misc/102624: lesspipe.sh does not handle file updates

[Eric Huss]

>Number:         102624
>Category:       misc
>Synopsis:       lesspipe.sh does not handle file updates
>Confidential:   no
>Severity:       non-critical
>Priority:       low
>Responsible:    freebsd-bugs
>State:          open
>Quarter:        
>Keywords:       
>Date-Required:
>Class:          sw-bug
>Submitter-Id:   current-users
>Arrival-Date:   Mon Aug 28 22:20:12 GMT 2006
>Closed-Date:
>Last-Modified:
>Originator:     Eric Huss
>Release:        6.1
>Organization:
IronPort
>Environment:
6.1-RELEASE
>Description:
The lesspipe.sh that ships with FreeBSD does not allow you to "tail" or "follow" a file that is changing (such as a logfile).
>How-To-Repeat:
Set the LESSOPEN environment variable:

export LESSOPEN="|lesspipe.sh %s"

Run "less" on a file that has data appending to it (such as a logfile).

Press capital G to try to view more data...notice that it does not detect file changes.  Press capital F to try to "follow" appended data, notice that it does not work.
>Fix:
Remove the call to "cat" from the lesspipe.sh sample that ships with FreeBSD:

        *)
                exec cat $1             2>/dev/null
                ;;

I'm not sure if there was a reason it was added (in CVS revision 1.2), because less works just fine without it (and the man page example does not have a * entry).

diff -u -r1.2 lesspipe.sh
--- lesspipe.sh 17 May 2005 11:08:11 -0000      1.2
+++ lesspipe.sh 28 Aug 2006 22:13:12 -0000
@@ -13,7 +13,4 @@
        *.bz2)
                exec bzip2 -d -c $1     2>/dev/null
                ;;
-       *)
-               exec cat $1             2>/dev/null
-               ;;
 esac

>Release-Note:
>Audit-Trail:
>Unformatted: