LESS(1) UNIX 5.0 LESS(1)
NAME
less - opposite of more
SYNOPSIS
less -?
less [-[+]aABcCdeEfimMnNqQrsSuUw] [-bN] [-xN] [-[z]N]
[-hN] [-yN] [-P[mM=]string] [-[oO]logfile] [-kkeyfile]
[-ttag] [-Ttagsfile] [+cmd] [filename]...
DESCRIPTION
Less is a program similar to more (1), but which allows
backward movement in the file as well as forward movement.
Also, 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 support for hardcopy
terminals. (On a hardcopy terminal, lines which should be
printed at the top of the screen are prefixed with an up-
arrow.)
Commands are based on both more and vi. Commands may be
preceded by a decimal number, called N in the descriptions
below. The number is used by some commands, as indicated.
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 commands, 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.
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 specified, it becomes the new default
Page 1 (printed 3/2/91)
LESS(1) UNIX 5.0 LESS(1)
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 specified, it becomes the new default
for subsequent d and u commands.
r or ^R or ^L
Repaint the screen.
R Repaint the screen, discarding any buffered input.
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. Normally 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.)
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.)
p or %
Go to a position N percent into the file. N should be
between 0 and 100. (This works if standard input is
being read, but only if less has already read to the
end of the file. It is always fast, but not always
useful.)
Page 2 (printed 3/2/91)
LESS(1) UNIX 5.0 LESS(1)
{ 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
top 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 letter, marks the current
position with that letter.
' (Single quote.) Followed by any lowercase 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 command 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
Page 3 (printed 3/2/91)
LESS(1) UNIX 5.0 LESS(1)
' command can be used to switch between input files.
^X^X Same as single quote.
/pattern
Search forward in the file for the N-th line containing
the pattern. N defaults to 1. The pattern is a
regular expression, as recognized by ed. The search
starts at the second line displayed (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:
! Search for lines which do NOT match the pattern.
* 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.
@ 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.
?pattern
Search backward in the file for the N-th line
containing the pattern. The search starts at the line
immediately before the top line displayed.
Certain characters are special as in the / command:
! Search for lines which do NOT match the pattern.
* 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.
@ 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.
ESC-/pattern
Same as "/*".
ESC-?pattern
Same as "?*".
Page 4 (printed 3/2/91)
LESS(1) UNIX 5.0 LESS(1)
n Repeat previous search, for N-th line containing the
last pattern. If the previous search was modified by
!, the search is made for the N-th line NOT containing
the pattern. If the previous search was modified by *,
the search continues in the next (or previous) file if
not satisfied in the current file. There is no effect
if the previous search was modified by @.
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 boundaries.
: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-examined.
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 examined file. 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.
^X^V or E
Same as :e. Warning: some systems use ^V as a special
literalization character.
: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 specified, 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.
= 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 possible, it
Page 5 (printed 3/2/91)
LESS(1) UNIX 5.0 LESS(1)
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
below), this will change the setting of that option and
print a message describing the new setting. 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
entered, a message describing the current setting is
printed and nothing is changed.
-+ Followed by one of the command line option letters (see
below), 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.
-- Followed by one of the command line option letters (see
below), this will reset the option to the "opposite" of
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
numeric or string-valued options.
_ (Underscore.) Followed by one of the command line
option letters (see below), this will print a message
describing the current setting of that option. The
setting of the option is not changed.
+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 ZZ or ESC ESC
Exits less.
The following three 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 EDITOR, or defaults to "vi". See also the
discussion of LESSEDIT under the section on PROMPTS
below.
! shell-command
Page 6 (printed 3/2/91)
LESS(1) UNIX 5.0 LESS(1)
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 replaced by
the name of the previously examined file. "!!" repeats
the last shell command. "!" with no shell command
simply invokes a shell. In all cases, the shell is
taken from the environment variable SHELL, or defaults
to "sh".
| <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 current position
and the position marked by the letter. <m> may also be
^ or $ to indicate beginning or end of file
respectively. If <m> is . or newline, the current
screen is piped. The current screen is the minimum
amount piped in any case.
OPTIONS
Command line options are described below. Most options may
be changed while less is running, via the "-" command.
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
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 on the command line by beginning the
command line option with "-+".
A dollar sign ($) may be used to signal the end of an option
string. This is important only for options like -P which
take a following string.
