Is there a way to make pants use a pager via an env var I m

Question

Is there a way to make pants use a pager via an env var I m trying to record an asciinema of ` pants help goals` but it scrolls by too quickly

fast-nail-55400 · Answer

` pants help goals | less`

proud-dentist-22844 · Answer

Yeah but then that distracts from highlighting pants stuck out tongue ` pants help goals | more r`

proud-dentist-22844 · Answer

I want to avoid piping it into the pager

fast-nail-55400 · Answer

so you want something like what `git help` does when it invokes the pager automatically

proud-dentist-22844 · Answer

yeah

hundreds-father-404 · Answer

feel free to open a feature request slightly smiling face

fast-nail-55400 · Answer

goal output is made using the `Console` type The help goal could enable the `Console` type or some related type invoking `$PAGER` and then write the output into the pager subprocess

fast-nail-55400 · Answer

^^ very hand wavy sketch of a solution

proud-dentist-22844 · Answer

Aargh Passing the help through a pager `less` or `more` results in bad line breaks esp noticable with ` pants help targets` <https asciinema org a 519532>

proud-dentist-22844 · Answer

How does pants determine where to add line breaks

witty-crayon-22786 · Answer

by querying the TTY size but i think that as soon as stdout is piped it will no longer register as a TTY

proud-dentist-22844 · Answer

I guess so The `COLUMNS` variable is correct does the TTY logic use that If not maybe that would be a good fallback if not running under a tty

curved-television-6568 · Answer

fallback seems hardcoded <https github com pantsbuild pants blob bcfb364a4e9fb118347e689dd9c1c744e5e144f0 src python pants util docutil py L15 L16>

curved-television-6568 · Answer

haven t checked all call sites but for help output it uses defaults only <https github com pantsbuild pants blob bcfb364a4e9fb118347e689dd9c1c744e5e144f0 src python pants help help printer py L43>

proud-dentist-22844 · Answer

ooh Then I could make my window 96 chars wide to avoid the odd output without waiting for any code changes in pants Thanks for finding that