--- less-374.orig/lessecho.1 +++ less-374/lessecho.1 @@ -0,0 +1,42 @@ +.TH LESSECHO 1 +.\" NAME should be all caps, SECTION should be 1-8, maybe w/ subsection +.\" other parms are allowed: see man(7), man(1) +.SH NAME +lessecho \- expand metacharacters, such as * and ?, in filenames on Unix +systems. +.SH SYNOPSIS +.B lessecho +.I "[-ox] [-cx] [-pn] [-dn] [-a] file ..." +.SH "DESCRIPTION" +This manual page documents briefly the +.BR lessecho +command. +This manual page was written for the Debian GNU/Linux distribution +because the original program does not have a manual page. +.PP +.B lessecho +is a program that simply echos its filename arguments on standard output. But +any argument containing spaces is enclosed in quotes. +.SH OPTIONS +A summary of options are included below. +.TP +.B \-ox +Specifies "x" to be the open quote character. +.TP +.B \-cx +Specifies "x" to be the close quote character. +.TP +.B \-pn +Specifies "n" to be the open quote character, as an integer. +.TP +.B \-dn +Specifies "n" to be the close quote character, as an integer. +.TP +.B \-a +Specifies that all arguments are to be quoted. The default is that only +arguments containing spaces are quoted. +.SH "SEE ALSO" +less(1) +.SH AUTHOR +This manual page was written by Thomas Schoepf <schoepf@debian.org>, +for the Debian GNU/Linux system (but may be used by others). --- less-374.orig/lesspipe.1 +++ less-374/lesspipe.1 @@ -0,0 +1,135 @@ +.TH LESSOPEN 1 +.\" NAME should be all caps, SECTION should be 1-8, maybe w/ subsection +.\" other parms are allowed: see man(7), man(1) +.SH NAME +lessfile, lesspipe \- "input preprocessor" for less. +.SH SYNOPSIS +.B lessfile, lesspipe +.SH "DESCRIPTION" +This manual page documents briefly the +.IR lessfile , +and +.I lesspipe +commands. +This manual page was written for the Debian GNU/Linux distribution +because the input preprocessor scripts are provided by Debian GNU/Linux and +are not part of the original program. +.PP +.I lessfile +and +.I lesspipe +are programs that can be used to modify the way the contents of a file are +displayed in +.I less. +What this means is that +.I less +can automatically open +up tar files, uncompress gzipped files, and even display something reasonable +for graphics files. +.PP +.I lesspipe +will toss the contents/info on STDOUT and +.I less +will read them +as they come across. This means that you do not have to wait for the +decoding to finish before less shows you the file. This also means that +you will get a 'byte N' instead of an N% as your file position. You can +seek to the end and back to get the N% but that means you have to wait +for the pipe to finish. +.PP +.I lessfile +will toss the contents/info on a file which +.I less +will then +read. After you are done, +.I lessfile +will then delete the file. This means that the process has to finish before +you see it, but you get nice percentages (N%) up front. +. +.SH USAGE +Just put one of the following two commands in your login script (e.g. +~/.bash_profile): +.PP +.I eval $(lessfile) +or +.I eval $(lesspipe) +.SH USER DEFINED FILTERS +It is possible to extend and overwrite the default +.I lesspipe +and +.I lessfile +input processor if you have specialized requirements. Create an executable +program with the name +.I .lessfilter +and put it into your home directory. This can be a shell script or a binary +program. + +.PP +It is important that this program returns the correct exit code: return 0 if +your filter handles the input, return 1 if the standard +.I lesspipe/lessfile +filter should handle the input. + +.PP +Here is an example script: + +.DS + #!/bin/sh + + case "$1" in + *.extension) + extension-handler "$1" + ;; + *) + # We don't handle this format. + exit 1 + esac + + # No further processing by lesspipe necessary + exit 0 +.DE + +.SH FILES +.TP +.I ~/.lessfilter +Executable file that can do user defined processing. See section USER DEFINED +FILTERS for more information. +.SH BUGS +When trying to open compressed 0 byte files, +.I less +displays the actual binary file contents. This is not a bug. +.I less +is designed to do that (see manual page less(1), section INPUT PREPROCESSOR). +This is the answer of Mark Nudelman <markn@greenwoodsoftware.com>: +.IP +"I recognized when I designed it that a +lesspipe filter cannot output an empty file and have less display +nothing in that case; it's a side effect of using the "no output" case +to mean "the filter has nothing to do". It could have been designed to +have some other mechanism to indicate "nothing to do", but "no output" +seemed the simplest and most intuitive for lesspipe writers." + +.PP +Sometimes, less does not display the contents file you want to view but output +that is produced by your login scripts (~/.bashrc or ~/.bash_profile). This +happens because less uses your current shell to run the lesspipe filter. Bash +first looks for the variable $BASH_ENV in the environment expands its value +and uses the expanded value as the name of a file to read and execute. If +this file produces any output less will display this. A way to solve this +problem is to put the following lines on the top of your login script that +produces output: + +.DS + if [ -z "$PS1" ]; then + exit + fi +.DE + +This tests whether the prompt variable $PS1 is set and if it isn't (which is +the case for non-interactive shells) it will exit the script. +.SH "SEE ALSO" +less(1) +.SH AUTHOR +This manual page was written by Thomas Schoepf <schoepf@debian.org>, +for the Debian GNU/Linux system (but may be used by others). Most of the +text was copied from a description written by Darren Stalder <torin@daft.com>.