DD(1) User Commands

DD(1)

NAME
dd - convert and copy a file

SYNOPSIS
dd [OPERAND]...
dd OPTION

DESCRIPTION
Copy a file, converting and formatting according to the operands.

bs=BYTES
read and write up to BYTES bytes at a time (default: 512);
overrides ibs and
obs

cbs=BYTES
convert BYTES bytes at a time

conv=CONVS
convert the file as per the comma separated symbol list

count=N
copy only N input blocks

ibs=BYTES
read up to BYTES bytes at a time (default: 512)

if=FILE
read from FILE instead of stdin

iflag=FLAGS
read as per the comma separated symbol list

obs=BYTES
write BYTES bytes at a time (default: 512)

of=FILE
write to FILE instead of stdout

oflag=FLAGS
write as per the comma separated symbol list

seek=N (or oseek=N) skip N obs-sized output blocks

skip=N (or iseek=N) skip N ibs-sized input blocks

status=LEVEL
The LEVEL of information to print to stderr; 'none' suppresses
everything but
error messages, 'noxfer' suppresses the final transfer statistics,
'progress'
shows periodic transfer statistics

N and BYTES may be followed by the following multiplicative suffixes:

c=1, w=2,
b=512, kB=1000, K=1024, MB=1000*1000, M=1024*1024, xM=M,
GB=1000*1000*1000,
G=1024*1024*1024, and so on for T, P, E, Z, Y, R, Q. Binary prefixes can
be used,
too: KiB=K, MiB=M, and so on. If N ends in 'B', it counts bytes not blocks.

Each CONV symbol may be:

ascii from EBCDIC to ASCII

ebcdic from ASCII to EBCDIC

ibm from ASCII to alternate EBCDIC

block pad newline-terminated records with spaces to cbs-size

unblock
replace trailing spaces in cbs-size records with newline

lcase change upper case to lower case

ucase change lower case to upper case

sparse try to seek rather than write all-NUL output blocks

swab swap every pair of input bytes

sync pad every input block with NULs to ibs-size; when used with block or
unblock,
pad with spaces rather than NULs

excl fail if the output file already exists

nocreat
do not create the output file

notrunc
do not truncate the output file

noerror
continue after read errors

fdatasync
physically write output file data before finishing

fsync likewise, but also write metadata

Each FLAG symbol may be:

append append mode (makes sense only for output; conv=notrunc suggested)

direct use direct I/O for data

directory
fail unless a directory

dsync use synchronized I/O for data

sync likewise, but also for metadata

 fullblock
accumulate full blocks of input (iflag only)

nonblock
use non-blocking I/O

noatime
do not update access time

nocache
Request to drop cache. See also oflag=sync

noctty do not assign controlling terminal from file

nofollow
do not follow symlinks

Sending a USR1 signal to a running 'dd' process makes it print I/O

statistics to
standard error and then resume copying.

Options are:

--help display this help and exit

--version
output version information and exit

AUTHOR
Written by Paul Rubin, David MacKenzie, and Stuart Kemp.

REPORTING BUGS
GNU coreutils online help: <https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/>
Report any translation bugs to <https://translationproject.org/team/>

COPYRIGHT
Copyright © 2024 Free Software Foundation, Inc. License GPLv3+: GNU GPL
version 3 or
later <https://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>.
This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it. There
is NO WAR‐
RANTY, to the extent permitted by law.

SEE ALSO
Full documentation <https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/dd>
or available locally via: info '(coreutils) dd invocation'

GNU coreutils 9.5 August 2024

DD(1)
LESS(1) General Commands Manual
LESS(1)

NAME
less - display the contents of a file in a terminal

SYNOPSIS
less -?
less --help
less -V
 less --version
less [-[+]aABcCdeEfFgGiIJKLmMnNqQrRsSuUVwWX~]
[-b space] [-h lines] [-j line] [-k keyfile]
[-{oO} logfile] [-p pattern] [-P prompt] [-t tag]
[-T tagsfile] [-x tab,...] [-y lines] [-[z] lines]
[-# shift] [+[+]cmd] [--] [filename]...
(See the OPTIONS section for alternate option syntax with long option
names.)

DESCRIPTION
Less is a program similar to more(1), but it has many more features. Less
does not
have to read the entire input file before starting, so with large input
files it
starts up faster than text editors like vi(1). Less uses termcap (or
terminfo on
some systems), so it can run on a variety of terminals. There is even
limited sup‐
port for hardcopy terminals. (On a hardcopy terminal, lines which should
be printed
at the top of the screen are prefixed with a caret.)

Commands are based on both more and vi. Commands may be preceded by a
decimal num‐
ber, called N in the descriptions below. The number is used by some
commands, as in‐
dicated.

COMMANDS
In the following descriptions, ^X means control-X. ESC stands for the
ESCAPE key;
for example ESC-v means the two character sequence "ESCAPE", then "v".

h or H Help: display a summary of these commands. If you forget all the

other com‐
mands, remember this one.

SPACE or ^V or f or ^F
Scroll forward N lines, default one window (see option -z below).
If N is
more than the screen size, only the final screenful is displayed.
Warning:
some systems use ^V as a special literalization character.

z Like SPACE, but if N is specified, it becomes the new window size.

ESC-SPACE
Like SPACE, but scrolls a full screenful, even if it reaches end-
of-file in
the process.

ENTER or RETURN or ^N or e or ^E or j or ^J
Scroll forward N lines, default 1. The entire N lines are displayed,
even if
N is more than the screen size.

d or ^D
Scroll forward N lines, default one half of the screen size. If N
is speci‐
 fied, it becomes the new default for subsequent d and u commands.

b or ^B or ESC-v
Scroll backward N lines, default one window (see option -z below).
If N is
more than the screen size, only the final screenful is displayed.

w Like ESC-v, but if N is specified, it becomes the new window size.

y or ^Y or ^P or k or ^K
Scroll backward N lines, default 1. The entire N lines are
displayed, even if
N is more than the screen size. Warning: some systems use ^Y as a
special job
control character.

u or ^U
Scroll backward N lines, default one half of the screen size. If N
is speci‐
fied, it becomes the new default for subsequent d and u commands.

J Like j, but continues to scroll beyond the end of the file.

K or Y Like k, but continues to scroll beyond the beginning of the file.

ESC-) or RIGHTARROW
Scroll horizontally right N characters, default half the screen width
(see the
-# option). If a number N is specified, it becomes the default
for future
RIGHTARROW and LEFTARROW commands. While the text is scrolled,
it acts as
though the -S option (chop lines) were in effect.

ESC-( or LEFTARROW
Scroll horizontally left N characters, default half the screen width
(see the
-# option). If a number N is specified, it becomes the default
for future
RIGHTARROW and LEFTARROW commands.

ESC-} or ^RIGHTARROW
Scroll horizontally right to show the end of the longest displayed
line.

ESC-{ or ^LEFTARROW
Scroll horizontally left back to the first column.

r or ^R or ^L
Repaint the screen.

R Repaint the screen, discarding any buffered input. That is, reload
the cur‐
rent file. Useful if the file is changing while it is being viewed.

F Scroll forward, and keep trying to read when the end of file is
reached. Nor‐
mally this command would be used when already at the end of the file.
It is a
 way to monitor the tail of a file which is growing while it is
being viewed.
(The behavior is similar to the "tail -f" command.) To stop waiting
for more
data, enter the interrupt character (usually ^C). On systems
which support
poll(2) you can also use ^X or the character specified by the --intr
option.
If the input is a pipe and the --exit-follow-on-close option is
in effect,
less will automatically stop waiting for data when the input side of
the pipe
is closed.

ESC-F Like F, but as soon as a line is found which matches the last search
pattern,
the terminal bell is rung and forward scrolling stops.

g or < or ESC-<
Go to line N in the file, default 1 (beginning of file). (Warning:
this may
be slow if N is large.)

G or > or ESC->
Go to line N in the file, default the end of the file. (Warning:
this may be
slow if N is large, or if N is not specified and standard input,
rather than a
file, is being read.)

ESC-G Same as G, except if no number N is specified and the input is

standard input,
goes to the last line which is currently buffered.

p or % Go to a position N percent into the file. N should be between 0 and

100, and
may contain a decimal point.

P Go to the line containing byte offset N in the file.

{ If a left curly bracket appears in the top line displayed on the

screen, the {
command will go to the matching right curly bracket. The matching
right curly
bracket is positioned on the bottom line of the screen. If there is
more than
one left curly bracket on the top line, a number N may be used to
specify the
N-th bracket on the line.

} If a right curly bracket appears in the bottom line displayed on the

screen,
the } command will go to the matching left curly bracket. The
matching left
curly bracket is positioned on the top line of the screen. If there
is more
than one right curly bracket on the bottom line, a number N may
be used to
specify the N-th bracket on the line.
 ( Like {, but applies to parentheses rather than curly brackets.

) Like }, but applies to parentheses rather than curly brackets.

[ Like {, but applies to square brackets rather than curly brackets.

] Like }, but applies to square brackets rather than curly brackets.

ESC-^F Followed by two characters, acts like {, but uses the two characters
as open
and close brackets, respectively. For example, "ESC ^F < >" could
be used to
go forward to the > which matches the < in the top displayed line.

ESC-^B Followed by two characters, acts like }, but uses the two characters
as open
and close brackets, respectively. For example, "ESC ^B < >" could
be used to
go backward to the < which matches the > in the bottom displayed
line.

m Followed by any lowercase or uppercase letter, marks the first

displayed line
with that letter. If the status column is enabled via the -J option,
the sta‐
tus column shows the marked line.

M Acts like m, except the last displayed line is marked rather than
the first
displayed line.

' (Single quote.) Followed by any lowercase or uppercase letter,

returns to the
position which was previously marked with that letter. Followed by
another
single quote, returns to the position at which the last "large"
movement com‐
mand was executed. Followed by a ^ or $, jumps to the beginning or
end of the
file respectively. Marks are preserved when a new file is examined,
so the '
command can be used to switch between input files.

^X^X Same as single quote.

ESC-m Followed by any lowercase or uppercase letter, clears the mark

identified by
that letter.

/pattern
Search forward in the file for the N-th line containing the pattern.
N de‐
faults to 1. The pattern is a regular expression, as recognized by
the regu‐
lar expression library supplied by your system. By default,
searching is
case-sensitive (uppercase and lowercase are considered different);
the -i op‐
 tion can be used to change this. The search starts at the first
line dis‐
played (but see the -a and -j options, which change this).

Certain characters are special if entered at the beginning of the

pattern;
they modify the type of search rather than become part of the
pattern:

^N or !
Search for lines which do NOT match the pattern.

^E or *
Search multiple files. That is, if the search reaches the END
of the
current file without finding a match, the search continues in
the next
file in the command line list.

