Re: Fix 'git log' early pager startup error case

From: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
Date: Aug 25, 2010, 20:05 UTC
Message-ID: <AANLkTi=49opoB-4kA-cjGEUXmVjO6_d-Qdh6tiRxqPM4@mail.gmail.com>
In-Reply-To: <7vtymiqz9c.fsf@alter.siamese.dyndns.org>

On Wed, Aug 25, 2010 at 12:16 PM, Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com> wrote:

>
> The only difference is that after the user dismisses the pager, the error
> message is lost.  I am not sure if that is a problem, though.

No, there's a much more annoying difference. You mentioned it, but ignored it.

The "user dismisses the pager" part.

That's ANNOYING. I made a damn typo, my command line was bogus. I don't want that pager. I don't want to have to press 'q' to get out of the pager just to fix the mistake I made. I didn't ask for a pager in the first place, and git isn't really outputting any data, so having the pager there is wrong.

Having the pager there when git actually outputs pages and pages of data is right. I think the "use pager by default" is absolutely the right design decision. But that doesn't mean that we should use the pager when there is no data output, just a command line mistake.

                    Linus