Re: [Crash-utility] less(1) TERM requirements; man page update
Dave Anderson wrote:
Markus Armbruster wrote:
> Dave Anderson <anderson(a)redhat.com> writes:
>
>
>> D. Hugh Redelmeier wrote:
>>
>>> | From: Dave Anderson <anderson(a)redhat.com>
>>> | Fine, but at a minimum I propose the addition of a "--more"
command
>>> | line argument to force its use instead of "less". With that in
>>> place,
>>> | I've verified that crash scrolling works fine using the
"vanilla"
>>> | TERM type, and I presume that using "more" for scrolling would
>>> suffice
>>> | within the emacs/jove/vanilla environment as well?
>>> Would it not be better to use $PAGER to make this choice?
>>> - it is already a convention
>>> - it doesn't add to the tangle of options
>>> - it allows even more control (eg. PAGER=cat)
>>>
>>
>> I guess because $PAGER is typically not set, and PAGER=cat is
>> pretty much the same as "set scroll off".
>
>
>
> I don't mind when a tool has its own idiosyncratic default for unset
> $PAGER, but I do mind when it ignores $PAGER in favour of its own
> idiosyncratic pager selection mechanism.
>
Ok -- but I'm still curious as to what other pager would be
preferable to less, more, or none?
Dave
I worked up a test version of crash that defaults to the use
of the PAGER variable (instead of less -E -X with a prompt).
I would presume that setting PAGER=/usr/bin/less might be
a typical practice. But when doing so, less (with no arguments)
always requires user interaction to continue, even if the output
is less than a page size in length, and what's worse, it then
clears the output screen. That type of behaviour is unacceptable,
and is exactly the type of issue that I was worrying about.
That being said, I will go along with the use of the PAGER
variable, but not by default. It's going to have to be
a .crashrc or command-line setting. I don't think that's
unreasonable -- certainly nobody's ever complained about it
in the past.
Idiosyncratically,
Dave