Subject: bug#62958: [PATCH] Set PAGER=cat in comint.el

From: Eli Zaretskii <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 26 Apr 2023 12:15:34 +0300

> From: Philip Kaludercic <[email-masked]>
> Cc: Spencer Baugh <[email-masked]>,  [email-masked]
> Date: Wed, 26 Apr 2023 07:54:34 +0000
> 
> Eli Zaretskii <[email-masked]> writes:
> 
> >> Changing the default to "cat" in this way might be a bit
> >> controversial...
> >
> > Sorry, this default cannot be universally correct.  You assume that
> > 'cat' is always available, which is not true on non-Posix platforms.
> > So at the very least the value should be set according to
> > executable-find.
> 
> What systems respect PAGER (and would have it presumably set to
> something like less), but would not provide cat?

PAGER is not a system-provided feature, it is provided by the programs
which honor the variable.  Any such program, when ported to a system
where there's no 'cat', will still support PAGER.