UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

Hi - user commands are written in . bash_history of that user when he logs out. my bash_history file shows. not sure what that number means

#1329618972
ls -la
#1329618978
ls
#1329618980
ls -la

my bash_profile looks like this

PATH=$PATH:$HOME/bin
export PATH
export HISTTIMEFORMAT='%F %T '
export HISTSIZE=200000

I logged and logged out multiple times as the user but I am not able to get time in bash_history. Am I missing out something ?

Thanks,

Those are unix timestamps -- number of seconds past midnight January 1st, 1970. The first timestamp in your post is 2012/02/18 21:36:12.

Thanks agama I was scratching my head as what that number was. How do I get the current time stamp instead of seconds passed from 1970.

Thanks,

I don't use bash, so this is a guess. The timestamp in the file will always be unix time. The format string is what bash uses when you execute the history command such that commands are printed with the timestamp that was saved.

This allows you to change the format, without the need for bash to update all of the previously written timestamps in the file.