NEWS revision 173933
1254559Sian 2254559Sian NEWS about less 3254559Sian 4254559Sian====================================================================== 5254559Sian 6254559Sian For the latest news about less, see the "less" Web page: 7254559Sian http://www.greenwoodsoftware.com/less 8254559Sian You can also download the latest version of less from there. 9254559Sian 10254559Sian To report bugs, suggestions or comments, send email to 11254559Sian bug-less@gnu.org or markn@greenwoodsoftware.com. 12254559Sian 13254559Sian====================================================================== 14254559Sian 15254559Sian 16254559Sian Major changes between "less" versions 409 and 416 17254559Sian 18254559Sian* New --follow-name option makes F command follow the name of a file 19254559Sian rather than the file descriptor if an open file is renamed. 20254559Sian 21254559Sian* Make searching with -i/-I work correctly with non-ASCII text. 22254559Sian 23254559Sian* Fix DJGPP build. 24254559Sian 25254559Sian====================================================================== 26254559Sian 27254559Sian Major changes between "less" versions 406 and 409 28254559Sian 29254559Sian* Support CSI escape sequences, like SGR escape sequences. 30254559Sian 31254559Sian* Fix bug which caused screen to fail to repaint when window is resized. 32254559Sian 33254559Sian* Fix bug in using -i and -I flags with non-ASCII text. 34254559Sian 35254559Sian* Fix configure bug on systems which don't support langinfo.h. 36254559Sian 37254559Sian* Fix crash when searching text containing certain invalid UTF-8 sequences. 38254559Sian 39254559Sian====================================================================== 40271051Smarius 41254559Sian Major changes between "less" versions 394 and 406 42254559Sian 43254559Sian* Allow decimal point in number for % (percent) command. 44254559Sian 45254559Sian* Allow decimal point in number for -j option (fraction of screen height). 46254559Sian 47254559Sian* Make n command fetch previous pattern from history file on first search. 48254559Sian 49254559Sian* Don't rewrite history file if it has not changed. 50254559Sian 51254559Sian* Don't move to bottom of screen on first page. 52254559Sian 53254559Sian* Don't output extraneous newlines, so copy & pasting lines from the 54254559Sian output works better. 55254559Sian 56254559Sian* The -c option has been made identical with the -C option. 57254559Sian 58254559Sian* Allow "/dev/null" as synomym for "-" in LESSHISTFILE to indicate 59254559Sian that no history file should be used. 60254559Sian 61254559Sian* Search can now find text which follows a null byte, if the PCRE 62254559Sian library is used, or if no-regex searching (ctrl-R) is used. 63254559Sian 64254559Sian* Better compatibility with POSIX more specification. 65254559Sian 66254559Sian* Make -f work for directories. 67254559Sian 68254559Sian* Make "t" cmd traverse tags in the correct order. 69254559Sian 70254559Sian* Allow a few binary characters in the input file before warning 71254559Sian that the file is binary. 72254559Sian 73254559Sian* Don't warn that file is binary if it merely contains ANSI color sequences 74254559Sian and -R is in effect. 75254559Sian 76266751Sian* Update Unicode character tables. 77266751Sian 78254559Sian* Support DESTDIR in Makefile. 79254559Sian 80254559Sian* Fix bug when filename contains certain shell metacharacters such as "$". 81259356Sian 82259356Sian* Fix bug when resizing the window while waiting for input from a pipe. 83259356Sian 84259356Sian* Fix configure bugs. 85259356Sian 86259356Sian====================================================================== 87259356Sian 88259356Sian Major changes between "less" versions 382 and 394 89259356Sian 90259356Sian* Add history file to save search and shell command history between 91259356Sian invocations of less. 92259356Sian 93259356Sian* Improve behavior of history list for search and shell commands. 94259356Sian 95259356Sian* Add -K (or --quit-on-intr) option to make less exit immediately on ctrl-C. 96254559Sian 97254559Sian* Improve handling of UTF-8 files and commands, including better 98254559Sian line wrapping and handling double-width chars. 99254559Sian 100254559Sian* Added LESSUTFBINFMT environment variable to control display of 101254559Sian non-printable characters in a UTF-8 file. 102254559Sian 103254559Sian* Add --with-secure option to configure, to make it easier to 104254559Sian build a secure version of less. 105254559Sian 106254559Sian* Show search matches in the status column even if search highlights 107254559Sian are disabled via the -G option or the ESC-u command. 