Here is the video version, if you prefer it:
The less
command is used to paginate through contents of a text file. (Ward, 2014) You navigate it by using the following keys (these are the most important):
Space
for page downB
for page up (no need to keepCaps Lock
on; just pressB
on your keyboard)Q
for quittingless
As you can probably suppose, less
is better to use when reading text files than cat
, because it outputs them more conveniently; it doesn’t just dump the contents of the file to your screen like cat
does.
Fun fact: man
uses less
(“Does man command invoke less command to display manual contents?,” n.d.)
Hope you learned something new!
References
Does man command invoke less command to display manual contents? (n.d.). Retrieved January 8, 2020, from https://askubuntu.com/questions/322851/does-man-command-invoke-less-command-to-display-manual-contents
Ward, B. (2014). How Linux Works: What Every Superuser Should Know (2nd ed.). No Starch Press. Page 19