1 **************************************************************************
2 **************************************************************************
4 ** The FreeBSD Project has chosen to redistribute and modify Less under **
5 ** the 'Less License' (as described in the 'LICENSE' file). **
7 **************************************************************************
8 **************************************************************************
12 This is the distribution of less, version 481, released 31 Aug 2015.
13 This program is part of the GNU project (http://www.gnu.org).
15 This program is free software. You may redistribute it and/or
16 modify it under the terms of either:
18 1. The GNU General Public License, as published by the Free
19 Software Foundation; either version 3, or (at your option) any
20 later version. A copy of this license is in the file COPYING.
22 2. The Less License, in the file LICENSE.
24 Please report any problems to bug-less@gnu.org.
25 See http://www.greenwoodsoftware.com/less for the latest info.
27 =========================================================================
29 This is the distribution of "less", a paginator similar to "more" or "pg".
31 The formatted manual page is in less.man.
32 The manual page nroff source is in less.nro.
33 Major changes made since the last posted version are in NEWS.
35 =======================================================================
36 INSTALLATION (Unix systems only):
38 1. Move the distributed source to its own directory and unpack it,
39 if you have not already done so.
41 2. Type "sh configure".
42 This will generate a Makefile and a defines.h.
43 Warning: if you have a GNU sed, make sure it is version 2.05 or later.
45 The file INSTALL describes the usage of the configure program in
46 general. In addition, these options to configure are supported:
49 Specifies the default editor program used by the "v" command.
53 Specifies the regular expression library used by less for pattern
54 matching. The default is "auto", which means the configure program
55 finds a regular expression library automatically. Other values are:
56 gnu Use the GNU regex library.
57 pcre Use the PCRE library.
58 posix Use the POSIX-compatible regcomp.
59 regcmp Use the regcmp library.
60 re_comp Use the re_comp library.
61 regcomp Use the V8-compatible regcomp.
62 regcomp-local Use Henry Spencer's V8-compatible regcomp
63 (source is supplied with less).
64 none No regular expressions, only simple string matching.
66 Builds a "secure" version of less, with some features disabled
67 to prevent users from viewing other files, accessing shell
71 3. It is a good idea to look over the generated Makefile and defines.h
72 and make sure they look ok. If you know of any peculiarities of
73 your system that configure might not have detected, you may fix the
74 Makefile now. Take particular notice of the list of "terminal"
75 libraries in the LIBS definition in the Makefile; these may need
76 to be edited. The terminal libraries will be some subset of
77 -lncurses -lcurses -ltermcap -ltermlib
79 If you wish, you may edit defines.h to remove some optional features.
80 If you choose not to include some features in your version, you may
81 wish to edit the manual page "less.nro" and the help page "less.hlp"
82 to remove the descriptions of the features which you are removing.
83 If you edit less.hlp, you should run "make -f Makefile.aut help.c".
85 4. Type "make" and watch the fun.
87 5. If the make succeeds, it will generate the programs "less",
88 "lesskey" and "lessecho" in your current directory. Test the
91 6. When satisfied that it works, if you wish to install it
92 in a public place, type "make install".
94 The default install destinations are:
95 Executables (less, lesskey, lessecho) in /usr/local/bin
96 Documentation (less.nro, lesskey.nro) in /usr/local/man/man1
97 If you want to install any of these files elsewhere, define
98 bindir and/or mandir to the appropriate directories.
100 If you have any problems building or running "less", suggestions,
101 complaints, etc., you may mail to bug-less@gnu.org.
103 Note to hackers: comments noting possible improvements are enclosed
104 in double curly brackets {{ like this }}.
106 (Note that the above note was originally written at a time when
107 "hackers" most commonly meant "enthusiastic and dedicated computer
108 programmers", not "persons who attempt to circumvent computer security".)
112 =======================================================================
113 INSTALLATION (MS-DOS systems only,
114 with Microsoft C, Borland C, or DJGPP)
116 1. Move the distributed source to its own directory.
117 Depending on your compiler, you may need to convert the source
118 to have CR-LF rather than LF as line terminators.
120 2. If you are using Microsoft C, rename MAKEFILE.DSU to MAKEFILE.
