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Re: less's .lesshst misfeature



David Holland <dholland%netbsd.org@localhost> wrote:
 
> I already patched the code a while back so that attempting to defeat
> the feature by e.g. linking /root/.lesshst -> /dev/null no longer
> trashes the system.

This, btw, was one of the more obscure bugs I've encountered.  Figuring
out why /dev/null had mode 0700 (or similar) and the various things that
broke was so bizarre that when I found out it was related to the version
of less, I immediately declared that one of my favorite software bugs of
all times.

> However, it's been suggested, and several people have concurred, that
> it ought to be disabled by default. This is easy to do.
> 
> The cost of disabling it by default, however, is that the behavior
> diverges from upstream. Are we willing to buy into this? I think we
> should, at least for more if not for less.

I'd say: Disable it for both and raise the issue with upstream.

Thanks!

-Jan

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