LESS env var and a pager

LESS env var and a pager

[Diggory Hardy]

I was recently trying to work out why when git's output is piped
through a pager, it doesn't use the alternate screen buffer:
https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=201899

Conclusion: removing the X option from the LESS environ var produced
the results I wanted (allow mouse-wheel scrolling, output is hidden
after closing the pager).
One relevent post I found:
http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.version-control.git/29565/match=less+frsx

So maybe it'd make sense to change this in pager.c to:
setenv("LESS", "FRS", 0);
(or even just FR:)
setenv("LESS", "FR", 0);

Just a suggestion of what seems preferable to me.

Re: LESS env var and a pager

[Diggory Hardy]

Unfortunately using F without X results in output no longer than one
screen not being displayed, since less immediately exits and anything
less would display is immediately cleared from the screen (so it just
looks like the git command had no output).

I looked through less's man page and didn't find any solution other
than also not specifying F, which is not so desirable since it's
always necessary to press 'q' to exit less and previous output is not
visible on the terminal.

[So don't follow my first suggestion.]

On 30/07/2009, Diggory Hardy <diggory.hardy@gmail.com> wrote:
> I was recently trying to work out why when git's output is piped
> through a pager, it doesn't use the alternate screen buffer:
> https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=201899
>
> Conclusion: removing the X option from the LESS environ var produced
> the results I wanted (allow mouse-wheel scrolling, output is hidden
> after closing the pager).
> One relevent post I found:
> http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.version-control.git/29565/match=less+frsx
>
> So maybe it'd make sense to change this in pager.c to:
> setenv("LESS", "FRS", 0);
> (or even just FR:)
> setenv("LESS", "FR", 0);
>
> Just a suggestion of what seems preferable to me.
>