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From: Grant Edwards <grant.b.edwards@gmail.com>
Newsgroups: comp.lang.python
Subject: Re: What should Python apps do when asked to show help?
Date: Sun, 1 May 2016 02:30:40 +0000 (UTC)
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On 2016-05-01, Random832 <random832@fastmail.com> wrote:
> On Sat, Apr 30, 2016, at 19:51, cs@zip.com.au wrote:
>> _When_ they want a pager.
>
> Why would they need an environment variable at all in that case, rather
> than explicitly invoking the pager by name?

We don't want to use a PAGER variable to specify when we want a pager
and when we don't want a pager.  If we want a pager we append "| less"
to the command.  If we don't want a pager, we don't append that to the
command.

For historical reasons, "man" invokes a pager by default.  I'm not
crazy about that. If you want to argue that it's being inconsistent
then you're right: man shouldn't invoke a pager either.

-- 
Grant