4 This is the distribution of less, version 529, released 13 Nov 2017.
5 This program is part of the GNU project (http://www.gnu.org).
7 This program is free software. You may redistribute it and/or
8 modify it under the terms of either:
10 1. The GNU General Public License, as published by the Free
11 Software Foundation; either version 3, or (at your option) any
12 later version. A copy of this license is in the file COPYING.
14 2. The Less License, in the file LICENSE.
16 Please report any problems to bug-less@gnu.org.
17 See http://www.greenwoodsoftware.com/less for the latest info.
18 Source repository is at https://github.com/gwsw/less.git.
20 =========================================================================
22 This is the distribution of "less", a paginator similar to "more" or "pg".
24 The formatted manual page is in less.man.
25 The manual page nroff source is in less.nro.
26 Major changes made since the last posted version are in NEWS.
28 =======================================================================
29 INSTALLATION (Unix systems only):
31 1. Move the distributed source to its own directory and unpack it,
32 if you have not already done so.
34 2. Type "sh configure".
35 This will generate a Makefile and a defines.h.
36 Warning: if you have a GNU sed, make sure it is version 2.05 or later.
38 The file INSTALL describes the usage of the configure program in
39 general. In addition, these options to configure are supported:
42 Specifies the default editor program used by the "v" command.
46 Specifies the regular expression library used by less for pattern
47 matching. The default is "auto", which means the configure program
48 finds a regular expression library automatically. Other values are:
49 gnu Use the GNU regex library.
50 pcre Use the PCRE library.
51 posix Use the POSIX-compatible regcomp.
52 regcmp Use the regcmp library.
53 re_comp Use the re_comp library.
54 regcomp Use the V8-compatible regcomp.
55 regcomp-local Use Henry Spencer's V8-compatible regcomp
56 (source is supplied with less).
57 none No regular expressions, only simple string matching.
59 Builds a "secure" version of less, with some features disabled
60 to prevent users from viewing other files, accessing shell
64 3. It is a good idea to look over the generated Makefile and defines.h
65 and make sure they look ok. If you know of any peculiarities of
66 your system that configure might not have detected, you may fix the
67 Makefile now. Take particular notice of the list of "terminal"
68 libraries in the LIBS definition in the Makefile; these may need
69 to be edited. The terminal libraries will be some subset of
70 -lncurses -lcurses -ltermcap -ltermlib
72 If you wish, you may edit defines.h to remove some optional features.
73 If you choose not to include some features in your version, you may
74 wish to edit the manual page "less.nro" and the help page "less.hlp"
75 to remove the descriptions of the features which you are removing.
76 If you edit less.hlp, you should run "make -f Makefile.aut help.c".
78 4. Type "make" and watch the fun.
80 5. If the make succeeds, it will generate the programs "less",
81 "lesskey" and "lessecho" in your current directory. Test the
84 6. When satisfied that it works, if you wish to install it
85 in a public place, type "make install".
87 The default install destinations are:
88 Executables (less, lesskey, lessecho) in /usr/local/bin
89 Documentation (less.nro, lesskey.nro) in /usr/local/man/man1
90 If you want to install any of these files elsewhere, define
91 bindir and/or mandir to the appropriate directories.
93 If you have any problems building or running "less", suggestions,
94 complaints, etc., you may mail to bug-less@gnu.org.
96 Note to hackers: comments noting possible improvements are enclosed
97 in double curly brackets {{ like this }}.
99 (Note that the above note was originally written at a time when
100 "hackers" most commonly meant "enthusiastic and dedicated computer
101 programmers", not "persons who attempt to circumvent computer security".)
105 =======================================================================
106 INSTALLATION (MS-DOS systems only,
107 with Microsoft C, Borland C, or DJGPP)
109 1. Move the distributed source to its own directory.
110 Depending on your compiler, you may need to convert the source
111 to have CR-LF rather than LF as line terminators.
113 2. If you are using Microsoft C, rename MAKEFILE.DSU to MAKEFILE.
114 If you are using Borland C, rename MAKEFILE.DSB to MAKEFILE.
115 If you are using DJGPP, rename MAKEFILE.DSG to MAKEFILE.
117 3. Look at MAKEFILE to make sure that the definitions for CC and LIBDIR
118 are correct. CC should be the name of your C compiler and
119 LIBDIR should be the directory where the C libraries reside (for
120 Microsoft C only). If these definitions need to be changed, you can
121 either modify the definitions directly in MAKEFILE, or set your
122 environment variables CC and/or LIBDIR to override the definitions
125 4. If you wish, you may edit DEFINES.DS to remove some optional features.
