Subject: Re: [PATCH RESEND] Do not override LESS

From: Junio C Hamano <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 23 Aug 2008 02:08:58 -0700

Anders Melchiorsen <[email-masked]> writes:

> Junio C Hamano <[email-masked]> 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?