How do I prevent 'git diff' from using a pager?

Question

Is there a command line switch to pass to git diff and other commands that use the less pager by default?

I know I can pipe it to cat, but that removes all the syntax highlighting.

I know I can set the pager in the global .gitconfig to cat by GITPAGER=cat (or something like that); but I want to have pager sometimes (depending on the size of the diff).

But, I would prefer a command line switch if there is one; and I am not able to find one, going through the man pages.

Answer 1

--no-pager to Git will tell it to not use a pager. Passing the option -F to less will tell it to not page if the output fits in a single screen.

Usage:

git --no-pager diff

Other options from the comments include:

# Set an evaporating environment variable to use 'cat' for your pager
GIT_PAGER=cat git diff

# Tells 'less' not to paginate if less than a page
export LESS="-F -X $LESS"
# ...then Git as usual
git diff