Re: Proposal about --help options and man calls

From: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Date: Jul 18, 2007, 23:16 UTC
Message-ID: <7v644h715y.fsf@assigned-by-dhcp.cox.net>
In-Reply-To: <85y7hdwfds.fsf@lola.goethe.zz>

David Kastrup <dak@gnu.org> writes:

> Frequently, git somecommand --help will call the man command to
> display help pages.  I think that when it does so, it should pass the
> value of the GIT_PAGER variable copied into the PAGER variable: the
> paging happens on behalf of git here.

Hmph. Is that to help people who uses GIT_PAGER but no PAGER, or have both but set it differently (setting both and in the same way does not make much sense). But what it means is that "git command --help" and "man git-command" would be paged differently. I highly doubt it is really desirable.

What's the reason to set GIT_PAGER and PAGER differently to begin with? Can people give examples of the reason why?

By the way, I would understand if there is a request to honor GIT_LESS environment and if it exists export its value instead of FRSX as LESS when we spawn the pager. As some people do not want S nor R for other programs but do want them for colored git output that tends to consist of long lines. This is a slightly related topic, but different from the issue you raised in your message.