Re: [Zutils-bug] zless command?

[Antonio Diaz Diaz]

Daniel Baumann wrote:
> while I agree that zless should preferably be removed, the reality is
> that it is around and that people are acustom to it. This is "backed" by
> the fact that there has nothing happened at gzip wrt/ that in all these
> years.

Nothing has happened at gzip just because features tend to never get 
removed, don't mind how inferior or obsolete they are.

I think it would be a bad idea to add a zless to zutils because (among 
other things) the functionality that users expect from lesspipe is much 
wider than what is adequate for zutils. Just compare what less+lesspipe 
do compared with what zless does (with no lesspipe installed):

'less file.tar.gz' == 'tar tzvvf file.tar.gz | less'
'zless file.tar.gz' == 'gzip -cd file.tar.gz | less'

'less file.tar' == 'tar tzvvf file.tar | less'
'zless file.tar' == 'cat file.tar | less'

'less file.zip' == 'unzip -l file.zip | less'
'zless file.zip' == 'gzip -cd file.zip | less'

'less file.rpm' == 'rpm -qpvl file.rpm | less'
'zless file.rpm' == 'gzip -cd file.rpm | less'

'less file.1.gz' == 'gzip -cd file.1.gz | nroff -S -mandoc - | less'
'zless file.1.gz' == 'gzip -cd file.1.gz | less'

etc...

zless may work in the case cited by Jesse Hathaway (less log.gz), but it 
fails miserably in most other cases.


> personally, I would welcome a zless from zutils. If there's no interest
> from Antonio, we could also add a (although debian specific and thus
> suboptimal) zless alias for lesspipe in the zutils package in debian.

Do you mean an alias for 'lesspipe "$1" | less'?
zless is meant to be called by the user, but lesspipe is not. lesspipe 
does funny things if called for a non-compressed file, or with more than 
one file argument.

I think this would create a conflict whith less. If LESSOPEN is set in 
the environment, zless could override it. But if less uses /etc/lesskey, 
the effect of zless is nullified (at least if zless is implemented as in 
gzip).

I think it would be better if upstream 'less' would distribute a 
lesspipe.sh and perhaps even install it by default.


Best regards,
Antonio.