1 **************************************************************************
2 **************************************************************************
4 ** The FreeBSD Project has chosen to redistribute and modify Less under **
5 ** the 'Less License' (as described in the 'LICENSE' file). **
7 **************************************************************************
8 **************************************************************************
12 This is the distribution of less, version 458, released 04 Apr 2013.
13 This program is part of the GNU project (http://www.gnu.org).
15 This program is free software. You may redistribute it and/or
16 modify it under the terms of either:
18 1. The GNU General Public License, as published by the Free
19 Software Foundation; either version 3, or (at your option) any
20 later version. A copy of this license is in the file COPYING.
22 2. The Less License, in the file LICENSE.
24 Please report any problems to bug-less@gnu.org.
25 See http://www.greenwoodsoftware.com/less for the latest info.
27 =========================================================================
29 This is the distribution of "less", a paginator similar to "more" or "pg".
31 The formatted manual page is in less.man.
32 The manual page nroff source is in less.nro.
33 Major changes made since the last posted version are in NEWS.
35 =======================================================================
36 INSTALLATION (Unix systems only):
38 1. Move the distributed source to its own directory and unpack it,
39 if you have not already done so.
41 2. Type "sh configure".
42 This will generate a Makefile and a defines.h.
43 Warning: if you have a GNU sed, make sure it is version 2.05 or later.
45 The file INSTALL describes the usage of the configure program in
46 general. In addition, these options to configure are supported:
49 Specifies the default editor program used by the "v" command.
53 Specifies the regular expression library used by less for pattern
54 matching. The default is "auto", which means the configure program
55 finds a regular expression library automatically. Other values are:
56 posix Use the POSIX-compatible regcomp.
57 pcre Use the PCRE library.
58 regcmp Use the regcmp library.
59 re_comp Use the re_comp library.
60 regcomp Use the V8-compatible regcomp.
61 regcomp-local Use Henry Spencer's V8-compatible regcomp
62 (source is supplied with less).
63 none No regular expressions, only simple string matching.
65 Builds a "secure" version of less, with some features disabled
66 to prevent users from viewing other files, accessing shell
70 3. It is a good idea to look over the generated Makefile and defines.h
71 and make sure they look ok. If you know of any peculiarities of
72 your system that configure might not have detected, you may fix the
73 Makefile now. Take particular notice of the list of "terminal"
74 libraries in the LIBS definition in the Makefile; these may need
75 to be edited. The terminal libraries will be some subset of
76 -lncurses -lcurses -ltermcap -ltermlib
78 If you wish, you may edit defines.h to remove some optional features.
79 If you choose not to include some features in your version, you may
80 wish to edit the manual page "less.nro" and the help page "less.hlp"
81 to remove the descriptions of the features which you are removing.
82 If you edit less.hlp, you should run "make -f Makefile.aut help.c".
84 4. Type "make" and watch the fun.
86 5. If the make succeeds, it will generate the programs "less",
87 "lesskey" and "lessecho" in your current directory. Test the
90 6. When satisfied that it works, if you wish to install it
91 in a public place, type "make install".
93 The default install destinations are:
94 Executables (less, lesskey, lessecho) in /usr/local/bin
95 Documentation (less.nro, lesskey.nro) in /usr/local/man/man1
96 If you want to install any of these files elsewhere, define
97 bindir and/or mandir to the appropriate directories.
99 If you have any problems building or running "less", suggestions,
100 complaints, etc., you may mail to bug-less@gnu.org.
102 Note to hackers: comments noting possible improvements are enclosed
103 in double curly brackets {{ like this }}.
105 (Note that the above note was originally written at a time when
106 "hackers" most commonly meant "enthusiastic and dedicated computer
107 programmers", not "persons who attempt to circumvent computer security".)
111 =======================================================================
112 INSTALLATION (MS-DOS systems only,
113 with Microsoft C, Borland C, or DJGPP)
115 1. Move the distributed source to its own directory.
116 Depending on your compiler, you may need to convert the source
117 to have CR-LF rather than LF as line terminators.
119 2. If you are using Microsoft C, rename MAKEFILE.DSU to MAKEFILE.
120 If you are using Borland C, rename MAKEFILE.DSB to MAKEFILE.
121 If you are using DJGPP, rename MAKEFILE.DSG to MAKEFILE.
123 3. Look at MAKEFILE to make sure that the definitions for CC and LIBDIR
124 are correct. CC should be the name of your C compiler and
125 LIBDIR should be the directory where the C libraries reside (for
126 Microsoft C only). If these definitions need to be changed, you can
127 either modify the definitions directly in MAKEFILE, or set your
128 environment variables CC and/or LIBDIR to override the definitions
131 4. If you wish, you may edit DEFINES.DS to remove some optional features.
