more(1)

NAME

more, page − file perusal filter for crt viewing

SYNOPSIS

more [-n] [-cdflsu] [+ linenumber] [+/ pattern] [name ...]

page [-n] [-cdflsu] [+ linenumber] [+/ pattern] [name ...]

REMARKS:

pg is preferred in some standards and has some added functionality, but does not support character highlighting (see pg(1)).

DESCRIPTION

more is a filter for examining continuous text, one screenful at a time, on a soft-copy terminal. It is quite similar to pg, and is retained primarily for backward compatibility. more normally pauses after each screenful, printing --More-- at the bottom of the screen. To display one more line, press Return. To display another screenful, press the space bar. Other possibilities are described later.

more and page differ only slightly. more scrolls the screen upward as it prints the next page. page clears the screen and prints a new screenful of text when it prints a new page. Both provide one line of overlap between screenfuls.

name can be a filename or -, specifying standard input. more processes file arguments in the order given, and does not process standard input if file arguments are present, unless standard input is specifically identified by using the - filename argument (see EXAMPLES below).

more supports the Basic Regular Expression syntax (see regexp(5)).

more recognizes the following command line options:

-n Use a window size of n lines instead of the default (n is an integer).

-c Draw each page by beginning at the top of the screen, and erase each line just before drawing on it. This avoids scrolling the screen, making it easier to read while more is writing. This option is ignored if the terminal has no clear-to-end-of-line capability.

-d Prompt user with the message Press space to continue, q to abort at the end of each screenful. This is useful if more is being used as a filter in some setting, such as a training class, where many users might be unsophisticated.

-f Count logical lines, rather than screen lines. That is, long lines are not folded. This option is recommended if nroff output is being piped through ul, since the latter can generate escape sequences. These escape sequences contain characters that would ordinarily occupy screen positions, but which do not print when sent to the terminal as part of an escape sequence. Thus more might assume lines are longer than they really are, and fold lines erroneously.

-l Do not treat ^L (form feed) specially. If this option is not given, more pauses after any line that contains a ^L, as if the end of a screenful had been reached. Also, if a file begins with a form feed, the screen is cleared before the file is printed.

-s Squeeze multiple blank lines from the output, producing only one blank line. Especially helpful when viewing nroff output, this option maximizes the useful information present on the screen.

-u Normally, more handles underlining and bold such as produced by nroff in a manner appropriate to the particular terminal: if the terminal supports underlining or has a highlighting (usually inverse-video) mode, more outputs appropriate escape sequences to enable underlining, else highlighting mode, for underlined information in the source file. If the terminal supports highlighting, more uses that mode information that should be printed in boldface type. The -u option suppresses this processing, as do the "ul" and "os" terminfo flags.

+linenumber Start listing at linenumber.

+/pattern Start listing two lines before the line matching the regular expression pattern.

If the program is invoked as page instead of more, the screen is cleared before printing each screenful (but only if a full screenful is being printed), and k − 1 rather than k − 2 lines are printed in each screenful, where k is the number of lines the terminal can display.

more uses terminfo descriptor files to determine terminal characteristics and to determine the default window size (see term(4)). On a terminal capable of displaying 24 lines, the default window size is 22 lines.

more uses the environment variable MORE to preset any flags desired. For example, to view files using the -c mode of operation, the shell command sequence

MORE=’-c’ ; export MORE

or the csh command

setenv MORE -c

causes all invocations of more, including invocations by programs such as man and msgs, to use this mode. The command sequence that sets up the MORE environment variable is usually placed in the .profile or .cshrc file.

If more is reading from a file, rather than a pipe, a percentage is displayed along with the --More-- prompt. This gives the fraction of the file (in characters, not lines) that has been read so far.

Other sequences that can be typed when more pauses, and their effects, are as follows (i is an optional integer argument, defaulting to 1):

i<space> Display i more lines, (or another screenful if no argument is given).

