zsh history is too short

Question

When I run history in Bash, I get a load of results (1000+). However, when I run history the zsh shell I only get 15 results. This makes grepping h

Answer 1

NVaughan (the OP) has already stated the answer in an update to the question: history behaves differently in bash than it does in zsh:

In short:

• zsh:
  • history lists only the 15 most recent history entries
  • history 1 lists all - see below.
• bash:
  • history lists all history entries.

Sadly, passing a numerical operand to history behaves differently, too:

• zsh:
  • history shows all entries starting with - therefore, history 1 shows all entries.
  • (history - - note the - - shows the most recent entries, so the default behavior is effectively history -15)
• bash:
  • history shows the most recent entries.
  • (bash's history doesn't support listing from an entry number; you can use fc -l , but a specific entry must exist, otherwise the command fails - see below.)

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Optional background info:

• In zsh, history is effectively (not actually) an alias for fc -l: see man zshbuiltins
  • For the many history-related features, see man zshall
• In bash, history is its own command whose syntax differs from fc -l
  • See: man bash
• Both bash and zsh support fc -l [] to list a given range of history entries:
  • bash: specific entry must exist.
  • zsh: command succeeds as long as least 1 entry falls in the (explicit or implied) range.
  • Thus, fc -l 1 works in zsh to return all history entries, whereas in bash it generally won't, given that entry #1 typically no longer exists (but, as stated, you can use history without arguments to list all entries in bash).