Save terminal commands history

[LucaGabi]

Save gitbash terminal commands history on vscode exit for future sessions.

(using windows 10 it's not available)

[Tyriar]

This is maybe happening because of how we're killing/cleaning up the process?

Not confirmed but I've seen plenty of reports for this on Windows.

[blueworrybear]

Hi, I have encountered this issue too. After studying, it seems to me that it's because how node-pty kill process.

At windowsTerminal.ts:161

public kill(signal?: string): void {
    this._defer(() => {
      if (signal) {
        throw new Error('Signals not supported on windows.');
      }
      this._close();
      this._agent.kill();
    });
  }

The process is force killed, therefore the shell terminates immediately and does not save history.

The possible solutions IMO may be:

1. Users set PROMPT_COMMAND="history -a" by themselves.

   This is what I do for short-term solution.

2. Send a exit command before pty killed.

   Maybe add below code:
   terminalProcess.ts:190

   try {
   	if (this._ptyProcess) {
   		this._logService.trace('IPty#kill');
   		this._ptyProcess.write('exit\r\n');
   		this._ptyProcess.kill();
   	}
   } catch (ex) {
   	// Swallow, the pty has already been killed
   }

   Not sure it's an acceptable way to solve this problem. 🤔

Please let me know what you think. I would like to solve this issue.

[Tyriar]

@blueworrybear writing exit won't be good enough as there may not be enough time to exit gracefully before kill anyway (a race condition) and also exit\r\n might not do anything depending on the state of the terminal. What we really need is a way to signal the process to shutdown gracefully and kill it forcefully if it didn't happen several seconds later. Something like this but it would be better if there was a node.js API to do it (even if we need to go to C++): https://stackoverflow.com/a/6860723/1156119

[blueworrybear]

@Tyriar you are right. Sending exit\r\n is not a good idea. My first thought is to graceful kill the process. However, I found that I am unable to graceful kill bash with taskkill. I got an error message when I tried taskkill /PID <pid>. It said the process could be killed only with /F option. I am still looking for the solution. 😕

[SterlingButters]

@Tyriar @blueworrybear And does PROMPT_COMMAND="history -a" have any obvious disadvantages?

[jerrygreen]

I have this problem on windows, but I don't have it on macos

It seems nobody's using VSCode on windows?

[Tyriar]

I don't think this is actionable so closing off.

[LucaGabi]

I don't think this is actionable so closing off.

.. can't be solved ?

[jerrygreen]

I guess mister @Tyriar doesn’t understand the problem, or can’t reproduce it, so [he thinks] he’s reasonably closing it.

As for myself, after when I’ve put export PROMPT_COMMAND="history -a" into one of my rc files, I kinda forgot about this problem, even though it was said it is a short term solution, - by @blueworrybear, this simple fix kinda works good long-term, negating this VSCode bug.

[Tyriar]

@jerrygreen if you would like to enlighten me on a proper solution for this I'm all ears, modifying someone's rc file is not an acceptable fix because it would be too invasive.

[jerrygreen]

So, at least, you admit there is such an issue... So why closing?

[Tyriar]

Because we're currently doing issue grooming to keep our issue count manageable, you can read about the process in #134730 and https://github.com/microsoft/vscode/wiki/Issue-Grooming

[jerrygreen]

Let me remind you again, this issue is related to Windows-users only. I wasn’t able to reproduce it on either macOS or Linux. Means that all the [countless] people that are just starting to use VSCode on Windows, newbies, - they will face this problem. If they had macOS, or Linux, they wouldn’t have such an issue, so closing this issue supports this idea:

«If you want to code, don’t use Windows. Use Linux or macOS»

This idea is in perception of people for a long time already. And Microsoft tries to fight that. I appreciate it.

But what you did here, - is the otherwise. I don’t think this is what Microsoft would like.

P.S. Well might be it’s not an issue of VSCode, but Windows itself, i.e. not your work. Do you confirm that? We can report a problem using Windows Feedback.

[Lemmingh]

This is a limitation of Git Bash itself. I'd recommend Ctrl+D every time you quit a Git Bash session and not relying on Mintty's behavior.

If you have ever taken a look into Git Bash's processes, you will also find it unlikely to be a Windows problem.

When you run Git Bash from Start Menu (git-bash.exe). You get a login shell run by Mintty. Mintty performs logout for you when you close its window.

When you run Git Bash in VS Code (bash.exe), however, there is no Mintty, no sugar. You should either

• Log out on your own.

or

• Set Bash to save command history immediately: Can Git bash save command history when window closed? git-for-windows/git#2073 (comment)

[Tyriar]

@Lemmingh thanks for the info, I'll add this to the terminal docs FAQ page