don't reset LESS #538

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1. carlfriedrich commented on Jun 14, 2026

   

   carlfriedrich

   on Jun 14, 2026

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   Thanks for your report. Actually that's exactly the use case for FORGIT_ENTER_PAGER.
   I'm not sure we should respect the user's LESS env by default, as this could break the intended forgit user experience.
   We should document the variable, though.
   @wfxr @sandr01d @cjappl WDYT?
2. danielwerg commented on Jun 14, 2026

   

   danielwerg

   on Jun 14, 2026

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   I think big red note about setting LESS is ought to be in docs as well.
3. sandr01d commented on Jun 16, 2026

   

   sandr01d

   on Jun 16, 2026

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   I agree with you @carlfriedrich, overriding $LESS by default to prevent breakage makes sense to me and of course $FORGIT_ENTER_PAGER should be documented.
4. wfxr commented on Aug 12, 2026

   

   wfxr

   on Aug 12, 2026

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   I looked further into the history, and the LESS override was originally introduced in b27df40 specifically to prevent -F from making the Enter pager exit immediately for short output. So changing the default to less -R would not be behavior-neutral: -R is sufficient for ANSI color pass-through, but inherited options such as -F, -E, -X, and -S can still change the full-screen behavior.

   Git preserves an existing LESS, but it also uses command-line options such as less -+F for selective overrides. If we want to follow that model, we should first define which Enter-pager behavior forgit needs to guarantee and override those options explicitly. Otherwise, resetting LESS is intentional and should be documented.

   Either way, using -R rather than -r and documenting FORGIT_ENTER_PAGER seem worthwhile.
5. wfxr

   closed this as completedin #551on Aug 25, 2026