Bug 802757

For the record, this bug affects Fedora 16, 17 and rawhide.

Isn't this rather a zsh issue? Imho, the /etc/profile.d/* scripts should be read *before* the user's setting files (eg. ~/.zshenv), so the variables can be overridden?

Maybe you're right, maybe not. Let me explain.

The root problem is actually the way the profile.d logic was implemented in zsh, yes. As you can see in the trace below (and as described in the zsh man pages), zsh configuration files are read in this order:

1. /etc/zshenv
2. ~/.zshenv
3. /etc/zshrc and 
4. ~/.zshrc

[dnade@dnade ~]# strace -e open zsh 2>&1|grep -E '(/etc|/home/)'
open("/etc/zshenv", O_RDONLY|O_NOCTTY)  = 3
open("/home/dnade/.zshenv", O_RDONLY|O_NOCTTY) = 3
open("/etc/zshrc", O_RDONLY|O_NOCTTY)   = 3
open("/etc/profile.d/PackageKit.sh", O_RDONLY|O_NOCTTY) = 3
open("/etc/profile.d/bash_completion.sh", O_RDONLY|O_NOCTTY) = 3
open("/etc/profile.d/ccache.sh", O_RDONLY|O_NOCTTY) = 3
open("/etc/profile.d/colorgrep.sh", O_RDONLY|O_NOCTTY) = 3
open("/etc/profile.d/colorls.sh", O_RDONLY|O_NOCTTY) = 3
open("/etc/profile.d/cvs.sh", O_RDONLY|O_NOCTTY) = 3
open("/etc/profile.d/gnome-ssh-askpass.sh", O_RDONLY|O_NOCTTY) = 3
open("/etc/profile.d/lang.sh", O_RDONLY|O_NOCTTY) = 3
open("/etc/profile.d/less.sh", O_RDONLY|O_NOCTTY) = 3
open("/etc/profile.d/udisks-bash-completion.sh", O_RDONLY|O_NOCTTY) = 3
open("/etc/profile.d/vim.sh", O_RDONLY|O_NOCTTY) = 3
open("/etc/profile.d/which2.sh", O_RDONLY|O_NOCTTY) = 3
open("/home/dnade/.zshrc", O_RDONLY|O_NOCTTY) = 3

So, the "/etc/profile.d" stuff is loaded at the "zshrc" stage", and redefines the user environment when it shouldn't. Moving the profile.d loading in /etc/zshenv may have some other nasty side effects: basically /etc/profile.d/*.sh also define some aliases which can alter ~/.zshenv behaviour and will make ~/.zshrc content non-portable - aliases should only be defined in "zshrc" files.

I think it's better to fix that in less.

Sorry, I can't change anything what has been working for years (and rather decades). The /etc/profile.d/* scripts are standard place where (and when) to set the environment variables for tools such as LESS.

Also, I can't break the default behaviour for other shells (bash, ksh, csh, tcsh etc.) just to workaround different behaviour of zsh. Sorry.

Closing as WONTFIX. Please, feel free to reopen (and reassign to any other component) if you have some patches, or strong arguments why and what to fix. Thanks!

By the way, why not to change the LESSOPEN variable in the ~/.zshrc file? It should work for you, right?

I dont get it. I've *sent* a patch in my problem description. Why would you at least *not* change to this kind of variable setting LESSOPEN="${LESSOPEN-||/usr/bin/lesspipe.sh %s}" ? 

This would 1. be POSIX and work with bash/ksh/dash/etc. (csh/tcsh are off topic here) 2. be backward-compatible and 3. fix the issue ?

Instead of that you want to that every zsh user to adapt to a *flawed* behaviour ?

And for the record, cvs.sh is already doing it.
[anvil@gruyere ~]# cat /etc/profile.d/cvs.sh 
# change default from rsh to ssh for cvs command
export CVS_RSH=${CVS_RSH-ssh}

Please. Fix it.

Your arguments convinced me to merge the patch. Thanks.

Appreciated. Thank you very much.