4 This is the distribution of less, version 381, released 17 Jan 2003.
5 This program is part of the GNU project (http://www.gnu.org).
7 This program is free software. You may redistribute it and/or
8 modify it under the terms of either:
10 1. The GNU General Public License, as published by the Free
11 Software Foundation; either version 2, or (at your option) any
12 later version. A copy of this license is in the file COPYING.
14 2. The Less License, in the file LICENSE.
16 Please report any problems to bug-less@gnu.org or markn@greenwoodsoftware.com.
17 See http://www.greenwoodsoftware.com/less for the latest info.
18 You may also contact the author at:
25 =========================================================================
27 This is the distribution of "less", a paginator similar to "more" or "pg".
29 The formatted manual page is in less.man.
30 The manual page nroff source is in less.nro.
31 Major changes made since the last posted version are in NEWS.
33 =======================================================================
34 INSTALLATION (Unix systems only):
36 1. Move the distributed source to its own directory and unpack it,
37 if you have not already done so.
39 2. Type "sh configure".
40 This will generate a Makefile and a defines.h.
41 Warning: if you have a GNU sed, make sure it is version 2.05 or later.
43 The file INSTALL describes the usage of the configure program in
44 general. In addition, these options to configure are supported:
47 Specifies the default editor program used by the "v" command.
50 Specifies the regular expression library used by less for pattern
51 matching. The default is "auto", which means the configure program
52 finds a regular expression library automatically. Other values are:
53 posix Use the POSIX-compatible regcomp.
54 pcre Use the PCRE library.
55 regcmp Use the regcmp library.
56 re_comp Use the re_comp library.
57 regcomp Use the V8-compatible regcomp.
58 regcomp-local Use Henry Spencer's V8-compatible regcomp
59 (source is supplied with less).
61 3. It is a good idea to look over the generated Makefile and defines.h
62 and make sure they look ok. If you know of any peculiarities of
63 your system that configure might not have detected, you may fix the
64 Makefile now. Take particular notice of the list of "terminal"
65 libraries in the LIBS definition in the Makefile; these may need
66 to be edited. The terminal libraries will be some subset of
67 -lncurses -lcurses -ltermcap -ltermlib
69 If you wish, you may edit defines.h to remove some optional features.
70 If you wish to build a "secure" version of less (which disables all
71 features which might allow a user to do unintended things to the system
72 on which less is running), edit defines.h and define SECURE to 1.
73 If you choose not to include some features in your version, you may
74 wish to edit the manual page "less.nro" and the help page "less.hlp"
75 to remove the descriptions of the features which you are removing.
76 If you edit less.hlp, you should run "make -f Makefile.aut help.c".
78 4. Type "make" and watch the fun.
80 5. If the make succeeds, it will generate the programs "less",
81 "lesskey" and "lessecho" in your current directory. Test the
84 6. When satisfied that it works, if you wish to install it
85 in a public place, type "make install".
87 The default install destinations are:
88 Executables (less, lesskey, lessecho) in /usr/local/bin
89 Documentation (less.nro, lesskey.nro) in /usr/local/man/man1
90 If you want to install any of these files elsewhere, define
91 bindir and/or mandir to the appropriate directories.
93 If you have any problems building or running "less", suggestions,
94 complaints, etc., you may mail to the author at markn@greenwoodsoftware.com.
96 Note to hackers: comments noting possible improvements are enclosed
97 in double curly brackets {{ like this }}.
101 =======================================================================
102 INSTALLATION (MS-DOS systems only,
103 with Microsoft C, Borland C, or DJGPP)
105 1. Move the distributed source to its own directory.
106 Depending on your compiler, you may need to convert the source
107 to have CR-LF rather than LF as line terminators.
109 2. If you are using Microsoft C, rename MAKEFILE.DSU to MAKEFILE.
110 If you are using Borland C, rename MAKEFILE.DSB to MAKEFILE.
111 If you are using DJGPP, rename MAKEFILE.DSG to MAKEFILE.
113 3. Look at MAKEFILE to make sure that the definitions for CC and LIBDIR
114 are correct. CC should be the name of your C compiler and
115 LIBDIR should be the directory where the C libraries reside (for
116 Microsoft C only). If these definitions need to be changed, you can
117 either modify the definitions directly in MAKEFILE, or set your
118 environment variables CC and/or LIBDIR to override the definitions
121 4. If you wish, you may edit DEFINES.DS to remove some optional features.
