Is it possible to know when you're at the first bash prompt of a terminal?

Question

This is sort of a contiunation of my last question: printing saving the last bash input command

Now I want to know if it's possible to know when you're at the first bash prompt of a terminal. So I'm displaying the last command run above the current prompt. And I'm thinking it would be cool if when you're at a fresh terminal, to display the last N commands.

I guess I could just echo the last commands inside my .bashrc, but that doesn't seem like a good idea. And also it'd be cool to get the last N commands shown when the scrollback is cleared (via clear).

Is any of that (reasonably) possible?

Answer 1

I guess I could just echo the last commands inside my .bashrc, but that doesn't seem like a good idea. And also it'd be cool to get the last N commands shown when the scrollback is cleared (via clear).

I'm not sure there's another way to do it without modifying the bash source... What seems bad about putting it in .bashrc though? You should just add an interactivity test so it doesn't print it in any script :

if [ ! -z "$PS1" ]; then
    echo "Hello, the last 5 commands you typed were :"
    tail -n5 ~/.bash_history
fi

You could also create an alias for clear which basically does the same.

Answer 2

http://www.thegeekstuff.com/2008/09/bash-shell-ps1-10-examples-to-make-your-linux-prompt-like-angelina-jolie/

Scroll all the way to the bottom of the page. It talks about a \# code that displays the "command number." It starts at 1 and increments for each command you enter until you exit the terminal. I've found it useful.