^D Display 11 more lines (a "scroll"). If i is given, the scroll size is set to i.

d Same as ^D (control-D).

iz Same as typing a space except that i, if present, becomes the new window size.

is Skip i lines and print a screenful of lines.

if Skip i screenfuls and print a screenful of lines.

q or Q Exit from more.

= Display the current line number.

v Start up the editor vi at the current line.

h Help command; give a description of all the more commands.

i/expr Search for the i-th occurrence of the regular expression expr. If there are fewer than i occurrences of expr and the input is a file (rather than a pipe), the position in the file remains unchanged. Otherwise, a screenful is displayed, starting two lines before the place where the expression was found. The user’s erase and kill characters can be used to edit the regular expression. Erasing back past the first column cancels the search command.

in Search for the i-th occurrence of the last regular expression entered.

´ (single quote) Go to the point from which the last search started. If no search has been performed in the current file, this command goes back to the beginning of the file.

!command Invoke a shell with command. The characters % and ! in command are replaced with the current file name and the previous shell command, respectively. If there is no current file name, % is not expanded. The sequences \% and \! are replaced by % and ! respectively.

i:n Skip to the i-th next file given in the command line (skips to last file if n does not make sense).

i:p Skip to the i-th previous file given in the command line. If this command is given in the middle of printing out a file, more goes back to the beginning of the file. If i does not make sense, more skips back to the first file. If more is not reading from a file, the bell is rung and nothing else happens.

:f Display the current file name and line number.

:q or :Q Exit from more (same as q or Q).

. (dot) Repeat the previous command.

The commands take effect immediately; i.e., it is not necessary to press Return. Up to the time when the command character itself is given, the line-kill character can be used to cancel the numerical argument being formed. In addition, to redisplay the --More--(xx%) , press the erase character.

The quit key (normally Ctrl-\) can be used at any time when output is being sent to the terminal. more stops sending output, and displays the usual --More-- prompt. One of the above commands can then be entered in the normal manner. Unfortunately, some output is lost when this is done, due to the fact that any characters waiting in the terminal’s output queue are flushed when the quit signal occurs.

more sets the terminal noecho mode so that the output can be continuous. Thus, what you type does not show on the terminal, except for the / and ! commands.

If the standard output is not a teletype, more is equivalent to cat(1), except that a header is printed before each file (if more than one is specified).

more supports the SIGWINCH signal, and redraws the screen in response to window size changes.

EXTERNAL INFLUENCES

Environment Variables

LC_COLLATE determines the collating sequence used in evaluating regular expressions.

LC_CTYPE determines the interpretation of text as single and/or multi-byte characters, the classification of characters as printable, and the characters matched by character class expressions in regular expressions.

LANG determines the language in which messages are displayed.

If LC_COLLATE or LC_CTYPE is not specified in the environment or is set to the empty string, the value of LANG is used as a default for each unspecified or empty variable. If LANG is not specified or is set to the empty string, a default of "C" (see lang(5)) is used instead of LANG. If any internationalization variable contains an invalid setting, more behaves as if all internationalization variables are set to "C". See environ(5).

International Code Set Support

Single- and multi-byte character code sets are supported.

EXAMPLES

To view a simple file, use:

more filename

To preview nroff output, use a command resembling:

nroff -mm +2 doc.n | more -s

If the file contains tables, use:

tbl file | nroff -mm | col | more -s

To display file stuff in a fifteen line-window and convert multiple adjacent blank lines into a single blank line:

more -s -15 stuff

When mixing standard input and filename arguments, use - as follows:

Display file1 from standard input followed by file2:

cat file1 |more - file2

In this form, the - is missing, and only file2 is displayed (standard input is ignored):

cat file1 |more file2

FILES

/usr/lib/more.help help file

/usr/lib/terminfo/?/* compiled terminal capability data base

VARIABLES

MORE Default paging mode.

AUTHOR

more was developed by the University of California, Berkeley.

Museum

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