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 551, released 11 Jun 2019.
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 pcre2 Use the PCRE2 library.
60 posix Use the POSIX-compatible regcomp.
61 regcmp Use the regcmp library.
62 re_comp Use the re_comp library.
63 regcomp Use the V8-compatible regcomp.
64 regcomp-local Use Henry Spencer's V8-compatible regcomp
65 (source is supplied with less).
66 none No regular expressions, only simple string matching.
69 Builds a "secure" version of less, with some features disabled
70 to prevent users from viewing other files, accessing shell
74 3. It is a good idea to look over the generated Makefile and defines.h
75 and make sure they look ok. If you know of any peculiarities of
76 your system that configure might not have detected, you may fix the
77 Makefile now. Take particular notice of the list of "terminal"
78 libraries in the LIBS definition in the Makefile; these may need
79 to be edited. The terminal libraries will be some subset of
80 -lncurses -lcurses -ltermcap -ltermlib
82 If you wish, you may edit defines.h to remove some optional features.
83 If you choose not to include some features in your version, you may
84 wish to edit the manual page "less.nro" and the help page "less.hlp"
85 to remove the descriptions of the features which you are removing.
86 If you edit less.hlp, you should run "make -f Makefile.aut help.c".
88 4. Type "make" and watch the fun.
90 5. If the make succeeds, it will generate the programs "less",
91 "lesskey" and "lessecho" in your current directory. Test the
94 6. When satisfied that it works, if you wish to install it
95 in a public place, type "make install".
97 The default install destinations are:
98 Executables (less, lesskey, lessecho) in /usr/local/bin
99 Documentation (less.nro, lesskey.nro) in /usr/local/man/man1
100 If you want to install any of these files elsewhere, define
101 bindir and/or mandir to the appropriate directories.
103 If you have any problems building or running "less", suggestions,
104 complaints, etc., you may mail to bug-less@gnu.org.
106 Note to hackers: comments noting possible improvements are enclosed
107 in double curly brackets {{ like this }}.
109 (Note that the above note was originally written at a time when
110 "hackers" most commonly meant "enthusiastic and dedicated computer
111 programmers", not "persons who attempt to circumvent computer security".)
115 =======================================================================
116 INSTALLATION (MS-DOS systems only,
117 with Microsoft C, Borland C, or DJGPP)
119 1. Move the distributed source to its own directory.
120 Depending on your compiler, you may need to convert the source
121 to have CR-LF rather than LF as line terminators.
123 2. If you are using Microsoft C, rename MAKEFILE.DSU to MAKEFILE.
124 If you are using Borland C, rename MAKEFILE.DSB to MAKEFILE.
125 If you are using DJGPP, rename MAKEFILE.DSG to MAKEFILE.
127 3. Look at MAKEFILE to make sure that the definitions for CC and LIBDIR
128 are correct. CC should be the name of your C compiler and
129 LIBDIR should be the directory where the C libraries reside (for
130 Microsoft C only). If these definitions need to be changed, you can
131 either modify the definitions directly in MAKEFILE, or set your
132 environment variables CC and/or LIBDIR to override the definitions
135 4. If you wish, you may edit DEFINES.DS to remove some optional features.
136 If you choose not to include some features in your version, you may
137 wish to edit the manual page LESS.MAN and the help page HELP.C
138 to remove the descriptions of the features which you are removing.
140 5. Run your "make" program and watch the fun.
141 If your "make" requires a flag to import environment variables,
142 you should use that flag.
143 If your compiler runs out of memory, try running "make -n >cmds.bat"
144 and then run cmds.bat.
146 6. If the make succeeds, it will generate the programs "LESS.EXE" and
147 "LESSKEY.EXE" in your current directory. Test the generated programs.
149 7. When satisfied that it works, you may wish to install LESS.EXE and
150 LESSKEY.EXE in a directory which is included in your PATH.
154 =======================================================================
155 INSTALLATION (Windows-95, Windows-98 and Windows-NT systems only,
156 with Borland C or Microsoft Visual C++)
158 1. Move the distributed source to its own directory.
160 2. If you are using Borland C, rename Makefile.wnb to Makefile.
161 If you are using Microsoft Visual C++, rename Makefile.wnm to Makefile.
163 3. Check the Makefile to make sure the definitions look ok.
165 4. If you wish, you may edit defines.wn to remove some optional features.
166 If you choose not to include some features in your version, you may
167 wish to edit the manual page less.man and the help page help.c
168 to remove the descriptions of the features which you are removing.
170 5. Type "make" and watch the fun.
172 6. If the make succeeds, it will generate the programs "less.exe" and
173 "lesskey.exe" in your current directory. Test the generated programs.
175 7. When satisfied that it works, if you wish to install it
176 in a public place, type "make install".
177 See step 6 of the Unix installation instructions for details
178 on how to change the default installation directories.
182 =======================================================================
183 INSTALLATION (OS/2 systems only,
186 1. Move the distributed source to its own directory.
188 2. Rename Makefile.o2e to Makefile.
190 3. Check the Makefile to make sure the definitions look ok.
192 4. If you wish, you may edit defines.o2 to remove some optional features.
193 If you choose not to include some features in your version, you may
194 wish to edit the manual page less.man and the help page help.c
195 to remove the descriptions of the features which you are removing.
197 5. Type "make" and watch the fun.
199 6. If the make succeeds, it will generate the programs "less.exe" and
200 "lesskey.exe" in your current directory. Test the generated programs.
202 7. Make sure you have the emx runtime installed. You need the emx DLLs
203 emx.dll and emxlibcs.dll and also the termcap database, termcap.dat.
204 Make sure you have termcap.dat either in the default location or
205 somewhere in a directory listed in the PATH or INIT environment
208 8. When satisfied that it works, you may wish to install less.exe,
209 lesskey.exe and scrsize.exe in a directory which is included in
210 your PATH. scrsize.exe is required only if you use a terminal
211 emulator such as xterm or rxvt.
215 =======================================================================
216 INSTALLATION (OS-9 systems only,
217 with Microware C or Ultra C)
219 1. Move the distributed source to its own directory.
221 2. If you are using Microware C, rename Makefile.o9c to Makefile.
222 If you are using Ultra C, rename Makefile.o9u to Makefile.
224 3. Check the Makefile to make sure the definitions look ok.
226 4. If you wish, you may edit defines.o9 to remove some optional features.
227 If you choose not to include some features in your version, you may
228 wish to edit the manual page less.man and the help page help.c
229 to remove the descriptions of the features which you are removing.
231 5. Type "dmake" and watch the fun.
232 The standard OS-9 "make" will probably not work. If you don't
233 have dmake, you can get a copy from os9archive.rtsi.com.
235 6. If the make succeeds, it will generate the programs "less" and
236 "lesskey" in your current directory. Test the generated programs.
238 7. When satisfied that it works, if you wish to install it
239 in a public place, type "dmake install".
240 See step 6 of the Unix installation instructions for details
241 on how to change the default installation directories.
243 =======================================================================
245 Some versions of the less distribution are packaged using
246 Info-ZIP's compression utility.
247 Info-ZIP's software is free and can be obtained as source
248 code or executables from various anonymous-ftp sites,
249 including ftp.uu.net:/pub/archiving/zip.