On Wed, 17 Jul 2024 at 11:33, Ian Malone <ibmalone at gmail.com> wrote:
> Was wondering why R help in recent Fedora only provided --More--
> prompt for viewing, rather than allowing arrow key navigation as on
> RHEL. It turns out it uses a system command for paging and the current
> default pager is more:
> grep PAGER /usr/lib64/R/etc/Renviron
> PAGER=${PAGER-'/usr/bin/more'}
>
> rpm -qf /usr/lib64/R/etc/Renviron
> R-core-4.4.1-3.fc41.x86_64
>
This was dropped as part of an effort to minimize dependencies of R-core,
with e.g. containers in mind.
> This primarily affects function help, where less is much more capable
> for navigation and searching.
>
> Back in 2011 there was some discussion on this list, it it seems the
> intention is the default should be less:
> https://stat.ethz.ch/pipermail/r-sig-fedora/2011-August/000194.html
These days there are other utilities more capable than less. Also these
days most people don't read R docs in the console.
If you do and do have a preferred pager, then you can do e.g.
$ echo "PAGER=less" >> ~/.Renviron
and you're good to go.
> I hadn't noticed an issue until recently upgrading to fc41 testing,
> however it appears to be the case in FC39 and EL9, while the EL8
> package is still less:
>
> For R-core-4.3.3-2.fc39.x86_64:
> PAGER=${PAGER-'/usr/bin/more'}
>
> R-core-4.4.1-3.el9.x86_64:
> PAGER=${PAGER-'/usr/bin/more'}
>
> R-core-4.4.1-3.el8.x86_64
> PAGER=${PAGER-'/usr/bin/less'}
>
This is probably because "less" still is part of the default image in
EPEL8, but the spec is exactly the same.
> configure for R still prefers less if available:
> $ grep "ac_prog.*PAGER" /tmp/R-4.4.1-3.fc41.src/R-4.4.1/configure
> for ac_prog in ${PAGER} less more page pg
>
> I suspect this was fixed (certainly don't remember it from Fedora
<39,
> but I'd have to hunt down packages to check) and has regressed
> relatively recently.
>
As said, it is not a regression, but a conscious decision.
--
I?aki ?car
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