Re: zless?

[Chris Waters <xtifr@debian.org>]

On Wed, Feb 18, 2004 at 09:41:37AM -0600, Joe Wreschnig wrote:

> zmore already uses ${PAGER-more}. I see no reason why zless shouldn't
> use ${PAGER-less}.

Possibly because zless relies on setting the $LESSOPEN variable; the
whole point of zless, it seems to me, is to take advantage of the
features of less.  

If you start with zmore and just replace "more" with "less", you end
up with something that doesn't handle multiple files properly (among
other things).  And if you start with zless and replace less with
${PAGER-less}, you get something that doesn't work unless $PAGER is
unset or set to "less", which is silly.

I think this is a case of overgeneralizing something that's not
supposed to be that general in the first place.


-- 
Chris Waters           |  Pneumonoultra-        osis is too long
xtifr@debian.org       |  microscopicsilico-    to fit into a single
or xtifr@speakeasy.net |  volcaniconi-          standalone haiku