How to log IPython history to text file?

You can export all of your history in IPython to a text file with the %history magic like this:

%history -g -f filename

One way of getting what you want might be to do that export in a git hook. I usually put these "sync an external resource" actions in the post-checkout git hook.

You can also choose which lines you would like to save. E.g.

%history 1 7-8 10 -f /tmp/bar.py

This will save line 1, 7 to 8 and 10 to a temp file bar.py. If you need the whole just skip the part of the line.

%history -f /tmp/foo.py

You can emulate bash's behavior by adding this in one of your startup scripts (e.g. $(ipython locate profile)/startup/log_history.py:

import atexitimport osip = get_ipython()LIMIT = 1000 # limit the size of the historydef save_history():    """save the IPython history to a plaintext file"""    histfile = os.path.join(ip.profile_dir.location, "history.txt")    print("Saving plaintext history to %s" % histfile)    lines = []    # get previous lines    # this is only necessary because we truncate the history,    # otherwise we chould just open with mode='a'    if os.path.exists(histfile):        with open(histfile, 'r') as f:            lines = f.readlines()    # add any new lines from this session    lines.extend(record[2] + '\n' for record in ip.history_manager.get_range())    with open(histfile, 'w') as f:        # limit to LIMIT entries        f.writelines(lines[-LIMIT:])# do the save at exitatexit.register(save_history)

Note that this emulates the bash/readline history behavior in that it will fail on an interpreter crash, etc.

in a gist

update: alternative

If what you actually want is to just have a few manual favorite commands available to readline (completion, ^R search, etc.) that you can version control, this startup file will allow you to maintain that file yourself, which will be purely in addition to the actual command history of IPython:

import osip = get_ipython()favfile = "readline_favorites"def load_readline_favorites():    """load profile_dir/readline_favorites into the readline history"""    path = os.path.join(ip.profile_dir.location, favfile)    if not os.path.exists(path):        return    with open(path) as f:        for line in f:            ip.readline.add_history(line.rstrip('\n'))if ip.has_readline:    load_readline_favorites()

Drop this in your profile_default/startup/ dir, and edit profile_default/readline_favorites, or anywhere you prefer to keep that file, and it will show up in readline completions, etc. on every IPython session.