Keep executed command in its tab (bash script)

Question

I have a bash script that starts a terminal window with multiple tabs and executes a command in each of the tabs similar to this (and titles aren't supported, I know):

#!/bin/bash

title1="foo"
title2="bar"

cmd1="sleep 1s"
cmd2="cd ~/Desktop"

gnome-terminal --tab --title="$title1" --command="bash -c '$cmd1; $SHELL'" \
               --tab --title="$title2" --command="bash -c '$cmd2; $SHELL'"

In the real script, when the process in one of the tabs dies, I have to restart it, usually. However, pressing the UP key doesn't yield the command used in the script in that tab. This behavior is the same with this script, as if I press up in the first tab I don't get "sleep 1s" but a completely different command I used elsewhere.

Is there a way for the opened tab to keep the $cmd used in the script?

Answer 1

There should be a more elegant solution than this, but you can try something like:

--command="bash -c 'export HISTFILE=/tmp/hist\$\$; history -s \"$cmd1\";
           history -w; $cmd1; exec $SHELL'"

where the bash is given its own history file hist$$, the $$ having to be escaped to be evaluated later to the pid of the process. history -s saves a string to the history list, and -w saves that to the HISTFILE. The shell is assumed to use this value set in the environment. You may need to add --norc for bash to stop it setting up a different history file from your ~/.bashrc, for example.