-? This option displays a summary of the commands accepted
by less (the same as the h command). If this option is
given, all other options are ignored, and less exits
after the help screen is viewed. (Depending on how
your shell interprets the question mark, it may be
necessary to quote the question mark, thus: "-\?".)
-a Causes searches to start after the last line displayed
on the screen, thus skipping all lines displayed on the
Page 7 (printed 3/2/91)
LESS(1) UNIX 5.0 LESS(1)
screen. By default, searches start at the second line
on the screen (or after the last found line; see the -j
option).
-bn Causes less to use a non-standard number of buffers.
Buffers are 1K, and by default 10 buffers are used
(except if data in coming from standard input; see the
-B option). The number n specifies a different number
of buffers to use.
-B Disables automatic allocation of buffers, so that only
the default number of buffers are used. If more data
is read than will fit in the buffers, the oldest data
is discarded. By default, when data is coming from
standard input, buffers are allocated automatically as
needed to avoid loss of data.
-c 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 The -C option is like -c, but the screen is cleared
before it is repainted.
-d 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).
-e 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 Causes less to automatically exit the first time it
reaches end-of-file.
-f 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.
-hn 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 direction
instead. (If the terminal does not have the ability to
scroll backward, -h0 is implied.)
-i Causes searches to ignore case; that is, uppercase and
lowercase are considered identical. Also, text which
Page 8 (printed 3/2/91)
LESS(1) UNIX 5.0 LESS(1)
is overstruck or underlined can be searched for. This
option is ignored if any uppercase letters appear in
the search pattern.
-jn Specifies a line on the screen where "target" lines are
to be positioned. Target lines are the object of text
searches, tag searches, jumps to a line number, jumps
to a file percentage, and jumps to a marked position.
The screen line is 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. If
the -j option is used, searches begin at the line
immediately after the target line. For example, if "-
j4" is used, the target line is the fourth line on the
screen, so searches begin at the fifth line on the
screen.
-kfilename
Causes less to open and interpret the named file as a
lesskey (1) file. Multiple -k options may be
specified. If a file called .less exists in the user's
home directory, this file is also used as a lesskey
file.
-m Causes less to prompt verbosely (like more), with the
percent into the file. By default, less prompts with a
colon.
-M Causes less to prompt even more verbosely than more.
-n 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.
Suppressing line numbers with the -n flag 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 editor (see also the discussion of
LESSEDIT in PROMPTS below).
-N Causes a line number to be displayed at the beginning
of each line in the display.
-ofilename
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.
Page 9 (printed 3/2/91)
LESS(1) UNIX 5.0 LESS(1)-Ofilename
The -O option is like -o, but it will overwrite an
existing file without asking 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 report the
name of the log file. The "s" command is equivalent to
specifying -o from within less.
-ppattern
The -p option on the command line is equivalent to
specifying +/pattern; that is, it tells less to start
at the first occurence of pattern in the file.
-Pprompt
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 being
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. -P followed by a string
changes the default (short) prompt to that string. -Pm
changes the medium (-m) prompt to the string, and -PM
changes the long (-M) prompt. Also, -P= changes the
message printed by the = command to the given string.
All prompt strings consist of a sequence of letters and
special escape sequences. See the section on PROMPTS
for more details.
-q Causes moderately "quiet" operation: the terminal bell
is not rung if an attempt 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 Causes totally "quiet" operation: the terminal bell is
never rung.
-r 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". Warning: when the -r flag is used,
less cannot keep track of the actual appearance of the
screen (since this depends on how the screen responds
to each type of control character). Thus, various
display problems may result, such as long lines being
split in the wrong place.
-s Causes consecutive blank lines to be squeezed into a
Page 10 (printed 3/2/91)
LESS(1) UNIX 5.0 LESS(1)
single blank line. This is useful when viewing nroff
output.
-S Causes lines longer than the screen width to be chopped
rather than folded. That is, the remainder of a long
line is simply discarded. The default is to fold long
lines; that is, display the remainder on the next line.
-ttag
The -t option, followed immediately by a TAG, will edit
the file containing that tag. For this to work, there
must be a file called "tags" in the current directory,
which was previously built by the ctags (1) command.
This 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
Specifies a tags file to be used instead of "tags".
-u 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 Causes backspaces and carriage returns to be treated as
control characters; that is, they are handled 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 displayed
using the terminal's hardware underlining capability.
Also, backspaces which appear between two identical
characters are treated specially: the overstruck 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.
-w Causes blank lines to be used to represent lines past
the end of the file. By default, a tilde character is
used.
