PAGER option --use-color not supported in all regions

[p-phillips]

I've just had to start using hledger on a different machine than usual (Ubuntu 20.04) due to the death of my Ubuntu 24.04 laptop, and I noticed that commands I'm running from a Makefile were halting due to a problem with the PAGER command line options.

Specifically I was getting this error message:

There is no use-color option ("less --help" for help)

It took me a while to track this down (grepping all of my zsh config files etc) but it turns out it's because of the default pager options that hledger turns on - as the man page says:

(At the time of writing: --chop-long-lines --hilite-unread --ignore-case --mouse --no-init --quit-at-eof --quit-if-one-screen --RAW-CONTROL-CHARS --shift=8 --squeeze-blank-lines --use-backslash --use-color ). If these don't work well, you can set your preferred options in the HLEDGER_LESS variable, which will be used instead.

It appears that less is region specific - i.e., I'm in Wales in the UK, and we spell 'colour' (not 'color') so less accepts '--use-colour' but not '--use-color'!!!! (I'm as surprised about this as you probably are).

I've fixed it on my machine by setting HLEDGER_LESS to include '--use-colour':

export HLEDGER_LESS="--chop-long-lines --hilite-unread --ignore-case --mouse --no-init --quit-at-eof --quit-if-one-screen --RAW-CONTROL-CHARS --shift=8 --squeeze-blank-lines --use-backslash --use-colour"

However there must be other non-USA folks bitten by the same issue. Is there a simple fix for this ? Can the code be amended to set a region-specific flag and use colour instead of color ? Or is there another way around this?

Pete

PS: The switch of machines meant I was sending the output to a screen - I usually send them through a pipe to a printer and in that case the pager doesn't kick in of course - so I don't think it's the different versions of OS that triggers this.

[simonmichael]

Thanks for the investigation and report. Yes I'm extremely surprised to hear that. Are you sure you're not using some variant or older version of the official less ? My less --version is

$ less --version
less 668 (PCRE2 regular expressions)
Copyright (C) 1984-2024  Mark Nudelman

less comes with NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law.
For information about the terms of redistribution,
see the file named README in the less distribution.
Home page: https://greenwoodsoftware.com/less

from /opt/homebrew/bin/less.

[p-phillips]

Here you go. It's older because these systems are both 20.04. No unusual variants :-) ```$ less --version less 551 (GNU regular expressions) Copyright (C) 1984-2019 Mark Nudelman less comes with NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law. For information about the terms of redistribution, see the file named README in the less distribution. Home page: http://www.greenwoodsoftware.com/less $ less --use-color /etc/issue There is no use-color option ("less --help" for help) ```

…

---------- Forwarded message --------- From: Simon Michael ***@***.***> Date: Wed, 26 Feb 2025, 22:01 Subject: Re: [simonmichael/hledger] PAGER option --use-color not supported in all regions (Issue #2335) To: simonmichael/hledger ***@***.***> Cc: p-phillips ***@***.***>, Author ***@***.***> Thanks for the investigation and report. Yes I'm extremely surprised to hear that. Are you sure you're not using some variant of the official less My less --version is $ less --help | less --use-colour There is no use-colour option ("less --help" for help) Press RETURN to continue ~/src/hledger$ less --version less 668 (PCRE2 regular expressions) Copyright (C) 1984-2024 Mark Nudelman less comes with NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law. For information about the terms of redistribution, see the file named README in the less distribution. Home page: https://greenwoodsoftware.com/less from /opt/homebrew/bin/less. — Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#2335 (comment)>, or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AAMINTVZXKIWEEHGWCLR55T2RY2U5AVCNFSM6AAAAABX23P2EWVHI2DSMVQWIX3LMV43OSLTON2WKQ3PNVWWK3TUHMZDMOBWGMYDIMRQGY> . You are receiving this because you authored the thread.Message ID: ***@***.***> [image: simonmichael]*simonmichael* left a comment (simonmichael/hledger#2335) <#2335 (comment)> Thanks for the investigation and report. Yes I'm extremely surprised to hear that. Are you sure you're not using some variant of the official less My less --version is $ less --help | less --use-colour There is no use-colour option ("less --help" for help) Press RETURN to continue ~/src/hledger$ less --version less 668 (PCRE2 regular expressions) Copyright (C) 1984-2024 Mark Nudelman less comes with NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law. For information about the terms of redistribution, see the file named README in the less distribution. Home page: https://greenwoodsoftware.com/less from /opt/homebrew/bin/less. — Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#2335 (comment)>, or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AAMINTVZXKIWEEHGWCLR55T2RY2U5AVCNFSM6AAAAABX23P2EWVHI2DSMVQWIX3LMV43OSLTON2WKQ3PNVWWK3TUHMZDMOBWGMYDIMRQGY> . You are receiving this because you authored the thread.Message ID: ***@***.***>