^F or @
Begin the search at the first line of the FIRST file in the
command
line list, regardless of what is currently displayed on the
screen or
the settings of the -a or -j options.

^K Highlight any text which matches the pattern on the current

screen, but
don't move to the first match (KEEP current position).

^R Don't interpret regular expression metacharacters; that is, do

a simple
textual comparison.

^S Followed by a digit N between 1 and 5. Only text which has a

non-empty
match for the N-th parenthesized SUB-PATTERN will be
considered to
match the pattern. (Supported only if less is built with
one of the
regular expression libraries posix, pcre, or pcre2.) Multiple
^S modi‐
fiers can be specified, to match more than one sub-pattern.

^W WRAP around the current file. That is, if the search reaches
the end
of the current file without finding a match, the search
continues from
the first line of the current file up to the line where it
started. If
the ^W modifier is set, the ^E modifier is ignored.

^L The next character is taken literally; that is, it becomes

part of the
pattern even if it is one of the above search modifier
characters.

?pattern
Search backward in the file for the N-th line containing the
pattern. The
search starts at the last line displayed (but see the -a and -j
options, which
change this).

Certain characters are special as in the / command:

^N or !
Search for lines which do NOT match the pattern.

^E or *
Search multiple files. That is, if the search reaches the
beginning of
the current file without finding a match, the search continues
in the
previous file in the command line list.

^F or @
Begin the search at the last line of the last file in the
command line
list, regardless of what is currently displayed on the screen
or the
settings of the -a or -j options.

^K As in forward searches.

^R As in forward searches.

^S As in forward searches.

^W WRAP around the current file. That is, if the search

reaches the be‐
ginning of the current file without finding a match, the
search contin‐
ues from the last line of the current file up to the line
where it
started.

ESC-/pattern
Same as "/*".

ESC-?pattern
Same as "?*".

n Repeat previous search, for N-th line containing the last

pattern. If the
previous search was modified by ^N, the search is made for the N-th
line NOT
containing the pattern. If the previous search was modified by ^E,
the search
continues in the next (or previous) file if not satisfied in the
current file.
If the previous search was modified by ^R, the search is done
without using
regular expressions. There is no effect if the previous search was
modified
by ^F or ^K.

N Repeat previous search, but in the reverse direction.

 ESC-n Repeat previous search, but crossing file boundaries. The effect is
as if the
previous search were modified by *.

ESC-N Repeat previous search, but in the reverse direction and crossing
file bound‐
aries.

ESC-u Undo search highlighting. Turn off highlighting of strings matching

the cur‐
rent search pattern. If highlighting is already off because of a
previous
ESC-u command, turn highlighting back on. Any search command will
also turn
highlighting back on. (Highlighting can also be disabled by
toggling the -G
option; in that case search commands do not turn highlighting back
on.)

ESC-U Like ESC-u but also clears the saved search pattern. If the status
column is
enabled via the -J option, this clears all search matches marked in
the status
column.

&pattern
Display only lines which match the pattern; lines which do not match
the pat‐
tern are not displayed. If pattern is empty (if you type &
immediately fol‐
lowed by ENTER), any filtering is turned off, and all lines are
displayed.
While filtering is in effect, an ampersand is displayed at the
beginning of
the prompt, as a reminder that some lines in the file may be hidden.
Multiple
& commands may be entered, in which case only lines which match
all of the
patterns will be displayed.

Certain characters are special as in the / command:

^N or !
Display only lines which do NOT match the pattern.

^R Don't interpret regular expression metacharacters; that is, do

a simple
textual comparison.

:e [filename]
Examine a new file. If the filename is missing, the "current" file
(see the
:n and :p commands below) from the list of files in the command line
is re-ex‐
amined. A percent sign (%) in the filename is replaced by the
name of the
current file. A pound sign (#) is replaced by the name of the
previously ex‐
 amined file. However, two consecutive percent signs are simply
replaced with
a single percent sign. This allows you to enter a filename that
contains a
percent sign in the name. Similarly, two consecutive pound signs are
replaced
with a single pound sign. The filename is inserted into the command
line list
of files so that it can be seen by subsequent :n and :p
commands. If the
filename consists of several files, they are all inserted into the
list of
files and the first one is examined. If the filename contains
one or more
spaces, the entire filename should be enclosed in double quotes (also
see the
-" option).

^X^V or E
Same as :e. Warning: some systems use ^V as a special
literalization charac‐
ter. On such systems, you may not be able to use ^V.

:n Examine the next file (from the list of files given in the command
line). If
a number N is specified, the N-th next file is examined.

:p Examine the previous file in the command line list. If a number N

is speci‐
fied, the N-th previous file is examined.

:x Examine the first file in the command line list. If a number N is

specified,
the N-th file in the list is examined.

:d Remove the current file from the list of files.

t Go to the next tag, if there were more than one matches for the
current tag.
See the -t option for more details about tags.

T Go to the previous tag, if there were more than one matches for the
current
tag.

^O^N or ^On
Search forward in the file for the N-th next OSC 8 hyperlink.

^O^P or ^Op
Search backward in the file for the N-th previous OSC 8 hyperlink.

^O^L or ^Ol
Jump to the currently selected OSC 8 hyperlink.

= or ^G or :f
Prints some information about the file being viewed, including its
name and
the line number and byte offset of the bottom line being displayed.
If possi‐
 ble, it also prints the length of the file, the number of lines in
the file
and the percent of the file above the last displayed line.

- Followed by one of the command line option letters (see OPTIONS

below), this
will change the setting of that option and print a message describing
the new
setting. If a ^P (CONTROL-P) is entered immediately after the dash,
the set‐
ting of the option is changed but no message is printed. If the
option letter
has a numeric value (such as -b or -h), or a string value (such as -P
or -t),
a new value may be entered after the option letter. If no new
value is en‐
tered, a message describing the current setting is printed and
nothing is
changed.

-- Like the - command, but takes a long option name (see OPTIONS
below) rather
than a single option letter. You must press ENTER or RETURN after
typing the
option name. A ^P immediately after the second dash suppresses
printing of a
message describing the new setting, as in the - command.

-+ Followed by one of the command line option letters this will reset
the option
to its default setting and print a message describing the new
setting. (The
"-+X" command does the same thing as "-+X" on the command line.)
This does
not work for string-valued options.

--+ Like the -+ command, but takes a long option name rather than a
single option
letter.

-! Followed by one of the command line option letters, this will reset
the option
to the "opposite" of its default setting and print a message
describing the
new setting. This does not work for numeric or string-valued
options.

--! Like the -! command, but takes a long option name rather than a
single option
letter.

_ (Underscore.) Followed by one of the command line option letters,

this will
print a message describing the current setting of that option. The
setting of
the option is not changed.

__ (Double underscore.) Like the _ (underscore) command, but takes a

long option
 name rather than a single option letter. You must press ENTER or
RETURN after
typing the option name.

+cmd Causes the specified cmd to be executed each time a new file is
examined. For
example, +G causes less to initially display each file starting
at the end
rather than the beginning.

V Prints the version number of less being run.

q or Q or :q or :Q or ZZ
Exits less.

The following seven commands may or may not be valid, depending on your
particular
installation.

v Invokes an editor to edit the current file being viewed. The editor
is taken
from the environment variable VISUAL if defined, or EDITOR if VISUAL
is not
defined, or defaults to "vi" if neither VISUAL nor EDITOR is
defined. See
also the discussion of LESSEDIT under the section on PROMPTS below.

! shell-command
Invokes a shell to run the shell-command given. A percent sign (%)
in the
command is replaced by the name of the current file. A pound sign
(#) is re‐
placed by the name of the previously examined file. "!!" repeats
the last
shell command. "!" with no shell command simply invokes a shell.
If a ^P
(CONTROL-P) is entered immediately after the !, no "done" message is
printed
after the shell command is executed. On Unix systems, the shell is
taken from
the environment variable SHELL, or defaults to "sh". On MS-DOS,
Windows, and
OS/2 systems, the shell is the normal command processor.

# shell-command
Similar to the "!" command, except that the command is expanded in
the same
way as prompt strings. For example, the name of the current file
would be
given as "%f".

| <m> shell-command
<m> represents any mark letter. Pipes a section of the input file
to the
given shell command. The section of the file to be piped is between
the posi‐
tion marked by the letter and the current screen. The entire
current screen
is included, regardless of whether the marked position is before or
after the
current screen. <m> may also be ^ or $ to indicate beginning or
end of file
respectively. If <m> is . or newline, the current screen is piped.
If a ^P
(CONTROL-P) is entered immediately after the mark letter, no "done"
message is
printed after the shell command is executed.

s filename
Save the input to a file. This works only if the input is a pipe,
not an or‐
dinary file.

^O^O
Run a shell command to open the URI in the current OSC 8 hyperlink,
selected
by a previous ^O^N or ^O^P command. To find the shell command, the
environ‐
ment variable named "LESS_OSC8_xxx" is read, where "xxx" is the
scheme from
the URI (the part before the first colon), or is empty if there is no
colon in
the URI. The value of the environment variable is then expanded in
the same
way as prompt strings (in particular, any instance of "%o" is
replaced with
the URI) to produce an OSC 8 "handler" shell command. The
standard output
from the handler is an "opener" shell command which is then executed
to open
the URI.

There are two special cases:

1. If the URI begins with "#", the remainder of the URI is

taken to
be the value of the id parameter in another OSC 8
link in the
same file, and ^O^O will simply jump to that link.

2. If the opener begins with the characters ":e" followed

by white‐
space and a filename, then instead of running the
opener as a
shell command, the specified filename is opened in
the current
instance of less.

In a simple case where the opener accepts the complete URI as a

command line
parameter, the handler may be as simple as

echo mybrowser '%o'

In other cases, the URI may need to be modified, so the handler may
have to do
some manipulation of the %o value.
 If the LESS_OSC8_xxx variable is not set, the variable LESS_OSC8_ANY
is tried.
If neither LESS_OSC8_xxx nor LESS_OSC8_ANY is set, links using
the "xxx"
scheme cannot be opened. However, there are default handlers for the
schemes
"man" (used when LESS_OSC8_man is not set) and "file"
(used when
LESS_OSC8_file is not set), which should work on systems which
provide the
sed(1) command and a shell with syntax compatible with the Bourne
shell sh(1).
If you use LESS_OSC8_ANY to override LESS_OSC8_file, you
must set
LESS_OSC8_file to "-" to indicate that the default value should not
be used,
and likewise for LESS_OSC8_man.

