more Command#

The more command is similar to less in that it allows you to browse the contents of a file in a paginated manner. After exiting the more command, the operations performed will remain on the shell. While browsing in pagination, you can use the h key to output the help file.

Syntax#

more [options] [file]

Options#

• -d: Prompts the user to display [Press space to continue, 'q' to quit.] at the bottom of the screen. If the user presses the wrong key, it will display [Press 'h' for instructions.] instead of beeping.
• -f: Calculates the actual number of lines, not the number of lines after automatic line wrapping. Some single-line words that are too long will be expanded into two or more lines.
• -l: Disables the feature that pauses when encountering the special character ^L for page breaks.
• -c: Instead of scrolling, it draws each screen from the top, clearing the remaining parts of each line displayed, similar to -p, but different in that it first displays the content before clearing other output.
• -p: Does not display each page in scroll mode, but clears the output first before displaying the content.
• -s: Substitutes consecutive blank lines with a single blank line.
• -u: Hides the underscore, which varies depending on the terminal specified by the TERM environment variable.
• -<num>: Specifies the number of lines per screen.
• +<num>: Displays the content starting from line num.
• +/<str>: Searches for the string str before displaying each document, and then begins displaying from that string onwards.
• -V: Displays version information.

Common Operations#

• h or ?: Help menu, displays a summary of commands.
• SPACE: Display the next k lines of text, with the default being the current screen size.
• Enter: Moves down n lines, where n needs to be defined, defaulting to 1 line.
• Ctrl+F: Scrolls down one page.
• Ctrl+B: Goes back one page.
• =: Outputs the line number of the current line.
• :f: Outputs the file name and the line number of the current line.
• V: Invokes the vi editor.
• ! <cmd>: Invokes the Shell and executes the command.
• q: Exits the more command.

Examples#

Paginate the contents of the /var/log/ufw.log file.

more /var/log/ufw.log

Display the contents of the /var/log/ufw.log file starting from line 20.

more +20 /var/log/ufw.log

Paginate the contents of the /var/log/ufw.log file, with 1 line per page.

more -1 /var/log/ufw.log

Daily Question#

References#