108254559Sian 109254559Sian* Improve performance when the file contains very long lines. 110254559Sian 111266751Sian* Add "windows" charset. 112254559Sian 113254559Sian* Add man page for lessecho. 114254559Sian 115276287Sian* Add support for erase2 character, treated same as erase. 116266751Sian 117266751Sian* Use ASCII lowercase/uppercase logic when operating on the command line. 118266751Sian 119259374Sian* Update makefile for Borland C++ 5.5.1. 120259356Sian 121259356Sian* Fix bug in calculating number of pages for %D prompt. 122259356Sian 123254559Sian* Fix bug in handling tag file error. 124254559Sian 125254559Sian* Fix obscure bug if input file is deleted while viewing help. 126254559Sian 127254559Sian* Fix bug handling filenames which include square brackets. 128254559Sian 129254559Sian* Fix possible buffer overflow in "global" tag search. 130254559Sian 131254559Sian* Fix possible buffer overflow in usage of LESSOPEN and LESSCLOSE. 132254559Sian 133254559Sian* Fix buffer overflow in reverse search. 134254559Sian 135254559Sian====================================================================== 136254559Sian 137254559Sian Major changes between "less" versions 381 and 382 138254559Sian 139254559Sian* Removed some old copyrighted code. 140254559Sian This probably breaks OS/9 support. 141254559Sian 142254559Sian====================================================================== 143254559Sian 144254559Sian Major changes between "less" versions 378 and 381 145254559Sian 146254559Sian* New -L option to disable LESSOPEN processing. 147254559Sian 148254559Sian* Further support for large (64 bit) file addressing. 149254559Sian Large file support is now set up by the configure script. 150254559Sian 151254559Sian* Use autoconf 2.54. 152254559Sian Replace configure.in, acconfig.h, defines.h.top with configure.ac. 153254559Sian 154254559Sian* Overstriking underscore with underscore is now bold or underlined 155254559Sian depending on context. 156254559Sian 157254559Sian* Use only 7 spaces for line numbers in -N mode, if possible. 158254559Sian 159254559Sian* Fix some bugs in handling overstriking in UTF-8 files. 160254559Sian 161254559Sian* Fix some nroff issues in the man page. 162254559Sian 163254559Sian====================================================================== 164254559Sian 165254559Sian Major changes between "less" versions 376 and 378 166254559Sian 167254559Sian* Bug fixes: 168254559Sian Default buffer space is now 64K as documented. 169254559Sian Search highlighting works properly when used with -R. 170254559Sian Windows version works properly when input file contains carriage returns. 171254559Sian Clean up some compiler warnings. 172266751Sian 173254559Sian====================================================================== 174266751Sian 175266751Sian Major changes between "less" versions 358 and 376 176266751Sian 177266751Sian* -x option can now specify multiple variable-width tab stops. 178254559Sian 179254559Sian* -X option no longer disables keypad initialization. 180254559Sian New option --no-keypad disables keypad initialization. 181266751Sian 182266751Sian* New commands t and T step through multiple tag matches. 183266751Sian Added support for "global(1)" tags 184266751Sian (see http://www.gnu.org/software/global/global.html). 185266751Sian 186266751Sian* New prompt style set by option -Pw defines the message printed 187266751Sian while waiting for data in the F command. 188254559Sian 189254559Sian* System-wide lesskey file now defaults to sysless in etc directory 190254559Sian instead of .sysless in bin directory. 191254559Sian Use "configure --sysconfdir=..." to change it. 192254559Sian (For backwards compatibility, .sysless in bin is still recognized.) 193254559Sian 194254559Sian* Pressing RightArrow or LeftArrow while entering a number now shifts 195254559Sian the display N columns rather than editing the number itself. 196254559Sian 197254559Sian* Status column (enabled with -J) now shows search results. 198254559Sian 199254559Sian* Windows version sets window title. 200254559Sian 201254559Sian* Default LESSCHARSET for MS-DOS versions is now "dos". 202254559Sian 203254559Sian* Searching works better with ANSI (SGR) escape sequences. 204254559Sian ANSI color escape sequences are now supported in the MS-DOS (DJGPP) version. 205254559Sian 206254559Sian* Improved performance in reading very large pipes. 