clear history when using clear button in RPC console #1767

• current code does not clear history, when using the clear button, this is added
• remove an unused variable

I'm not entirely sure about clearing history. When clearing screen in a terminal (ctrl-L), the history is not cleared.

Then again I suppose clearing history in this case can help a bit with privacy, so it may be wise to do so.

BTW the CONSOLE_SCROLLBACK is there to remind that there is currently no scrollback limit. If you use the console very long without clearing, you can theoretically exhaust resources. Maybe this can be solved using QTextDocument::setMaximumBlockCount (but I somehow remember there was a counter-intuitive relation between the number of text document blocks and messages).

I found it annoying to not be able to clear the history, but in the end it is your decission :). I could add a comment in ToDo to remind there is currently no scrollback limit?

@laanwj Do you consider this a 0.7 patch? I updated it to reflect in a comment that we currently don't have a scrollback limit.

Automatic sanity-testing: PASSED, see http://jenkins.bluematt.me/pull-tester/af7b88f29fba5d1db109a03dd6e5282fd9da825d for binaries and test log.

A little bit of a layering violation; but one possibility here would be to replace private keys and passphrases in the history with /SECRET OMITTED/ or hashmarks or whatever.

@gmaxwell I really had no privacy concern at first when opening this, I was just annoyed that the Up-/Down-Key history could not be deleted ^^. I'm not sure about your idea, it is for sure some work and I also would like to be able to still do copy and paste (when not using the clear button).

@gmaxwell good idea, I guess this could be best done with a list of commands and parameter positions that contain secrets that should be "censored". Secrets nested deep in JSON data structures are too much bother IMO.

I'm not sure if I understand that discussion in the light of my small pull ;). When giving bitcoind commands they appear in the shell history, too, no?

I'm not sure if I understand that discussion in the light of my small pull

It'd be even better if the user would not have to think about manually clearing the history after handling secrets. That doesn't exclude being able to manually clear it, of course.

When giving bitcoind commands they appear in the shell history, too, no?

Yes, but how is that an argument for being just as insecure?

If this one is of no interest just close it. But perhaps we can merge it for RC3 otherwise?

I'm fine with merging this but it will be after 0.7.0 final.

@laanwj Can you still merge this for 0.7.1?

ping @laanwj