Users who don't want a pager can export NIX_PAGER=cat but the reverse is not true.

I wasn't aware of the NIX_PAGER variable when i made this PR
nor do i recall ever seeing documentation for it.
If this variable can be supported while the default behaviour can be changed to cat, that would be preferable to me, but i'm not familiar enough with how these things are implemented to do that.
I think the current behaviour is less useful as one would usually want to type a nix-env -i command right after, and can't view the result while typing if less is used.
That was my use case when i was trying out nix on debian, and i think a bias in favour of usability for newcomers is not detrimental here. (an advanced user should know how to use NIX_PAGER, a beginner shouldn't)
As nix search seems like a natural first point of contact, i think it sends a bad message to potential users to break this convention.

looks like NIX_PAGER is only in the release notes and should be documented in the manual:

$ git grep NIX_PAGER
doc/manual/release-notes/rl-1.9.xml:  <listitem><para>The environment variable <envar>NIX_PAGER</envar>
src/libmain/shared.cc:    char * pager = getenv("NIX_PAGER");

IMHO, if NIX_PAGER is not set, there should be no paging.

The pager behaviour is consistent with other tools such as journalctl and git log

The pager behaviour is consistent with other tools such as journalctl and git log

i believe it is inconsistent with other package search tools such as apt and pkg

Inconsistent in what way?

Inconsistent in what way?

Other package managers don't use a pager to display their search results.
At least, the others i've used don't do so by default.

I marked this as stale due to inactivity. → More info