-xn Sets tab stops every n positions. The default for n is
8.
-yn 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
Page 11 (printed 3/2/91)
LESS(1) UNIX 5.0 LESS(1)
desired. By default, any forward movement causes
scrolling.
-[z]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, as in "-n" for compatibility with more.
+ 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
(however, 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.
KEY BINDINGS
You may define your own less commands by using the program
lesskey (1) to create a file called ".less" in your home
directory. This file specifies a set of command keys and an
action associated with each key. See the lesskey manual
page for more details.
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
cannot be displayed directly and are not expected to be
found in text files.
By default, less uses the ASCII character set. In the ASCII
character set, characters with values between 128 and 255
are treated as binary. The LESSCHARSET environment variable
may be used to select another character set. If it is set
to the value "latin1", the ISO 8859/1 character set is
Page 12 (printed 3/2/91)
LESS(1) UNIX 5.0 LESS(1)
assumed. Latin-1 is the same as ASCII, except characters
between 128 and 255 are treated as normal characters. The
only valid values for LESSCHARSET currently are "ascii" and
"latin1".
In special 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 character 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 number may be used for repetition. For example,
"bccc4b." would mean character 0 is binary, 1, 2 and 3 are
control, 4, 5, 6 and 7 are binary, and 8 is normal. All
characters 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.)
Setting LESSCHARDEF to "8bcccbcc18b95.b" is the same as
setting LESSCHARSET to "ascii". Setting LESSCHARDEF to
"8bcccbcc18b95.33b." is the same as setting LESSCHARSET to
"latin1".
Control and binary characters are displayed in blinking
mode. 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
character. Otherwise, the character is displayed as an
octal number preceded by a backslash. This octal format can
be changed by setting the LESSBINFMT environment variable to
a printf-style format string; the default is '\%o'.
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 provide flexibility, but the ordinary user
need not understand the details of constructing personalized
prompt strings.
A percent sign followed by a single character is expanded
according to what the following character is:
%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 offset
is to be used. If the character is a "t", the byte
offset of the top line in the display is used, an "m"
Page 13 (printed 3/2/91)
LESS(1) UNIX 5.0 LESS(1)
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.
%E Replaced by the name of the editor (from the EDITOR
environment variable). See the discussion of the
LESSEDIT feature below.
%f Replaced by the name of the current input file.
%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.
%pX Replaced by the percent into the current input file.
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.
%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 following
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:
Page 14 (printed 3/2/91)
LESS(1) UNIX 5.0 LESS(1)
?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.
?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 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(file %i of %m) ..?e(END) ?x- Next\: %x..%t
Page 15 (printed 3/2/91)
LESS(1) UNIX 5.0 LESS(1)
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
respectively). Each is broken into two lines here for
readability only.
?n?f%f .?m(file %i of %m) ..?e(END) ?x- Next\: %x.:
?pB%pB\%:byte %bB?s/%s...%t
?f%f .?n?m(file %i of %m) ..?ltline %lt?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(file %i of %m) .?ltline %lt?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. %f
Note that this expands to the editor name, followed by a +
and the line number, followed by the file name. If your
editor does not accept the "+linenumber" syntax, or has
other differences in invocation syntax, the LESSEDIT
variable can be changed to modify this default.
ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
COLUMNS
Sets the number of columns on the screen. Takes
precedence over the number of columns specified by the
TERM variable.
EDITOR
The name of the editor (used for the v command).
HOME Name of the user's home directory (used to find a .less
file).
LESS Flags which are passed to less automatically.
LESSBINFMT
Format for displaying non-printable, non-control
Page 16 (printed 3/2/91)
LESS(1) UNIX 5.0 LESS(1)
characters.
LESSCHARDEF
Defines a character set.
LESSCHARSET
Selects a predefined character set.
LESSEDIT
Editor prototype string (used for the v command). See
discussion under PROMPTS.
LINES
Sets the number of lines on the screen. Takes
precedence over the number of lines specified by the
TERM variable.
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.
SEE ALSO
lesskey(1)
WARNINGS
The = command and prompts (unless changed by -P) report the
line number of the line at the top of the screen, but the
byte and percent of the line at the bottom of the screen.
If the :e command is used to name more than one file, and
one of the named files has been viewed previously, the new
files may be entered into the list in an unexpected order.
The handling of national character sets is nonstandard as
well as insufficient for multibyte characters. It will
probably change in a later release.
Page 17 (printed 3/2/91)
