Windows Powershell error: `exec: "less": executable file not found in %PATH%`

[Eibwen]

Following https://docs.sourcegraph.com/cli/explanations/windows

along with https://docs.sourcegraph.com/cli/quickstart#run-a-code-search

For every search I try to do, I get the error

Here is a log of my console:

PS> src login
✔️  Authenticated as {my user} on https://{server address}
PS> src version
Current version: 3.28.3
Recommended version: 3.28.3 or later
PS> src search 'name'
exec: "less": executable file not found in %PATH%
PS> src search 'super specific thing'
exec: "less": executable file not found in %PATH%
PS> src search 'lang:c#'
exec: "less": executable file not found in %PATH%

It appears that tool doesn't exist on my system, and I'm not seeing any guidance about how to get that installed in your docs. Including that in the docs might be worthwhile

Attempted solution

Find-Package pscx | Install-Package -AllowClobber after modifying the command from https://stackoverflow.com/a/1080103/356218

This did not seem to work well. There was no error, but the display doesn't seem to show results as I was expecting, it is only a black screen until I type q or otherwise exit less

[mrnugget]

Hey @Eibwen! Thanks for the ticket. We'll look into it.

[LinqLover]

Same issue here, available for further info if you need anyone

[mrnugget]

Can you confirm that it works if you disable paging the output to less by using

src search -less=false <your search query>

[LinqLover]

Can you confirm that it works if you disable paging the output to less by using

src search -less=false <your search query>

Confirmed! Probably these binaries should always be installed with src-cli on Windows: http://www.greenwoodsoftware.com/less/download.html

[mrnugget]

Thanks! I just opened #644 that checks for the existence of less before trying to use it.

[LinqLover]

Hm, but this reduces the functionality of this CLI. Wouldn't it be possible to always ship less via the installer (provided that no license terms are violated)?

[mrnugget]

less is one of the standard pagers installed on macOS and Linux, which are the primary OSes we support here. Adding support for installing dependencies on Windows is, I think, out of the scope of our Windows support :)

[LinqLover]

Alright, then I will probably use src-cli in my Windows Subsystem for Linux instead. Thank you for your help. :)

[mrnugget]

Yeah, or you install less from the link you posted. That would make less available and src-cli would use it.