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MORE(1P) POSIX Programmer's Manual MORE(1P)
PROLOG
This manual page is part of the POSIX Programmer's Manual. The Linux implementation of this interface may differ (con-
sult the corresponding Linux manual page for details of Linux behavior), or the interface may not be implemented on
Linux.
NAME
more - display files on a page-by-page basis
SYNOPSIS
more [-ceisu][-n number][-p command][-t tagstring][file ...]
DESCRIPTION
The more utility shall read files and either write them to the terminal on a page-by-page basis or filter them to stan-
dard output. If standard output is not a terminal device, all input files shall be copied to standard output in their
entirety, without modification, except as specified for the -s option. If standard output is a terminal device, the
files shall be written a number of lines (one screenful) at a time under the control of user commands. See the EXTENDED
DESCRIPTION section.
Certain block-mode terminals do not have all the capabilities necessary to support the complete more definition; they are
incapable of accepting commands that are not terminated with a <newline>. Implementations that support such terminals
shall provide an operating mode to more in which all commands can be terminated with a <newline> on those terminals. This
mode:
* Shall be documented in the system documentation
* Shall, at invocation, inform the user of the terminal deficiency that requires the <newline> usage and provide
instructions on how this warning can be suppressed in future invocations
* Shall not be required for implementations supporting only fully capable terminals
* Shall not affect commands already requiring <newline>s
* Shall not affect users on the capable terminals from using more as described in this volume of IEEE Std 1003.1-2001
OPTIONS
The more utility shall conform to the Base Definitions volume of IEEE Std 1003.1-2001, Section 12.2, Utility Syntax
Guidelines.
The following options shall be supported:
-c If a screen is to be written that has no lines in common with the current screen, or more is writing its first
screen, more shall not scroll the screen, but instead shall redraw each line of the screen in turn, from the top
of the screen to the bottom. In addition, if more is writing its first screen, the screen shall be cleared. This
option may be silently ignored on devices with insufficient terminal capabilities.
-e By default, more shall exit immediately after writing the last line of the last file in the argument list. If the
-e option is specified:
1. If there is only a single file in the argument list and that file was completely displayed on a single screen,
more shall exit immediately after writing the last line of that file.
2. Otherwise, more shall exit only after reaching end-of-file on the last file in the argument list twice without
an intervening operation. See the EXTENDED DESCRIPTION section.
-i Perform pattern matching in searches without regard to case; see the Base Definitions volume of
IEEE Std 1003.1-2001, Section 9.2, Regular Expression General Requirements.
-n number
Specify the number of lines per screenful. The number argument is a positive decimal integer. The -n option shall
override any values obtained from any other source.
-p command
Each time a screen from a new file is displayed or redisplayed (including as a result of more commands; for exam-
ple, :p), execute the more command(s) in the command arguments in the order specified, as if entered by the user
after the first screen has been displayed. No intermediate results shall be displayed (that is, if the command is
a movement to a screen different from the normal first screen, only the screen resulting from the command shall be
displayed.) If any of the commands fail for any reason, an informational message to this effect shall be written,
and no further commands specified using the -p option shall be executed for this file.
-s Behave as if consecutive empty lines were a single empty line.
-t tagstring
Write the screenful of the file containing the tag named by the tagstring argument. See the ctags utility. The
tags feature represented by -t tagstring and the :t command is optional. It shall be provided on any system that
also provides a conforming implementation of ctags; otherwise, the use of -t produces undefined results.
The filename resulting from the -t option shall be logically added as a prefix to the list of command line files, as if
specified by the user. If the tag named by the tagstring argument is not found, it shall be an error, and more shall take
no further action.
If the tag specifies a line number, the first line of the display shall contain the beginning of that line. If the tag
specifies a pattern, the first line of the display shall contain the beginning of the matching text from the first line
of the file that contains that pattern. If the line does not exist in the file or matching text is not found, an informa-
tional message to this effect shall be displayed, and more shall display the default screen as if -t had not been speci-
fied.
