more

Display files on a page-by-page basis (POSIX)

Syntax:

more [-ceisu] [-n number] [-p pattern] 
     [-/ pattern] [-t tag] [-x tabstop] [file...]

Runs on:

Neutrino

Options:

-/ pattern

Same as -p pattern.

-c

For each full screen of text that's displayed, clear the screen from the first line and display the next full screen of text.

-e

Stop after displaying the last line in the file. If the next command that displays text causes more to reach end-of-file again, more exits. If the file is shorter than a single screen, more exits at end-of-file regardless.

-i

Ignore case during searches. Uppercase and lowercase letters are considered identical.

-n number

Specify the number of lines that constitute a full screen of text. The number argument is a positive decimal integer. The -n option overrides any values obtained from the environment.

-p pattern

Search for a line that matches pattern. The current position is set to the first matched line. If no match is found, the first line in the file is the current position.

-s

Replace consecutive empty lines with a single empty line.

-t tag

Display the file containing the tag named by the tag argument. Note that for this to work, the file tags must reside in the current directory.

-u

Always display backspaces as control characters (e.g. as the two-character sequence ^H) and leave carriage-return/linefeed (\r\n) sequences alone.

By default, more makes special use of backspaces and carriage-return/linefeed (\r\n) sequences. If a backspace appears next to an underscore character, the character is displayed as underlined text, provided the terminal type supports underlined text. If a backspace appears between two identical characters, the first character is displayed as bold text, provided the terminal type supports bold text display.

-x tabstop

Set tabs at the positions specified by tabstop. The default is four spaces, unless the POSIX_STRICT environment variable is defined, in which case it's eight spaces.

file

A pathname of an input file. If no file operands are specified, more uses the standard input. If a file operand is the dash character (-), the standard input is read at that point of the sequence.

Description:

The more utility lets you view text files one screenfull at a time. The utility determines the number of lines that make a full screen by looking in the terminal database. However, you can use the LINES environment variable to override the value found in the database, and the -n option to override the LINES variable.

If the standard output isn't a terminal device, the number of lines that make up a full screen of text is considered to be infinite. In a pipeline, all input files are copied to the standard output in their entirety. On terminals, more displays text one screen at a time.

The more command can be very useful when another utility prints more information to the standard output than can be displayed on a single screen. By piping the output to more, you can scroll through the displayed output at leisure. For example:

ls | more

pipes the output from the ls command to more, allowing you to scroll through the output.

---

The more command is a link to less, which behaves according to the command name it was invoked as.

---

Environment variables:

EDITOR

The editor to use.

LINES

A decimal integer value to be used as the number of lines in a screenfull.

MORE

A string containing options described in the Options section of this utility, preceded by hyphens and separated by blank characters as on the command line. Command-line options override those specified in the MORE variable. The MORE variable takes precedence over the TERM and LINES variables.

TERM

The name of the terminal type.

POSIX_STRICT

Interpret options according to POSIX specifications.

Exit status:

0

Successful completion.

>0

An error occurred.

Contributing author:

Mark Nudelman

See also:

cat, clear, ctags, head, less, tail