MOST(1) MOST(1)
30 July 2022
NAME
most - browse or page through a text file
SYNOPSIS
most [ -1 ] [ -b ] [ -C ] [ -c ] [ -d ] [ -M ] [ -r ] [ -s ] [ -t ] [
-u ] [ -v ] [ -w ] [ -z ] [ +/string ] [ +line-number ] [ +d ] [ +s ] [
+u ] [ file... ]
DESCRIPTION
most is a paging program that displays, one windowful at a time, the
contents of a file on a terminal. It pauses after each windowful and
prints on the window status line the screen the file name, current
line number, and the percentage of the file so far displayed.
Unlike other paging programs, most is capable of displaying an
arbitrary number of windows as long as each window occupies at least
two screen lines. Each window may contain the same file or a
different file. In addition, each window has its own mode. For
example, one window may display a file with its lines wrapped while
another may be truncating the lines. Windows may be `locked' together
in the sense that if one of the locked windows scrolls, all locked
windows will scroll. most is also capable of ignoring lines that are
indented beyond a user specified value. This is useful when viewing
computer programs to pick out gross features of the code. See the
`:o' command for a description of this feature.
In addition to displaying ordinary text files, most can also display
binary files as well as files with arbitrary ascii characters. When a
file is read into a buffer, most examines the first 32 bytes of the
file to determine if the file is a binary file and then switches to
the appropriate mode. However, this feature may be disabled with the
-k option. See the description of the -b, -k, -v, and -t options for
further details.
Text files may contain combinations of underscore and backspace
characters causing a printer to underline or overstrike. When most
recognizes this, it inserts the appropriate escape sequences to
achieve the desired effect. In addition, some files cause the printer
to overstrike some characters by embedding carriage return characters
in the middle of a line. When this occurs, most displays the
overstruck character with a bold attribute. This feature facilitates
the reading of UNIX man pages or a document produced by runoff. In
particular, viewing this document with most should illustrate this
behavior provided that the underline characters have not been
stripped. This may be turned off with the -v option.
By default, lines with more characters than the terminal width are not
wrapped but are instead truncated. When truncation occurs, this is
indicated by a `$' in the far right column of the terminal screen.
The RIGHT and LEFT arrow keys may be used to view lines which extend
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past the margins of the screen. The -w option may be used to override
this feature. When a window is wrapped, the character `\' will appear
at the right edge of the window.
Commands are listed below.
COLOR SUPPORT
most has supported both 256-color and 24 bit truecolor terminals since
version 5.2. Not all terminals are capable of generating arbitrary 24
bit colors. If your terminal supports 24 bit colors, but most does not
detect it, then set the environment variable
COLORTERM=truecolor
to force 24 bit truecolors to be used.
OPTIONS
-1 VT100 mode. This is meaningful only on VMS systems. This option
should be used if the terminal is strictly a VT100. This implies
that the terminal does not have the ability to delete and insert
multiple lines. VT102s and above have this ability.
-b Binary mode. Use this switch when you want to view files
containing 8 bit characters. most will display the file 16 bytes
per line in hexadecimal notation. A typical line looks like:
01000000 40001575 9C23A020 4000168D ....@..u.#. @...
When used with the -v option, the same line looks like:
^A^@^@^@ @^@^U u 9C #A0 @^@^V8D ....@..u.#. @...
-C Disable color support.
-c Make searches case-sensitive
-d Omit the backslash mark used to denote a wrapped line.
-M Disable the use of mmap.
-r Default to using regexp searches
-s Squeeze-mode. Replace multiple blank lines with a single blank
line.
-t Display tabs as ^I. If this option is immediately followed by an
integer, the integer sets the tab width, e.g., -t4
-u Disable UTF-8 mode even if the locale dictates it
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+u Force UTF-8 mode. By default most will use the current locale to
determine if UTF-8 mode should be used. The +u and -u switches
allow the behavior to be overridden
-v Display control characters as in `^A' for control A. Normally
most does not interpret control characters.
