Debian
less package

-F option broken

Bug #67381 reported by Aneesh Kumar K.V
16
This bug affects 3 people
Affects Status Importance Assigned to Milestone
less (Debian)
Confirmed
Unknown
less (Ubuntu)
Triaged
Medium
Unassigned

Bug Description

cat /tmp/a | less -F
or
echo 1 | less -F

doesn't show any output if the content of the file is less than one page.

See original description
Revision history for this message
Aneesh Kumar K.V (aneesh-kumar) wrote :

This actually breaks git

http://www.gelato.unsw.edu.au/archives/git/0610/29912.html

Revision history for this message
Aneesh Kumar K.V (aneesh-kumar) wrote :

Looking further i found that it always "redraw" the screen up on quit from less. I am not sure whether redraw is the exact word to describe it though. BTW any idea how to disable it ?

Revision history for this message
Aneesh Kumar K.V (aneesh-kumar) wrote :

The work around is to use -X option. I guess -F should imply -X

Revision history for this message
Daniel Hahler (blueyed) wrote :

Confirming with less 418. According to the linked mailing list above, it does not affect Ubuntu only.

Changed in less:
importance: Undecided → Medium
status: New → Triaged
description: updated
Bug Watch Updater (bug-watch-updater)
Changed in less:
status: Unknown → Confirmed
Revision history for this message
Sense Egbert Hofstede (sense) wrote :

http://www.greenwoodsoftware.com/less/bugs.html says "The -F option only exits if the entire file can be displayed on one screen."
So it seems that it's desired behaviour.

Revision history for this message
jimav (james-avera) wrote :

The -E options is also affected by this bug.

This is not desired behavior. less should exit after displaying the content (i.e. not wait for the user to type 'q').

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