-devs/clicompanion-nightlies
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install clicompanion

If you don't want to add the PPA try this file for 12.04 (latest version 1.1-6, released on 2012-04-14 - check this page for newer versions.) - or remove the PPA after installing with sudo add-apt-repository -r ppa:clicompanion-devs/clicompanion-nightlies .

PS: I found this question which could be helpful, too.

Solution 3:

Going on Dirk's suggestion of going through .bash_history and chris's suggestion of using the sort command, what you probably want to do is:

cat ~/.bash_history | sed 's/sudo //g' | sort -u +0 -0 | cut -d\  -f1 > commandrec.txt

Second command in the pipeline will delete occurrences of 'sudo ' so when you sort you will sort the commands that you may type only after invoking sudo.

Bash history doesn't keep track of the time/date the command was used, but just off the top of my head, you could write a script that will be invoked when you exit the terminal. The script would call the above command (but save to commandrec-$DATE.txt where you have something like DATE = `date "+%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%S"`). Then you could diff with .bash-history and keep only the new commands in commandrec-$DATE.txt. So you would have a collection of such dated commandrec files. Actually, since .bash_history is limited (I think default on my system was 500), you should probably diff with the file you get by cat-ing all your commandrec*.txt files and .bash_history.

Then anytime you actually want to look at all your commands to date, you can cat all your files to a file.