flee@gondor.psu.edu (Felix Lee) (11/03/87)
In article <1957@killer.UUCP> elg@killer.UUCP (Eric Green) writes: >"pg" is sorry compared to "less". Pg is comparable to less. Both let you go to an arbitrary point in a file. Both let you page backwards (but less will use scroll-backwards, if your terminal has it; pg doesn't). Pg with the -n option will use cbreak mode, like less, so you don't have to hit RETURN after every command. Pg is better than less. If you feed a pipeline to pg, pg will copy stdin to a temporary file, so you can still go to an arbitrary point in your output. Less is limited by internal buffering. Pg also has a "save" command, so you can pipe a command to pg and keep the results after seeing them. Less (version 73) has an -L option to "log" stdin, but you have to decide to save stdin before you invoke less. Less is better than pg. Less lets you set marks in the style of vi. Less lets you change tabstops with the -x option. Even better, you can change options while you're in less: just type "-x4" or "-x2" the next time you're looking at a C program that indents 12 levels deep. Pg has none of these features. Pg is licensed by AT&T. Less is free. -- Felix Lee flee@gondor.psu.edu {cbosgd,cmcl2}!psuvax1!gondor!flee
wcs@ho95e.ATT.COM (Bill.Stewart) (11/04/87)
In article <1957@killer.UUCP> elg@killer.UUCP (Eric Green) writes: >"pg" is sorry compared to "less". "pg" comes with System V. "more" comes with 4.*BSD. "less" is public domain, and doesn't come standard with either, last I checked. When you're having a religious war about whose computer is better, it's fair to compare "pg" and "more"; it's not fair to compare "less" with either one since it didn't come from either the Government-funded BSD community or the commercial AT&T (NIH) community. It came from an independent person who wanted the best features of both, and didn't have to go through a large bureaucracy to add them. pg has a few good feature more doesn't, and not as many bugs, but it's not as friendly and I seldom use it. Instead, I alias more=less and usually get what I want. You can too, since the source comes free off the net.
allbery@ncoast.UUCP (Brandon Allbery) (11/08/87)
As quoted from <1831@ho95e.ATT.COM> by wcs@ho95e.ATT.COM (Bill.Stewart): +--------------- | In article <1957@killer.UUCP> elg@killer.UUCP (Eric Green) writes: | >"pg" is sorry compared to "less". +--------------- I have already commented on this. I just want to add one thing: Everyone seems impressed that "less" will "scroll backward". I found this so obnoxious (and NOT because I was on a slow terminal!) that I went back to using "more". I plan on reimplementing "pg" in the public domain, fixing a few things that I consider bugs (for example, it switches to -icanon mode after displaying the prompt and switches back to icanon after getting the command, which has, shall we say, "unpleasant" effects on typeahead). On the other hand, "less" is perfect for people who enjoy "vi". (I prefer emacs, personally, but I don't get into religious wars about it because I can understand how forbidding emacs can look to others. Especially since I'm now having to virtually relearn Emacs in order to un-learn Jove and learn Gnu instead....) It presents a user interface that is similar to vi without its overhead. -- Brandon S. Allbery necntc!ncoast!allbery@harvard.harvard.edu {harvard!necntc,well!hoptoad,sun!mandrill!hal,uunet!hnsurg3}!ncoast!allbery Moderator of comp.sources.misc
charles@hpcvcd.HP (Charles Brown) (11/09/87)
> On the other hand, "less" is perfect for people who enjoy "vi". (I prefer > emacs, personally, but I don't get into religious wars about it because I > can understand how forbidding emacs can look to others. Especially since > Brandon S. Allbery necntc!ncoast!allbery@harvard.harvard.edu It turns out to be not too hard to put emacs bindings into less. I did this for an earlier version of less. I have been too busy to do it with the new version. Charles Brown hplabs!hp-pcd!charles