zmore after bug#234212 doesn't call $PAGER - changed old well-known behaviour
Hello,
for long years of experience with Solaris, FreeBSD and Debian GNU/linux,
I've been using the 'zmore' script to view files compressed with compress
(.Z extension) and gzip (.gz ext.) using $PAGER environment variable.
When upgraded to woody, I found out that 'zmore' script changed that
behaviour, and I found out that the reason was bug #234212:
http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=234212&archive=yes
I've also seen that this issue was a bit discussed on debian-policy list:
http://lists.debian.org/debian-policy/2004/02/msg00036.html
however that was technical discussion about different issue, so I think
this one was not discussed enough.
I have some arguments:
The 'zmore' script was historically used to view compressed files (.Z and
then .gz) on many OS (FreeBSD, Solaris and probably others) using $PAGER
and I don't consider changing such behaviour after years of practice as
good idea.
I've been using 'zmore' as generic pager for .Z, thile the 'zless' script
is a imho hack, using less features ($LESSOPEN variable) and thus imho
belongs to 'less' package, not to 'gzip'.
So, although I agree that someone may be surprised that 'zmore' calls
'less', however that one happens only when the person has $PAGER set to
les and thus should not be surprised that much.
Now the question is, what to do with it?
Fill up bug report for 'gzip' and probably 'less' package?
- gzip: revert zmore back to using ${PAGER:-more}
- less: provide 'zless'
Discuss this on different list (debian-devel or debian-policy)?
thanks for hints/discussion
--
Matus UHLAR - fantomas, uhlar@fantomas.sk ; http://www.fantomas.sk/
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