# make "git --pager/--nopager" work as intended

2 messages from 2026-01-22 to 2026-01-22. Participants: Harald Dunkel, Junio C Hamano.
Thread: https://gitlist.dev/t/64849

## Harald Dunkel, 2026-01-22 09:37

Subject: make "git --pager/--nopager" work as intended
Message-ID: <87o6mm2djm.fsf@tweety.afaics.de>
URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/87o6mm2djm.fsf%40tweety.afaics.de

```
Hi folks,

maybe its neurological, but the current behavior of "git -p" vs "git -P"
makes me feel uneasy. Some commands (like git diff) use a pager by default,
some ues it even without need (git branch), others don't. For every other
git command I run I have the feeling git output is not working as intended.

Setting core.pager to "cat" is not a solution. It breaks git -p.

Regards
Harri

```

## Junio C Hamano, 2026-01-22 17:17

Subject: Re: make "git --pager/--nopager" work as intended
Message-ID: <xmqqzf65o9ck.fsf@gitster.g>
URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/xmqqzf65o9ck.fsf%40gitster.g
In-Reply-To: <87o6mm2djm.fsf@tweety.afaics.de>

```
Harald Dunkel <harri@afaics.de> writes:

> Hi folks,
>
> maybe its neurological, but the current behavior of "git -p" vs "git -P"
> makes me feel uneasy. Some commands (like git diff) use a pager by default,
> some ues it even without need (git branch), others don't. For every other
> git command I run I have the feeling git output is not working as intended.
>
> Setting core.pager to "cat" is not a solution. It breaks git -p.
>
> Regards
> Harri

I am not sure what is being asked here on the subject.  As far as I
understand, "git -p cmd" and "git -P cmd" do work as intended in
that they override the default choice of use (or non-use) of pager,
built into each individual command.

If you are saying that you disagree with the built-in choice made by
some of the commands, perhaps the following snippet from "git help
config" may help?

    pager.<cmd>::
            If the value is boolean, turns on or off pagination of the
            output of a particular Git subcommand when writing to a tty.
            Otherwise, turns on pagination for the subcommand using the
            pager specified by the value of `pager.<cmd>`.  If `--paginate`
            or `--no-pager` is specified on the command line, it takes
            precedence over this option.  To disable pagination for all
            commands, set `core.pager` or `GIT_PAGER` to `cat`.

So, if you have too many local branches like I do (I seem to have
411 of them as of this writing), 

	[pager]
		branch = false

would probably what you want?  With it "git -p branch" would still
let me paginate through all 411 local branches, and "git branch" and
"git -P branch" would make them scroll away.


	

```