4 This is the distribution of less, version 416, released 22 Nov 2007.
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 2, 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 or markn@greenwoodsoftware.com.
17 See http://www.greenwoodsoftware.com/less for the latest info.
18 You may also contact the author at:
25 =========================================================================
27 This is the distribution of "less", a paginator similar to "more" or "pg".
29 The formatted manual page is in less.man.
30 The manual page nroff source is in less.nro.
31 Major changes made since the last posted version are in NEWS.
33 =======================================================================
34 INSTALLATION (Unix systems only):
36 1. Move the distributed source to its own directory and unpack it,
37 if you have not already done so.
39 2. Type "sh configure".
40 This will generate a Makefile and a defines.h.
41 Warning: if you have a GNU sed, make sure it is version 2.05 or later.
43 The file INSTALL describes the usage of the configure program in
44 general. In addition, these options to configure are supported:
47 Specifies the default editor program used by the "v" command.
51 Specifies the regular expression library used by less for pattern
52 matching. The default is "auto", which means the configure program
53 finds a regular expression library automatically. Other values are:
54 posix Use the POSIX-compatible regcomp.
55 pcre Use the PCRE library.
56 regcmp Use the regcmp library.
57 re_comp Use the re_comp library.
58 regcomp Use the V8-compatible regcomp.
59 regcomp-local Use Henry Spencer's V8-compatible regcomp
60 (source is supplied with less).
62 Builds a "secure" version of less, with some features disabled
63 to prevent users from viewing other files, accessing shell
67 3. It is a good idea to look over the generated Makefile and defines.h
68 and make sure they look ok. If you know of any peculiarities of
69 your system that configure might not have detected, you may fix the
70 Makefile now. Take particular notice of the list of "terminal"
71 libraries in the LIBS definition in the Makefile; these may need
72 to be edited. The terminal libraries will be some subset of
73 -lncurses -lcurses -ltermcap -ltermlib
75 If you wish, you may edit defines.h to remove some optional features.
76 If you choose not to include some features in your version, you may
77 wish to edit the manual page "less.nro" and the help page "less.hlp"
78 to remove the descriptions of the features which you are removing.
79 If you edit less.hlp, you should run "make -f Makefile.aut help.c".
81 4. Type "make" and watch the fun.
83 5. If the make succeeds, it will generate the programs "less",
84 "lesskey" and "lessecho" in your current directory. Test the
87 6. When satisfied that it works, if you wish to install it
88 in a public place, type "make install".
90 The default install destinations are:
91 Executables (less, lesskey, lessecho) in /usr/local/bin
92 Documentation (less.nro, lesskey.nro) in /usr/local/man/man1
93 If you want to install any of these files elsewhere, define
94 bindir and/or mandir to the appropriate directories.
96 If you have any problems building or running "less", suggestions,
97 complaints, etc., you may mail to the author at markn@greenwoodsoftware.com.
99 Note to hackers: comments noting possible improvements are enclosed
100 in double curly brackets {{ like this }}.
104 =======================================================================
105 INSTALLATION (MS-DOS systems only,
106 with Microsoft C, Borland C, or DJGPP)
108 1. Move the distributed source to its own directory.
109 Depending on your compiler, you may need to convert the source
110 to have CR-LF rather than LF as line terminators.
112 2. If you are using Microsoft C, rename MAKEFILE.DSU to MAKEFILE.
113 If you are using Borland C, rename MAKEFILE.DSB to MAKEFILE.
114 If you are using DJGPP, rename MAKEFILE.DSG to MAKEFILE.
116 3. Look at MAKEFILE to make sure that the definitions for CC and LIBDIR
117 are correct. CC should be the name of your C compiler and
118 LIBDIR should be the directory where the C libraries reside (for
119 Microsoft C only). If these definitions need to be changed, you can
120 either modify the definitions directly in MAKEFILE, or set your
121 environment variables CC and/or LIBDIR to override the definitions
124 4. If you wish, you may edit DEFINES.DS to remove some optional features.
