On Sat, Feb 5, 2011 at 19:15, Jon Seymour <jon.seym...@gmail.com> wrote: > Here's the format I see in my history. > > #1296950184 > for i in 1 2 > do > echo $i > done > #1296950194 > exit > > HISTTIMEFORMAT is: > > HISTTIMEFORMAT='[%m.%d.%y] %T ' > > > bash -version is: > > GNU bash, version 3.2.25(1)-release (i686-redhat-linux-gnu) > Copyright (C) 2005 Free Software Foundation, Inc. > > jon.
As you can see, the timestamp that is actually recorded is the format '%s' rather than the one given by "$HISTTIMEFORMAT". >From `man bash': HISTTIMEFORMAT If this variable is set and not null, its value is used as a format string for strftime(3) to print the time stamp associated with each history entry displayed by the history builtin. If this variable is set, time stamps are written to the history file so they may be preserved across shell sessions. This uses the history comment character to distinguish timestamps from other history lines. namely: its value is used as a format string for strftime(3) to print the time stamp associated with each history entry displayed by the history builtin. So, if you run `history', you'll not only get the commands in the history list, but you'll also get the time at which the commands were last run (formatted according to "$HISTTIMEFORMAT"). In other words, it's not helpeful in this case.