-w Wrap lines
-z Disable gunzip-on-the-fly
+/string
Start up at the line containing the first occurrence of string
+lineno
Start up at the specified line-number
+d This switch should only be used if you want the option to delete
a file while viewing it. This makes it easier to clean unwanted
files out of a directory. The file is deleted with the
interactive key sequence `:D' and then confirming with `y'.
+s Secure Mode-- no edit, cd, shell, and reading files not already
listed on the command line.
COMMAND USAGE
The commands take effect immediately; it is not necessary to type a
carriage return. In the following commands, i is a numerical argument
(1 by default).
SPACE, CTRL-D, NEXT_SCREEN
Display another windowful, or jump i windowfuls if i is
specified.
RETURN, DOWN_ARROW, V, CTRL-N
Display another line, or i more lines, if specified.
UP_ARROW, ^, CTRL-P
Display previous line, or i previous lines, if specified.
T, ESCAPE<
Move to top of buffer.
B, ESCAPE>
Move to bottom of buffer.
RIGHT_ARROW, TAB, >
Scroll window left 60i columns to view lines that are beyond the
right margin of the window.
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LEFT_ARROW, CTRL-B, <
Scroll window right 60i columns to view lines that are beyond the
left margin of the window.
U, CTRL-U, DELETE, PREV_SCREEN
Skip back i windowfuls and then print a windowful.
R, CTRL-R
Redraw the window.
J, G If i is not specified, then prompt for a line number then
jump to that line otherwise just jump to line i.
% If i is not specified, then prompt for a percent number then jump
to that percent of the file otherwise just jump to i percent of
the file.
W, w If the current screen width is 80, make it 132 and vice-
versa. For other values, this command is ignored.
Q, CTRL-X CTRL-C, CTRL-K E
Exit from most. On VMS, ^Z also exits.
h, CTRL-H, HELP, PF2
Help. Give a description of all the most commands. The most
environment variable MOST_HELP must be set for this to be
meaningful.
f, /, CTRL-F, FIND, GOLD PF3
Prompt for a string and search forward from the current line
for ith distinct line containing the string. CTRL-G aborts.
? Prompt for a string and search backward for the ith distinct line
containing the string. CTRL-G aborts.
n Search for the next i lines containing an occurrence of the last
search string in the direction of the previous search.
m, SELECT, CTRL-@, CTRL-K M, PERIOD
Set a mark on the current line for later reference.
INSERT_HERE, CTRL-X CTRL-X, COMMA, CTRL-K RETURN, GOLD PERIOD
Set a mark on the current line but return to previous mark. This
allows the user to toggle back and forth between two positions in
the file.
l, L Toggle locking for this window. The window is locked if there is
a `*' at the left edge of the status line. Windows locked
together, scroll together.
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CTRL-X 2, CTRL-W 2, GOLD X
Split this window in half.
CTRL-X o, CTRL-W o, o, GOLDUP, GOLDDOWN
Move to other window.
CTRL-X 0, CTRL-W 0, GOLD V
Delete this window.
CTRL-X 1, CTRL-W 1, GOLD O
Delete all other windows, leaving only one window.
E, e Edit this file.
$, ESC $
This is system dependent. On VMS, this causes most to spawn a
subprocess. When the user exits the process, most is resumed.
On UNIX systems, most simply suspends itself.
:n Skip to the next filename given in the command line. Use the
arrow keys to scroll forward or backward through the file list.
`Q' quits most and any other key selects the given file.
:c Toggle case sensitive search.
:D Delete current file. This command is only meaningful with the +d
switch.
:o, :O
Toggle various options. With this key sequence, most displays a
prompt asking the user to hit one of: bdtvw. The `b', `t', `v',
and `w' options have the same meaning as the command line
switches. For example, the `w' option will toggle wrapping on
and off for the current window.