The URI passed to an OSC8 handler via %o is guaranteed not to contain

any sin‐
gle quote or double quote characters, but it may contain any
other shell
metacharacters such as semicolons, dollar signs, ampersands, etc.
The handler
should take care to appropriately quote parameters in the opener
command, to
prevent execution of unintended shell commands in the case of
opening a URI
which contains shell metacharacters. Also, since the handler command
is ex‐
panded like a command prompt, any metacharacters interpreted by
prompt expan‐
sion (such as percent, dot, colon, backslash, etc.) must be escaped
with a
backslash (see the PROMPTS section for details).

^X When the "Waiting for data" message is displayed, such as while in

the F com‐
mand, pressing ^X will stop less from waiting and return to a
prompt. This
may cause less to think that the file ends at the current position,
so it may
be necessary to use the R or F command to see more data. The --
intr option
can be used to specify a different character to use instead of ^X.
This com‐
mand works only on systems that support the poll(2) function. On
systems
without poll(2), the interrupt character (usually ^C) can be used
instead.

OPTIONS
Command line options are described below. Most options may be changed
while less is
running, via the "-" command.

Some options may be given in one of two forms: either a dash followed by
a single
letter, or two dashes followed by a long option name. A long option name
may be ab‐
breviated as long as the abbreviation is unambiguous. For example, --quit-
at-eof may
be abbreviated --quit, but not --qui, since both --quit-at-eof and --quiet
begin with
--qui. Some long option names are in uppercase, such as --QUIT-AT-EOF, as
distinct
from --quit-at-eof. Such option names need only have their first letter
capitalized;
the remainder of the name may be in either case. For example, --Quit-
at-eof is
equivalent to --QUIT-AT-EOF.

Options are also taken from the environment variable "LESS". For example,
to avoid
typing "less -options ..." each time less is invoked, you might tell csh:

setenv LESS "-options"

or if you use sh:

LESS="-options"; export LESS

On MS-DOS and Windows, you don't need the quotes, but you should be careful
that any
percent signs in the options string are not interpreted as an environment
variable
expansion.

The environment variable is parsed before the command line, so command

line options
override the LESS environment variable. If an option appears in the LESS
variable,
it can be reset to its default value on the command line by beginning
the command
line option with "-+".

Some options like -k or -D require a string to follow the option letter.

The string
for that option is considered to end when a dollar sign ($) is found. For
example,
you can set two -D options like this:

LESS="Dnwb$Dsbw"

If the --use-backslash option appears earlier in the options, then a dollar

sign or
backslash may be included literally in an option string by preceding it
with a back‐
slash. If the --use-backslash option is not in effect, then backslashes
are not
treated specially, and there is no way to include a dollar sign in the
option string.

-? or --help
This option displays a summary of the commands accepted by less
(the same as
the h command). (Depending on how your shell interprets the question
mark, it
 may be necessary to quote the question mark, thus: "-\?".)

-a or --search-skip-screen
By default, forward searches start at the top of the displayed
screen and
backwards searches start at the bottom of the displayed screen
(except for re‐
peated searches invoked by the n or N commands, which start after
or before
the "target" line respectively; see the -j option for more about
the target
line). The -a option causes forward searches to instead start at
the bottom
of the screen and backward searches to start at the top of the
screen, thus
skipping all lines displayed on the screen.

-A or --SEARCH-SKIP-SCREEN
Causes all forward searches (not just non-repeated searches) to start
just af‐
ter the target line, and all backward searches to start just before
the target
line. Thus, forward searches will skip part of the displayed screen
(from the
first line up to and including the target line). Similarly backwards
searches
will skip the displayed screen from the last line up to and including
the tar‐
get line. This was the default behavior in less versions prior to
441.

-bn or --buffers=n
Specifies the amount of buffer space less will use for each file, in
units of
kilobytes (1024 bytes). By default 64 KB of buffer space is used
for each
file (unless the file is a pipe; see the -B option). The -b option
specifies
instead that n kilobytes of buffer space should be used for each
file. If n
is -1, buffer space is unlimited; that is, the entire file can be
read into
memory.

-B or --auto-buffers
By default, when data is read from a pipe, buffers are allocated
automatically
as needed. If a large amount of data is read from the pipe, this can
cause a
large amount of memory to be allocated. The -B option disables this
automatic
allocation of buffers for pipes, so that only 64 KB (or the amount
of space
specified by the -b option) is used for the pipe. Warning: use of -B
can re‐
sult in erroneous display, since only the most recently viewed
part of the
piped data is kept in memory; any earlier data is lost. Lost
characters are
 displayed as question marks.

-c or --clear-screen
Causes full screen repaints to be painted from the top line down. By
default,
full screen repaints are done by scrolling from the bottom of the
screen.

-C or --CLEAR-SCREEN
Same as -c, for compatibility with older versions of less.

-d or --dumb
The -d option suppresses the error message normally displayed if the
terminal
is dumb; that is, lacks some important capability, such as the
ability to
clear the screen or scroll backward. The -d option does not
otherwise change
the behavior of less on a dumb terminal.

-Dxcolor or --color=xcolor
Changes the color of different parts of the displayed text. x is
a single
character which selects the type of text whose color is being set:

B Binary characters.

C Control characters.

E Errors and informational messages.

H Header lines and columns, set via the --header option.

M Mark letters in the status column.

N Line numbers enabled via the -N option.

P Prompts.

R The rscroll character.

S Search results.

W The highlight enabled via the -w option.

1-5 The text in a search result which matches the first

through fifth
parenthesized sub-pattern. Sub-pattern coloring works only if
less is
built with one of the regular expression libraries posix,
pcre, or
pcre2.

d Bold text.

k Blinking text.

s Standout text.
 u Underlined text.

The uppercase letters and digits can be used only when the --use-
color option
is enabled. When text color is specified by both an uppercase
letter and a
lowercase letter, the uppercase letter takes precedence. For
example, error
messages are normally displayed as standout text. So if both "s"
and "E" are
given a color, the "E" color applies to error messages, and the "s"
color ap‐
plies to other standout text. The lowercase letters refer to bold
and under‐
line text formed by overstriking with backspaces (see the -U option)
and to
non-content text (such as line numbers and prompts), but not to text
formatted
using ANSI escape sequences with the -R option (but see the note
below for
different behavior on Windows and MS-DOS).

A lowercase letter may be followed by a + to indicate that the

normal format
change and the specified color should both be used. For example,
-Dug dis‐
plays underlined text as green without underlining; the green color
has re‐
placed the usual underline formatting. But -Du+g displays
underlined text as
both green and in underlined format.

color is either a 4-bit color string or an 8-bit color string:

A 4-bit color string is one or two characters, where the first

character spec‐
ifies the foreground color and the second specifies the background
color as
follows:

b Blue

c Cyan

g Green

k Black

m Magenta

r Red

w White

y Yellow

The corresponding uppercase letter denotes a brighter shade of the

color. For
example, -DNGk displays line numbers as bright green text on a
black back‐
ground, and -DEbR displays error messages as blue text on a bright
red back‐
ground. If either character is a "-" or is omitted, the
corresponding color
is set to that of normal text.

An 8-bit color string is one or two decimal integers separated by a

dot, where
the first integer specifies the foreground color and the second
specifies the
background color. Each integer is a value between 0 and 255
inclusive which
selects a "CSI 38;5" color value
(see
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ANSI_escape_code#SGR). If either
integer is a
"-" or is omitted, the corresponding color is set to that of normal
text.

A 4-bit or 8-bit color string may be followed by one or more of the

following
characters to set text attributes in addition to the color.

s or ~ Standout (reverse video)

u or _ Underline

d or * Bold

l or & Blinking

On MS-DOS and Windows, the --color option behaves differently from

what is de‐
scribed above in these ways:

• The bold (d and *) and blinking (l and &) text attributes at

the end of
a color string are not supported.

• Lowercase color selector letters refer to text formatted by

ANSI escape
sequences with -R, in addition to overstruck and non-content
text (but
see -Da).

• For historical reasons, when a lowercase color selector letter

is fol‐
lowed by a numeric color value, the number is not
interpreted as an
"CSI 38;5" color value as described above, but instead as
a 4-bit
CHAR_INFO.Attributes value, between 0 and 15
inclusive (see
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/console/char-info-
str).

To avoid confusion, it is recommended that the equivalent

letters
 rather than numbers be used after a lowercase color
selector on MS-
DOS/Windows.

• Numeric color values ("CSI 38;5" color) following an

uppercase color
selector letter are not supported on systems earlier than
Windows 10.

• Only a limited set of ANSI escape sequences to set color in

the content
work correctly. 4-bit color sequences work, but "CSI 38;5"
color se‐
quences do not.

• The -Da option makes the behavior of --color more similar to

its behav‐
ior on non-MS-DOS/Windows systems by (1) making lowercase
color selec‐
tor letters not affect text formatted with ANSI escape
sequences, and
(2) allowing "CSI 38;5" color sequences in the content work by
passing
them to the terminal (only on Windows 10 and later; on
earlier Windows
systems, such sequences do not work regardless of the setting
of -Da).

-e or --quit-at-eof
Causes less to automatically exit the second time it reaches end-of-
file. By
default, the only way to exit less is via the "q" command.

-E or --QUIT-AT-EOF
Causes less to automatically exit the first time it reaches end-of-
file.

-f or --force
Forces non-regular files to be opened. (A non-regular file is a
directory or
a device special file.) Also suppresses the warning message when
a binary
file is opened. By default, less will refuse to open non-regular
files. Note
that some operating systems will not allow directories to be read,
even if -f
is set.

-F or --quit-if-one-screen
Causes less to automatically exit if the entire file can be displayed
on the
first screen.

-g or --hilite-search
Normally, less will highlight ALL strings which match the last search
command.
The -g option changes this behavior to highlight only the
particular string
which was found by the last search command. This can cause less to
run some‐
what faster than the default.

-G or --HILITE-SEARCH
The -G option suppresses all highlighting of strings found by search
commands.

-hn or --max-back-scroll=n
Specifies a maximum number of lines to scroll backward. If it is
necessary to
scroll backward more than n lines, the screen is repainted in a
forward direc‐
tion instead. (If the terminal does not have the ability to scroll
backward,
-h0 is implied.)

-i or --ignore-case
Causes searches to ignore case; that is, uppercase and lowercase are
consid‐
ered identical. This option is ignored if any uppercase letters
appear in the
search pattern; in other words, if a pattern contains uppercase
letters, then
that search does not ignore case.

-I or --IGNORE-CASE
Like -i, but searches ignore case even if the pattern contains
uppercase let‐
ters.

