yeah that looks exactly like what i wanted, thanks! i probably should have asked my question a couple years ago but i was still very new to linux and didn’t quite know the lingo. i’m still not quite sure how < works in general but i get the pipe and other redirects at least.

putting it in .bash_logout doesn’t always work. something involving login shells i don’t quite understand yet but i’ll read more about it. i saw mention of putting exit_session() { . "$HOME/.bash_logout" } trap exit_session SIGHUP in .bashrc to make it always work but i also don’t understand trap yet either so i’ll look into that too.

thanks again, your reply helped point me in the right direction of things i want to learn!