Re: git diff --name-status does not always list changed files

From: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Date: Feb 28, 2008, 22:51 UTC
Message-ID: <7v63w8hezn.fsf@gitster.siamese.dyndns.org>
In-Reply-To: <bdca99240802281419o3fcea2e8u277d8e5e48131b6d@mail.gmail.com>

"Sebastian Schuberth" <sschuberth@gmail.com> writes:

Show 5 quoted lines

> Thanks, -FX works, though I do not understand why it did not with just
> -F. From what I understood, -F just makes "less" quit immediately
> (instead of waiting for the user to press "q") if the lines to display
> fit completely on screen. In no case it should display nothing if
> there actually is something to display.

My reading and understanding of less manual page, especially the part that talks about -X suggests that everything is working as it is meant to.

"git diff --name-status" displays something, less shows it, and it quits immediately (because you asked it to with -F). As part of its quitting, it clears the screen because you did not ask less not to do that by giving it an -X.

I am tempted to call it a bug in less, but I am a very nice person and I would not actually do so ;-). But it certainly feels like a misfeature between less and terminfo to me.