121 If you are using Borland C, rename MAKEFILE.DSB to MAKEFILE.
122 If you are using DJGPP, rename MAKEFILE.DSG to MAKEFILE.
124 3. Look at MAKEFILE to make sure that the definitions for CC and LIBDIR
125 are correct. CC should be the name of your C compiler and
126 LIBDIR should be the directory where the C libraries reside (for
127 Microsoft C only). If these definitions need to be changed, you can
128 either modify the definitions directly in MAKEFILE, or set your
129 environment variables CC and/or LIBDIR to override the definitions
132 4. If you wish, you may edit DEFINES.DS to remove some optional features.
133 If you choose not to include some features in your version, you may
134 wish to edit the manual page LESS.MAN and the help page HELP.C
135 to remove the descriptions of the features which you are removing.
137 5. Run your "make" program and watch the fun.
138 If your "make" requires a flag to import environment variables,
139 you should use that flag.
140 If your compiler runs out of memory, try running "make -n >cmds.bat"
141 and then run cmds.bat.
143 6. If the make succeeds, it will generate the programs "LESS.EXE" and
144 "LESSKEY.EXE" in your current directory. Test the generated programs.
146 7. When satisfied that it works, you may wish to install LESS.EXE and
147 LESSKEY.EXE in a directory which is included in your PATH.
151 =======================================================================
152 INSTALLATION (Windows-95, Windows-98 and Windows-NT systems only,
153 with Borland C or Microsoft Visual C++)
155 1. Move the distributed source to its own directory.
157 2. If you are using Borland C, rename Makefile.wnb to Makefile.
158 If you are using Microsoft Visual C++, rename Makefile.wnm to Makefile.
160 3. Check the Makefile to make sure the definitions look ok.
162 4. If you wish, you may edit defines.wn to remove some optional features.
163 If you choose not to include some features in your version, you may
164 wish to edit the manual page less.man and the help page help.c
165 to remove the descriptions of the features which you are removing.
167 5. Type "make" and watch the fun.
169 6. If the make succeeds, it will generate the programs "less.exe" and
170 "lesskey.exe" in your current directory. Test the generated programs.
172 7. When satisfied that it works, if you wish to install it
173 in a public place, type "make install".
174 See step 6 of the Unix installation instructions for details
175 on how to change the default installation directories.
179 =======================================================================
180 INSTALLATION (OS/2 systems only,
183 1. Move the distributed source to its own directory.
185 2. Rename Makefile.o2e to Makefile.
187 3. Check the Makefile to make sure the definitions look ok.
189 4. If you wish, you may edit defines.o2 to remove some optional features.
190 If you choose not to include some features in your version, you may
191 wish to edit the manual page less.man and the help page help.c
192 to remove the descriptions of the features which you are removing.
194 5. Type "make" and watch the fun.
196 6. If the make succeeds, it will generate the programs "less.exe" and
197 "lesskey.exe" in your current directory. Test the generated programs.
199 7. Make sure you have the emx runtime installed. You need the emx DLLs
200 emx.dll and emxlibcs.dll and also the termcap database, termcap.dat.
201 Make sure you have termcap.dat either in the default location or
202 somewhere in a directory listed in the PATH or INIT environment
205 8. When satisfied that it works, you may wish to install less.exe,
206 lesskey.exe and scrsize.exe in a directory which is included in
207 your PATH. scrsize.exe is required only if you use a terminal
208 emulator such as xterm or rxvt.
212 =======================================================================
213 INSTALLATION (OS-9 systems only,
214 with Microware C or Ultra C)
216 1. Move the distributed source to its own directory.
218 2. If you are using Microware C, rename Makefile.o9c to Makefile.
219 If you are using Ultra C, rename Makefile.o9u to Makefile.
221 3. Check the Makefile to make sure the definitions look ok.
223 4. If you wish, you may edit defines.o9 to remove some optional features.
224 If you choose not to include some features in your version, you may
225 wish to edit the manual page less.man and the help page help.c
226 to remove the descriptions of the features which you are removing.
228 5. Type "dmake" and watch the fun.
229 The standard OS-9 "make" will probably not work. If you don't
230 have dmake, you can get a copy from os9archive.rtsi.com.
232 6. If the make succeeds, it will generate the programs "less" and
233 "lesskey" in your current directory. Test the generated programs.
235 7. When satisfied that it works, if you wish to install it
236 in a public place, type "dmake install".
237 See step 6 of the Unix installation instructions for details
238 on how to change the default installation directories.
240 =======================================================================
242 Some versions of the less distribution are packaged using
243 Info-ZIP's compression utility.
244 Info-ZIP's software is free and can be obtained as source
245 code or executables from various anonymous-ftp sites,
246 including ftp.uu.net:/pub/archiving/zip.