Over many years I used ksh. I like the possibility to use Esc v in command history to call the editor vi. If this command in the history was spread over many lines - for example because of a while loop - vi shows this history also over many lines. With this feature it is easy possible to write complex statements without writing the input to a file.Years ago I changes to bash. It has the same possibility with default shortcut Ctrl-X Ctrl-E. The slightly difference is that bash is merging all lines to one long line delimited with a semicolon. Syntax is still correct but we lose readability.So what I am doing, I am calling ksh, if I see the commands become complex.Is there a way to configure bash in a way not to merge the lines of the history and act as ksh is doing it?Any help is welcome.
bash command history editing multiple lines
bash;command history
Use:shopt -s lithistlithistIf set, and the cmdhist option is enabled, multi-line commands are saved to the history  with  embedded  newlines        rather than using semicolon separators where possible.I suspect the reason this isn't enabled by default is because people often use commands like history | grep something to find history entry numbers. If a history entry is split across multiple lines, the line that matches grep won't always contain the entry number.