-jn or --jump-target=n
Specifies a line on the screen where the "target" line is to be
positioned.
The target line is the line specified by any command to search for a
pattern,
jump to a line number, jump to a file percentage or jump to a tag.
The screen
line may be specified by a number: the top line on the screen is 1,
the next
is 2, and so on. The number may be negative to specify a line
relative to the
bottom of the screen: the bottom line on the screen is -1, the second
to the
bottom is -2, and so on. Alternately, the screen line may be
specified as a
fraction of the height of the screen, starting with a decimal
point: .5 is in
the middle of the screen, .3 is three tenths down from the first
line, and so
on. If the line is specified as a fraction, the actual line number
is recal‐
culated if the terminal window is resized. If the --header option is
used and
the target line specified by -j would be obscured by the header,
the target
line is moved to the first line after the header. While the --
header option
is active, the -S option is ignored, and lines longer than the
screen width
 are truncated.

If any form of the -j option is used, repeated forward searches

(invoked with
"n" or "N") begin at the line immediately after the target line, and
repeated
backward searches begin at the target line, unless changed by -a or
-A. For
example, if "-j4" is used, the target line is the fourth line on
the screen,
so forward searches begin at the fifth line on the screen. However
nonrepeat‐
ed searches (invoked with "/" or "?") always begin at the start or
end of the
current screen respectively.

-J or --status-column
Displays a status column at the left edge of the screen. The
character dis‐
played in the status column may be one of:

> The line is chopped with the -S option, and the text that
is chopped
off beyond the right edge of the screen contains a match for
the cur‐
rent search.

< The line is horizontally shifted, and the text that is

shifted beyond
the left side of the screen contains a match for the current
search.

= The line is both chopped and shifted, and there are matches
beyond both
sides of the screen.

* There are matches in the visible part of the line but none to
the right
or left of it.

a-z, A-Z
The line has been marked with the corresponding letter via the
m com‐
mand.

-kfilename or --lesskey-file=filename
Causes less to open and interpret the named file as a lesskey(1)
binary file.
Multiple -k options may be specified. If the LESSKEY or
LESSKEY_SYSTEM envi‐
ronment variable is set, or if a lesskey file is found in a
standard place
(see KEY BINDINGS), it is also used as a lesskey file. Note the
warning under
"--lesskey-content" below.

--lesskey-src=filename
Causes less to open and interpret the named file as a lesskey(1)
source file.
 If the LESSKEYIN or LESSKEYIN_SYSTEM environment variable is
set, or if a
lesskey source file is found in a standard place (see KEY BINDINGS),
it is al‐
so used as a lesskey source file. Prior to version 582, the lesskey
program
needed to be run to convert a lesskey source file to a lesskey binary
file for
less to use. Newer versions of less read the lesskey source file
directly and
ignore the binary file if the source file exists. Note the
warning under
"--lesskey-content" below.

--lesskey-content=text
Causes less to interpret the specified text as the contents of a
lesskey(1)
source file. In the text, lesskey lines may be separated by either
newlines
as usual, or by semicolons. A literal semicolon may be represented
by a back‐
slash followed by a semicolon.

Warning: certain environment variables such as LESS, LESSSECURE,

LESSCHARSET
and others, which are used early in startup, cannot be set in a file
specified
by a command line option (--lesskey, --lesskey-src or --lesskey-
content).
When using a lesskey file to set environment variables, it is safer
to use the
default lesskey file, or to specify the file using the
LESSKEYIN or
LESSKEY_CONTENT environment variables rather than using a command
line option.

-K or --quit-on-intr
Causes less to exit immediately (with status 2) when an interrupt
character
(usually ^C) is typed. Normally, an interrupt character causes less
to stop
whatever it is doing and return to its command prompt. Note that
use of this
option makes it impossible to return to the command prompt from the
"F" com‐
mand.

-L or --no-lessopen
Ignore the LESSOPEN environment variable (see the INPUT
PREPROCESSOR section
below). This option can be set from within less, but it will apply
only to
files opened subsequently, not to the file which is currently open.

-m or --long-prompt
Causes less to prompt verbosely (like more(1)), with the percent
into the
file. By default, less prompts with a colon.
 -M or --LONG-PROMPT
Causes less to prompt even more verbosely than more(1).

-n or --line-numbers
Suppresses line numbers. The default (to use line numbers) may cause
less to
run more slowly in some cases, especially with a very large input
file. Sup‐
pressing line numbers with the -n option will avoid this problem.
Using line
numbers means: the line number will be displayed in the verbose
prompt and in
the = command, and the v command will pass the current line number to
the edi‐
tor (see also the discussion of LESSEDIT in PROMPTS below).

-N or --LINE-NUMBERS
Causes a line number to be displayed at the beginning of each line in
the dis‐
play.

-ofilename or --log-file=filename
Causes less to copy its input to the named file as it is being
viewed. This
applies only when the input file is a pipe, not an ordinary file. If
the file
already exists, less will ask for confirmation before overwriting it.

-Ofilename or --LOG-FILE=filename
The -O option is like -o, but it will overwrite an existing file
without ask‐
ing for confirmation.

If no log file has been specified, the -o and -O options can be

used from
within less to specify a log file. Without a file name, they will
simply re‐
port the name of the log file. The "s" command is equivalent to
specifying -o
from within less.

-ppattern or --pattern=pattern
The -p option on the command line is equivalent to specifying
+/pattern; that
is, it tells less to start at the first occurrence of pattern in the
file.

-Pprompt or --prompt=prompt
Provides a way to tailor the three prompt styles to your own
preference. This
option would normally be put in the LESS environment variable, rather
than be‐
ing typed in with each less command. Such an option must either be
the last
option in the LESS variable, or be terminated by a dollar sign.
-Ps followed by a string changes the default (short) prompt to that
string.
-Pm changes the medium (-m) prompt.
-PM changes the long (-M) prompt.
 -Ph changes the prompt for the help screen.
-P= changes the message printed by the = command.
-Pw changes the message printed while waiting for data (in the "F"
command).

All prompt strings consist of a sequence of letters and special

escape se‐
quences. See the section on PROMPTS for more details.

-q or --quiet or --silent
Causes moderately "quiet" operation: the terminal bell is not rung
if an at‐
tempt is made to scroll past the end of the file or before the
beginning of
the file. If the terminal has a "visual bell", it is used instead.
The bell
will be rung on certain other errors, such as typing an invalid
character.
The default is to ring the terminal bell in all such cases.

-Q or --QUIET or --SILENT
Causes totally "quiet" operation: the terminal bell is never
rung. If the
terminal has a "visual bell", it is used in all cases where the
terminal bell
would have been rung.

-r or --raw-control-chars
Causes "raw" control characters to be displayed. The default is
to display
control characters using the caret notation; for example, a control-
A (octal
001) is displayed as "^A" (with some exceptions as described under
the -U op‐
tion). Warning: when the -r option is used, less cannot keep track
of the ac‐
tual appearance of the screen (since this depends on how the screen
responds
to each type of control character). Thus, various display
problems may re‐
sult, such as long lines being split in the wrong place.

USE OF THE -r OPTION IS NOT RECOMMENDED.

-R or --RAW-CONTROL-CHARS
Like -r, but only ANSI "color" escape sequences and OSC 8 hyperlink
sequences
are output in "raw" form. Unlike -r, the screen appearance is
maintained cor‐
rectly, provided that there are no escape sequences in the file
other than
these types of escape sequences. Color escape sequences are only
supported
when the color is changed within one line, not across lines. In
other words,
the beginning of each line is assumed to be normal (non-colored),
regardless
of any escape sequences in previous lines. For the purpose of
keeping track
 of screen appearance, these escape sequences are assumed to not move
the cur‐
sor.

OSC 8 hyperlinks are sequences of the form:

ESC ] 8 ; ... \7

The terminating sequence may be either a BEL character (\7) or the

two-charac‐
ter sequence "ESC \".

ANSI color escape sequences are sequences of the form:

ESC [ ... m

where the "..." is zero or more color specification characters. You

can make
less think that characters other than "m" can end ANSI color escape
sequences
by setting the environment variable LESSANSIENDCHARS to the list of
characters
which can end a color escape sequence. And you can make less think
that char‐
acters other than the standard ones may appear between the ESC and
the m by
setting the environment variable LESSANSIMIDCHARS to the list of
characters
which can appear.

-s or --squeeze-blank-lines
Causes consecutive blank lines to be squeezed into a single blank
line. This
is useful when viewing nroff output.

-S or --chop-long-lines
Causes lines longer than the screen width to be chopped
(truncated) rather
than wrapped. That is, the portion of a long line that does not
fit in the
screen width is not displayed until you press RIGHT-ARROW. The
default is to
wrap long lines; that is, display the remainder on the next line.
See also
the --wordwrap option.

-ttag or --tag=tag
The -t option, followed immediately by a TAG, will edit the file
containing
that tag. For this to work, tag information must be available; for
example,
there may be a file in the current directory called "tags", which
was previ‐
ously built by ctags(1) or an equivalent command. If the environment
variable
LESSGLOBALTAGS is set, it is taken to be the name of a command
compatible with
global(1), and that command is executed to find the
tag. (See
 http://www.gnu.org/software/global/global.html). The -t option may
also be
specified from within less (using the - command) as a way of
examining a new
file. The command ":t" is equivalent to specifying -t from within
less.

-Ttagsfile or --tag-file=tagsfile
Specifies a tags file to be used instead of "tags".

-u or --underline-special
Causes backspaces and carriage returns to be treated as printable
characters;
that is, they are sent to the terminal when they appear in the input.

-U or --UNDERLINE-SPECIAL
Causes backspaces, tabs, carriage returns and "formatting
characters" (as de‐
fined by Unicode) to be treated as control characters; that is, they
are han‐
dled as specified by the -r option.

By default, if neither -u nor -U is given, backspaces which appear

adjacent to
an underscore character are treated specially: the underlined
text is dis‐
played using the terminal's hardware underlining capability. Also,
backspaces
which appear between two identical characters are treated specially:
the over‐
struck text is printed using the terminal's hardware boldface
capability.
Other backspaces are deleted, along with the preceding character.
Carriage
returns immediately followed by a newline are deleted. Other
carriage returns
are handled as specified by the -r option. Unicode formatting
characters,
such as the Byte Order Mark, are sent to the terminal. Text which
is over‐
struck or underlined can be searched for if neither -u nor -U is in
effect.

See also the --proc-backspace, --proc-tab, and --proc-return options.

-V or --version
Displays the version number of less.

-w or --hilite-unread
Temporarily highlights the first "new" line after a forward movement
of a full
page. The first "new" line is the line immediately following the
line previ‐
ously at the bottom of the screen. Also highlights the target line
after a g
or p command. The highlight is removed at the next command which
causes move‐
ment. If the --status-line option is in effect, the entire line (the
width of
 the screen) is highlighted. Otherwise, only the text in the line
is high‐
lighted, unless the -J option is in effect, in which case only the
status col‐
umn is highlighted.

-W or --HILITE-UNREAD
Like -w, but temporarily highlights the first new line after any
forward move‐
ment command larger than one line.