207266751Sian 208254559Sian* Eliminated some dependencies on file offets being 32 bits. 209266751Sian 210266751Sian* Fixed problems when viewing files with very long lines. 211266751Sian 212266751Sian* Fixed overstriking in UTF-8 mode, and overstriking tabs. 213266751Sian 214266751Sian* Improved horizontal shifting of text using -R option with ANSI color. 215266751Sian 216266751Sian* Improved handling of filenames containing shell metacharacters. 217266751Sian 218266751Sian* Some fixes for EBCDIC systems. 219266751Sian 220266751Sian* Some fixes for OS/2 systems. 221266751Sian 222266751Sian====================================================================== 223266751Sian 224266751Sian Major changes between "less" versions 354 and 358 225254559Sian 226254559Sian* Add -J (--status-column) option to display a status column. 227254559Sian 228254559Sian* Add -# (--shift) option to set default horizontal shift distance. 229254559Sian Default horizontal shift distance is now one-half screen width. 230254559Sian 231254559Sian* Horizontal shifting does not shift line numbers if -N is in effect. 232254559Sian 233254559Sian* Horizontal shifting acts as though -S were set, to avoid confusion. 234254559Sian 235254559Sian====================================================================== 236254559Sian 237254559Sian 238254559Sian Major changes between "less" versions 352 and 354 239254559Sian 240254559Sian* Allow space after numeric-valued command line options. 241254559Sian 242254559Sian* Fix problem with configuring terminal libraries on some systems. 243254559Sian 244254559Sian* Add support for PCRE regular expression library. 245254559Sian 246254559Sian* Add --with-regex option to configure to allow manually selecting 247254559Sian a regular expression library. 248254559Sian 249254559Sian* Fix bug compiling with SECURE = 1. 250254559Sian 251254559Sian====================================================================== 252254559Sian 253254559Sian 254254559Sian Major changes between "less" versions 346 and 352 255254559Sian 256254559Sian* Enable UTF-8 if "UTF-8" appears in locale-related environment variables. 257254559Sian 258266751Sian* Add --with-editor option to configure script. 259266751Sian 260266751Sian* The -M prompt and = message now show the top and bottom line number. 261254559Sian 262254559Sian* Fix bug in running the editor on a file whose name contains quotes, etc. 263254559Sian 264266751Sian* Fix bug in horizontal scrolling of long lines. 265266751Sian 266266751Sian* Fix bug in doing :d on a file which contains marks. 267266751Sian 268266751Sian* Fix bug causing cleared lines to sometimes be filled with standout, 269266751Sian bold, underline, etc. on certain terminals. 270254559Sian 271254559Sian* Fixes for MS-DOS (DJGPP) version. 272266751Sian 273266751Sian====================================================================== 274266751Sian 275254559Sian 276254559Sian Major changes between "less" versions 340 and 346 277254559Sian 278254559Sian* The UTF-8 character set is now supported. 279254559Sian 280254559Sian* The default character set is now latin1 rather than ascii. 281254559Sian 282254559Sian* New option -R (--RAW-CONTROL-CHARS) is like -r but handles 283254559Sian long (wrapped) lines correctly, as long as the input contains only 284254559Sian normal text and ANSI color escape sequences. 285254559Sian 286254559Sian* New option -F (--quit-if-one-screen) quits if the text fits on 287254559Sian the first screen. 288254559Sian 289254559Sian* The -w option now highlights the target line of a g or p command. 290254559Sian 291254559Sian* A system-wide lesskey file is supported (LESSKEY_SYSTEM). 292254559Sian 293254559Sian* New escape for prompt strings: %c is replaced by column number. 294254559Sian 295254559Sian* New escape for prompt strings: %P is replaced by percentage into 296254559Sian file, based on line number rather than byte offset. 297254559Sian 298254559Sian* HOME and END keys now jump to beginning of file or end of file. 299254559Sian 300254559Sian====================================================================== 301254559Sian 302254559Sian 303254559Sian Major changes between "less" versions 337 and 340 304254559Sian 305254559Sian* Command line options for less may now be given in either the old 306254559Sian single-letter form, or a new long name form (--option-name). 307254559Sian See the less man page or "less --help" for the list of long option names. 308254559Sian 309254559Sian* Command line options for lesskey may now be given in a new long name 310254559Sian form. See the lesskey man page for the list of long option names. 