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 563, released 13 Jun 2020.
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 PRE-INSTALLATION (when using git)
39 If you are building from a clone of a git repository,
40 type "make -f Makefile.aut".
41 If you are building from a numbered release package (a tar or zip file
42 with a name like less-999.tar.gz or less-999.zip), you should skip this step.
44 =======================================================================
45 INSTALLATION (Unix systems only):
47 1. Move the distributed source to its own directory and unpack it,
48 if you have not already done so.
50 2. Type "sh configure".
51 This will generate a Makefile and a defines.h.
52 Warning: if you have a GNU sed, make sure it is version 2.05 or later.
54 The file INSTALL describes the usage of the configure program in
55 general. In addition, these options to configure are supported:
58 Specifies the default editor program used by the "v" command.
62 Specifies the regular expression library used by less for pattern
63 matching. The default is "auto", which means the configure program
64 finds a regular expression library automatically. Other values are:
65 gnu Use the GNU regex library.
66 pcre Use the PCRE library.
67 pcre2 Use the PCRE2 library.
68 posix Use the POSIX-compatible regcomp.
69 regcmp Use the regcmp library.
70 re_comp Use the re_comp library.
71 regcomp Use the V8-compatible regcomp.
72 regcomp-local Use Henry Spencer's V8-compatible regcomp
73 (source is supplied with less).
74 none No regular expressions, only simple string matching.
77 Builds a "secure" version of less, with some features disabled
78 to prevent users from viewing other files, accessing shell
82 3. It is a good idea to look over the generated Makefile and defines.h
83 and make sure they look ok. If you know of any peculiarities of
84 your system that configure might not have detected, you may fix the
85 Makefile now. Take particular notice of the list of "terminal"
86 libraries in the LIBS definition in the Makefile; these may need
87 to be edited. The terminal libraries will be some subset of
88 -lncurses -lcurses -ltermcap -ltermlib
90 If you wish, you may edit defines.h to remove some optional features.
91 If you choose not to include some features in your version, you may
92 wish to edit the manual page "less.nro" and the help page "less.hlp"
93 to remove the descriptions of the features which you are removing.
94 If you edit less.hlp, you should run "make -f Makefile.aut help.c".
96 4. Type "make" and watch the fun.
98 5. If the make succeeds, it will generate the programs "less",
99 "lesskey" and "lessecho" in your current directory. Test the
102 6. When satisfied that it works, if you wish to install it
103 in a public place, type "make install".
105 The default install destinations are:
106 Executables (less, lesskey, lessecho) in /usr/local/bin
107 Documentation (less.nro, lesskey.nro) in /usr/local/man/man1
108 If you want to install any of these files elsewhere, define
109 bindir and/or mandir to the appropriate directories.
111 If you have any problems building or running "less", suggestions,
112 complaints, etc., you may mail to bug-less@gnu.org.
114 Note to hackers: comments noting possible improvements are enclosed
115 in double curly brackets {{ like this }}.
117 (Note that the above note was originally written at a time when
118 "hackers" most commonly meant "enthusiastic and dedicated computer
119 programmers", not "persons who attempt to circumvent computer security".)
123 =======================================================================
124 INSTALLATION (MS-DOS systems only,
125 with Microsoft C, Borland C, or DJGPP)
127 1. Move the distributed source to its own directory.
128 Depending on your compiler, you may need to convert the source
129 to have CR-LF rather than LF as line terminators.
131 2. If you are using Microsoft C, rename MAKEFILE.DSU to MAKEFILE.
132 If you are using Borland C, rename MAKEFILE.DSB to MAKEFILE.
133 If you are using DJGPP, rename MAKEFILE.DSG to MAKEFILE.
135 3. Look at MAKEFILE to make sure that the definitions for CC and LIBDIR
136 are correct. CC should be the name of your C compiler and
137 LIBDIR should be the directory where the C libraries reside (for
138 Microsoft C only). If these definitions need to be changed, you can
139 either modify the definitions directly in MAKEFILE, or set your
140 environment variables CC and/or LIBDIR to override the definitions
143 4. If you wish, you may edit DEFINES.DS to remove some optional features.
