On Sat, Apr 22, 2006, Manoj Srivastava wrote:
> > #363250 is more about documenting the semantics of $PAGER (whether
> > it can uses sh syntax, or whether it's a command with parameters
> > separated with spaces), to be documented in man man, and/or policy.
> Err, we should define how it behaves, not what is inside
> it. As long as one can pipe things to $PAGER or use $PAGER on a file,
> what it contains should not matter.
Please read again the original report, the submitter wanted to have a
pipe of commands in $PAGER, he said this worked in the past, and works
on other distros. He did not want to simply be able to use $PAGER on a
file or to pipe stuff to $PAGER, he wanted $PAGER to be parsed as a
pipeline, as in sh syntax.
> The safe bet would be for $PAGER to be a script or executable
> which can handle reading from file or STDIN, like proper UNIX
> programs.
This is an independent problem First, we already have one layer of sh
scripting with the sensible-pager program, and it would be a good
enough place to handle the cases you mention, would people and programs
use sensible-pager as the default pager. Second, this doesn't define
what should happen when someone redefines $PAGER: what if one user
wants $PAGER to be a pipeline?
> To make life easier for people writing programs which deal
> with $PAGER, and are using the POSIX exce* set of calls, one may
> constrain $PAGER to "path [arg [arg ..]]", with no pipes or other
> shell meta-characters.
Yes, I think this is safe, but I'd go even further and propose the
following:
A/ handling of pager in programs
1/ programs should default to sensible-pager
2/ programs should offer a way to override the default pager in some
way, for example via an environment variable called <program>_PAGER,
or a configuration setting -- it might even be better for them to
avoid handling $PAGER, see 1/
B/ user configuration of the pager
When defined, $PAGER is a sh pipeline which reads its data from stdin.
This is with the intent of moving any logic for deciding of the best
pager to run out of each individual program requiring a pager, exactly
as in the sensible-browser case, which can consider $BROWSER, $DISPLAY,
x-www-browser, and www-browser to find a sensible browser.
Manoj, how would this fit in policy?
--
Loïc Minier <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
"You can gtk_main_run, but you can't gtk_widget_hide." --danw, 19-jul-04
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