Per-Directory-History

This is an implementation of per directory history for ZSH:

• Typed commands are saved both in a global history, as well as a per-directory history.

• A hotkey (AltL by default) toggles the current history, used for ZSH history navigation and search.

• Directory histories are saved in a hierarchy under your home directory mirroring the filesystem hierarchy.

This implementation is loosely based on the implementation by Jim Hester. Notable differences:

• Works smoothly with very large (global) history files. The global history file is only read in full when switching to it with the hotkey.

• Works smoothly with share_history (commands are flushed to history files immediately, and become visible in other shell instances).

• Some subjectively saner defaults and namespacing fixes.

Usage

1. Load this script into your interactive ZSH session:

   % source zsh-per-directory-history.zsh
   

2. The default mode is per-directory history, interact with your history as normal.

3. Press AltL (lowercase) to toggle between local and global histories.

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Configuration

• PER_DIRECTORY_HISTORY_TOGGLE is a shell variable defining the key combination which toggles between directory and global histories.

• PER_DIRECTORY_HISTORY_BASE is a shell variable which defines the base directory in which the directory histories are stored.

• PER_DIRECTORY_HISTORY_FILE is a shell variable which defines the name of the files which will contain the directory histories. It should be set to something that's unlikely to occur as a path component in any paths you intend to visit on your filesystem.

• per-directory-history-toggle-history is the function to toggle the history mode.