126 If you choose not to include some features in your version, you may
127 wish to edit the manual page LESS.MAN and the help page HELP.C
128 to remove the descriptions of the features which you are removing.
130 5. Run your "make" program and watch the fun.
131 If your "make" requires a flag to import environment variables,
132 you should use that flag.
133 If your compiler runs out of memory, try running "make -n >cmds.bat"
134 and then run cmds.bat.
136 6. If the make succeeds, it will generate the programs "LESS.EXE" and
137 "LESSKEY.EXE" in your current directory. Test the generated programs.
139 7. When satisfied that it works, you may wish to install LESS.EXE and
140 LESSKEY.EXE in a directory which is included in your PATH.
144 =======================================================================
145 INSTALLATION (Windows-95, Windows-98 and Windows-NT systems only,
146 with Borland C or Microsoft Visual C++)
148 1. Move the distributed source to its own directory.
150 2. If you are using Borland C, rename Makefile.wnb to Makefile.
151 If you are using Microsoft Visual C++, rename Makefile.wnm to Makefile.
153 3. Check the Makefile to make sure the definitions look ok.
155 4. If you wish, you may edit defines.wn to remove some optional features.
156 If you choose not to include some features in your version, you may
157 wish to edit the manual page less.man and the help page help.c
158 to remove the descriptions of the features which you are removing.
160 5. Type "make" and watch the fun.
162 6. If the make succeeds, it will generate the programs "less.exe" and
163 "lesskey.exe" in your current directory. Test the generated programs.
165 7. When satisfied that it works, if you wish to install it
166 in a public place, type "make install".
167 See step 6 of the Unix installation instructions for details
168 on how to change the default installation directories.
172 =======================================================================
173 INSTALLATION (OS/2 systems only,
176 1. Move the distributed source to its own directory.
178 2. Rename Makefile.o2e to Makefile.
180 3. Check the Makefile to make sure the definitions look ok.
182 4. If you wish, you may edit defines.o2 to remove some optional features.
183 If you choose not to include some features in your version, you may
184 wish to edit the manual page less.man and the help page help.c
185 to remove the descriptions of the features which you are removing.
187 5. Type "make" and watch the fun.
189 6. If the make succeeds, it will generate the programs "less.exe" and
190 "lesskey.exe" in your current directory. Test the generated programs.
192 7. Make sure you have the emx runtime installed. You need the emx DLLs
193 emx.dll and emxlibcs.dll and also the termcap database, termcap.dat.
194 Make sure you have termcap.dat either in the default location or
195 somewhere in a directory listed in the PATH or INIT environment
198 8. When satisfied that it works, you may wish to install less.exe,
199 lesskey.exe and scrsize.exe in a directory which is included in
200 your PATH. scrsize.exe is required only if you use a terminal
201 emulator such as xterm or rxvt.
205 =======================================================================
206 INSTALLATION (OS-9 systems only,
207 with Microware C or Ultra C)
209 1. Move the distributed source to its own directory.
211 2. If you are using Microware C, rename Makefile.o9c to Makefile.
212 If you are using Ultra C, rename Makefile.o9u to Makefile.
214 3. Check the Makefile to make sure the definitions look ok.
216 4. If you wish, you may edit defines.o9 to remove some optional features.
217 If you choose not to include some features in your version, you may
218 wish to edit the manual page less.man and the help page help.c
219 to remove the descriptions of the features which you are removing.
221 5. Type "dmake" and watch the fun.
222 The standard OS-9 "make" will probably not work. If you don't
223 have dmake, you can get a copy from os9archive.rtsi.com.
225 6. If the make succeeds, it will generate the programs "less" and
226 "lesskey" in your current directory. Test the generated programs.
228 7. When satisfied that it works, if you wish to install it
229 in a public place, type "dmake install".
230 See step 6 of the Unix installation instructions for details
231 on how to change the default installation directories.
233 =======================================================================
235 Some versions of the less distribution are packaged using
236 Info-ZIP's compression utility.
237 Info-ZIP's software is free and can be obtained as source
238 code or executables from various anonymous-ftp sites,
239 including ftp.uu.net:/pub/archiving/zip.