122 If you choose not to include some features in your version, you may
123 wish to edit the manual page LESS.MAN and the help page HELP.C
124 to remove the descriptions of the features which you are removing.
126 5. Run your "make" program and watch the fun.
127 If your "make" requires a flag to import environment variables,
128 you should use that flag.
129 If your compiler runs out of memory, try running "make -n >cmds.bat"
130 and then run cmds.bat.
132 6. If the make succeeds, it will generate the programs "LESS.EXE" and
133 "LESSKEY.EXE" in your current directory. Test the generated programs.
135 7. When satisfied that it works, you may wish to install LESS.EXE and
136 LESSKEY.EXE in a directory which is included in your PATH.
140 =======================================================================
141 INSTALLATION (Windows-95, Windows-98 and Windows-NT systems only,
142 with Borland C or Microsoft Visual C++)
144 1. Move the distributed source to its own directory.
146 2. If you are using Borland C, rename Makefile.wnb to Makefile.
147 If you are using Microsoft Visual C++, rename Makefile.wnm to Makefile.
149 3. Check the Makefile to make sure the definitions look ok.
151 4. If you wish, you may edit defines.wn to remove some optional features.
152 If you choose not to include some features in your version, you may
153 wish to edit the manual page less.man and the help page help.c
154 to remove the descriptions of the features which you are removing.
156 5. Type "make" and watch the fun.
158 6. If the make succeeds, it will generate the programs "less.exe" and
159 "lesskey.exe" in your current directory. Test the generated programs.
161 7. When satisfied that it works, if you wish to install it
162 in a public place, type "make install".
163 See step 6 of the Unix installation instructions for details
164 on how to change the default installation directories.
168 =======================================================================
169 INSTALLATION (OS/2 systems only,
172 1. Move the distributed source to its own directory.
174 2. Rename Makefile.o2e to Makefile.
176 3. Check the Makefile to make sure the definitions look ok.
178 4. If you wish, you may edit defines.o2 to remove some optional features.
179 If you choose not to include some features in your version, you may
180 wish to edit the manual page less.man and the help page help.c
181 to remove the descriptions of the features which you are removing.
183 5. Type "make" and watch the fun.
185 6. If the make succeeds, it will generate the programs "less.exe" and
186 "lesskey.exe" in your current directory. Test the generated programs.
188 7. Make sure you have the emx runtime installed. You need the emx DLLs
189 emx.dll and emxlibcs.dll and also the termcap database, termcap.dat.
190 Make sure you have termcap.dat either in the default location or
191 somewhere in a directory listed in the PATH or INIT environment
194 8. When satisfied that it works, you may wish to install less.exe,
195 lesskey.exe and scrsize.exe in a directory which is included in
196 your PATH. scrsize.exe is required only if you use a terminal
197 emulator such as xterm or rxvt.
201 =======================================================================
202 INSTALLATION (OS-9 systems only,
203 with Microware C or Ultra C)
205 1. Move the distributed source to its own directory.
207 2. If you are using Microware C, rename Makefile.o9c to Makefile.
208 If you are using Ultra C, rename Makefile.o9u to Makefile.
210 3. Check the Makefile to make sure the definitions look ok.
212 4. If you wish, you may edit defines.o9 to remove some optional features.
213 If you choose not to include some features in your version, you may
214 wish to edit the manual page less.man and the help page help.c
215 to remove the descriptions of the features which you are removing.
217 5. Type "dmake" and watch the fun.
218 The standard OS-9 "make" will probably not work. If you don't
219 have dmake, you can get a copy from os9archive.rtsi.com.
221 6. If the make succeeds, it will generate the programs "less" and
222 "lesskey" in your current directory. Test the generated programs.
224 7. When satisfied that it works, if you wish to install it
225 in a public place, type "dmake install".
226 See step 6 of the Unix installation instructions for details
227 on how to change the default installation directories.
229 =======================================================================
231 Some versions of the less distribution are packaged using
232 Info-ZIP's compression utility.
233 Info-ZIP's software is free and can be obtained as source
234 code or executables from various anonymous-ftp sites,
235 including ftp.uu.net:/pub/archiving/zip.