If both the -t tagstring and -p command options are given, the -t tagstring shall be processed first; that is, the file
and starting line for the display shall be as specified by -t, and then the -p more command shall be executed. If the
line (matching text) specified by the -t command does not exist (is not found), no -p more command shall be executed for
this file at any time.
-u Treat a <backspace> as a printable control character, displayed as an implementation-defined character sequence
(see the EXTENDED DESCRIPTION section), suppressing backspacing and the special handling that produces underlined
or standout mode text on some terminal types. Also, do not ignore a <carriage-return> at the end of a line.
OPERANDS
The following operand shall be supported:
file A pathname of an input file. If no file operands are specified, the standard input shall be used. If a file is
'-', the standard input shall be read at that point in the sequence.
STDIN
The standard input shall be used only if no file operands are specified, or if a file operand is '-' .
INPUT FILES
The input files being examined shall be text files. If standard output is a terminal, standard error shall be used to
read commands from the user. If standard output is a terminal, standard error is not readable, and command input is
needed, more may attempt to obtain user commands from the controlling terminal (for example, /dev/tty); otherwise, more
shall terminate with an error indicating that it was unable to read user commands. If standard output is not a terminal,
no error shall result if standard error cannot be opened for reading.
ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
The following environment variables shall affect the execution of more:
COLUMNS
Override the system-selected horizontal display line size. See the Base Definitions volume of
IEEE Std 1003.1-2001, Chapter 8, Environment Variables for valid values and results when it is unset or null.
EDITOR Used by the v command to select an editor. See the EXTENDED DESCRIPTION section.
LANG Provide a default value for the internationalization variables that are unset or null. (See the Base Definitions
volume of IEEE Std 1003.1-2001, Section 8.2, Internationalization Variables for the precedence of international-
ization variables used to determine the values of locale categories.)
LC_ALL If set to a non-empty string value, override the values of all the other internationalization variables.
LC_COLLATE
Determine the locale for the behavior of ranges, equivalence classes, and multi-character collating elements
within regular expressions.
LC_CTYPE
Determine the locale for the interpretation of sequences of bytes of text data as characters (for example, single-
byte as opposed to multi-byte characters in arguments and input files) and the behavior of character classes
within regular expressions.
LC_MESSAGES
Determine the locale that should be used to affect the format and contents of diagnostic messages written to stan-
dard error and informative messages written to standard output.
NLSPATH
Determine the location of message catalogs for the processing of LC_MESSAGES .
LINES Override the system-selected vertical screen size, used as the number of lines in a screenful. See the Base Defi-
nitions volume of IEEE Std 1003.1-2001, Chapter 8, Environment Variables for valid values and results when it is
unset or null. The -n option shall take precedence over the LINES variable for determining the number of lines in
a screenful.
MORE Determine a string containing options described in the OPTIONS section preceded with hyphens and <blank>-separated
as on the command line. Any command line options shall be processed after those in the MORE variable, as if the
command line were:
more $MORE options operands
The MORE variable shall take precedence over the TERM and LINES variables for determining the number of lines in a
screenful.
TERM Determine the name of the terminal type. If this variable is unset or null, an unspecified default terminal type
is used.
ASYNCHRONOUS EVENTS
Default.
STDOUT
The standard output shall be used to write the contents of the input files.
STDERR
The standard error shall be used for diagnostic messages and user commands (see the INPUT FILES section), and, if stan-
dard output is a terminal device, to write a prompting string. The prompting string shall appear on the screen line below
the last line of the file displayed in the current screenful. The prompt shall contain the name of the file currently
being examined and shall contain an end-of-file indication and the name of the next file, if any, when prompting at the
end-of-file. If an error or informational message is displayed, it is unspecified whether it is contained in the prompt.
If it is not contained in the prompt, it shall be displayed and then the user shall be prompted for a continuation char-
acter, at which point another message or the user prompt may be displayed. The prompt is otherwise unspecified. It is
unspecified whether informational messages are written for other user commands.
OUTPUT FILES
None.
EXTENDED DESCRIPTION
The following section describes the behavior of more when the standard output is a terminal device. If the standard out-
put is not a terminal device, no options other than -s shall have any effect, and all input files shall be copied to
standard output otherwise unmodified, at which time more shall exit without further action.
