diff --git a/Documentation/git.txt b/Documentation/git.txt
index 2535a30194..d06eea024f 100644
--- a/Documentation/git.txt
+++ b/Documentation/git.txt
@@ -724,13 +724,12 @@ for further details.
 	waiting for someone with sufficient permissions to fix it.
 
 `GIT_FLUSH`::
-// NEEDSWORK: make it into a usual Boolean environment variable
-	If this environment variable is set to "1", then commands such
+	If this Boolean environment variable is set to true, then commands such
 	as 'git blame' (in incremental mode), 'git rev-list', 'git log',
 	'git check-attr' and 'git check-ignore' will
 	force a flush of the output stream after each record have been
 	flushed. If this
-	variable is set to "0", the output of these commands will be done
+	variable is set to false, the output of these commands will be done
 	using completely buffered I/O.   If this environment variable is
 	not set, Git will choose buffered or record-oriented flushing
 	based on whether stdout appears to be redirected to a file or not.
diff --git a/write-or-die.c b/write-or-die.c
index 42a2dc73cd..3942152865 100644
--- a/write-or-die.c
+++ b/write-or-die.c
@@ -19,20 +19,17 @@
 void maybe_flush_or_die(FILE *f, const char *desc)
 {
 	static int skip_stdout_flush = -1;
-	struct stat st;
-	char *cp;
 
 	if (f == stdout) {
 		if (skip_stdout_flush < 0) {
-			/* NEEDSWORK: make this a normal Boolean */
-			cp = getenv("GIT_FLUSH");
-			if (cp)
-				skip_stdout_flush = (atoi(cp) == 0);
-			else if ((fstat(fileno(stdout), &st) == 0) &&
-				 S_ISREG(st.st_mode))
-				skip_stdout_flush = 1;
-			else
-				skip_stdout_flush = 0;
+			skip_stdout_flush = git_env_bool("GIT_FLUSH", -1);
+			if (skip_stdout_flush < 0) {
+				struct stat st;
+				if (fstat(fileno(stdout), &st))
+					skip_stdout_flush = 0;
+				else
+					skip_stdout_flush = S_ISREG(st.st_mode);
+			}
 		}
 		if (skip_stdout_flush && !ferror(f))
 			return;