[p-phillips]

I just pulled down the source code for each of those versions, no "colour" in the code! Is it possible that there's a GNU library doing something smart to match the local region? Pete

…

On Wed, 26 Feb 2025, 22:38 Pete Phillips, ***@***.***> wrote: Here you go. It's older because these systems are both 20.04. No unusual variants :-) $ less --version less 551 (GNU regular expressions) Copyright (C) 1984-2019 Mark Nudelman less comes with NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law. For information about the terms of redistribution, see the file named README in the less distribution. Home page: http://www.greenwoodsoftware.com/less $ less --use-color /etc/issue There is no use-color option ("less --help" for help) ---------- Forwarded message --------- From: Simon Michael ***@***.***> Date: Wed, 26 Feb 2025, 22:01 Subject: Re: [simonmichael/hledger] PAGER option --use-color not supported in all regions (Issue #2335) To: simonmichael/hledger ***@***.***> Cc: p-phillips ***@***.***>, Author ***@***.***> Thanks for the investigation and report. Yes I'm extremely surprised to hear that. Are you sure you're not using some variant of the official less My less --version is $ less --help | less --use-colour There is no use-colour option ("less --help" for help) Press RETURN to continue ~/src/hledger$ less --version less 668 (PCRE2 regular expressions) Copyright (C) 1984-2024 Mark Nudelman less comes with NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law. For information about the terms of redistribution, see the file named README in the less distribution. Home page: https://greenwoodsoftware.com/less from /opt/homebrew/bin/less. — Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#2335 (comment)>, or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AAMINTVZXKIWEEHGWCLR55T2RY2U5AVCNFSM6AAAAABX23P2EWVHI2DSMVQWIX3LMV43OSLTON2WKQ3PNVWWK3TUHMZDMOBWGMYDIMRQGY> . You are receiving this because you authored the thread.Message ID: ***@***.***> [image: simonmichael]*simonmichael* left a comment (simonmichael/hledger#2335) <#2335 (comment)> Thanks for the investigation and report. Yes I'm extremely surprised to hear that. Are you sure you're not using some variant of the official less My less --version is $ less --help | less --use-colour There is no use-colour option ("less --help" for help) Press RETURN to continue ~/src/hledger$ less --version less 668 (PCRE2 regular expressions) Copyright (C) 1984-2024 Mark Nudelman less comes with NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law. For information about the terms of redistribution, see the file named README in the less distribution. Home page: https://greenwoodsoftware.com/less from /opt/homebrew/bin/less. — Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#2335 (comment)>, or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AAMINTVZXKIWEEHGWCLR55T2RY2U5AVCNFSM6AAAAABX23P2EWVHI2DSMVQWIX3LMV43OSLTON2WKQ3PNVWWK3TUHMZDMOBWGMYDIMRQGY> . You are receiving this because you authored the thread.Message ID: ***@***.***>

[simonmichael]

Quite a mystery. Could a shell function or alias be getting in the way ?

I did

$ type -a less
less is /opt/homebrew/bin/less
less is /usr/bin/less
$ /opt/homebrew/bin/less --help | grep 'use-c'
                --use-color
$ strings /opt/homebrew/bin/less | grep 'use-c'
Set --use-color before changing colors
use-color
                --use-color