Python: get output of the shell command 'history'

Question

My end goal is capture the previous command executed in the terminal. Since ~/.bash_history doesn't include commands from the current terminal session, I can't simply read that file.

From another thread, I found this script:

from subprocess import Popen, PIPE, STDOUT
shell_command = 'bash -i -c "history -r; history"'
event = Popen(shell_command, shell=True, stdin=PIPE, stdout=PIPE, 
    stderr=STDOUT)

output = event.communicate()

That's pretty close to what I'm looking for, but it also will not include the history from the current terminal session since it's started as a subprocess. Is there any way to execute a similar command in the current shell?

history isn't an executable, it's a shell builtin.

Wooble
– Wooble

2013-08-19 17:30:39 +00:00
Commented Aug 19, 2013 at 17:30 — Wooble
– Wooble, Commented Aug 19, 2013 at 17:30
Check a question on how to run bash built-ins

Paulo Almeida
– Paulo Almeida

2013-08-19 17:33:29 +00:00
Commented Aug 19, 2013 at 17:33 — Paulo Almeida
– Paulo Almeida, Commented Aug 19, 2013 at 17:33

Łukasz Rogalski · Accepted Answer · 2016-09-14 22:13:27Z

6

why don't you read the file directly. ~/.bash_history

for history in open('/home/user/.bash_history'):
    print(history, end='')

edited Sep 14, 2016 at 22:13

Łukasz Rogalski

23.3k10 gold badges63 silver badges93 bronze badges

answered Aug 19, 2013 at 17:32

edi_allen

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3 Comments

Madison May Over a year ago

Because my end goal is capture the previous command executed in the terminal, and ~/.bash_history doesn't include commands from the current terminal session.

Madison May Over a year ago

I should make that more clear in the original question. Thanks for the advice, though.

edi_allen Over a year ago

That's the default behaviour but you could write a function to make the shell append the previous command to the history file before prompting for a new command.

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