144 If you choose not to include some features in your version, you may
145 wish to edit the manual page LESS.MAN and the help page HELP.C
146 to remove the descriptions of the features which you are removing.
148 5. Run your "make" program and watch the fun.
149 If your "make" requires a flag to import environment variables,
150 you should use that flag.
151 If your compiler runs out of memory, try running "make -n >cmds.bat"
152 and then run cmds.bat.
154 6. If the make succeeds, it will generate the programs "LESS.EXE" and
155 "LESSKEY.EXE" in your current directory. Test the generated programs.
157 7. When satisfied that it works, you may wish to install LESS.EXE and
158 LESSKEY.EXE in a directory which is included in your PATH.
162 =======================================================================
163 INSTALLATION (Windows-95, Windows-98 and Windows-NT systems only,
164 with Borland C or Microsoft Visual C++)
166 1. Move the distributed source to its own directory.
168 2. If you are using Borland C, rename Makefile.wnb to Makefile.
169 If you are using Microsoft Visual C++, rename Makefile.wnm to Makefile.
171 3. Check the Makefile to make sure the definitions look ok.
173 4. If you wish, you may edit defines.wn to remove some optional features.
174 If you choose not to include some features in your version, you may
175 wish to edit the manual page less.man and the help page help.c
176 to remove the descriptions of the features which you are removing.
178 5. Type "make" and watch the fun.
180 6. If the make succeeds, it will generate the programs "less.exe" and
181 "lesskey.exe" in your current directory. Test the generated programs.
183 7. When satisfied that it works, if you wish to install it
184 in a public place, type "make install".
185 See step 6 of the Unix installation instructions for details
186 on how to change the default installation directories.
190 =======================================================================
191 INSTALLATION (OS/2 systems only,
194 1. Move the distributed source to its own directory.
196 2. Rename Makefile.o2e to Makefile.
198 3. Check the Makefile to make sure the definitions look ok.
200 4. If you wish, you may edit defines.o2 to remove some optional features.
201 If you choose not to include some features in your version, you may
202 wish to edit the manual page less.man and the help page help.c
203 to remove the descriptions of the features which you are removing.
205 5. Type "make" and watch the fun.
207 6. If the make succeeds, it will generate the programs "less.exe" and
208 "lesskey.exe" in your current directory. Test the generated programs.
210 7. Make sure you have the emx runtime installed. You need the emx DLLs
211 emx.dll and emxlibcs.dll and also the termcap database, termcap.dat.
212 Make sure you have termcap.dat either in the default location or
213 somewhere in a directory listed in the PATH or INIT environment
216 8. When satisfied that it works, you may wish to install less.exe,
217 lesskey.exe and scrsize.exe in a directory which is included in
218 your PATH. scrsize.exe is required only if you use a terminal
219 emulator such as xterm or rxvt.
223 =======================================================================
224 INSTALLATION (OS-9 systems only,
225 with Microware C or Ultra C)
227 1. Move the distributed source to its own directory.
229 2. If you are using Microware C, rename Makefile.o9c to Makefile.
230 If you are using Ultra C, rename Makefile.o9u to Makefile.
232 3. Check the Makefile to make sure the definitions look ok.
234 4. If you wish, you may edit defines.o9 to remove some optional features.
235 If you choose not to include some features in your version, you may
236 wish to edit the manual page less.man and the help page help.c
237 to remove the descriptions of the features which you are removing.
239 5. Type "dmake" and watch the fun.
240 The standard OS-9 "make" will probably not work. If you don't
241 have dmake, you can get a copy from os9archive.rtsi.com.
243 6. If the make succeeds, it will generate the programs "less" and
244 "lesskey" in your current directory. Test the generated programs.
246 7. When satisfied that it works, if you wish to install it
247 in a public place, type "dmake install".
248 See step 6 of the Unix installation instructions for details
249 on how to change the default installation directories.
251 =======================================================================
253 Some versions of the less distribution are packaged using
254 Info-ZIP's compression utility.
255 Info-ZIP's software is free and can be obtained as source
256 code or executables from various anonymous-ftp sites,
257 including ftp.uu.net:/pub/archiving/zip.