  less is a terminal pager program on unix, windows, and unix-like systems used to view (but not change) the contents of a text file one screen at a time. it is similar to more, but has the extended capability of allowing both forward and backward navigation through the file. unlike most unix text editors/viewers, less does not need to read the entire file before starting, resulting in faster load times with large files. ==history== mark nudelman initially wrote less during 1983-85, in the need of a version of more able to do backward scrolling of the displayed text. the name came from the joke of doing "backwards more." to help remember the difference between less and more, a common joke is to say, "less > more," implying that less has greater functionality than more. a similar saying is that "less is more, more or less". less is included in most unix and unix-like systems. ==usage== less can be invoked with options to change its behaviour, for example, the number of lines to display on the screen. a few options vary depending on the operating system. while less is displaying the file, various commands can be used to navigate through the file. these commands are based on those used by both more and vi. it is also possible to search for character patterns in the file. by default, less displays the contents of the file to the standard output (one screen at a time). if the file name argument is omitted, it displays the contents from standard input (usually the output of another command through a pipe). if the output is redirected to anything other than a terminal, for example a pipe to another command, less behaves like cat. the command-syntax is: less [options] [file_name] ===frequently used options=== *-g: highlights just the current match of any searched string. *-i: case-insensitive searches. *-m: shows more detailed prompt, including file position. *-n: shows line numbers (useful for source code viewing). *-s: disables line wrap (
GNU_Project_software Terminal_pagers