On Tue, Oct 15, 2024 at 3:40 AM Todd Zullinger <t...@pobox.com> wrote: > > Jim Anderson wrote: > > I'm not sure why the Debian developers chose to change the > > behavior of the 'more' command, but the Debian release 12 > > has the annoying habit, upon reaching end of the file, of > > displaying extra empty lines to fill a terminal window, > > then inserting the text: > > > > (END) > > > > at the end of file. This requires entering an unnecessary > > and annoying carriage return to restore the window to the > > terminal screen prompt. > > David and Greg covered the practical side of this already. > > For additional (and _possibly_ interesting) context, this > isn't a Debian-specific change. It's part of the upstream > util-linux-2.38 release¹. It was submitted to the > util-linux mailing list in 2021² and referenced the POSIX > specification as the rationale³. > > ¹ > https://github.com/util-linux/util-linux/blob/master/Documentation/releases/v2.38-ReleaseNotes#L784 > https://github.com/util-linux/util-linux/commit/df6b29d3b > (more: POSIX compliance patch preventing exit on EOF > without -e, 2021-09-29) > ² https://lore.kernel.org/util-linux/20210624125918.gb2...@contractcoder.biz/ > ³ https://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799/utilities/more.html
Unexpected behavioral changes are always a pain. It is too bad it was not hidden behind a variable like POSIXLY_CORRECT, like Bash does. See <https://www.gnu.org/software/bash/manual/html_node/Bash-POSIX-Mode.html>. Jeff
