It's a UNIX command to display a file.
Example: less file will display the file file.
See discussion in Meta for the history on why less-unix is used for this instead of less, which is broadly used for CSS.
Questions tagged [less-unix]
139 questions
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How less command shows output on stdout
I tried less command to view files in a zip file and to my surprise when I was done with the output, all my previous screen data was still present (which is not the case if i use more command for viewing a file content).
how does less command able…
ArigatoManga
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how to go to the first matched row when using less
i am using less to do a log analysis,
after i search for some string, there are a lot of match,
and then i use n or N to go through the matched lines, but sometimes i want to go the the first matched line or the last matched line, how to go there…
tonyibm
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mouse select copy from "vim" and "less" show different results
Case1: Open file1 in vi. Select a few lines(select copy is enabled). Paste in a different place.
Case 2: run the command less file1. From the console, select some lines. Paste in a different place.
In case2, I see that there are new lines introduced…
NKL
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Is it possible to pipe Xamarin output into less on Mac?
I'm running C# scripts from Xamarin on my MacbookPro and it opens Console Apps in the Terminal. My output is huge and I'm wondering if I can pipe the output from Xamarin into less so I can use less as a pager.
Or, is there maybe a way to execute a…
JacobIRR
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1 answer
Linux: How to finish/interrupt the `less` command in "&" mode
Using Linux I want to know how to go back to normal file view with less whenever I used the & format in the less to search for only the lines with the pattern I am looking for.
I know that I can typeq or ^z BUT these terminate the less.…
Daniel
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Python Fabric prompts: weird behaviour with 'less' and raw_input
I have a fabric task that looks like this:
@task
def test():
with settings(prompts={'This is a test.': 'q', 'question?':'answer'}):
run("python test.py")
my test.py script looks like this:
import subprocess, os
subprocess.call(['less',…
Kevin Eaverquepedo
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For zless to read empty gz file
I have tried to use zless to read (.gz) files.
zless $1.txt.gz
However, when (.gz) file is empty, it shows a message
"$1.txt.gz" may be a binary file. See it anyway?
How to force zless to read an empty gz file without typing Y for many…
user3631848
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/usr/bin/less from zsh 5.0.2
I wonder if this is only my case that
when I use less 458 (POSIX regular expressions),
~/.zshenv is read.
Because I use pyenv and python is in a directory of pyenv (PATH is set in ~/.zshrc),
less does not work.
The error message is 'no python is…
kensuke1984
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shell: how to pagination file with code highlight?
I was checking that you can highlight code with pygmentize like:
pygmentize -g mycodefile
but for large files, I would like the ability to paginate the files like with less or more, but when I try:
pygmentize -g mycodefile | less
The output is not…
eLRuLL
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How does launching `less` differ from launching `cat` in ZSH with regards to the usage of alternate screen and background suspension
On my OS, by default, ZSH has the -tostop (or is the tty?).
This allows backgrounded processes to output to the shell when they have output.
Hence:
> stty -tostop
> echo 'random' >/tmp/random
> cat /tmp/random &
[1] 7588
random
[1] + 7588 done …
CMCDragonkai
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Read hex data into less
I want to give a big data file to less -s -M +Gg such that read current given data in less -s -M +Gg.
While-loop example (see ntc2's answer)
Less command explained here.
Replacing the yes by a binary file which is converted to binary ascii and…
Léo Léopold Hertz 준영
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Subprocess very slow when calling external egrep and less
I'm trying to build a python script that will allow me dynamic build up on egrep -v attributes and pipe the output into less (or more).
The reason why I want to use external egrep+less is because files that I am processing are very large text files…
Milos Kostic-Veljkovic
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"less" consumes lots of RAM for a piped output on gzipped file, why?
Excuse me for useless cat and echo upfront, but while running less on a ~2GB .gz file I'm seeing ~25GB of RAM getting consumed (despite the output being piped into awk and consumed there):
[user@mybox:~]$ cat <(echo…
Vlad
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1 answer
Using R to browse R output
When I display an object in R (in the standard command line interface), and the object is very long, R cuts it with the message
[ reached getOption("max.print") -- omitted 538 rows ]
but still manages to clutter my terminal.
For me, the desired…
January
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Restrict the output using the perl debugger
I'm using the perl debugger to analyze a large hash. However, when I display it (with x) it fills up the display and I can't see the start of the hash. Is there a way to pipe the output through something similar to less?
user623990