Terminal Pager

The terminal pager has been mentioned often in my reading about software engineering / computer science, so I figure I will try to learn more about it.

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Notes

A terminal pager, paging program, or simply pager is a computer program used to view (but not modify) the contents of a text file moving down the file one line or one screen at a time. Some, but not all, pagers move forwards and backwards in text files but cannot move backwards in pipes. less is a more advanced pager that allows movement forward and backward, and conations extra functions such as search.

Examples

  • more
    • Command to view (but not modify) the contents of a text file one screen at a time, available in Unix and Unix-like systems. 
$ more [options] [file_name]
    • If no file name is provided, more looks for input from standard input.
    • In the lower-left corner of the screen is displayed the text --More-- and a percentage, representing the percent of the file that more has paged through.
    • When more reaches the end of a file, it exits.
    • The most common methods of navigating through a file are Enter, which advances the output by one line, and SPACE, which advances the output by one screen.
    • Options
      • --num - option specifies an integer which is the screen size in lines
      • -d -causes the program to prompt the user with a message instead of ringing the bell when an illegal key is pressed
      • -f -causes the program to count logical rather than screen lines
      • -p -do not scroll, clear the screen and display the text
      • -c -do not scroll. paint each screen from the top, clearing the remainder of each line as it is displayed
      • -s -squeeze multiple blank lines into one
      • -u - backspace and carriage return are treated as printable characters
      • +/ -specifies a string that will be searched before each file is displayed
      • +num - start at line number num
  • less
    • Similar to more, but allows for backwards navigation.
$ less [options] [file_name]...

Less Commonly Used Commands

  • pg
    • Was a terminal pager for text files, but it has been removed.
  • most
    • similar to less in capabilities
  • nano --view
    • text editor for Unix-like computing systems or operating environments using a command line interface
  • emacs -nw -e "(view-mode)"
    • family of text editors that are characterized by their extensibility
  • w3m
    • free and open source text-based web browser licensed under the MIT license.
    • It differs form other text based browsers by supporting elements such as tables, frames, and images.



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