Skip to Content
Navigation:

A stick figure smiling

Here's a preview from my zine, Bite Size Command Line!! If you want to see more comics like this, sign up for my saturday comics newsletter or browse more comics!

Image of a comic. To read the full HTML alt text, click "read the transcript".

browse more comics! get the zine!
read the transcript!

less is a pager

that means it lets you view (not edit) text files.

man uses your pager (usually less) to display man pages

many vim shortcuts work in less

  • / search
  • n/N next/prev match
  • j/k down / up a line
  • m/' mark/return to line
  • g(gg in vim)/G beginning /end of file

less -r

displays bash escape codes as colours

try ls --color | less -r

with -r: - a.txt - a.txt.gz (red, bold)

without -r - a.txt
ESCLOM ESC C01;31ma.txt.gz ESCCOM
(ugh)

or piped in text

q

quit (smiley face)

v (lowercase)

edit file in your $EDITOR

arrow keys, Home / End, PgUp, Pg Dn work in less

F

press F to keep reading from the file as it’s updated (like tail -f)

press Ctrl+C to stop reading updates

+

+ runs a command when less starts

  • less +F : follow updates
  • less +G: start at end of file
  • less +20%: start 20% into file
  • less +/foo: search for ‘foo’ right away

Saturday Morning Comics!

Want another comic like this in your email every Saturday? Sign up here!

I'll send you one of my favourite comics from my archives every Saturday.
© Julia Evans 2024 | All rights reserved (see the FAQ for notes about licensing)