On Sun, 17 Jun 2001, Alexander Skwar wrote:
>Date: Sun, 17 Jun 2001 16:17:27 +0200
>From: Alexander Skwar <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED],
> [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1
>Subject: Re: CDcontrol software released (
>
>So sprach [EMAIL PROTECTED] am Sun, Jun 17, 2001 at 04:05:25PM +0200:
>> >Urgs, if a user does not have PAGER set (which I suspect the most (Linux ?)
>> >users don't have set), he expects the standard pager to be invoked.
>>
>> Right! and the standard pager is 'more'.
>
>Standard - where? Linux Mandrake, RedHat Linux and SuSE Linux have less as
>the standard. Debian GNU/Linux has not, as I just learned. But nonetheless
>Mandrake, RedHat and SuSE are for sure the most installed and used Linux
>versions out there. Especially by "normal" users (ie. not by wizzards, and
>not on highly specialized systems).
>
>This script is supposed to be used by normal users, I suppose. So less is
>standard.
Technically speaking, there is no "standard" pager in the sense
that there is one pager that is guaranteed to be on all UNIX and
UNIX like systems.
It all depends on what one's goals are. If the goal is
portability, virtually every UNIX system out there has a pager
executable called "more", and Linux is no exception. Red Hat
Linux defaults the pager to "/usr/bin/less", as do many modern
Linux systems. This does not make using "less" by default a
portable thing to do.
IMHO, the most portable way to do this, is to use $PAGER, and
fall back to "more" as there are likely no UNIX or UNIX like
systems out there that do not have "more", and if there are, they
likely symlink "more" to an appropriate pager such as "less".
There are two kinds of standards also: Written standards, and
defacto standards. The two often clash.
One should wherever possible adhere to written standards unless
they are widely accepted to be insane and not worthy of
following. defacto standards should also be followed wherever
possible, however where the two do not match, one should be extra
careful to be as portable as possible.
I would consider defaulting to "less" to be very unportable
behavior despite the fact that Linux systems normally install
it, as most UNIX systems do not have "less" installed.
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