The number of lines available per screen shall be determined by the -n option, if present, or by examining values in the
environment (see the ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES section). If neither method yields a number, an unspecified number of lines
shall be used.
The maximum number of lines written shall be one less than this number, because the screen line after the last line writ-
ten shall be used to write a user prompt and user input. If the number of lines in the screen is less than two, the
results are undefined. It is unspecified whether user input is permitted to be longer than the remainder of the single
line where the prompt has been written.
The number of columns available per line shall be determined by examining values in the environment (see the ENVIRONMENT
VARIABLES section), with a default value as described in the Base Definitions volume of IEEE Std 1003.1-2001, Chapter 8,
Environment Variables.
Lines that are longer than the display shall be folded; the length at which folding occurs is unspecified, but should be
appropriate for the output device. Folding may occur between glyphs of single characters that take up multiple display
columns.
When standard output is a terminal and -u is not specified, more shall treat <backspace>s and <carriage-return>s spe-
cially:
* A character, followed first by a sequence of n <backspace>s (where n is the same as the number of column positions
that the character occupies), then by n underscore characters ( '_' ), shall cause that character to be written as
underlined text, if the terminal type supports that. The n underscore characters, followed first by n <backspace>s,
then any character with n column positions, shall also cause that character to be written as underlined text, if the
terminal type supports that.
* A sequence of n <backspace>s (where n is the same as the number of column positions that the previous character occu-
pies) that appears between two identical printable characters shall cause the first of those two characters to be
written as emboldened text (that is, visually brighter, standout mode, or inverse-video mode), if the terminal type
supports that, and the second to be discarded. Immediately subsequent occurrences of <backspace>/ character pairs for
that same character shall also be discarded. (For example, the sequence "a\ba\ba\ba" is interpreted as a single
emboldened 'a' .)
* The more utility shall logically discard all other <backspace>s from the line as well as the character which precedes
them, if any.
* A <carriage-return> at the end of a line shall be ignored, rather than being written as a non-printable character, as
described in the next paragraph.
It is implementation-defined how other non-printable characters are written. Implementations should use the same format
that they use for the ex print command; see the OPTIONS section within the ed utility. It is unspecified whether a multi-
column character shall be separated if it crosses a display line boundary; it shall not be discarded. The behavior is
unspecified if the number of columns on the display is less than the number of columns any single character in the line
being displayed would occupy.
When each new file is displayed (or redisplayed), more shall write the first screen of the file. Once the initial screen
has been written, more shall prompt for a user command. If the execution of the user command results in a screen that has
lines in common with the current screen, and the device has sufficient terminal capabilities, more shall scroll the
screen; otherwise, it is unspecified whether the screen is scrolled or redrawn.
For all files but the last (including standard input if no file was specified, and for the last file as well, if the -e
option was not specified), when more has written the last line in the file, more shall prompt for a user command. This
prompt shall contain the name of the next file as well as an indication that more has reached end-of-file. If the user
command is f, <control>-F, <space>, j, <newline>, d, <control>-D, or s, more shall display the next file. Otherwise, if
displaying the last file, more shall exit. Otherwise, more shall execute the user command specified.
Several of the commands described in this section display a previous screen from the input stream. In the case that text
is being taken from a non-rewindable stream, such as a pipe, it is implementation-defined how much backwards motion is
supported. If a command cannot be executed because of a limitation on backwards motion, an error message to this effect
shall be displayed, the current screen shall not change, and the user shall be prompted for another command.
If a command cannot be performed because there are insufficient lines to display, more shall alert the terminal. If a
command cannot be performed because there are insufficient lines to display or a / command fails: if the input is the
standard input, the last screen in the file may be displayed; otherwise, the current file and screen shall not change,
and the user shall be prompted for another command.
