Re: why does git set X in LESS env var?

From: Christoph Anton Mitterer <calestyo@scientia.org>
Date: Oct 11, 2023, 23:43 UTC
Message-ID: <fbb3c2bf1c832f0f16cb913da6b862dd313359ef.camel@scientia.org>
In-Reply-To: <6457310b8ca0e7d3b288a3bbbe264012@manjaro.org>

On Thu, 2023-10-12 at 01:29 +0200, Dragan Simic wrote:

> I'm not sure what do you mean by the non-cleared remains being
> chopped 
> off...  Could you clarify that a bit, please?

Well if I do say: $ reset $ git diff HEAD~10

and from there scroll down a bit and then q to exit less (and the screen is not cleared), I see the output only so far as I've had previously scrolled down in less.

Everything that would have come after that is of course not visible. The place where I exited may be some "well defined" border, like the end of a commit... or anywhere it the middle of a patch (making the left over remains on the terminal perhaps even ambiguous).

What's worse, when (in less) I scroll down and up again, perhaps repeating several times, and then quit... I see (at least in my less/terminal combination) things twice and mangled up (i.e. when I scroll up the terminal (outside of less)).

So AFAICS, not clearing the screen only works properly when never scrolling up again (in less).

> As I already mentioned above, everyone is free to configure the pager
> behavior in any way they like.

Sure :-)

Show 15 quoted lines

> 
> > > Exiting if less contents than one full screen was displayed (i.e.
> > > "-
> > > F")
> > > is there to save people from the frustration of quitting a pager
> > > that
> > > actually wasn't needed to be executed.
> > 
> > Same actually here, at least strictly speaking, ... though I (and
> > probably everybody else?) would really hate it, if that was
> > removed. ^^
> 
> I'm afraid that I don't understand very well are you complaining
> about 
> the presence of "-F" or not?

No :-) As I've said, I like it that way and I and probably everyone else would be annoyed, if -F was not present.

I just meant that strictly speaking the same reason why "S" was removed, could be applied to "F" as well.

It is - like -R - not necessary for less to work with git.

But it is, of course, what virtually everyone will want in practise.

> Quite frankly, I can't stand scrolling in less(1) using the mouse
> wheel, 
> but I do understand why some people like it.

The main reason I want it is, that things don't get messy, when I forget being in less and mouse scroll. ;-)

Thanks, Chris.