-xn,... or --tabs=n,...
Sets tab stops. If only one n is specified, tab stops are set at
multiples of
n. If multiple values separated by commas are specified, tab stops
are set at
those positions, and then continue with the same spacing as the last
two. For
example, "-x9,17" will set tabs at positions 9, 17, 25, 33, etc.
The default
for n is 8.

-X or --no-init
Disables sending the termcap initialization and deinitialization
strings to
the terminal. This is sometimes desirable if the deinitialization
string does
something unnecessary, like clearing the screen.

-yn or --max-forw-scroll=n
Specifies a maximum number of lines to scroll forward. If it is
necessary to
scroll forward more than n lines, the screen is repainted instead.
The -c or
-C option may be used to repaint from the top of the screen if
desired. By
default, any forward movement causes scrolling.

-zn or --window=n or -n
Changes the default scrolling window size to n lines. The default
is one
screenful. The z and w commands can also be used to change the
window size.
The "z" may be omitted for compatibility with some versions of
more(1). If
the number n is negative, it indicates n lines less than the
current screen
size. For example, if the screen is 24 lines, -z-4 sets the
scrolling window
to 20 lines. If the screen is resized to 40 lines, the scrolling
window auto‐
matically changes to 36 lines.

-"cc or --quotes=cc
Changes the filename quoting character. This may be necessary if you
are try‐
ing to name a file which contains both spaces and quote characters.
Followed
by a single character, this changes the quote character to that
character.
Filenames containing a space should then be surrounded by that
character
rather than by double quotes. Followed by two characters, changes
the open
quote to the first character, and the close quote to the second
character.
Filenames containing a space should then be preceded by the open
quote charac‐
ter and followed by the close quote character. Note that even after
the quote
characters are changed, this option remains -" (a dash followed by
a double
quote).

-~ or --tilde
Normally lines after end of file are displayed as a single tilde
(~). This
option causes lines after end of file to be displayed as blank lines.

-# or --shift
Specifies the default number of positions to scroll horizontally
in the
RIGHTARROW and LEFTARROW commands. If the number specified is
zero, it sets
the default number of positions to one half of the screen width.
Alternately,
the number may be specified as a fraction of the width of the screen,
starting
with a decimal point: .5 is half of the screen width, .3 is three
tenths of
the screen width, and so on. If the number is specified as a
fraction, the
actual number of scroll positions is recalculated if the terminal
window is
resized.

--exit-follow-on-close
When using the "F" command on a pipe, less will automatically stop
waiting for
more data when the input side of the pipe is closed.

--file-size
If --file-size is specified, less will determine the size of the
file immedi‐
ately after opening the file. Then the "=" command will display the
number of
lines in the file. Normally this is not done, because it can be slow
if the
input file is non-seekable (such as a pipe) and is large.

--follow-name
Normally, if the input file is renamed while an F command is
executing, less
will continue to display the contents of the original file despite
its name
change. If --follow-name is specified, during an F command less will
periodi‐
cally attempt to reopen the file by name. If the reopen succeeds and
the file
is a different file from the original (which means that a new file
has been
created with the same name as the original (now renamed) file), less
will dis‐
play the contents of that new file.

--header=L,C,N
Sets the number of header lines and columns displayed on the screen.
The num‐
ber of header lines is set to L. If L is 0, header lines are
disabled. If L
is empty or missing, the number of header lines is unchanged. The
number of
header columns is set to C. If C is 0, header columns are disabled.
If C is
empty or missing, the number of header columns is unchanged. The
first header
line is set to line number N in the file. If N is empty or
missing, it is
taken to be the number of the line currently displayed in the first
line of
the screen (if the --header command has been issued from within
less), or 1
(if the --header option has been given on the command line). The
special form
"--header=-" disables header lines and header columns, and is
equivalent to
"--header=0,0".

When L is nonzero, the first L lines at the top of the screen are
replaced
with the L lines of the file beginning at line N, regardless of what
part of
the file is being viewed. When header lines are displayed, any file
contents
before the header line cannot be viewed. When C is nonzero, the
first C char‐
acters displayed at the beginning of each line are replaced with the
first C
characters of the line, even if the rest of the line is scrolled
horizontally.

--incsearch
Subsequent search commands will be "incremental"; that is, less
will advance
to the next line containing the search pattern as each character of
the pat‐
tern is typed in.

--intr=c
Use the character c instead of ^X to interrupt a read when the
"Waiting for
data" message is displayed. c must be an ASCII character; that is,
one with a
value between 1 and 127 inclusive. A caret followed by a single
character can
be used to specify a control character.
 --line-num-width=n
Sets the minimum width of the line number field when the -N option is
in ef‐
fect to n characters. The default is 7.

--match-shift=n
When -S is in effect, if a search match is not visible because it
is shifted
to the left or right of the currently visible screen, the text will
horizon‐
tally shift to ensure that the search match is visible. This
option selects
the column in which the first character of the search match will be
placed af‐
ter the shift. In other words, there will be n characters visible to
the left
of the search match.

Alternately, the number may be specified as a fraction of the width

of the
screen, starting with a decimal point: .5 is half of the screen
width, .3 is
three tenths of the screen width, and so on. If the number is
specified as a
fraction, the actual number of scroll positions is recalculated if
the termi‐
nal window is resized.

--modelines=n
Before displaying a file, less will read the first n lines to try to
find a
vim-compatible modeline. If n is zero, less does not try to find
modelines.
By using a modeline, the file itself can specify the tab stops that
should be
used when viewing it.

A modeline contains, anywhere in the line, a program name ("vi",

"vim", "ex",
or "less"), followed by a colon, possibly followed by the word "set",
and fi‐
nally followed by zero or more option settings. If the word "set"
is used,
option settings are separated by spaces, and end at the first colon.
If the
word "set" is not used, option settings may be separated by either
spaces or
colons. The word "set" is required if the program name is "less" but
optional
if any of the other three names are used. If any option setting is
of the
form "tabstop=n" or "ts=n", then tab stops are automatically
set as if
--tabs=n had been given. See the --tabs description for acceptable
values of
n.

--mouse
Enables mouse input: scrolling the mouse wheel down moves forward in
the file,
scrolling the mouse wheel up moves backwards in the file, left-click
sets the
"#" mark to the line where the mouse is clicked, and right-click (or
any oth‐
er) returns to the "#" mark position. If a left-click is performed
with the
mouse cursor on an OSC 8 hyperlink, the hyperlink is selected as if
by the
^O^N command. If a left-click is performed with the mouse cursor on
an OSC 8
hyperlink which is already selected, the hyperlink is opened as if by
the ^O^O
command. The number of lines to scroll when the wheel is moved can
be set by
the --wheel-lines option. Mouse input works only on terminals
which support
X11 mouse reporting, and on the Windows version of less.

--MOUSE
Like --mouse, except the direction scrolled on mouse wheel movement
is re‐
versed.

--no-keypad
Disables sending the keypad initialization and deinitialization
strings to the
terminal. This is sometimes useful if the keypad strings make
the numeric
keypad behave in an undesirable manner.

--no-histdups
This option changes the behavior so that if a search string or file
name is
typed in, and the same string is already in the history list, the
existing
copy is removed from the history list before the new one is added.
Thus, a
given string will appear only once in the history list. Normally,
a string
may appear multiple times.

--no-number-headers
Header lines (defined via the --header option) are not assigned line
numbers.
Line number 1 is assigned to the first line after any header lines.

--no-search-header-lines
Searches do not include header lines, but still include header
columns.

--no-search-header-columns
Searches do not include header columns, but still include header
lines.

--no-search-headers
Searches do not include header lines or header columns.

--no-vbell
 Disables the terminal's visual bell.

--proc-backspace
If set, backspaces are handled as if neither the -u option nor the
-U option
were set. That is, a backspace adjacent to an underscore causes
text to be
displayed in underline mode, and a backspace between identical
characters
cause text to be displayed in boldface mode. This option overrides
the -u and
-U options, so that display of backspaces can be controlled separate
from tabs
and carriage returns. If not set, backspace display is controlled by
the -u
and -U options.

--PROC-BACKSPACE
If set, backspaces are handled as if the -U option were set; that
is back‐
spaces are treated as control characters.

--proc-return
If set, carriage returns are handled as if neither the -u option nor
the -U
option were set. That is, a carriage return immediately before a
newline is
deleted. This option overrides the -u and -U options, so that
display of car‐
riage returns can be controlled separate from that of backspaces and
tabs. If
not set, carriage return display is controlled by the -u and -U
options.

--PROC-RETURN
If set, carriage returns are handled as if the -U option were set;
that is
carriage returns are treated as control characters.

--proc-tab
If set, tabs are handled as if the -U option were not set. That is,
tabs are
expanded to spaces. This option overrides the -U option, so that
display of
tabs can be controlled separate from that of backspaces and carriage
returns.
If not set, tab display is controlled by the -U options.

--PROC-TAB
If set, tabs are handled as if the -U option were set; that is tabs
are treat‐
ed as control characters.

--redraw-on-quit
When quitting, after sending the terminal deinitialization string,
redraws the
entire last screen. On terminals whose terminal deinitialization
string caus‐
es the terminal to switch from an alternate screen, this makes
the last
screenful of the current file remain visible after less has quit.

--rscroll=c
This option changes the character used to mark truncated lines. It
may begin
with a two-character attribute indicator like LESSBINFMT does. If
there is no
attribute indicator, standout is used. If set to "-", truncated
lines are not
marked.

--save-marks
Save marks in the history file, so marks are retained across
different invoca‐
tions of less.

--search-options=...
Sets default search modifiers. The value is a string of one or more
of the
characters E, F, K, N, R or W. Setting any of these has the same
effect as
typing that control character at the beginning of every search
pattern. For
example, setting --search-options=W is the same as typing ^W at the
beginning
of every pattern. The value may also contain a digit between 1 and
5, which
has the same effect as typing ^S followed by that digit at the
beginning of
every search pattern. The value "-" disables all default search
modifiers.

--show-preproc-errors
If a preprocessor produces data, then exits with a non-zero exit
code, less
will display a warning.

--status-col-width=n
Sets the width of the status column when the -J option is in effect.
The de‐
fault is 2 characters.

--status-line
If a line is marked, the entire line (rather than just the status
column) is
highlighted. Also lines highlighted due to the -w option will have
the entire
line highlighted. If --use-color is set, the line is colored
rather than
highlighted.

--use-backslash
This option changes the interpretations of options which follow this
one. Af‐
ter the --use-backslash option, any backslash in an option string is
removed
and the following character is taken literally. This allows a
dollar sign to
 be included in option strings.

