1MOST(1) MOST(1)
2
6 most - browse or page through a text file
7
9 most [ -1 ] [ -b ] [ -C ] [ -c ] [ -d ] [ -M ] [ -r ] [ -s ] [ -t ] [
10 -u ] [ -v ] [ -w ] [ -z ] [ +/string ] [ +line-number ] [ +d ] [ +s ] [
11 +u ] [ file... ]
12
15 most is a paging program that displays, one windowful at a time, the
16 contents of a file on a terminal. It pauses after each windowful and
17 prints on the window status line the screen the file name, current line
18 number, and the percentage of the file so far displayed.
19 Unlike other paging programs, most is capable of displaying an arbi‐
21 trary number of windows as long as each window occupies at least two
22 screen lines. Each window may contain the same file or a different
23 file. In addition, each window has its own mode. For example, one
24 window may display a file with its lines wrapped while another may be
25 truncating the lines. Windows may be `locked' together in the sense
26 that if one of the locked windows scrolls, all locked windows will
27 scroll. most is also capable of ignoring lines that are indented be‐
28 yond a user specified value. This is useful when viewing computer pro‐
29 grams to pick out gross features of the code. See the `:o' command for
30 a description of this feature.
31 In addition to displaying ordinary text files, most can also display
33 binary files as well as files with arbitrary ascii characters. When a
34 file is read into a buffer, most examines the first 32 bytes of the
35 file to determine if the file is a binary file and then switches to the
36 appropriate mode. However, this feature may be disabled with the -k
37 option. See the description of the -b, -k, -v, and -t options for fur‐
38 ther details.
39 Text files may contain combinations of underscore and backspace charac‐
41 ters causing a printer to underline or overstrike. When most recog‐
42 nizes this, it inserts the appropriate escape sequences to achieve the
43 desired effect. In addition, some files cause the printer to over‐
44 strike some characters by embedding carriage return characters in the
45 middle of a line. When this occurs, most displays the overstruck char‐
46 acter with a bold attribute. This feature facilitates the reading of
47 UNIX man pages or a document produced by runoff. In particular, view‐
48 ing this document with most should illustrate this behavior provided
49 that the underline characters have not been stripped. This may be
50 turned off with the -v option.
51 By default, lines with more characters than the terminal width are not
53 wrapped but are instead truncated. When truncation occurs, this is in‐
54 dicated by a `$' in the far right column of the terminal screen. The
55 RIGHT and LEFT arrow keys may be used to view lines which extend past
56 the margins of the screen. The -w option may be used to override this
57 feature. When a window is wrapped, the character `\' will appear at
58 the right edge of the window.
59 Commands are listed below.
61
63 most has supported both 256-color and 24 bit truecolor terminals since
64 version 5.2. Not all terminals are capable of generating arbitrary 24
65 bit colors. If your terminal supports 24 bit colors, but most does not
66 detect it, then set the environment variable
67 COLORTERM=truecolor
69 to force 24 bit truecolors to be used.
71
73 -1 VT100 mode. This is meaningful only on VMS systems. This op‐
74 tion should be used if the terminal is strictly a VT100. This
75 implies that the terminal does not have the ability to delete
76 and insert multiple lines. VT102s and above have this ability.
77 -b Binary mode. Use this switch when you want to view files con‐
79 taining 8 bit characters. most will display the file 16 bytes
80 per line in hexadecimal notation. A typical line looks like:
81 01000000 40001575 9C23A020 4000168D ....@..u.#. @...
83 When used with the -v option, the same line looks like:
85 ^A^@^@^@ @^@^U u 9C #A0 @^@^V8D ....@..u.#. @...
87 -C Disable color support.
89 -c Make searches case-sensitive
91 -d Omit the backslash mark used to denote a wrapped line.
93 -M Disable the use of mmap.
95 -r Default to using regexp searches
97 -s Squeeze-mode. Replace multiple blank lines with a single blank
99 line.
100 -t Display tabs as ^I. If this option is immediately followed by
102 an integer, the integer sets the tab width, e.g., -t4
103 -u Disable UTF-8 mode even if the locale dictates it
105 +u Force UTF-8 mode. By default most will use the current locale
107 to determine if UTF-8 mode should be used. The +u and -u
108 switches allow the behavior to be overridden
109 -v Display control characters as in `^A' for control A. Normally
111 most does not interpret control characters.