The interactive commands in the following sections shall be supported. Some commands can be preceded by a decimal inte-
ger, called count in the following descriptions. If not specified with the command, count shall default to 1. In the fol-
lowing descriptions, pattern is a basic regular expression, as described in the Base Definitions volume of
IEEE Std 1003.1-2001, Section 9.3, Basic Regular Expressions. The term "examine" is historical usage meaning "open the
file for viewing''; for example, more foo would be expressed as examining file foo.
In the following descriptions, unless otherwise specified, line is a line in the more display, not a line from the file
being examined.
In the following descriptions, the current position refers to two things:
1. The position of the current line on the screen
2. The line number (in the file) of the current line on the screen
Usually, the line on the screen corresponding to the current position is the third line on the screen. If this is not
possible (there are fewer than three lines to display or this is the first page of the file, or it is the last page of
the file), then the current position is either the first or last line on the screen as described later.
Help
Synopsis:
h
Write a summary of these commands and other implementation-defined commands. The behavior shall be as if the more utility
were executed with the -e option on a file that contained the summary information. The user shall be prompted as
described earlier in this section when end-of-file is reached. If the user command is one of those specified to continue
to the next file, more shall return to the file and screen state from which the h command was executed.
Scroll Forward One Screenful
Synopsis:
[count]f
[count]<control>-F
Scroll forward count lines, with a default of one screenful. If count is more than the screen size, only the final
screenful shall be written.
Scroll Backward One Screenful
Synopsis:
[count]b
[count]<control>-B
Scroll backward count lines, with a default of one screenful (see the -n option). If count is more than the screen size,
only the final screenful shall be written.
Scroll Forward One Line
Synopsis:
[count]<space>
[count]j
[count]<newline>
Scroll forward count lines. The default count for the <space> shall be one screenful; for j and <newline>, one line. The
entire count lines shall be written, even if count is more than the screen size.
Scroll Backward One Line
Synopsis:
[count]k
Scroll backward count lines. The entire count lines shall be written, even if count is more than the screen size.
Scroll Forward One Half Screenful
Synopsis:
[count]d
[count]<control>-D
Scroll forward count lines, with a default of one half of the screen size. If count is specified, it shall become the new
default for subsequent d, <control>-D, and u commands.
Skip Forward One Line
Synopsis:
[count]s
Display the screenful beginning with the line count lines after the last line on the current screen. If count would cause
the current position to be such that less than one screenful would be written, the last screenful in the file shall be
written.
Scroll Backward One Half Screenful
Synopsis:
[count]u
[count]<control>-U
Scroll backward count lines, with a default of one half of the screen size. If count is specified, it shall become the
new default for subsequent d, <control>-D, u, and <control>-U commands. The entire count lines shall be written, even if
count is more than the screen size.
Go to Beginning of File
Synopsis:
[count]g
Display the screenful beginning with line count.
Go to End-of-File
Synopsis:
[count]G
If count is specified, display the screenful beginning with the line count. Otherwise, display the last screenful of the
file.
Refresh the Screen
Synopsis:
r
<control>-L
Refresh the screen.
Discard and Refresh
Synopsis:
R
Refresh the screen, discarding any buffered input. If the current file is non-seekable, buffered input shall not be dis-
carded and the R command shall be equivalent to the r command.
Mark Position
Synopsis:
mletter
Mark the current position with the letter named by letter, where letter represents the name of one of the lowercase let-
ters of the portable character set. When a new file is examined, all marks may be lost.
Return to Mark
Synopsis:
'letter
Return to the position that was previously marked with the letter named by letter, making that line the current position.
Return to Previous Position
Synopsis:
''
Return to the position from which the last large movement command was executed (where a "large movement" is defined as
any movement of more than a screenful of lines). If no such movements have been made, return to the beginning of the
file.
Search Forward for Pattern
Synopsis:
[count]/[!]pattern<newline>
Display the screenful beginning with the countth line containing the pattern. The search shall start after the first line
currently displayed. The null regular expression ( '/' followed by a <newline>) shall repeat the search using the previ-
ous regular expression, with a default count. If the character '!' is included, the matching lines shall be those that do
not contain the pattern. If no match is found for the pattern, a message to that effect shall be displayed.