--use-color
Enables colored text in various places. The -D option can be used
to change
the colors. Colored text works only if the terminal supports ANSI
color es‐
cape sequences (as defined in
https://www.ecma-international.org/publications-
and-standards/standards/ecma-48).

--wheel-lines=n
Set the number of lines to scroll when the mouse wheel is scrolled
and the
--mouse or --MOUSE option is in effect. The default is 1 line.

--wordwrap
When the -S option is not in use, wrap each line at a space or tab
if possi‐
ble, so that a word is not split between two lines. The default is
to wrap at
any character.

-- A command line argument of "--" marks the end of option arguments.

Any argu‐
ments following this are interpreted as filenames. This can be
useful when
viewing a file whose name begins with a "-" or "+".

+ If a command line option begins with +, the remainder of that option

is taken
to be an initial command to less. For example, +G tells less to
start at the
end of the file rather than the beginning, and +/xyz tells it to
start at the
first occurrence of "xyz" in the file. As a special case, +<number>
acts like
+<number>g; that is, it starts the display at the specified line
number (how‐
ever, see the caveat under the "g" command above). If the option
starts with
++, the initial command applies to every file being viewed, not just
the first
one. The + command described previously may also be used to set
(or change)
an initial command for every file.

LINE EDITING
When entering a command line at the bottom of the screen (for example, a
filename for
the :e command, or the pattern for a search command), certain keys can be
used to ma‐
nipulate the command line. Most commands have an alternate form in
[ brackets ]
which can be used if a key does not exist on a particular keyboard. (Note
that the
forms beginning with ESC do not work in some MS-DOS and Windows systems
because ESC
is the line erase character.) Any of these special keys may be entered
literally by
preceding it with the "literal" character, either ^V or ^A. A backslash
itself may
also be entered literally by entering two backslashes.

LEFTARROW [ ESC-h ]
Move the cursor one space to the left.

RIGHTARROW [ ESC-l ]
Move the cursor one space to the right.

^LEFTARROW [ ESC-b or ESC-LEFTARROW ]

(That is, CONTROL and LEFTARROW simultaneously.) Move the cursor
one word to
the left.

^RIGHTARROW [ ESC-w or ESC-RIGHTARROW ]

(That is, CONTROL and RIGHTARROW simultaneously.) Move the cursor
one word to
the right.

HOME [ ESC-0 ]
Move the cursor to the beginning of the line.

END [ ESC-$ ]
Move the cursor to the end of the line.

BACKSPACE
Delete the character to the left of the cursor, or cancel the command
if the
command line is empty.

DELETE or [ ESC-x ]
Delete the character under the cursor.

^BACKSPACE [ ESC-BACKSPACE ]
(That is, CONTROL and BACKSPACE simultaneously.) Delete the word to
the left
of the cursor.

^DELETE [ ESC-X or ESC-DELETE ]

(That is, CONTROL and DELETE simultaneously.) Delete the word under
the cur‐
sor.

UPARROW [ ESC-k ]
Retrieve the previous command line. If you first enter some text
and then
press UPARROW, it will retrieve the previous command which begins
with that
text.

DOWNARROW [ ESC-j ]
Retrieve the next command line. If you first enter some text and
then press
DOWNARROW, it will retrieve the next command which begins with that
text.

TAB Complete the partial filename to the left of the cursor. If it

matches more
than one filename, the first match is entered into the command line.
Repeated
TABs will cycle thru the other matching filenames. If the completed
filename
is a directory, a "/" is appended to the filename. (On MS-DOS and
Windows
systems, a "\" is appended.) The environment variable
LESSSEPARATOR can be
used to specify a different character to append to a directory name.

BACKTAB [ ESC-TAB ]
Like, TAB, but cycles in the reverse direction thru the matching
filenames.

^L Complete the partial filename to the left of the cursor. If it

matches more
than one filename, all matches are entered into the command line
(if they
fit).

^U (Unix and OS/2) or ESC (MS-DOS and Windows)

Delete the entire command line, or cancel the command if the command
line is
empty. If you have changed your line-kill character in Unix to
something oth‐
er than ^U, that character is used instead of ^U.

^G Delete the entire command line and return to the main prompt.

KEY BINDINGS
You may define your own less commands by creating a lesskey source file.
This file
specifies a set of command keys and an action associated with each key. You
may also
change the line-editing keys (see LINE EDITING), and set environment
variables used
by less. See the lesskey(1) manual page for details about the file format.

If the environment variable LESSKEYIN is set, less uses that as the

name of the
lesskey source file. Otherwise, less looks in a standard place for the
lesskey
source file: On Unix systems, less looks for a lesskey file called
"$XDG_CON‐
FIG_HOME/lesskey" or "$HOME/.config/lesskey" or "$HOME/.lesskey". On MS-DOS
and Win‐
dows systems, less looks for a lesskey file called "$HOME/_lesskey", and if
it is not
found there, then looks for a lesskey file called "_lesskey" in any
directory speci‐
fied in the PATH environment variable. On OS/2 systems, less looks for
a lesskey
file called "$HOME/lesskey.ini", and if it is not found, then looks for a
lesskey
file called "lesskey.ini" in any directory specified in the INIT
environment vari‐
able, and if it not found there, then looks for a lesskey file called
"lesskey.ini"
 in any directory specified in the PATH environment variable.

A system-wide lesskey source file may also be set up to provide key

bindings. If a
key is defined in both a local lesskey file and in the system-wide file, key
bindings
in the local file take precedence over those in the system-wide file. If
the envi‐
ronment variable LESSKEYIN_SYSTEM is set, less uses that as the name of
the system-
wide lesskey file. Otherwise, less looks in a standard place for the
system-wide
lesskey file: On Unix systems, the system-wide lesskey file is
/usr/local/etc/sys‐
lesskey. (However, if less was built with a different sysconf
directory than
/usr/local/etc, that directory is where the sysless file is found.) On
MS-DOS and
Windows systems, the system-wide lesskey file is c:\_syslesskey. On OS/2
systems,
the system-wide lesskey file is c:\syslesskey.ini.

Previous versions of less (before v582) used lesskey files with a binary
format, pro‐
duced by the lesskey program. It is no longer necessary to use the lesskey
program.

INPUT PREPROCESSOR
You may define an "input preprocessor" for less. Before less opens a file,
it first
gives your input preprocessor a chance to modify the way the contents of the
file are
displayed. An input preprocessor is simply an executable program (or shell
script),
which writes the contents of the file to a different file, called the
replacement
file. The contents of the replacement file are then displayed in place of
the con‐
tents of the original file. However, it will appear to the user as if the
original
file is opened; that is, less will display the original filename as the name
of the
current file.

An input preprocessor receives one command line argument, the original

filename, as
entered by the user. It should create the replacement file, and when
finished, print
the name of the replacement file to its standard output. If the input
preprocessor
does not output a replacement filename, less uses the original file, as
normal. The
input preprocessor is not called when viewing standard input. To set up
an input
preprocessor, set the LESSOPEN environment variable to a command line which
will in‐
voke your input preprocessor. This command line should include one
occurrence of the
string "%s", which will be replaced by the filename when the input
preprocessor com‐
mand is invoked.

When less closes a file opened in such a way, it will call another
program, called
the input postprocessor, which may perform any desired clean-up action
(such as
deleting the replacement file created by LESSOPEN). This program receives
two com‐
mand line arguments, the original filename as entered by the user, and the
name of
the replacement file. To set up an input postprocessor, set the LESSCLOSE
environ‐
ment variable to a command line which will invoke your input postprocessor.
It may
include two occurrences of the string "%s"; the first is replaced with the
original
name of the file and the second with the name of the replacement file, which
was out‐
put by LESSOPEN.

For example, on many Unix systems, these two scripts will allow you to keep
files in
compressed format, but still let less view them directly:

lessopen.sh:
#! /bin/sh
case "$1" in
*.Z) TEMPFILE=$(mktemp)
uncompress -c $1 >$TEMPFILE 2>/dev/null
if [ -s $TEMPFILE ]; then
echo $TEMPFILE
else
rm -f $TEMPFILE
fi
;;
esac

lessclose.sh:
#! /bin/sh
rm $2

To use these scripts, put them both where they can be executed
and set
LESSOPEN="lessopen.sh %s", and LESSCLOSE="lessclose.sh %s %s". More complex
LESSOPEN
and LESSCLOSE scripts may be written to accept other types of compressed
files, and
so on.

It is also possible to set up an input preprocessor to pipe the file data

directly to
less, rather than putting the data into a replacement file. This avoids
the need to
decompress the entire file before starting to view it. An input
preprocessor that
works this way is called an input pipe. An input pipe, instead of writing
the name
of a replacement file on its standard output, writes the entire contents of
the re‐
placement file on its standard output. If the input pipe does not write
any charac‐
ters on its standard output, then there is no replacement file and less
uses the
original file, as normal. To use an input pipe, make the first
character in the
LESSOPEN environment variable a vertical bar (|) to signify that the input
preproces‐
sor is an input pipe. As with non-pipe input preprocessors, the command
string must
contain one occurrence of %s, which is replaced with the filename of the
input file.

For example, on many Unix systems, this script will work like the
previous example
scripts:

lesspipe.sh:
#! /bin/sh
case "$1" in
*.Z) uncompress -c $1 2>/dev/null
;;
*) exit 1
;;
esac
exit $?

To use this script, put it where it can be executed and set LESSOPEN="|
lesspipe.sh
%s".

Note that a preprocessor cannot output an empty file, since that is

interpreted as
meaning there is no replacement, and the original file is used. To avoid
this, if
LESSOPEN starts with two vertical bars, the exit status of the script
determines the
behavior when the output is empty. If the output is empty and the exit
status is ze‐
ro, the empty output is considered to be replacement text. If the output
is empty
and the exit status is nonzero, the original file is used. For
compatibility with
previous versions of less, if LESSOPEN starts with only one vertical bar,
the exit
status of the preprocessor is ignored.

When an input pipe is used, a LESSCLOSE postprocessor can be used, but it

is usually
not necessary since there is no replacement file to clean up. In this case,
the re‐
placement file name passed to the LESSCLOSE postprocessor is "-".

For compatibility with previous versions of less, the input preprocessor

or pipe is
not used if less is viewing standard input. However, if the first
character of
LESSOPEN is a dash (-), the input preprocessor is used on standard input
as well as
other files. In this case, the dash is not considered to be part of the
preprocessor
command. If standard input is being viewed, the input preprocessor is
passed a file
name consisting of a single dash. Similarly, if the first two characters of
LESSOPEN
are vertical bar and dash (|-) or two vertical bars and a dash (||-), the
input pipe
is used on standard input as well as other files. Again, in this case the
dash is
not considered to be part of the input pipe command.