311254559Sian 312254559Sian* New command -- toggles an option using the long option name. 313254559Sian 314254559Sian* New command __ queries an option using the long option name. 315254559Sian 316254559Sian* The old -- command is renamed as -!. 317254559Sian 318254559Sian* If a ^P is entered between the dash and the option letter of the - 319254559Sian command, the message describing the new setting is suppressed. 320254559Sian 321254559Sian* Lesskey files may now contain \k escape sequences to represent the 322254559Sian "special" keys (arrows, PAGE-UP/PAGE-DOWN, HOME, END, INSERT, DELETE). 323254559Sian 324254559Sian* New command :d removes the current file from the list of files. 325254559Sian 326254559Sian* New option -~ (like -w before version 335) 327254559Sian suppresses tildes after end-of-file. 328254559Sian 329254559Sian* Less is now released under the GNU General Public License. 330254559Sian 331276287Sian====================================================================== 332254559Sian 333254559Sian 334254559Sian Major changes between "less" versions 335 and 337 335254559Sian 336254559Sian* Fixed bugs in "make install". 337254559Sian 338254559Sian====================================================================== 339254559Sian 340254559Sian 341254559Sian Major changes between "less" versions 332 and 335 342254559Sian 343276287Sian* The old -w flag (suppress tildes after end-of-file) has been removed. 344276287Sian 345254559Sian* New -w flag highlights the first new line after a forward-screen. 346276287Sian 347254559Sian* New -W flag highlights the first new line after any forward movement. 348276287Sian 349254559Sian* Window resize works even if LINES and/or COLUMNS environment 350276287Sian variables are incorrect. 351276287Sian 352276287Sian* New percent escapes for prompt strings: 353276287Sian %d is replaced by the page number, and 354276287Sian %D is replaced by the number of pages in the file. 355276287Sian 356276287Sian* Added charsets "iso8859" and "ebcdic". 357276287Sian 358254559Sian* In Windows version, uses HOMEDRIVE and HOMEPATH if HOME is not defined. 359254559Sian 360254559Sian* Fixed some bugs causing incorrect display on DOS/Windows. 361254559Sian 362254559Sian====================================================================== 363254559Sian 364254559Sian 365254559Sian Major changes between "less" versions 330 and 332 366254559Sian 367254559Sian* Filenames from the command line are entered into the command history, 368254559Sian so UPARROW/DOWNARROW can be used to retrieve them from the :e command. 369254559Sian 370254559Sian* Now works correctly on Windows when using a scrolling terminal 371254559Sian window (buffer larger than display window). 372254559Sian 373254559Sian* On Windows, now restores the console screen on exit. 374254559Sian Use -X to get the old behavior. 375254559Sian 376254559Sian* Fixed bug on Windows when CAPS-LOCK or NUM-LOCK is pressed. 377254559Sian 378254559Sian* Fixed bug on Windows when piping output of an interactive program. 379254559Sian 380254559Sian* Fixed bug in tags file processing when tags file has DOS-style 381254559Sian line terminators (CR/LF). 382254559Sian 383254559Sian* Fixed compilation problem on OS/2. 384254559Sian 385254559Sian====================================================================== 386254559Sian 387259356Sian 388254559Sian Major changes between "less" versions 321 and 330 389254559Sian 390254559Sian* Now supports filenames containing spaces (in double quotes). 391254559Sian New option -" can be used to change the quoting characters. 392254559Sian 393254559Sian* In filename completion, a slash is appended to a directory name. 394254559Sian If the environment variable LESSSEPARATOR is set, the value of 395254559Sian that variable, rather than a slash, is appended. 396254559Sian 397254559Sian* LeftArrow and RightArrow are same as ESC-[ and ESC-]. 398254559Sian 399254559Sian* Added commands ESC-( and ESC-), same as ESC-[ and ESC-]. 400254559Sian 401254559Sian* A "quit" command defined in a lesskey file may now have an "extra" 402254559Sian string, which is used to return an exit code from less when it quits. 403254559Sian 404254559Sian* New environment variables LESSMETACHARS and LESSMETAESCAPE provide 405254559Sian more control over how less interfaces to the shell. 406276287Sian 407276287Sian* Ported to Microsoft Visual C compiler for Windows. 408254559Sian 409276287Sian* Ported to DJGPP compiler for MS-DOS. 410276287Sian 411254559Sian* Bug fixes. 