more (command)

more
Example output of the `more` command
Developer(s)	Daniel Halbert
Operating system	Cross-platform
Type	system utility
License	BSD License

In computing, more is a command to view (but not modify) the contents of a text file one screen at a time (terminal pager). It is available on Unix and Unix-like systems, DOS, OS/2, and Microsoft Windows. Programs of this sort are called pagers.^[1] more is a very basic pager, originally allowing only forward navigation through a file, though newer implementations do allow for limited backward movement.

1 History
2 Usage
3 See also
4 References
5 External links

History [edit]

The more command was originally written by Daniel Halbert, a graduate student at the University of California, Berkeley, in 1978. It was first included in 3.0 BSD, and has since become a standard program in all Unix systems. less, a similar command with the extended capability of allowing both forward and backward navigation through the file was written by Mark Nudelman during 1983-85 and is now included in most Unix and Unix-like systems.

Usage [edit]

Unix [edit]

The command-syntax is:

more [options] [file_name]

If no file name is provided, more looks for input from stdin.

Once more has obtained input, it displays as much as can fit on the current screen and waits for user input to advance, with the exception that a form feed (^L) will also cause more to wait at that line, regardless of the amount of text on the screen. In the lower-left corner of the screen is displayed the text "--More--" and a percentage, representing the percent of the file that more has paged through. (This percentage includes the text displayed on the current screen.) When more reaches the end of a file (100%) it exits. The most common methods of navigating through a file are Enter, which advances the output by one line, and Space, which advances the output by one screen.

There are also other commands that can be used while navigating through the document; consult more's man page for more details.^[2]

Options [edit]

Options are typically entered before the file name, but can also be entered in the environment variable $MORE. Options entered in the actual command line will override those entered in the $MORE environment variable. Available options may vary between Unix systems, but a typical set of options is as follows:

-num: This option specifies an integer which is the screen size (in lines).
-d: more will prompt the user with the message "[Press space to continue, 'q' to quit.]" and will display "[Press 'h' for instructions.]" instead of ringing the bell when an illegal key is pressed.
-l: more usually treats ^L (form feed) as a special character, and will pause after any line that contains a form feed. The -l option will prevent this behavior.
-f: Causes more to count logical, rather than screen lines (i.e., long lines are not folded).
-p: Do not scroll. Instead, clear the whole screen and then display the text.
-c: Do not scroll. Instead, paint each screen from the top, clearing the remainder of each line as it is displayed.
-s: Squeeze multiple blank lines into one.
-u: Backspaces and carriage returns to be treated as printable characters;
+/: The +/ option specifies a string that will be searched for before each file is displayed. (Ex.: more +/Preamble gpl.txt)
+num: Start at line number num.

Microsoft Windows [edit]

The command-syntax is:^[3]

command | more [/c] [/p] [/s] [/tn] [+n]
more [[/c] [/p] [/s] [/tn] [+n]] < [Drive:] [Path] FileName
more [/c] [/p] [/s] [/tn] [+n] [files]

Examples [edit]

To display the file named letter.txt on the screen, the user can type either of the following two commands:

more < letter.txt
type letter.txt | more

The command displays the first screen of information from letter.txt, and then the following prompt appears:

-- More --

When the spacebar is pressed, the next screen of information will be displayed. It is also possible to clear the screen and remove all extra blank lines before displaying the file:

more /c /s < letter.txt
type letter.txt | more /c /s

OS/2 [edit]

The command-syntax is:

MORE < [drive:][path]filename
command | more

drive:\path\filename – Specifies the location of the file to display one screen at a time.
command | – Specifies the command whose output will be displayed.

Example [edit]

Return the content of the OS/2 system directory using the dir command and display it one screen at a time using the more command:

[C:\]dir C:\OS2 | more

References [edit]

^ foldoc.org/?pager
^ more: display files on a page-by-page basis – Commands & Utilities Reference, The Single UNIX® Specification, Issue 7 from The Open Group
^ Microsoft TechNet More article

External links [edit]

"FOLDOC entry for pager"; see definition #2.
manpage of more
Early history of the more command

v t e Unix command-line interface programs and shell builtins

File system	cat cd chmod chown chgrp cksum cmp cp dd du df file fsck fuser ln ls lsattr lsof mkdir mount mv pax pwd rm rmdir size split tee touch type umask

Processes	at bg chroot cron fg kill killall nice pgrep pidof pkill ps pstree time top

User environment	clear env exit finger history id logname mesg passwd su sudo uptime talk tput uname w wall who whoami write

Text processing	awk banner basename comm csplit cut dirname ed ex fmt fold head iconv join less more paste sed sort spell strings tail tr uniq vi wc xargs

Shell builtins	alias echo expr printf sleep test true and false unset wait yes

Networking	dig host ifconfig inetd netcat netstat nslookup ping rdate rlogin route ssh traceroute

Searching	find grep locate whatis whereis

Documentation	apropos help man

Miscellaneous	bc dc cal date lp lpr

List of Unix utilities

v t e DOS and Windows command line programs and built-ins

File system (basic)	attrib cd chdir copy del deltree dir erase expand fdisk format makecab md mkdir mklink mountvol move ntbackup rd ren rename rmdir robocopy sfc sys type wbadmin xcopy

File system (advanced)	assoc cacls chkdsk chkntfs cipher comp compact convert defrag diskcomp diskcopy diskpart diskperf fc fixboot fixmbr fsutil ftype icacls join label recover regsvr32 replace rsm scandisk subst tree verify vol vssadmin

Processes	at exit kill powercfg sc schtasks shutdown start taskkill tasklist tlist

Registry	reg regini

User environment	append chcp color date eventcreate finger graftabl mode path pnputil popd pushd runas set setver setx systeminfo time title ver wevtutil whoami winsat

Text processing	edit edlin more sort

Shell programming	break call choice cmd command cscript doskey echo endlocal for forfiles goto if pause powershell prompt rem setlocal shift

Networking	arp atmadm bitsadmin cmstp ftp getmac hostname ipconfig nbtstat net net use netsh netstat nslookup pathping ping rcp rexec route rpcping rsh tcmsetup telnet tftp tracert

Searching	find findstr where

Miscellaneous	bcdedit bootcfg clip cls debug Environment variables exe2bin help lpq lpr msiexec print w32tm wmic

List of MS-DOS commands

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