Search Backward for Pattern
Synopsis:
[count]?[!]pattern<newline>
Display the screenful beginning with the countth previous line containing the pattern. The search shall start on the last
line before the first line currently displayed. The null regular expression ( '?' followed by a <newline>) shall repeat
the search using the previous regular expression, with a default count. If the character '!' is included, matching lines
shall be those that do not contain the pattern. If no match is found for the pattern, a message to that effect shall be
displayed.
Repeat Search
Synopsis:
[count]n
Repeat the previous search for countth line containing the last pattern (or not containing the last pattern, if the pre-
vious search was "/!" or "?!" ).
Repeat Search in Reverse
Synopsis:
[count]N
Repeat the search in the opposite direction of the previous search for the countth line containing the last pattern (or
not containing the last pattern, if the previous search was "/!" or "?!" ).
Examine New File
Synopsis:
:e [filename]<newline>
Examine a new file. If the filename argument is not specified, the current file (see the :n and :p commands below) shall
be re-examined. The filename shall be subjected to the process of shell word expansions (see Word Expansions ); if more
than a single pathname results, the effects are unspecified. If filename is a number sign ( '#' ), the previously exam-
ined file shall be re-examined. If filename is not accessible for any reason (including that it is a non-seekable file),
an error message to this effect shall be displayed and the current file and screen shall not change.
Examine Next File
Synopsis:
[count]:n
Examine the next file. If a number count is specified, the countth next file shall be examined. If filename refers to a
non-seekable file, the results are unspecified.
Examine Previous File
Synopsis:
[count]:p
Examine the previous file. If a number count is specified, the countth previous file shall be examined. If filename
refers to a non-seekable file, the results are unspecified.
Go to Tag
Synopsis:
:t tagstring<newline>
If the file containing the tag named by the tagstring argument is not the current file, examine the file, as if the :e
command was executed with that file as the argument. Otherwise, or in addition, display the screenful beginning with the
tag, as described for the -t option (see the OPTIONS section). If the ctags utility is not supported by the system, the
use of :t produces undefined results.
Invoke Editor
Synopsis:
v
Invoke an editor to edit the current file being examined. If standard input is being examined, the results are unspeci-
fied. The name of the editor shall be taken from the environment variable EDITOR , or shall default to vi. If the last
pathname component in EDITOR is either vi or ex, the editor shall be invoked with a -c linenumber command line argument,
where linenumber is the line number of the file line containing the display line currently displayed as the first line of
the screen. It is implementation-defined whether line-setting options are passed to editors other than vi and ex.
When the editor exits, more shall resume with the same file and screen as when the editor was invoked.
Display Position
Synopsis:
=
<control>-G
Write a message for which the information references the first byte of the line after the last line of the file on the
screen. This message shall include the name of the file currently being examined, its number relative to the total num-
ber of files there are to examine, the line number in the file, the byte number and the total bytes in the file, and what
percentage of the file precedes the current position. If more is reading from standard input, or the file is shorter than
a single screen, the line number, the byte number, the total bytes, and the percentage need not be written.
Quit
Synopsis:
q
:q
ZZ
Exit more.
EXIT STATUS
The following exit values shall be returned:
0 Successful completion.
>0 An error occurred.
CONSEQUENCES OF ERRORS
If an error is encountered accessing a file when using the :n command, more shall attempt to examine the next file in the
argument list, but the final exit status shall be affected. If an error is encountered accessing a file via the :p com-
mand, more shall attempt to examine the previous file in the argument list, but the final exit status shall be affected.
If an error is encountered accessing a file via the :e command, more shall remain in the current file and the final exit
status shall not be affected.
The following sections are informative.
APPLICATION USAGE
When the standard output is not a terminal, only the -s filter-modification option is effective. This is based on histor-
ical practice. For example, a typical implementation of man pipes its output through more -s to squeeze excess white
space for terminal users. When man is piped to lp, however, it is undesirable for this squeezing to happen.