412254559Sian 413254559Sian====================================================================== 414254559Sian 415254559Sian 416276287Sian Major changes between "less" versions 291 and 321 417276287Sian 418276287Sian* Command line at bottom of screen now scrolls, so it can be longer 419276287Sian than the screen width. 420276287Sian 421276287Sian* New commands ESC-] and ESC-[ scroll the display horizontally. 422276287Sian 423276287Sian* New command ESC-SPACE scrolls forward a full screen, even if it 424276287Sian hits end-of-file. 425276287Sian 426276287Sian* Alternate modifiers for search commands: ^N is same as !, 427254559Sian ^F is same as @, and ^E is same as *. 428276287Sian 429276287Sian* New modifier for search commands: ^K means highlight the matches 430276287Sian currently on-screen, but don't move to the first match. 431254559Sian 432254559Sian* New modifier for search commands: ^R means don't use regular 433254559Sian expressions in the search. 434276287Sian 435276287Sian* Environment variable LESSKEY gives name of default lesskey file. 436276287Sian 437276287Sian* Environment variable LESSSECURE will force less to run in 438276287Sian "secure" mode. 439276287Sian 440276287Sian* Command line argument "--" signals that the rest of the arguments 441276287Sian are files (not option flags). 442276287Sian 443276287Sian* Help file (less.hlp) is no longer installed. Help text is now 444254559Sian embedded in the less executable itself. 445254559Sian 446254559Sian* Added -Ph to change the prompt for the help text. 447259356Sian Added -Ps to change the default short prompt (same as plain -P). 448259356Sian 449259356Sian* Ported to the Borland C compiler for MS-DOS. 450259356Sian 451259356Sian* Ported to Windows 95 & Windows NT. 452259356Sian 453259356Sian* Ported to OS-9. 454259356Sian 455259356Sian* Ported to GNU Hurd. 456259356Sian 457259356Sian====================================================================== 458259356Sian 459259356Sian 460259356Sian Major changes between "less" versions 290 and 291 461259356Sian 462254559Sian* Less environment variables can be specified in lesskey files. 463254559Sian 464254559Sian* Fixed MS-DOS build. 465254559Sian 466254559Sian====================================================================== 467254559Sian 468254559Sian 469254559Sian Major changes between "less" versions 278 and 290 470254559Sian 471254559Sian* Accepts GNU-style options "--help" and "--version". 472254559Sian 473254559Sian* OS/2 version looks for less.ini in $HOME before $INIT and $PATH. 474254559Sian 475254559Sian* Bug fixes 476254559Sian 477254559Sian====================================================================== 478254559Sian 479254559Sian 480254559Sian Major changes between "less" versions 252 and 278 481254559Sian 482254559Sian* A LESSOPEN preprocessor may now pipe the converted file data to less, 483259356Sian rather than writing it to a temporary file. 484259356Sian 485254559Sian* Search pattern highlighting has been fixed. It now highlights 486254559Sian reliably, even if a string is split across two screen lines, 487254559Sian contains TABs, etc. 488254559Sian 489254559Sian* The -F flag (which suppress search highlighting) has been changed 490254559Sian to -G. A new flag, -g, changes search highlighting to highlight 491254559Sian only the string found by the last search command, instead of all 492254559Sian strings which match the last search command. 493254559Sian 494259356Sian* New flag -I acts like -i, but ignores case even if the search 495259356Sian pattern contains uppercase letters. 496259356Sian 497259356Sian* Less now checks for the environment variable VISUAL before EDITOR. 498259356Sian 499259356Sian* Ported to OS/2. 500259356Sian 501259356Sian====================================================================== 502259374Sian 503259356Sian 504259374Sian Major changes between "less" versions 237 and 252 505259356Sian 506259356Sian* Changes in line-editing keys: 507259356Sian The literal key is now ^V or ^A rather than \ (backslash). 508259356Sian Filename completion commands (TAB and ^L) are disabled 509259356Sian when typing a search pattern. 510259356Sian 511254559Sian* Line-editing command keys can be redefined using lesskey. 512254559Sian 513254559Sian* Lesskey with no input file defaults to $HOME/.lesskey 514254559Sian rather than standard input. 515254559Sian 516254559Sian* New option -V displays version number of less. 517254559Sian 518254559Sian* New option -V displays version number of lesskey. 