feat(24.04): add less

[zhijie-yang]

Proposed changes

Add less

Related issues/PRs

Dependent by #331

Forward porting

Will open once approved.

Checklist

• I have read the contributing guidelines
• I have tested my changes (see how)
• I have already submitted the CLA form

[github-actions]

Diff of dependencies:
None found.

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[clay-lake]

Looks good except the scripts slice.

[clay-lake]

As discussed in 1:1, Looks good to me! 👍

[norrisjeremy]

Hi @zhijie-yang,

We also put together PRs independently to add less to 24.04 & 24.10 (see #486 & #487).
Our versions also include more extensive integration tests, and also includes SDFs for terminfo data needed to make less actually functional.
How would you like to proceed?

Thanks,
Jeremy

[zhijie-yang]

Hi @norrisjeremy ,

Yes, we are pushing this for Ubuntu 24.04 now. However, for less, the scripts in the package contain many unlisted dependencies (if you read the script), which makes writing the tests cumbersome. We are leaning a bit towards holding the _scripts slices back as comments since they are just "scripts" combined with other commands, and the binaries are still the major components of this package. If you have a specific use case for the scripts, please point it out, and we can find a way to add proper tests for them. There are some reviews pending for this PR now. Once this once gets merged, we can continues on the other slices that depends on less (e.g., gzip.)

[norrisjeremy]

Hi @zhijie-yang,

We don't feel strongly about the scripts slice, so those can be left out.
However, have you actually tested that the less utility itself works?
We found that we needed to create an SDF for ncurses-base to get basic terminfo definitions in place in order for it to actually function (which we also included in our PRs).
We also constructed a simple integration test for less itself.
I'm not sure if you want to incorporate those pieces from our PRs?

Thanks,
Jeremy