The `d' option must be used with a prefix integer i. All lines
indented beyond i columns will not be displayed. For example,
consider the fragment:
int main(int argc, char **argv)
{
int i;
for (i = 0; i < argc, i++)
{
fprintf(stdout,"%i: %s\n",i,argv[i]);
}
return 0;
}
The key sequence `1:od' will cause most to display the file
ignoring all lines indented beyond the first column. So for the
example above, most would display:
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int main(int argc, char **argv)...
}
where the `...' indicates lines that follow are not displayed.
HINTS
CTRL-G aborts the commands requiring the user to type something in at
a prompt. The back-quote key has a special meaning here. It is used
to quote certain characters. This is useful when search for the
occurrence of a string with a control character or a string at the
beginning of a line. In the latter case, to find the occurrence of
`The' at the beginning of a line, enter `^JThe where ` quotes the
CTRL-J.
ENVIRONMENT
most uses the following environment variables:
MOST_SWITCHES
This variable sets commonly used switches. For example, some
people prefer to use most with the -s option so that excess blank
lines are not displayed. On VMS this is normally done done in
the login.com through the line:
$ define MOST_SWITCHES "-s"
MOST_EDITOR, SLANG_EDITOR
Either of these environment variables specify an editor for
most to invoke to edit a file. The value can contain %s and %d
formatting descriptors that represent the file name and line
number, respectively. For example, if JED is your editor, then
set MOST_EDITOR to 'jed %s -g %d'.
MOST_HELP
This variable may be used to specify an alternate help file.
MOST_INITFILE
Set this variable to specify the initialization file to load
during startup. The default action is to load the system
configuration file and then a personal configuration file called
.mostrc on Unix, and most.rc on other systems.
CONFIGURATION FILE SYNTAX
When most starts up, it tries to read a system configuration file and
then a personal configuration file. These files may be used to specify
key-bindings and colors.
To bind a key to a particular function use the syntax:
setkey function-name key-sequence
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The setkey command requires two arguments. The function-name argument
specifies the function that is to be executed as a response to the
keys specified by the key-sequence argument are pressed. For example,
setkey "up" "^P"
indicates that when Ctrl-P is pressed then the function up is to be
executed.
Sometimes, it is necessary to first unbind a key-sequence before
rebinding it in order via the unsetkey function:
unsetkey "^F"
Colors may be defined through the use of the color keyword in the the
configuration file using the syntax:
color OBJECT-NAME FOREGROUND-COLOR BACKGROUND-COLOR
Here, OBJECT-NAME can be any one of the following items:
status -- the status line
underline -- underlined text
overstrike -- overstruck text
normal -- anything else
See the sample configuration files for more information.
BUGS
Almost all of the known bugs or limitations of most are due to a
desire to read and interpret control characters in files. One problem
concerns the use of backspace characters to underscore or overstrike
other characters. most makes an attempt to use terminal escape
sequences to simulate this behavior. One side effect is the one does
not always get what one expects when scrolling right and left through
a file. When in doubt, use the -v and -b options of most.
The regular-expression searches may fail to find strings that involve
backspace/underscore used for highlighting. The regular-expression
syntax is described in the S-Lang Library documentation.
AUTHOR
John E. Davis <jed@jedsoft.org>
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Over the years, many people have contributed to most in one way or
another, e.g., via code patches, bug-fixes, comments, or criticisms.
I am particularly grateful to the very early adopters of the program
who took a chance with a fledgling software project headed by someone
learning the underlying language. These include:
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Mats Akerberg, Henk D. Davids, Rex O. Livingston, and Mark Pizzolato
contributed to the early VMS versions of most. In particular, Mark
worked on it to get it ready for DECUS.
Foteos Macrides adapted most for use in cswing and gopher. A few
features of the present version of most was inspired from his work.
I am grateful to Robert Mills for re-writing the search routines to
use regular expressions.
Sven Oliver Moll came up with the idea of automatic detection of
zipped files.
I would also like to thank Shinichi Hama for his valuable criticisms
of most.
Javier Kohen was instrumental in the support for UTF-8.
Thanks to David W. Sanderson for adapting the early documentation to
nroff man page source format.
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