Re: less

[Brian Servis <servis@purdue.edu>]

*- On 12 Aug, Patrick wrote about "Re: less"
> On Thu, Aug 12, 1999 at 03:11:32PM -0400, Wakko Warner took time to write:
>> Every time I go to less a file that might be a binary (to less), it asks if
>> I want to view it.  This has gotten very annoying and I haven't seen how to
>> turn this off.  I want to turn it off.
> 
> man less says :
> -f     Forces non-regular files to be opened.  (A non-reg­
>        ular file is a directory or a device special file.)
>        Also suppresses the warning message when  a  binary
>        file  is  opened.   By default, less will refuse to
>        open non-regular files.
> 
> that should do it...
> create an alias for easier use, like (in bash)
> alias less='less -f' (in your ~/.bash_profile)
> 

Comming in late on this after a short vacation.  

Probably a more proper way would be to set the LESS environment variable
to include the -f flag.  You can do this in your system wide or
personal shell init files.

>From the less man page:

       Options are  also  taken  from  the  environment  variable
       "LESS".   For example, to avoid typing "less -options ..."
       each time less is invoked, you might tell csh:

       setenv LESS "-options"

       or if you use sh:

       LESS="-options"; export LESS


-- 
Brian 
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Mechanical Engineering                              servis@purdue.edu
Purdue University                   http://www.ecn.purdue.edu/~servis
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