NATIONAL CHARACTER SETS

There are three types of characters in the input file:

normal characters
can be displayed directly to the screen.

control characters
should not be displayed directly, but are expected to be found in
ordinary
text files (such as backspace and tab).

binary characters
should not be displayed directly and are not expected to be found
in text
files.

A "character set" is simply a description of which characters are to be

considered
normal, control, and binary. The LESSCHARSET environment variable may be
used to se‐
lect a character set. Possible values for LESSCHARSET are:

ascii BS, TAB, NL, CR, and formfeed are control characters, all chars
with values
between 32 and 126 are normal, and all others are binary.

iso8859
Selects an ISO 8859 character set. This is the same as ASCII,
except charac‐
ters between 160 and 255 are treated as normal characters.

latin1 Same as iso8859.

latin9 Same as iso8859.

dos Selects a character set appropriate for MS-DOS.

ebcdic Selects an EBCDIC character set.

IBM-1047
Selects an EBCDIC character set used by OS/390 Unix Services. This
is the
EBCDIC analogue of latin1. You get similar results by setting
either LESS‐
CHARSET=IBM-1047 or LC_CTYPE=en_US in your environment.
 koi8-r Selects a Russian character set.

next Selects a character set appropriate for NeXT computers.

utf-8 Selects the UTF-8 encoding of the ISO 10646 character set. UTF-8 is
special
in that it supports multi-byte characters in the input file. It is
the only
character set that supports multi-byte characters.

windows
Selects a character set appropriate for Microsoft Windows (cp 1252).

In rare cases, it may be desired to tailor less to use a character set other
than the
ones definable by LESSCHARSET. In this case, the environment variable
LESSCHARDEF
can be used to define a character set. It should be set to a string where
each char‐
acter in the string represents one character in the character set. The
character "."
is used for a normal character, "c" for control, and "b" for binary. A
decimal num‐
ber may be used for repetition. For example, "bccc4b." would mean character
0 is bi‐
nary, 1, 2 and 3 are control, 4, 5, 6 and 7 are binary, and 8 is normal.
All charac‐
ters after the last are taken to be the same as the last, so characters 9
through 255
would be normal. (This is an example, and does not necessarily represent
any real
character set.)

This table shows the value of LESSCHARDEF which is equivalent to each of the
possible
values for LESSCHARSET:
ascii 8bcccbcc18b95.b
dos 8bcccbcc12bc5b95.b.
ebcdic 5bc6bcc7bcc41b.9b7.9b5.b..8b6.10b6.b9.7b
9.8b8.17b3.3b9.7b9.8b8.6b10.b.b.b.
IBM-1047 4cbcbc3b9cbccbccbb4c6bcc5b3cbbc4bc4bccbc
191.b
iso8859 8bcccbcc18b95.33b.
koi8-r 8bcccbcc18b95.b128.
latin1 8bcccbcc18b95.33b.
next 8bcccbcc18b95.bb125.bb

If neither LESSCHARSET nor LESSCHARDEF is set, but any of the strings

"UTF-8",
"UTF8", "utf-8" or "utf8" is found in the LC_ALL, LC_CTYPE or LANG
environment vari‐
ables, then the default character set is utf-8.

If that string is not found, but your system supports the setlocale
interface, less
will use setlocale to determine the character set. setlocale is controlled
by set‐
ting the LANG or LC_CTYPE environment variables.
 Finally, if the setlocale interface is also not available, the default
character set
is utf-8.

Control and binary characters are displayed in standout (reverse video).

Each such
character is displayed in caret notation if possible (e.g. ^A for control-
A). Caret
notation is used only if inverting the 0100 bit results in a normal
printable charac‐
ter. Otherwise, the character is displayed as a hex number in angle
brackets. This
format can be changed by setting the LESSBINFMT environment variable.
LESSBINFMT may
begin with a "*" and one character to select the display attribute: "*k" is
blinking,
"*d" is bold, "*u" is underlined, "*s" is standout, and "*n" is normal.
If LESS‐
BINFMT does not begin with a "*", normal attribute is assumed. The
remainder of
LESSBINFMT is a string which may include one printf-style escape sequence
(a % fol‐
lowed by x, X, o, d, etc.). For example, if LESSBINFMT is "*u[%x]", binary
charac‐
ters are displayed in underlined hexadecimal surrounded by brackets. The
default if
no LESSBINFMT is specified is "*s<%02X>". Warning: the result of expanding
the char‐
acter via LESSBINFMT must be less than 31 characters.

When the character set is utf-8, the LESSUTFBINFMT environment variable acts
similar‐
ly to LESSBINFMT but it applies to Unicode code points that were
successfully decoded
but are unsuitable for display (e.g., unassigned code points). Its default
value is
"<U+%04lX>". Note that LESSUTFBINFMT and LESSBINFMT share their display
attribute
setting ("*x") so specifying one will affect both; LESSUTFBINFMT is read
after LESS‐
BINFMT so its setting, if any, will have priority. Problematic octets
in a UTF-8
file (octets of a truncated sequence, octets of a complete but non-shortest
form se‐
quence, invalid octets, and stray trailing octets) are displayed
individually using
LESSBINFMT so as to facilitate diagnostic of how the UTF-8 file is ill-
formed.

When the character set is utf-8, in rare cases it may be desirable to

override the
Unicode definition of the type of certain characters. For example,
characters in a
Private Use Area are normally treated as control characters, but if you are
using a
custom font with printable characters in that range, it may be desirable to
tell less
to treat such characters as printable. This can be done by setting the
LESSUTFCHARD‐
 EF environment variable to a comma-separated list of character type
definitions.
Each character type definition consists of either one hexadecimal codepoint
or a pair
of codepoints separated by a dash, followed by a colon and a type
character. Each
hexadecimal codepoint may optionally be preceded by a "U" or "U+". If
a pair of
codepoints is given, the type is set for all characters inclusively between
the two
values. If there are multiple comma-separated codepoint values, they must
be in as‐
cending numerical order. The type character may be one of:

p A normal printable character.

w A wide (2-space) printable character.

b A binary (non-printable) character.

c A composing (zero width) character.

For example, setting LESSUTFCHARDEF to

E000-F8FF:p,F0000-FFFFD:p,100000-10FFFD:p

would make all Private Use Area characters be treated as printable.

PROMPTS
The -P option allows you to tailor the prompt to your preference. The
string given
to the -P option replaces the specified prompt string. Certain
characters in the
string are interpreted specially. The prompt mechanism is rather
complicated to pro‐
vide flexibility, but the ordinary user need not understand the details of
construct‐
ing personalized prompt strings.

A percent sign followed by a single character is expanded according to what

the fol‐
lowing character is. (References to the input file size below refer to
the pre‐
processed size, if an input preprocessor is being used.)

%bX Replaced by the byte offset into the current input file. The b is
followed by
a single character (shown as X above) which specifies the line whose
byte off‐
set is to be used. If the character is a "t", the byte offset of the
top line
in the display is used, an "m" means use the middle line, a "b" means
use the
bottom line, a "B" means use the line just after the bottom line,
and a "j"
means use the "target" line, as specified by the -j option.

%B Replaced by the size of the current input file.

 %c Replaced by the column number of the text appearing in the first
column of the
screen.

%dX Replaced by the page number of a line in the input file. The line to
be used
is determined by the X, as with the %b option.

%D Replaced by the number of pages in the input file, or equivalently,

the page
number of the last line in the input file.

%E Replaced by the name of the editor (from the VISUAL environment

variable, or
the EDITOR environment variable if VISUAL is not defined). See the
discussion
of the LESSEDIT feature below.

%f Replaced by the name of the current input file.

%F Replaced by the last component of the name of the current input file.

%g Replaced by the shell-escaped name of the current input file. This

is useful
when the expanded string will be used in a shell command, such as in
LESSEDIT.

%i Replaced by the index of the current file in the list of input files.

%lX Replaced by the line number of a line in the input file. The line to
be used
is determined by the X, as with the %b option.

%L Replaced by the line number of the last line in the input file.

%m Replaced by the total number of input files.

%o Replaced by the URI of the currently selected OSC 8 hyperlink, or a

question
mark if no hyperlink is selected. This is used by OSC 8 handlers as
explained
in the ^O^O command description.

%pX Replaced by the percent into the current input file, based on byte
offsets.
The line used is determined by the X as with the %b option.

%PX Replaced by the percent into the current input file, based on line
numbers.
The line used is determined by the X as with the %b option.

%s Same as %B.

%t Causes any trailing spaces to be removed. Usually used at the end

of the
string, but may appear anywhere.

%T Normally expands to the word "file". However if viewing files via a

tags list
 using the -t option, it expands to the word "tag".

%x Replaced by the name of the next input file in the list.

If any item is unknown (for example, the file size if input is a pipe), a
question
mark is printed instead.

The format of the prompt string can be changed depending on certain

conditions. A
question mark followed by a single character acts like an "IF": depending on
the fol‐
lowing character, a condition is evaluated. If the condition is true, any
characters
following the question mark and condition character, up to a period, are
included in
the prompt. If the condition is false, such characters are not included.
A colon
appearing between the question mark and the period can be used to
establish an
"ELSE": any characters between the colon and the period are included in the
string if
and only if the IF condition is false. Condition characters (which follow a
question
mark) may be:

?a True if any characters have been included in the prompt so far.

?bX True if the byte offset of the specified line is known.

?B True if the size of current input file is known.

?c True if the text is horizontally shifted (%c is not zero).

?dX True if the page number of the specified line is known.

?e True if at end-of-file.

?f True if there is an input filename (that is, if input is not a pipe).

?lX True if the line number of the specified line is known.

?L True if the line number of the last line in the file is known.

?m True if there is more than one input file.

?n True if this is the first prompt in a new input file.

?pX True if the percent into the current input file, based on byte
offsets, of the
specified line is known.

?PX True if the percent into the current input file, based on line
numbers, of the
specified line is known.

?s Same as "?B".

?x True if there is a next input file (that is, if the current input
file is not
the last one).

Any characters other than the special ones (question mark, colon, period,
percent,
and backslash) become literally part of the prompt. Any of the special
characters
may be included in the prompt literally by preceding it with a backslash.

Some examples:

?f%f:Standard input.

This prompt prints the filename, if known; otherwise the string "Standard
input".

?f%f .?ltLine %lt:?pt%pt\%:?btByte %bt:-...

This prompt would print the filename, if known. The filename is followed by
the line
number, if known, otherwise the percent if known, otherwise the byte offset
if known.
Otherwise, a dash is printed. Notice how each question mark has a
matching period,
and how the % after the %pt is included literally by escaping it with a
backslash.