519254559Sian 520254559Sian* Help file less.hlp is now installed by default in /usr/local/share 521254559Sian rather than /usr/local/lib. 522254559Sian 523254559Sian 524254559Sian====================================================================== 525254559Sian 526254559Sian 527254559Sian Major changes between "less" versions 170 and 237 528266751Sian 529254559Sian* By popular demand, text which matches the current search pattern 530254559Sian is highlighted. New -F flag disables this feature. 531254559Sian 532266751Sian* Henry Spencer's regexp.c is now included, for systems which do not 533254559Sian have a regular expression library. 534266751Sian regexp.c is Copyright (c) 1986 by University of Toronto. 535266751Sian 536254559Sian* New line-editing keys, including command history (arrow keys) and 537254559Sian filename completion (TAB). 538254559Sian 539254559Sian* Input preprocessor allows modification of input files (e.g. uncompress) 540254559Sian via LESSOPEN/LESSCLOSE environment variables. 541254559Sian 542254559Sian* New -X flag disables sending termcap "ti" and "te" (initialize and 543254559Sian deinitialize) strings to the terminal. 544254559Sian 545254559Sian* Changing -i from within less now correctly affects a subsequent 546254559Sian repeated search. 547254559Sian 548254559Sian* Searching for underlined or overstruck text now works when the -u 549254559Sian flag is in effect, rather than the -i flag. 550254559Sian 551254559Sian* Use setlocale (LANG and LC_CTYPE environment variables) to determine 552254559Sian the character set if LESSCHARSET/LESSCHARDEF are not set. 553254559Sian 554254559Sian* The default format for displaying binary characters is now standout 555254559Sian (reverse video) rather than blinking. This can still be changed by 556254559Sian setting the LESSBINFMT environment variable. 557254559Sian 558254559Sian* Use autoconf installation technology. 559254559Sian 560254559Sian* Ported to MS-DOS. 561254559Sian 562254559Sian ******************************** 563254559Sian Things that may surprise you 564254559Sian ******************************** 565254559Sian 566254559Sian* When you enter text at the bottom of the screen (search string, 567254559Sian filename, etc.), some keys act different than previously. 568254559Sian Specifically, \ (backslash), ESC, TAB, BACKTAB, and control-L 569254559Sian now have line editing functions. 570254559Sian 571254559Sian* Some previous unofficial versions of less were able to display 572254559Sian compressed files. The new LESSOPEN/LESSCLOSE feature now provides 573254559Sian this functionality in a different way. 574254559Sian 575254559Sian* Some previous unofficial versions of less provided a -Z flag to 576254559Sian set the number of lines of text to retain between full screen scrolls. 577254559Sian The -z-n flag (that is, -z with a negative number) provides this 578254559Sian functionality. 579254559Sian 580254559Sian 581254559Sian====================================================================== 582254559Sian 583254559Sian 584254559Sian Major changes between "less" versions 123 and 170 585254559Sian 586254559Sian* New option -j allows target lines to be positioned anywhere on screen. 587254559Sian 588254559Sian* New option -S truncates displayed line at the screen width, 589254559Sian rather than wrapping onto the next line. 590254559Sian 591254559Sian* New option -y limits amount of forward scroll. 592254559Sian 593254559Sian* New option -T specifies a "tags" file. 594254559Sian 595254559Sian* Non-printable, non-control characters are displayed in octal. 596254559Sian Such characters, as well as control characters, are displayed 597254559Sian in blinking mode. 598276287Sian 599276287Sian* New command -+ sets an option to its default. 600276287Sian* New command -- sets an option to the opposite of its default. 601276287Sian 602276287Sian* Lesskey file may have a string appended to a key's action, 603276287Sian which acts as though typed in after the command. 604254559Sian 605254559Sian* New commands ESC-^F and ESC-^B match arbitrary types of brackets. 606254559Sian 607254559Sian* New command F monitors a growing file (like "tail -f"). 608259356Sian 609259356Sian* New command | pipes a section of the input file into a shell command. 610259356Sian 611259356Sian* New command :x directly jumps to a file in the command line list. 612259356Sian 613254559Sian* Search commands have been enhanced and reorganized: 614254559Sian n Repeat search, same direction. 615254559Sian N Repeat search, opposite direction. 