112 -w Wrap lines
114 -z Disable gunzip-on-the-fly
116 +/string
118 Start up at the line containing the first occurrence of string
119 +lineno
121 Start up at the specified line-number
122 +d This switch should only be used if you want the option to delete
124 a file while viewing it. This makes it easier to clean unwanted
125 files out of a directory. The file is deleted with the interac‐
126 tive key sequence `:D' and then confirming with `y'.
127 +s Secure Mode-- no edit, cd, shell, and reading files not already
129 listed on the command line.
130
132 The commands take effect immediately; it is not necessary to type a
133 carriage return. In the following commands, i is a numerical argument
134 (1 by default).
135 SPACE, CTRL-D, NEXT_SCREEN
137 Display another windowful, or jump i windowfuls if i is speci‐
138 fied.
139 RETURN, DOWN_ARROW, V, CTRL-N
141 Display another line, or i more lines, if specified.
142 UP_ARROW, ^, CTRL-P
144 Display previous line, or i previous lines, if specified.
145 T, ESCAPE<
147 Move to top of buffer.
148 B, ESCAPE>
150 Move to bottom of buffer.
151 RIGHT_ARROW, TAB, >
153 Scroll window left 60i columns to view lines that are beyond the
154 right margin of the window.
155 LEFT_ARROW, CTRL-B, <
157 Scroll window right 60i columns to view lines that are beyond
158 the left margin of the window.
159 U, CTRL-U, DELETE, PREV_SCREEN
161 Skip back i windowfuls and then print a windowful.
162 R, CTRL-R
164 Redraw the window.
165 J, G If i is not specified, then prompt for a line number then
167 jump to that line otherwise just jump to line i.
168 % If i is not specified, then prompt for a percent number then
170 jump to that percent of the file otherwise just jump to i per‐
171 cent of the file.
172 W, w If the current screen width is 80, make it 132 and vice-
174 versa. For other values, this command is ignored.
175 Q, CTRL-X CTRL-C, CTRL-K E
177 Exit from most. On VMS, ^Z also exits.
178 h, CTRL-H, HELP, PF2
180 Help. Give a description of all the most commands. The most
181 environment variable MOST_HELP must be set for this to be mean‐
182 ingful.
183 f, /, CTRL-F, FIND, GOLD PF3
185 Prompt for a string and search forward from the current line
186 for ith distinct line containing the string. CTRL-G aborts.
187 ? Prompt for a string and search backward for the ith distinct
189 line containing the string. CTRL-G aborts.
190 n Search for the next i lines containing an occurrence of the last
192 search string in the direction of the previous search.
193 m, SELECT, CTRL-@, CTRL-K M, PERIOD
195 Set a mark on the current line for later reference.
196 INSERT_HERE, CTRL-X CTRL-X, COMMA, CTRL-K RETURN, GOLD PERIOD
198 Set a mark on the current line but return to previous mark.
199 This allows the user to toggle back and forth between two posi‐
200 tions in the file.
201 l, L Toggle locking for this window. The window is locked if there
203 is a `*' at the left edge of the status line. Windows locked
204 together, scroll together.
205 CTRL-X 2, CTRL-W 2, GOLD X
207 Split this window in half.
208 CTRL-X o, CTRL-W o, o, GOLDUP, GOLDDOWN
210 Move to other window.
211 CTRL-X 0, CTRL-W 0, GOLD V
213 Delete this window.
214 CTRL-X 1, CTRL-W 1, GOLD O
216 Delete all other windows, leaving only one window.
217 E, e Edit this file.
219 $, ESC $
221 This is system dependent. On VMS, this causes most to spawn a
222 subprocess. When the user exits the process, most is resumed.
223 On UNIX systems, most simply suspends itself.
224 :n Skip to the next filename given in the command line. Use the
226 arrow keys to scroll forward or backward through the file list.
227 `Q' quits most and any other key selects the given file.
228 :c Toggle case sensitive search.
230 :D Delete current file. This command is only meaningful with the
232 +d switch.
233 :o, :O Toggle various options. With this key sequence, most displays a
235 prompt asking the user to hit one of: bdtvw. The `b', `t', `v',
236 and `w' options have the same meaning as the command line
237 switches. For example, the `w' option will toggle wrapping on
238 and off for the current window.