?n?f%f .?m(%T %i of %m) ..?e(END) ?x- Next\: %x..%t

This prints the filename if this is the first prompt in a file, followed by
the "file
N of N" message if there is more than one input file. Then, if we are at
end-of-
file, the string "(END)" is printed followed by the name of the next file,
if there
is one. Finally, any trailing spaces are truncated. This is the default
prompt.
For reference, here are the defaults for the other two prompts (-m and -M
respective‐
ly). Each is broken into two lines here for readability only.

?n?f%f .?m(%T %i of %m) ..?e(END) ?x- Next\: %x.:

?pB%pB\%:byte %bB?s/%s...%t

?f%f .?n?m(%T %i of %m) ..?ltlines %lt-%lb?L/%L. :

byte %bB?s/%s. .?e(END) ?x- Next\: %x.:?pB%pB\%..%t

And here is the default message produced by the = command:

?f%f .?m(%T %i of %m) .?ltlines %lt-%lb?L/%L. .

byte %bB?s/%s. ?e(END) :?pB%pB\%..%t

The prompt expansion features are also used for another purpose: if an
environment
variable LESSEDIT is defined, it is used as the command to be executed
when the v
command is invoked. The LESSEDIT string is expanded in the same way as
the prompt
strings. The default value for LESSEDIT is:
 %E ?lm+%lm. %g

Note that this expands to the editor name, followed by a + and the line
number, fol‐
lowed by the shell-escaped file name. If your editor does not accept the
"+linenum‐
ber" syntax, or has other differences in invocation syntax, the LESSEDIT
variable can
be changed to modify this default.

SECURITY
When the environment variable LESSSECURE is set to 1, less runs in a
"secure" mode.
In this mode, these features are disabled:

edit the edit command (v)

examine the examine command (:e)

glob metacharacters such as * in filenames,

and filename completion (TAB, ^L)

history history file

lesskey use of lesskey files (-k and --lesskey-src)

lessopen input preprocessor (LESSOPEN environment variable)

logfile log files (s and -o)

osc8 opening OSC 8 links (^O^O)

pipe the pipe command (|)

shell the shell and pshell commands (! and #)

stop stopping less via a SIGSTOP signal

tags use of tags files (-t)

The LESSSECURE_ALLOW environment variable can be set to a comma-

separated list of
names of features which are selectively enabled when LESSSECURE is set.
Each feature
name is the first word in each line in the above list. A feature name may
be abbre‐
viated as long as the abbreviation is unambiguous. For example, if
LESSSECURE=1 and
LESSSECURE_ALLOW=hist,edit were set, all of the above features would be
disabled ex‐
cept for history files and the edit command.

Less can also be compiled to be permanently in "secure" mode. In that

case, the
LESSSECURE and LESSSECURE_ALLOW variables are ignored.

COMPATIBILITY WITH MORE

If the environment variable LESS_IS_MORE is set to 1, or if the program is
invoked
via a file link named "more", less behaves (mostly) in conformance with
the POSIX
more(1) command specification. In this mode, less behaves differently in
these ways:

The -e option works differently. If the -e option is not set, less behaves
as if the
-e option were set. If the -e option is set, less behaves as if the -E
option were
set.

The -m option works differently. If the -m option is not set, the medium
prompt is
used, and it is prefixed with the string "--More--". If the -m option is
set, the
short prompt is used.

The -n option acts like the -z option. The normal behavior of the -n
option is un‐
available in this mode.

The parameter to the -p option is taken to be a less command rather than

a search
pattern.

The LESS environment variable is ignored, and the MORE environment

variable is used
in its place.

ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
Environment variables may be specified either in the system environment as
usual, or
in a lesskey(1) file. If environment variables are defined in more than
one place,
variables defined in a local lesskey file take precedence over variables
defined in
the system environment, which take precedence over variables defined in
the system-
wide lesskey file.

COLUMNS
Sets the number of columns on the screen. Takes precedence over the
number of
columns specified by the TERM variable. (But if you have a
windowing system
which supports TIOCGWINSZ or WIOCGETD, the window system's idea of
the screen
size takes precedence over the LINES and COLUMNS environment
variables.)

EDITOR The name of the editor (used for the v command).

HOME Name of the user's home directory (used to find a lesskey file on
Unix and
OS/2 systems).

HOMEDRIVE, HOMEPATH
Concatenation of the HOMEDRIVE and HOMEPATH environment variables is
the name
of the user's home directory if the HOME variable is not set (only in
the Win‐
dows version).

INIT Name of the user's init directory (used to find a lesskey file on
OS/2 sys‐
tems).

LANG Language for determining the character set.

LC_CTYPE
Language for determining the character set.

LESS Options which are passed to less automatically.

LESSANSIENDCHARS
Characters which may end an ANSI color escape sequence (default "m").

LESSANSIMIDCHARS
Characters which may appear between the ESC character and the end
character in
an ANSI color escape sequence (default "0123456789:;[?!"'#%()*+ ".

LESSBINFMT
Format for displaying non-printable, non-control characters.

LESSCHARDEF
Defines a character set.

LESSCHARSET
Selects a predefined character set.

LESSCLOSE
Command line to invoke the (optional) input-postprocessor.

LESSECHO
Name of the lessecho program (default "lessecho"). The lessecho
program is
needed to expand metacharacters, such as * and ?, in filenames on
Unix sys‐
tems.

LESSEDIT
Editor prototype string (used for the v command). See
discussion under
PROMPTS.

LESSGLOBALTAGS
Name of the command used by the -t option to find global tags.
Normally
should be set to "global" if your system has the global(1)
command. If not
set, global tags are not used.

LESSHISTFILE
Name of the history file used to remember search commands and shell
commands
between invocations of less. If set to "-" or "/dev/null", a
history file is
not used. The default depends on the operating system, but is
usually:

Linux and Unix

"$XDG_STATE_HOME/lesshst" or "$HOME/.local/state/lesshst" or
"$XDG_DA‐
TA_HOME/lesshst" or "$HOME/.lesshst".

Windows and MS-DOS

"$HOME/_lesshst".

OS/2 "$HOME/lesshst.ini" or "$INIT/lesshst.ini".

LESSHISTSIZE
The maximum number of commands to save in the history file. The
default is
100.

LESSKEYIN
Name of the default lesskey source file.

LESSKEY
Name of the default lesskey binary file. (Not used if "$LESSKEYIN"
exists.)

LESSKEY_CONTENT
The value is parsed as if it were the parameter of a --lesskey-
content option.

LESSKEYIN_SYSTEM
Name of the default system-wide lesskey source file.

LESSKEY_SYSTEM
Name of the default system-wide lesskey binary file. (Not
used if
"$LESSKEYIN_SYSTEM" exists.)

LESSMETACHARS
List of characters which are considered "metacharacters" by the
shell.

LESSMETAESCAPE
Prefix which less will add before each metacharacter in a command
sent to the
shell. If LESSMETAESCAPE is an empty string, commands containing
metacharac‐
ters will not be passed to the shell.

LESSOPEN
Command line to invoke the (optional) input-preprocessor.

LESSSECURE
Runs less in "secure" mode. See discussion under SECURITY.

LESSSECURE_ALLOW
Enables individual features which are normally disabled by
LESSSECURE. See
discussion under SECURITY.
 LESSSEPARATOR
String to be appended to a directory name in filename completion.

LESSUTFBINFMT
Format for displaying non-printable Unicode code points.

LESSUTFCHARDEF
Overrides the type of specified Unicode characters.

LESS_COLUMNS
Sets the number of columns on the screen. Unlike COLUMNS, takes
precedence
over the system's idea of the screen size, so it can be used to make
less use
less than the full screen width. If set to a negative number, sets
the number
of columns used to this much less than the actual screen width.

LESS_LINES
Sets the number of lines on the screen. Unlike LINES, takes
precedence over
the system's idea of the screen size, so it can be used to make less
use less
than the full screen height. If set to a negative number, sets the
number of
lines used to this much less than the actual screen height. When
set, less
repaints the entire screen on every movement command, so scrolling
may be
slower.

LESS_DATA_DELAY
Duration (in milliseconds) after starting to read data from the
input, after
which the "Waiting for data" message will be displayed. The default
is 4000
(4 seconds).

LESS_IS_MORE
Emulate the more(1) command.

LESS_OSC8_xxx
Where "xxx" is a URI scheme such as "http" or "file", sets an OSC
8 handler
for opening OSC 8 links containing a URI with that scheme.

LESS_OSC8_ANY
Sets an OSC 8 handler for opening OSC 8 links for which there is no
specific
LESS_OSC8_xxx handler set for the "xxx" scheme.

LESS_TERMCAP_xx
Where "xx" is any two characters, overrides the definition of the
termcap "xx"
capability for the terminal.

LESS_UNSUPPORT
A space-separated list of command line options. These options will
be ignored
(with no error message) if they appear on the command line or in the
LESS en‐
vironment variable. Options listed in LESS_UNSUPPORT can still be
changed by
the - and -- commands. Each option in LESS_UNSUPPORT is a dash
followed by a
single character option letter, or two dashes followed by a long
option name.

LINES Sets the number of lines on the screen. Takes precedence over the
number of
lines specified by the TERM variable. (But if you have a
windowing system
which supports TIOCGWINSZ or WIOCGETD, the window system's idea of
the screen
size takes precedence over the LINES and COLUMNS environment
variables.)

MORE Options which are passed to less automatically when running in more-
compatible
mode.

PATH User's search path (used to find a lesskey file on MS-DOS, Windows,
and OS/2
systems).

SHELL The shell used to execute the ! command, as well as to expand

filenames.

TERM The type of terminal on which less is being run.

VISUAL The name of the editor (used for the v command).

XDG_CONFIG_HOME
Possible location of the lesskey file; see the KEY BINDINGS section.

XDG_DATA_HOME
Possible location of the history file; see the description of the
LESSHISTFILE
environment variable.

XDG_STATE_HOME
Possible location of the history file; see the description of the
LESSHISTFILE
environment variable.

SEE ALSO
lesskey(1), lessecho(1)

COPYRIGHT
Copyright (C) 1984-2024 Mark Nudelman

less is part of the GNU project and is free software. You can redistribute
it and/or
modify it under the terms of either (1) the GNU General Public License as
published
by the Free Software Foundation; or (2) the Less License. See the file
README in the
 less distribution for more details regarding redistribution. You should
have re‐
ceived a copy of the GNU General Public License along with the source for
less; see
the file COPYING. If not, write to the Free Software Foundation, 59
Temple Place,
Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307, USA. You should also have received a
copy of the
Less License; see the file LICENSE.

less is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY
WARRANTY;
without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A
PARTICULAR PUR‐
POSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.

AUTHOR
Mark Nudelman
Report bugs at https://github.com/gwsw/less/issues.
For more information, see the less homepage at
https://greenwoodsoftware.com/less.

Version 668: 06 Oct 2024

LESS(1)