What should show in cmd2 history?

@kotfu @tleonhardt This question pertains to cmd2’s history and not readline’s.

Currently we put what the user typed in history. (statement.raw) Is there any reason why can’t put what was run instead? (statement.command_and_args)

That would make it clearer when things like shortcuts and aliases are entered. You will have a record of what actually occurred.

[kotfu]

I like all of this. One suggestion: lets add a deep copy of the Statement object to the HistoryItem instead of raw, command and args, etc. That way we are sure to have everything we might ever need, and can continue to encapsulate any code to split/join parts of the statement into that class.

[tleonhardt]

@lancestarr I like the idea of history -v only showing both if they are different.

For transcript output, it actually re-runs the commands and generates a transcript for regression testing. I know this feature is a little confusing, but it is actually used by end users for their testing purposes. Generating a transcript in this fashion is typically much easier than doing it by hand. Perhaps we could clarify the help text for the -t flag to make it more clear. And yes, people really care about transcript output - I’m aware of one end user who no longer writes unit tests and writes transcript tests instead.

The Transcript based testing section of the cmd2 docs contains more info.