How to get the "history" command to show all that is in the .bash_history file?

UNIX for Beginners Q & A
1

I am using the bash shell.

When I view my recent command history using the "history" command from the prompt, it only shows me the commands starting at #928.

The commands I need are earlier than that, but I can't figure out how to make the other 927 display.

They are in my .bash_history file, but I need the commands with the time stamps (which I add with the export HISTTIMEFORMAT='%F %T ' command) and would like to repeat a series of commands using their numbers.

Any help is appreciated!

2

If you want to go above the default 500 initial values for HISTFILESIZE and HISTSIZE , you'll probably need to set them in your shell startup files, logout of all of your current terminal sessions, and login again to make them take effect. Trying to recover more than HISTFILESIZE entries from your past history is not likely to work until you build up the history after resetting those values.