239 The `d' option must be used with a prefix integer i. All lines
241 indented beyond i columns will not be displayed. For example,
242 consider the fragment:
243 int main(int argc, char **argv)
247 {
248 int i;
249 for (i = 0; i < argc, i++)
250 {
251 fprintf(stdout,"%i: %s\n",i,argv[i]);
252 }
253 return 0;
254 }
255 The key sequence `1:od' will cause most to display the file ig‐
256 noring all lines indented beyond the first column. So for the
257 example above, most would display:
258 int main(int argc, char **argv)...
260 }
261 where the `...' indicates lines that follow are not displayed.
262
264 CTRL-G aborts the commands requiring the user to type something in at a
265 prompt. The back-quote key has a special meaning here. It is used to
266 quote certain characters. This is useful when search for the occur‐
267 rence of a string with a control character or a string at the beginning
268 of a line. In the latter case, to find the occurrence of `The' at the
269 beginning of a line, enter `^JThe where ` quotes the CTRL-J.
270
272 most uses the following environment variables:
273 MOST_SWITCHES
275 This variable sets commonly used switches. For example, some
276 people prefer to use most with the -s option so that excess
277 blank lines are not displayed. On VMS this is normally done
278 done in the login.com through the line:
279 $ define MOST_SWITCHES "-s"
283 MOST_EDITOR, SLANG_EDITOR
285 Either of these environment variables specify an editor for
286 most to invoke to edit a file. The value can contain %s and %d
287 formatting descriptors that represent the file name and line
288 number, respectively. For example, if JED is your editor, then
289 set MOST_EDITOR to 'jed %s -g %d'.
290 MOST_HELP
292 This variable may be used to specify an alternate help file.
293 MOST_INITFILE
295 Set this variable to specify the initialization file to load
296 during startup. The default action is to load the system con‐
297 figuration file and then a personal configuration file called
298 .mostrc on Unix, and most.rc on other systems.
299
301 When most starts up, it tries to read a system configuration file and
302 then a personal configuration file. These files may be used to specify
303 key-bindings and colors.
304 To bind a key to a particular function use the syntax:
306 setkey function-name key-sequence
308 The setkey command requires two arguments. The function-name argument
310 specifies the function that is to be executed as a response to the keys
311 specified by the key-sequence argument are pressed. For example,
312 setkey "up" "^P"
314 indicates that when Ctrl-P is pressed then the function up is to be ex‐
316 ecuted.
317 Sometimes, it is necessary to first unbind a key-sequence before re‐
319 binding it in order via the unsetkey function:
320 unsetkey "^F"
322 Colors may be defined through the use of the color keyword in the the
324 configuration file using the syntax:
325 color OBJECT-NAME FOREGROUND-COLOR BACKGROUND-COLOR
327 Here, OBJECT-NAME can be any one of the following items:
329 status -- the status line
331 underline -- underlined text
332 overstrike -- overstruck text
333 normal -- anything else
334 See the sample configuration files for more information.
336
338 Almost all of the known bugs or limitations of most are due to a desire
339 to read and interpret control characters in files. One problem con‐
340 cerns the use of backspace characters to underscore or overstrike other
341 characters. most makes an attempt to use terminal escape sequences to
342 simulate this behavior. One side effect is the one does not always get
343 what one expects when scrolling right and left through a file. When in
344 doubt, use the -v and -b options of most.
345 The regular-expression searches may fail to find strings that involve
347 backspace/underscore used for highlighting. The regular-expression
348 syntax is described in the S-Lang Library documentation.
349
351 John E. Davis <jed@jedsoft.org>
352
354 Over the years, many people have contributed to most in one way or an‐
355 other, e.g., via code patches, bug-fixes, comments, or criticisms. I
356 am particularly grateful to the very early adopters of the program who
357 took a chance with a fledgling software project headed by someone
358 learning the underlying language. These include:
359 Mats Akerberg, Henk D. Davids, Rex O. Livingston, and Mark Pizzolato
361 contributed to the early VMS versions of most. In particular, Mark
362 worked on it to get it ready for DECUS.
363 Foteos Macrides adapted most for use in cswing and gopher. A few fea‐
365 tures of the present version of most was inspired from his work.
366 I am grateful to Robert Mills for re-writing the search routines to use
368 regular expressions.
369 Sven Oliver Moll came up with the idea of automatic detection of zipped
371 files.
372 I would also like to thank Shinichi Hama for his valuable criticisms of
374 most.
375 Javier Kohen was instrumental in the support for UTF-8.
377 Thanks to David W. Sanderson for adapting the early documentation to
379 nroff man page source format.
380 30 July 2022 MOST(1)