Re: [PATCH RESEND] Do not override LESS

From: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Date: Aug 23, 2008, 09:08 UTC
Message-ID: <7vtzdc14k5.fsf@gitster.siamese.dyndns.org>
In-Reply-To: <87k5e8i18c.fsf@cup.kalibalik.dk>

Anders Melchiorsen <mail@cup.kalibalik.dk> writes:

Show 8 quoted lines

> Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com> writes:
>
>> 3. Christ has been happily using git with his PAGER set to "less".  He
>>    suddenly notices that output from git linewraps and the pager does not
>>    exit when showing a short output, and gets very unhappy.
>
> Well, I noted that point already, so I had hoped for a reply
> explaining why it is a big problem.

It is a huge problem. It breaks people's existing perfectly well working setup.

And I do not think it is impossible to solve the issue without doing so.

> While I am wary of advocating a patch that makes Christ unhappy, the
> "3." issue is easily fixed by him setting GIT_PAGER="less -FRSX".

That's not a solution. Alice and Bob can also change their environment to their taste as well. Why punish existing users?

If the problem you are trying to solve is that there is no existing combination of the environment variables for them to do so, you can solve it by introducing a new configuration or environment to support such usage and documenting it, can't you?