132 If you choose not to include some features in your version, you may
133 wish to edit the manual page LESS.MAN and the help page HELP.C
134 to remove the descriptions of the features which you are removing.
136 5. Run your "make" program and watch the fun.
137 If your "make" requires a flag to import environment variables,
138 you should use that flag.
139 If your compiler runs out of memory, try running "make -n >cmds.bat"
140 and then run cmds.bat.
142 6. If the make succeeds, it will generate the programs "LESS.EXE" and
143 "LESSKEY.EXE" in your current directory. Test the generated programs.
145 7. When satisfied that it works, you may wish to install LESS.EXE and
146 LESSKEY.EXE in a directory which is included in your PATH.
150 =======================================================================
151 INSTALLATION (Windows-95, Windows-98 and Windows-NT systems only,
152 with Borland C or Microsoft Visual C++)
154 1. Move the distributed source to its own directory.
156 2. If you are using Borland C, rename Makefile.wnb to Makefile.
157 If you are using Microsoft Visual C++, rename Makefile.wnm to Makefile.
159 3. Check the Makefile to make sure the definitions look ok.
161 4. If you wish, you may edit defines.wn to remove some optional features.
162 If you choose not to include some features in your version, you may
163 wish to edit the manual page less.man and the help page help.c
164 to remove the descriptions of the features which you are removing.
166 5. Type "make" and watch the fun.
168 6. If the make succeeds, it will generate the programs "less.exe" and
169 "lesskey.exe" in your current directory. Test the generated programs.
171 7. When satisfied that it works, if you wish to install it
172 in a public place, type "make install".
173 See step 6 of the Unix installation instructions for details
174 on how to change the default installation directories.
178 =======================================================================
179 INSTALLATION (OS/2 systems only,
182 1. Move the distributed source to its own directory.
184 2. Rename Makefile.o2e to Makefile.
186 3. Check the Makefile to make sure the definitions look ok.
188 4. If you wish, you may edit defines.o2 to remove some optional features.
189 If you choose not to include some features in your version, you may
190 wish to edit the manual page less.man and the help page help.c
191 to remove the descriptions of the features which you are removing.
193 5. Type "make" and watch the fun.
195 6. If the make succeeds, it will generate the programs "less.exe" and
196 "lesskey.exe" in your current directory. Test the generated programs.
198 7. Make sure you have the emx runtime installed. You need the emx DLLs
199 emx.dll and emxlibcs.dll and also the termcap database, termcap.dat.
200 Make sure you have termcap.dat either in the default location or
201 somewhere in a directory listed in the PATH or INIT environment
204 8. When satisfied that it works, you may wish to install less.exe,
205 lesskey.exe and scrsize.exe in a directory which is included in
206 your PATH. scrsize.exe is required only if you use a terminal
207 emulator such as xterm or rxvt.
211 =======================================================================
212 INSTALLATION (OS-9 systems only,
213 with Microware C or Ultra C)
215 1. Move the distributed source to its own directory.
217 2. If you are using Microware C, rename Makefile.o9c to Makefile.
218 If you are using Ultra C, rename Makefile.o9u to Makefile.
220 3. Check the Makefile to make sure the definitions look ok.
222 4. If you wish, you may edit defines.o9 to remove some optional features.
223 If you choose not to include some features in your version, you may
224 wish to edit the manual page less.man and the help page help.c
225 to remove the descriptions of the features which you are removing.
227 5. Type "dmake" and watch the fun.
228 The standard OS-9 "make" will probably not work. If you don't
229 have dmake, you can get a copy from os9archive.rtsi.com.
231 6. If the make succeeds, it will generate the programs "less" and
232 "lesskey" in your current directory. Test the generated programs.
234 7. When satisfied that it works, if you wish to install it
235 in a public place, type "dmake install".
236 See step 6 of the Unix installation instructions for details
237 on how to change the default installation directories.
239 =======================================================================
241 Some versions of the less distribution are packaged using
242 Info-ZIP's compression utility.
243 Info-ZIP's software is free and can be obtained as source
244 code or executables from various anonymous-ftp sites,
245 including ftp.uu.net:/pub/archiving/zip.