Mac OS X Panther in a Nutshell, 2nd Edition

Name

less

Synopsis

less [options] [filename]

less is a program for paging through files or other output. It was written in reaction to the perceived primitiveness of more (hence its name). A number may precede some commands.

Options

-[z] num

Set number of lines to scroll to num. Default is one screenful. A negative num sets the number to num lines less than the current number.

+[+] command

Run command on startup. If command is a number, jump to that line. The option ++ applies this command to each file in the command-line list.

-?

Print help screen. Ignore all other options; don’t page through file.

-a, --skip-search-screen

When searching, begin after last line displayed. (Default is to search from second line displayed.)

-b, --buffers= n

Use n buffers for each file (default is 10). Buffers are 1 KB in size.

-B, --auto-buffers

Don’t automatically allocate buffers for data read from a pipe. If -b specifies a number of buffers, allocate that many. If necessary, allow information from previous screens to be lost.

-c, --clear-screen

Redraw screen from top, instead of scrolling from the bottom.

-C, --CLEAR-SCREEN

Same as -c, but clear the screen before redrawing.

-d, --dumb

Suppress dumb-terminal error messages.

-e, --quit-at-eof

Automatically exit after reaching EOF twice.

-E, --QUIT-AT-EOF

Automatically exit after reaching EOF once.

-f, --force

Force opening of directories and devices; don’t print warning when opening binaries.

-F, --quit-if-one-screen

Automatically exit if the file fits ...