616259356Sian ESC-/ Search forward thru file boundaries 617259356Sian ESC-? Search backward thru file boundaries 618259356Sian ESC-n Repeat search thru file boundaries, same direction. 619254559Sian ESC-N Repeat search thru file boundaries, opposite direction. 620259356Sian Special character * causes search to search thru file boundaries. 621259356Sian Special character @ causes search to begin at start/end of file list. 622259356Sian 623259356Sian* Examining a new file adds it to the command line list. 624259356Sian A list of files, or an expression which matches more than one file, 625259356Sian may be examined; all of them are added to the command line list. 626259356Sian 627259356Sian* Environment variables LESSCHARSET and LESSCHARDEF can define 628259356Sian a non-ASCII character set. 629259356Sian 630259356Sian* Partial support for MSDOS, including options -R for repainting screen 631259356Sian on quit, -v/-V to select video mode, and -W to change window size. 632259356Sian 633259356Sian 634259356Sian====================================================================== 635259356Sian 636259356Sian 637254559Sian Major changes between "less" versions 97 and 123 638266751Sian 639266751Sian* New option (-N) causes line numbers to be displayed in the 640266751Sian text of the file (like vi "set nu"). 641266751Sian 642266751Sian* New option (-?) prints help message immediately. 643266751Sian 644266751Sian* New option (-r) displays "raw" control characters, without 645266751Sian mapping them to ^X notation. 646254559Sian 647254559Sian* New option (-f) forces less to open non-regular files 648254559Sian (directories, etc). 649254559Sian 650254559Sian* New option (-k) can be used to specify lesskey files by name. 651254559Sian 652254559Sian* New option (-y) can be used to set a forward scroll limit 653254559Sian (like -h sets a backward scroll limit). 654254559Sian 655254559Sian* File marks (set by the m command) are now preserved when a new 656254559Sian file is edited. The ' command can thus be used to switch files. 657254559Sian 658254559Sian* New command ESC-/ searches all files (on the command line) 659254559Sian for a pattern. 660254559Sian 661254559Sian* New command ESC-n repeats previous search, spanning files. 662254559Sian 663254559Sian* The N command has been changed to repeat the previous search 664254559Sian in the reverse direction. The old N command is still available 665254559Sian via :n. 666254559Sian 667254559Sian* New command ESC-N repeats previous search in the reverse 668266152Sian direction and spanning files. 669266152Sian 670266152Sian* 8 bit characters are now supported. A new option (-g) can be 671259356Sian used to strip off the eighth bit (the previous behavior). 672259356Sian 673259356Sian* Options which take a following string (like -t) may now 674254559Sian optionally have a space between the option letter and the string. 675254559Sian 676259356Sian* Six new commands { } ( ) [ and ] can be used to match 677254559Sian brackets of specific types, similar to vi % command. 678254559Sian 679254559Sian* New commands z and w move forward/backward one window and 680254559Sian simultaneously set the window size. 681254559Sian 682254559Sian* Prompt string expansion now has %L for line number of the last 683254559Sian line in the file, and %E for the name of the editor. 684254559Sian Also, % escapes which refer to a line (b=bottom, t=top, etc.) 685254559Sian can use j for the jump target line. 686254559Sian 687254559Sian* New environment variable LESSEDIT can be used to tailor the 688254559Sian command string passed to the editor by the v command. 689254559Sian 690254559Sian* Examining a file which was previously examined will return 691254559Sian to the same position in the file. 692254559Sian 693254559Sian* A "%" is expanded to the current filename and a "#" to the 694254559Sian previous filename, in both shell commands and the E command. 695254559Sian (Previously % worked only in shell commands and # worked 696254559Sian only in the E command.) 697254559Sian 698254559Sian* New command ":ta" is equivalent to "-t". 699254559Sian 700254559Sian* New command "s" is equivalent to "-l". 701254559Sian 702254559Sian* The - command may be followed by "+X" to revert to the default 703254559Sian for option X, or "-X" to get the opposite of the default. 704254559Sian 705254559Sian* Lesskey files may now include characters after the action as 706254559Sian extra input to be parsed after the action; for example: 707254559Sian "toggle-option X" to toggle a specific option X. 708254559Sian 709254559Sian 710254559Sian 711254559Sian 712254559Sian 713254559Sian