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

From: Dragan Simic <dsimic@manjaro.org>
To: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Cc: Jeff King <peff@peff.net>,
	Christoph Anton Mitterer <calestyo@scientia.org>,
	git@vger.kernel.org
Subject: Re: why does git set X in LESS env var?
Date: Thu, 12 Oct 2023 07:30:47 +0200	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <3946c06e90604a92ad0dddf787729668@manjaro.org> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <xmqqh6mwipqi.fsf@gitster.g>

On 2023-10-12 03:39, Junio C Hamano wrote:
> Jeff King <peff@peff.net> writes:
> 
>> ... Digging into the history and
>> the changelog, this note is in "changes between less versions 487 and
>> 530":
>> 
>>   Don't output terminal init sequence if using -F and file fits on one
>>   screen.
> 
> ;-)
> 
> That is really a good one to dig out.  So in short, X was needed
> because we wanted to use F, and we could drop it if everybody is
> using recent versions of less, but the default to use FX at the same
> time gives us the same behaviour between both newer and older
> versions of less.

Please note that dropping "-X" and leaving "-F" would actually introduce 
the inconsistency that I already mentioned.  To reiterate, short outputs 
would then remain displayed on screen, while long outputs would 
disappear after exiting less(1).  I don't think that's the desired 
behavior.

>> ... And as you say, if there are people who really
>> care about their LESS options, it is easy for them to override it.
> 
> Yup.  I really like the discovery of that changelog entry.
> 
> Thanks.