125 If you choose not to include some features in your version, you may
126 wish to edit the manual page LESS.MAN and the help page HELP.C
127 to remove the descriptions of the features which you are removing.
129 5. Run your "make" program and watch the fun.
130 If your "make" requires a flag to import environment variables,
131 you should use that flag.
132 If your compiler runs out of memory, try running "make -n >cmds.bat"
133 and then run cmds.bat.
135 6. If the make succeeds, it will generate the programs "LESS.EXE" and
136 "LESSKEY.EXE" in your current directory. Test the generated programs.
138 7. When satisfied that it works, you may wish to install LESS.EXE and
139 LESSKEY.EXE in a directory which is included in your PATH.
143 =======================================================================
144 INSTALLATION (Windows-95, Windows-98 and Windows-NT systems only,
145 with Borland C or Microsoft Visual C++)
147 1. Move the distributed source to its own directory.
149 2. If you are using Borland C, rename Makefile.wnb to Makefile.
150 If you are using Microsoft Visual C++, rename Makefile.wnm to Makefile.
152 3. Check the Makefile to make sure the definitions look ok.
154 4. If you wish, you may edit defines.wn to remove some optional features.
155 If you choose not to include some features in your version, you may
156 wish to edit the manual page less.man and the help page help.c
157 to remove the descriptions of the features which you are removing.
159 5. Type "make" and watch the fun.
161 6. If the make succeeds, it will generate the programs "less.exe" and
162 "lesskey.exe" in your current directory. Test the generated programs.
164 7. When satisfied that it works, if you wish to install it
165 in a public place, type "make install".
166 See step 6 of the Unix installation instructions for details
167 on how to change the default installation directories.
171 =======================================================================
172 INSTALLATION (OS/2 systems only,
175 1. Move the distributed source to its own directory.
177 2. Rename Makefile.o2e to Makefile.
179 3. Check the Makefile to make sure the definitions look ok.
181 4. If you wish, you may edit defines.o2 to remove some optional features.
182 If you choose not to include some features in your version, you may
183 wish to edit the manual page less.man and the help page help.c
184 to remove the descriptions of the features which you are removing.
186 5. Type "make" and watch the fun.
188 6. If the make succeeds, it will generate the programs "less.exe" and
189 "lesskey.exe" in your current directory. Test the generated programs.
191 7. Make sure you have the emx runtime installed. You need the emx DLLs
192 emx.dll and emxlibcs.dll and also the termcap database, termcap.dat.
193 Make sure you have termcap.dat either in the default location or
194 somewhere in a directory listed in the PATH or INIT environment
197 8. When satisfied that it works, you may wish to install less.exe,
198 lesskey.exe and scrsize.exe in a directory which is included in
199 your PATH. scrsize.exe is required only if you use a terminal
200 emulator such as xterm or rxvt.
204 =======================================================================
205 INSTALLATION (OS-9 systems only,
206 with Microware C or Ultra C)
208 1. Move the distributed source to its own directory.
210 2. If you are using Microware C, rename Makefile.o9c to Makefile.
211 If you are using Ultra C, rename Makefile.o9u to Makefile.
213 3. Check the Makefile to make sure the definitions look ok.
215 4. If you wish, you may edit defines.o9 to remove some optional features.
216 If you choose not to include some features in your version, you may
217 wish to edit the manual page less.man and the help page help.c
218 to remove the descriptions of the features which you are removing.
220 5. Type "dmake" and watch the fun.
221 The standard OS-9 "make" will probably not work. If you don't
222 have dmake, you can get a copy from os9archive.rtsi.com.
224 6. If the make succeeds, it will generate the programs "less" and
225 "lesskey" in your current directory. Test the generated programs.
227 7. When satisfied that it works, if you wish to install it
228 in a public place, type "dmake install".
229 See step 6 of the Unix installation instructions for details
230 on how to change the default installation directories.
232 =======================================================================
234 Some versions of the less distribution are packaged using
235 Info-ZIP's compression utility.
236 Info-ZIP's software is free and can be obtained as source
237 code or executables from various anonymous-ftp sites,
238 including ftp.uu.net:/pub/archiving/zip.