Separate up arrow lookback for local and global ZSH history

Copy & Paste this to your .zshrc:

Cursors are using local history:

bindkey "${key[Up]}" up-line-or-local-history
bindkey "${key[Down]}" down-line-or-local-history

up-line-or-local-history() {
    zle set-local-history 1
    zle up-line-or-history
    zle set-local-history 0
}
zle -N up-line-or-local-history
down-line-or-local-history() {
    zle set-local-history 1
    zle down-line-or-history
    zle set-local-history 0
}
zle -N down-line-or-local-history

If you need also key bindings (CTRL + cursors) to step through the global history add also this to your .zshrc:

bindkey "^[[1;5A" up-line-or-history    # [CTRL] + Cursor up
bindkey "^[[1;5B" down-line-or-history  # [CTRL] + Cursor down

To make this work the option SHARE_HISTORY (see 16.2.4 History) needs to be enabled. Run setopt and check if "sharehistory" is listed. If not add setopt sharehistory to your .zshrc. Then one can use set-local-history as we did above. The documenation says:

By default, history movement commands visit the imported lines as well as the local lines, but you can toggle this on and off with the set-local-history zle binding. It is also possible to create a zle widget that will make some commands ignore imported commands, and some include them.

Note that by default global history is used (and all functions end with "zle set-local-history 0", i.e. local history is disabled). So pressing CTRL + R will search the global history by default (which makes sense in most cases).

This is quite similar to the solution by @mpy, but ready for copy & paste. It overwrites the cursor keys up and down. I used this mail list entry.

See also:

  • http://zsh.sourceforge.net/Doc/Release/Zsh-Line-Editor.html
  • https://stackoverflow.com/questions/9502274/last-command-in-same-terminal/9518734?noredirect=1#comment15415094_9518734

You can setup a special zle widget to show only local history items:

function only-local-history () {
        zle set-local-history 1
        zle up-history
        zle set-local-history 0
}
zle -N only-local-history

Assuming, that ↑ is bound to up-line-or-history (I think that is default), you can bind this widget to another key stroke, like CTRL+↑:

 bindkey "^[Oa" only-local-history

If this works is probably dependent of your terminal. Above line works in URxvt/Screen. With xterm you'll need

 bindkey "^[[1;5A" only-local-history

for CTRL+↑.

Another variant could be

function peek-history () {
        zle set-local-history
        zle up-history
        zle set-local-history
}
zle -N peek-history

so, if you have local history enabled, you can peek into the global one or vice versa.


@lumbic's answer worked for me only with a few changes:

setopt share_history

up-line-or-local-history() {
    zle set-local-history 1
    zle up-line-or-history
    zle set-local-history 0
}
zle -N up-line-or-local-history
down-line-or-local-history() {
    zle set-local-history 1
    zle down-line-or-history
    zle set-local-history 0
}
zle -N down-line-or-local-history

bindkey '^[OA' up-line-or-history     # Cursor up
bindkey '^[OB' down-line-or-history   # Cursor down
bindkey '^[[1;5A' up-line-or-local-history    # [CTRL] + Cursor up
bindkey '^[[1;5B' down-line-or-local-history  # [CTRL] + Cursor down

This code makes the global history the default, and uses CTRL-arrow for local history.

Note: I use zsh 5.0.2 together with oh-my-zsh.

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