Re: README files

[Steve Block <scblock@ev-15.com>]

On Mon, Dec 19, 2005 at 10:43:16AM -0500, Derrick Hudson wrote:
> On Sun, Dec 18, 2005 at 05:18:32PM -0700, Ed Paris wrote:
> |  
> | Hi There,
> | 
> | I want to read the README.Debian.gz file.  I have tried to use vi and nano
> | and all I get is gibberish.  How should I access this file in English?
> | Thanks.
>
> That file is a plain text file, but it is compressed using the gzip
> algorithm.  The .gz suffix is an indication that (unless someone is
> playing a funny trick) the file was compressed with gzip.  You can
> verify this with the 'file' utility:
>    $ file README.Debian.gz
>    README.Debian.gz:     gzip compressed data, was "README.Debian", from Unix, max compression
>
> In addition to the ways people have already suggested (my preference
> is vim) you can use the 'gunzip' command to uncompress the file.  For
> example:
>    $ gunzip --stdout README.Debian.gz | less
>    $ gunzip --stdout README.Debian > /tmp/README.Debian ; less /tmp/README.Debian
>    $ cp README.Debian.gz  /tmp ; cd /tmp ; gunzip README.Debian.gz ; less README.Debian 
>
> HTH,
> -D

The easiest way to deal with this is to use the pager less combined with 
the following line in .bashrc (or the corresponsing file for your shell 
of choice).

eval $(lesspipe)

This will set things up to make life easier for you with less. Now less 
file.gz will work as if the file was not compressed.

--
Steve Block
http://ev-15.com/
http://steveblock.com/
scblock@ev-15.com