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 530, released 05 Dec 2017.
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.
26 Source repository is at https://github.com/gwsw/less.git.
28 =========================================================================
30 This is the distribution of "less", a paginator similar to "more" or "pg".
32 The formatted manual page is in less.man.
33 The manual page nroff source is in less.nro.
34 Major changes made since the last posted version are in NEWS.
36 =======================================================================
37 INSTALLATION (Unix systems only):
39 1. Move the distributed source to its own directory and unpack it,
40 if you have not already done so.
42 2. Type "sh configure".
43 This will generate a Makefile and a defines.h.
44 Warning: if you have a GNU sed, make sure it is version 2.05 or later.
46 The file INSTALL describes the usage of the configure program in
47 general. In addition, these options to configure are supported:
50 Specifies the default editor program used by the "v" command.
54 Specifies the regular expression library used by less for pattern
55 matching. The default is "auto", which means the configure program
56 finds a regular expression library automatically. Other values are:
57 gnu Use the GNU regex library.
58 pcre Use the PCRE library.
59 posix Use the POSIX-compatible regcomp.
60 regcmp Use the regcmp library.
61 re_comp Use the re_comp library.
62 regcomp Use the V8-compatible regcomp.
63 regcomp-local Use Henry Spencer's V8-compatible regcomp
64 (source is supplied with less).
65 none No regular expressions, only simple string matching.
67 Builds a "secure" version of less, with some features disabled
68 to prevent users from viewing other files, accessing shell
72 3. It is a good idea to look over the generated Makefile and defines.h
73 and make sure they look ok. If you know of any peculiarities of
74 your system that configure might not have detected, you may fix the
75 Makefile now. Take particular notice of the list of "terminal"
76 libraries in the LIBS definition in the Makefile; these may need
77 to be edited. The terminal libraries will be some subset of
78 -lncurses -lcurses -ltermcap -ltermlib
80 If you wish, you may edit defines.h to remove some optional features.
81 If you choose not to include some features in your version, you may
82 wish to edit the manual page "less.nro" and the help page "less.hlp"
83 to remove the descriptions of the features which you are removing.
84 If you edit less.hlp, you should run "make -f Makefile.aut help.c".
86 4. Type "make" and watch the fun.
88 5. If the make succeeds, it will generate the programs "less",
89 "lesskey" and "lessecho" in your current directory. Test the
92 6. When satisfied that it works, if you wish to install it
93 in a public place, type "make install".
95 The default install destinations are:
96 Executables (less, lesskey, lessecho) in /usr/local/bin
97 Documentation (less.nro, lesskey.nro) in /usr/local/man/man1
98 If you want to install any of these files elsewhere, define
99 bindir and/or mandir to the appropriate directories.
101 If you have any problems building or running "less", suggestions,
102 complaints, etc., you may mail to bug-less@gnu.org.
104 Note to hackers: comments noting possible improvements are enclosed
105 in double curly brackets {{ like this }}.
107 (Note that the above note was originally written at a time when
108 "hackers" most commonly meant "enthusiastic and dedicated computer
109 programmers", not "persons who attempt to circumvent computer security".)
113 =======================================================================
114 INSTALLATION (MS-DOS systems only,
115 with Microsoft C, Borland C, or DJGPP)
117 1. Move the distributed source to its own directory.
118 Depending on your compiler, you may need to convert the source
119 to have CR-LF rather than LF as line terminators.
121 2. If you are using Microsoft C, rename MAKEFILE.DSU to MAKEFILE.
122 If you are using Borland C, rename MAKEFILE.DSB to MAKEFILE.
123 If you are using DJGPP, rename MAKEFILE.DSG to MAKEFILE.
125 3. Look at MAKEFILE to make sure that the definitions for CC and LIBDIR
126 are correct. CC should be the name of your C compiler and
127 LIBDIR should be the directory where the C libraries reside (for
128 Microsoft C only). If these definitions need to be changed, you can
129 either modify the definitions directly in MAKEFILE, or set your
130 environment variables CC and/or LIBDIR to override the definitions
133 4. If you wish, you may edit DEFINES.DS to remove some optional features.
