Re: idea for new feature (was: Re: sticky-note and zle bindings)

[Bart Schaefer <schaefer@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

(I never saw the original message from Robert Knight and it's not in the
list archives.)

On Jan 25, 10:32am, Richard Hartmann wrote:
} Subject: Re: idea for new feature (was: Re: sticky-note and zle bindings)
}
} On Jan 25, 2008 3:57 AM, Robert Knight <robertknight@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
} 
} > There is a misunderstanding.  By "end the session", I meant ending a
} > session and removing all data associated with it.  An analogy would be
} > the option not to save the tabs in a web browser when closing it.
} > Saving the session state would be the default behavior which would
} > occur when logging out of the X session or closing the shell by
} > sending SIGHUP for example.

Shells are slightly different beasts than other applications.  If I
explicitly exit from a shell, I'm done with whatever that shell was
doing, and if I were to then start a new shell I wouldn't want it to
return to the context of the the last shell I exited; the chances are
very good that the new thing I'll be doing has nothing to do with
the last thing.

OTOH if my shell *windows* in a GUI environment are disconnected, or
the shell is killed by HUP, I probably didn't intentionally exit and I'd
like the state restored, to the extent possible, when the GUI resumes.
That applies whether the GUI session is exited abnormally or when I
choose "Log Out" from a menu.

This implies that commands in the .zlogout or equivalent need to be
able to determine what caused the shell to exit:  builtin command,
user-generated EOF (ctrl-D), real EOF on stdin, HUP signal, etc.

It also implies that the shell needs a way to tell the GUI environment
NOT to attempt, independently, to restore current directory, etc.
 
} One thing that would need to be decided is which sessions to delete
} first. Oldest overall, oldest upate, smallest footprint, largest
} footprint all have their respective merrits. Probably another option

Scriptable.  Don't bother trying to define this in the shell itself.

} Another thing to note is that some people would probably want to keep
} the respective histories seperate, other would want to merge them on
} session 'detach', still others would probably want to merge the
} information on explicit session destruction.
} Option one could be done by hand by the route of
}   .zsh_history.$SHELL_SESSION_COOKIE
} the others would probably, again, need options.

Again scriptable.

See Util/reporter in the zsh source distribution for examples of how to
dump out various shell state.