What is the difference between more and less command in unix

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It is nice to get a different perspective from other users! One of the things I like about less command is that you can jump to the bottom of a file by typing an uppercase "G" — and just as quickly jump to the beginning of the file by typing a lowercase "g". Combined with the -N option, it gives you a quick, interactive means of inspecting the contents of a file and counting lines. There are about a million commands you can use in less … typing a lowercase "h" in-program will display a lengthy help file.

Thanks for sharing the tips about Linux less command, hope users will find it useful and yes, me too likes less command and as articles states, yes its quicker than more command.. Not loading the entire file is the primary reason more was created, so that a file could be quickly viewed with more instead of waiting for it to load in an editor. Have a question or suggestion?

Please leave a comment to start the discussion. Please keep in mind that all comments are moderated and your email address will NOT be published. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. Notify me of followup comments via e-mail. By default, most uses strange non-vi-like keybindings. Its status bar has more information than less 's. You can't browse step wise with more, you can use space to browse page wise, or enter line by line, that is about it. While less deletes the screen after exiting with q , more leaves those files and directories listed by ls on the screen, sparing me memorizing their names for examination.

Should anybody know a parameter or configuration enabling less to keep it's text after exiting, that would render this post obsolete. Whereas the other pagers can only display one file at a time, most is capable of viewing any number of files,. Both less and most have features that the other don't have. I sometimes see, like in this website ,. Whereas the other pagers can only display one file at a time, most is capable of viewing any number of files.

Actually, you can load several files on less with a command like less foo bar : it will display the file foo but you can see bar with the command :n. Sign up to join this community. The best answers are voted up and rise to the top.

Stack Overflow for Teams — Collaborate and share knowledge with a private group. Create a free Team What is Teams? Learn more. What are the differences between most, more and less? Ask Question. Asked 8 years, 4 months ago. Active 1 year ago. Viewed k times. Improve this question. Community Bot 1. Chongxu Ren Chongxu Ren 2, 2 2 gold badges 11 11 silver badges 7 7 bronze badges. Run ls less and I get something unreadable.

EvanTeitelman: Thanks, that worked, I didn't add -R to less. Show 4 more comments. Active Oldest Votes. Improve this answer. My head If less is more than more , most is more than less. AlberteRomero That's it, more or less, at least most-ly,. LOL I really like the horizonital scroll in most. I just tried most because it colours man pages nicely, however I don't think it supports regular expression searches.

Sometimes less is more than most : — starfry. Active Oldest Votes. Short comparison: more : forward navigation and limited backward navigation. You can go to the beginning and the end of a file instantly.

Plus you can switch to an editor like open the file in vi or vim. It is noticeably quicker than editor for when the file is large. All 3 use the h to let you view the keybindings for the command. Improve this answer. Pablo Bianchi 9, 3 3 gold badges 48 48 silver badges 89 89 bronze badges. Rinzwind Rinzwind k 37 37 gold badges silver badges bronze badges.

Yet another great alternative: bat , available on official repos since Ubuntu Eoan Otherwise it's like someone said "I hate Windows because of drive letters. There are Linux operating systems that aren't Unix-compatible and thus don't have more. No Linux operating system I ever used had most installed by default. Some even didn't have it at all.

Conversely, all non-Linux Unices have more. There are GNU operating systems that have less but don't use Linux. There are operating systems that have most but don't use Linux.

Show 4 more comments. As man less says: Less is a program similar to more 1 , but it has many more features. Eliah Kagan Eliah Kagan k 51 51 gold badges silver badges bronze badges. Also handy with less: G to jump to bottom of file then F to follow new content like tail -f. Ctrl-C to stop following and you can navigate the file once again. The abbreviated help brought up by pressing H is also seachable — BlueSkies.

Add a comment. The less command acts quite a bit like the older more command by default, but if the less command sees this variable is set to a value of 1 the number one , then the less command will offer fewer features in an attempt to be increase just how compatible it is with the older pager command that is named more.

This is not Ubuntu-specific, and is supported by less on all platforms. As an indisputable fact of less's nature on some operating systems The less command supports a behavior which many programs utilize in Unix-like environments, which is the behavior of checking which filename it was run as. Some operating systems have actually relied upon this functionality, and not bothered to include a separate program named more.

So, the executable code which the operating system runs when running the command named less actually is the same executable code which the operating system runs when running the command named more.

This isn't even just a case of an identical copy of the code being run. Literally, the same bits get loaded by reading from literally the same exact location of the data-storage device, so it is quite literally the same code that gets used. So, the statement that less is more refers to a literal factual, non-opinionated, provable truth, as these are literally the exact same program since both of these programs are literally using the exact same executable code.

However, the program may differ in behavior based on which command was used to run the program. As a simple English statement This is an opinionated statement which very many people agree with , stating that the less command has a greater number of nice features, and so the less command is a better experience than what is offered by the older, more traditional pager command which happens to be named more.

So: Unix: cat file. As a more modern example, the following works on modern Microsoft Windows systems, and also on many Unix systems: netstat -na more With modern versions, you can also specify one or more filenames on the command line. Misc I don't try to provide the entire answer here, because doing so would just be redundant with the other answers.

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