134 If you choose not to include some features in your version, you may
135 wish to edit the manual page LESS.MAN and the help page HELP.C
136 to remove the descriptions of the features which you are removing.
138 5. Run your "make" program and watch the fun.
139 If your "make" requires a flag to import environment variables,
140 you should use that flag.
141 If your compiler runs out of memory, try running "make -n >cmds.bat"
142 and then run cmds.bat.
144 6. If the make succeeds, it will generate the programs "LESS.EXE" and
145 "LESSKEY.EXE" in your current directory. Test the generated programs.
147 7. When satisfied that it works, you may wish to install LESS.EXE and
148 LESSKEY.EXE in a directory which is included in your PATH.
152 =======================================================================
153 INSTALLATION (Windows-95, Windows-98 and Windows-NT systems only,
154 with Borland C or Microsoft Visual C++)
156 1. Move the distributed source to its own directory.
158 2. If you are using Borland C, rename Makefile.wnb to Makefile.
159 If you are using Microsoft Visual C++, rename Makefile.wnm to Makefile.
161 3. Check the Makefile to make sure the definitions look ok.
163 4. If you wish, you may edit defines.wn to remove some optional features.
164 If you choose not to include some features in your version, you may
165 wish to edit the manual page less.man and the help page help.c
166 to remove the descriptions of the features which you are removing.
168 5. Type "make" and watch the fun.
170 6. If the make succeeds, it will generate the programs "less.exe" and
171 "lesskey.exe" in your current directory. Test the generated programs.
173 7. When satisfied that it works, if you wish to install it
174 in a public place, type "make install".
175 See step 6 of the Unix installation instructions for details
176 on how to change the default installation directories.
180 =======================================================================
181 INSTALLATION (OS/2 systems only,
184 1. Move the distributed source to its own directory.
186 2. Rename Makefile.o2e to Makefile.
188 3. Check the Makefile to make sure the definitions look ok.
190 4. If you wish, you may edit defines.o2 to remove some optional features.
191 If you choose not to include some features in your version, you may
192 wish to edit the manual page less.man and the help page help.c
193 to remove the descriptions of the features which you are removing.
195 5. Type "make" and watch the fun.
197 6. If the make succeeds, it will generate the programs "less.exe" and
198 "lesskey.exe" in your current directory. Test the generated programs.
200 7. Make sure you have the emx runtime installed. You need the emx DLLs
201 emx.dll and emxlibcs.dll and also the termcap database, termcap.dat.
202 Make sure you have termcap.dat either in the default location or
203 somewhere in a directory listed in the PATH or INIT environment
206 8. When satisfied that it works, you may wish to install less.exe,
207 lesskey.exe and scrsize.exe in a directory which is included in
208 your PATH. scrsize.exe is required only if you use a terminal
209 emulator such as xterm or rxvt.
213 =======================================================================
214 INSTALLATION (OS-9 systems only,
215 with Microware C or Ultra C)
217 1. Move the distributed source to its own directory.
219 2. If you are using Microware C, rename Makefile.o9c to Makefile.
220 If you are using Ultra C, rename Makefile.o9u to Makefile.
222 3. Check the Makefile to make sure the definitions look ok.
224 4. If you wish, you may edit defines.o9 to remove some optional features.
225 If you choose not to include some features in your version, you may
226 wish to edit the manual page less.man and the help page help.c
227 to remove the descriptions of the features which you are removing.
229 5. Type "dmake" and watch the fun.
230 The standard OS-9 "make" will probably not work. If you don't
231 have dmake, you can get a copy from os9archive.rtsi.com.
233 6. If the make succeeds, it will generate the programs "less" and
234 "lesskey" in your current directory. Test the generated programs.
236 7. When satisfied that it works, if you wish to install it
237 in a public place, type "dmake install".
238 See step 6 of the Unix installation instructions for details
239 on how to change the default installation directories.
241 =======================================================================
243 Some versions of the less distribution are packaged using
244 Info-ZIP's compression utility.
245 Info-ZIP's software is free and can be obtained as source
246 code or executables from various anonymous-ftp sites,
247 including ftp.uu.net:/pub/archiving/zip.