What is the format of clink_history?

[endolith]

I constantly get sync conflicts when I use a shared Cmder on two different computers, and I'd like to be able to merge the clink_history files, but I don't understand the format.

Lines like

conda install dot
conda install graphviz

become

conda install dot
|onda install graphviz

While lines like

|ytest
|onda update anaconda
|onda update --all

become

|ytest
conda update anaconda
conda update --all

What does the pipe mean? Why does it appear and disappear over time?

If I just keep the unpiped versions from each conflicted file, will it break anything?

[chrisant996]

• The first line (beginning with |CTAG) is important for preventing corruption.
• The rest of the lines are commands.
• When a line is deleted, its first character is replaced with a pipe character |.
• Periodically Clink will compact the file, by removing all deleted lines (i.e. beginning with a pipe character |) and removing old lines until the total number of lines is within the history.max_lines limit.

If you are seeing lines "lose" a pipe character at the beginning, then that is probably a result of the sync conflicts. There's certainly not anything Clink ever does that can make a pipe character disappear (apart from deleting the entire line, when compacting the history file).

[endolith]

When a line is deleted

How is a line deleted?

[chrisant996]

I recommend reading the Clink documentation on History, and then asking follow-up questions.

[endolith]

Meaning this? https://chrisant996.github.io/clink/clink.html#saved-command-history

So the pipes are being added in order to do "Clink reloads the master history list and prunes it not to exceed the history.max_lines setting."?

[endolith]

Is there some way to tell it to immediately clean out the lines that start with pipes?

[endolith]

Oh I found it on another site.

Note to future self:

1. Use Winmerge to combine the clink_history.sync-conflict-… files with the clink_history file. Don't worry about lines that start with pipes.
2. Run clink history compact to remove all the piped junk
3. Try not to use Cmder on both machines at the same time

[chrisant996]

The history.dupe_mode setting can delete old duplicates.
The remove-history command, while searching history (e.g. Up/Down), removes the current line from the history.