EXAMPLES
The -p allows arbitrary commands to be executed at the start of each file. Examples are:
more -p G file1 file2
Examine each file starting with its last screenful.
more -p 100 file1 file2
Examine each file starting with line 100 in the current position (usually the third line, so line 98 would be the
first line written).
more -p /100 file1 file2
Examine each file starting with the first line containing the string "100" in the current position
RATIONALE
The more utility, available in BSD and BSD-derived systems, was chosen as the prototype for the POSIX file display pro-
gram since it is more widely available than either the public-domain program less or than pg, a pager provided in System
V. The 4.4 BSD more is the model for the features selected; it is almost fully upwards-compatible from the 4.3 BSD ver-
sion in wide use and has become more amenable for vi users. Several features originally derived from various file edi-
tors, found in both less and pg, have been added to this volume of IEEE Std 1003.1-2001 as they have proved extremely
popular with users.
There are inconsistencies between more and vi that result from historical practice. For example, the single-character
commands h, f, b, and <space> are screen movers in more, but cursor movers in vi. These inconsistencies were maintained
because the cursor movements are not applicable to more and the powerful functionality achieved without the use of the
control key justifies the differences.
The tags interface has been included in a program that is not a text editor because it promotes another degree of consis-
tent operation with vi. It is conceivable that the paging environment of more would be superior for browsing source code
files in some circumstances.
The operating mode referred to for block-mode terminals effectively adds a <newline> to each Synopsis line that currently
has none. So, for example, d <newline> would page one screenful. The mode could be triggered by a command line option,
environment variable, or some other method. The details are not imposed by this volume of IEEE Std 1003.1-2001 because
there are so few systems known to support such terminals. Nevertheless, it was considered that all systems should be able
to support more given the exception cited for this small community of terminals because, in comparison to vi, the cursor
movements are few and the command set relatively amenable to the optional <newline>s.
Some versions of more provide a shell escaping mechanism similar to the ex ! command. The standard developers did not
consider that this was necessary in a paginator, particularly given the wide acceptance of multiple window terminals and
job control features. (They chose to retain such features in the editors and mailx because the shell interaction also
gives an opportunity to modify the editing buffer, which is not applicable to more.)
The -p (position) option replaces the + command because of the Utility Syntax Guidelines. In early proposals, it took a
pattern argument, but historical less provided the more general facility of a command. It would have been desirable to
use the same -c as ex and vi, but the letter was already in use.
The text stating "from a non-rewindable stream ... implementations may limit the amount of backwards motion supported"
would allow an implementation that permitted no backwards motion beyond text already on the screen. It was not possible
to require a minimum amount of backwards motion that would be effective for all conceivable device types. The implementa-
tion should allow the user to back up as far as possible, within device and reasonable memory allocation constraints.
Historically, non-printable characters were displayed using the ARPA standard mappings, which are as follows:
1. Printable characters are left alone.
2. Control characters less than \177 are represented as followed by the character offset from the '@' character in the
ASCII map; for example, \007 is represented as 'G' .
3. \177 is represented as followed by '?' .
The display of characters having their eighth bit set was less standard. Existing implementations use hex (0x00), octal
(\000), and a meta-bit display. (The latter displayed characters with their eighth bit set as the two characters "M-",
followed by the seven-bit display as described previously.) The latter probably has the best claim to historical practice
because it was used with the -v option of 4 BSD and 4 BSD-derived versions of the cat utility since 1980.
No specific display format is required by IEEE Std 1003.1-2001. Implementations are encouraged to conform to historic
practice in the absence of any strong reason to diverge.
FUTURE DIRECTIONS
None.
SEE ALSO
Shell Command Language, ctags, ed, ex, vi
COPYRIGHT
Portions of this text are reprinted and reproduced in electronic form from IEEE Std 1003.1, 2003 Edition, Standard for
Information Technology -- Portable Operating System Interface (POSIX), The Open Group Base Specifications Issue 6, Copy-
right (C) 2001-2003 by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc and The Open Group. In the event of any
discrepancy between this version and the original IEEE and The Open Group Standard, the original IEEE and The Open Group
Standard is the referee document. The original Standard can be obtained online at http://www.open-
group.org/unix/online.html .
IEEE/The Open Group 2003 MORE(1P)
