Commonly used · Reading and processing text
less:Read text in pages
Syntax
less fileExamples
less logs/app.logUsage and sandbox support
Real less Use q to exit, / search; the sandbox displays text at one time and does not simulate paging keys.
Hands-on exercises
- Open the log with ReaderEveryday
Related commands
catRead and concatenate textmoreView text in pagesheadRead the first few linestailRead last few linesgrepFilter text by patternfindFind paths by name or typewcCount lines, words and bytessortSort lines of textuniqMerge adjacent duplicate rowscutExtract columns or characterstrReplace or delete characterssedReplace text or select linesawkExtract structured text fieldsdiffCompare two text filesvimEdit files in terminalnanoModify files with a simple editornlNumber lines of texttacOutput lines of text in reverse orderrevReverse characters line by linepasteSplicing text columns horizontallycommCompare sorted listscmpCompare files to see if they are the sameexpandConvert Tab to spacesunexpandConvert leading spaces to TabfoldWrap long textrgFast recursive text searchjqHandle JSONyqHandle YAMLjoinMerge sorted tables by common fieldsfmtReformat paragraphs word by wordcolumnArrange text tablestringsExtract printable text from binaryodView file byte representationhexdumpShow hexadecimal bytesxxdView or restore hex dumpiconvConvert text encodingdos2unixConvert Windows to newlinesplitSplit file by linescsplitSplit text by patternbcEvaluate a numeric expression