Re: Importing the apropos GSoC code and switching to mandoc(1) by default

[Mouse <mouse%Rodents-Montreal.ORG@localhost>]

>> It prints more than a screenful of output by default.  I'd suggest
>> either printing only one line per result by default, or piping
>> through a pager if the output is a tty.
> One line per result would remove the context of the match, which
> would be a serious regeression in usefulness.

Depends on what you're using it for.  If I were using such a tool, I
would very much want the context to be optional.  (Which way it
defaults doesn't much matter as long as there are options to force it
either way, so an alias or small script can fix the default.)

> Forcing the pager by default is IMO a PITA, since all sane terminals
> have some form of scrollback (xterm, wscons).

Those aren't terminals; those are terminal emulators.  Terminals which
support scrollback are fairly rare, at least in my experience.

I agree that auto-piping through $PAGER when isatty(1) should be either
nonexistent or optional.  I use, moderately heavily, a program which
did that; one of the first things I did was to configure it to not do
so - I consider it less of a pain to have to add "| less" when I want
it than I do to have my screen cleared by a program running less to
display only a small fraction of a screenful of output.  (I know less
can be configured to not clear the screen when displaying less than a
screenful of output; I find that perhaps even more obnoxious.)

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