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NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | COMMAND SECTION | EXAMPLE | PRECEDENCE | LINE EDITING SECTION | EXAMPLE | LESS ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES | EXAMPLE | SEE ALSO | WARNINGS | COPYRIGHT | AUTHOR | COLOPHON |
LESSKEY(1) General Commands Manual LESSKEY(1)
lesskey - specify key bindings for less
lesskey [-o output] [--] [input]
lesskey [--output=output] [--] [input]
lesskey -V
lesskey --version
Lesskey is used to specify a set of key bindings to be used by less.
The input file is a text file which describes the key bindings. If
the input file is "-", standard input is read. If no input file is
specified, a standard filename is used as the name of the input file,
which depends on the system being used: On Unix systems,
$HOME/.lesskey is used; on MS-DOS systems, $HOME/_lesskey is used;
and on OS/2 systems $HOME/lesskey.ini is used, or $INIT/lesskey.ini
if $HOME is undefined. The output file is a binary file which is
used by less. If no output file is specified, and the environment
variable LESSKEY is set, the value of LESSKEY is used as the name of
the output file. Otherwise, a standard filename is used as the name
of the output file, which depends on the system being used: On Unix
and OS-9 systems, $HOME/.less is used; on MS-DOS systems, $HOME/_less
is used; and on OS/2 systems, $HOME/less.ini is used, or
$INIT/less.ini if $HOME is undefined. If the output file already
exists, lesskey will overwrite it.
The -V or --version option causes lesskey to print its version number
and immediately exit. If -V or --version is present, other options
and arguments are ignored.
The input file consists of one or more sections. Each section starts
with a line that identifies the type of section. Possible sections
are:
#command
Defines new command keys.
#line-edit
Defines new line-editing keys.
#env Defines environment variables.
Blank lines and lines which start with a pound sign (#) are ignored,
except for the special section header lines.
The command section begins with the line
#command
If the command section is the first section in the file, this line
may be omitted. The command section consists of lines of the form:
string <whitespace> action [extra-string] <newline>
Whitespace is any sequence of one or more spaces and/or tabs. The
string is the command key(s) which invoke the action. The string may
be a single command key, or a sequence of up to 15 keys. The action
is the name of the less action, from the list below. The characters
in the string may appear literally, or be prefixed by a caret to
indicate a control key. A backslash followed by one to three octal
digits may be used to specify a character by its octal value. A
backslash followed by certain characters specifies input characters
as follows:
\b BACKSPACE
\e ESCAPE
\n NEWLINE
\r RETURN
\t TAB
\ku UP ARROW
\kd DOWN ARROW
\kr RIGHT ARROW
\kl LEFT ARROW
\kU PAGE UP
\kD PAGE DOWN
\kh HOME
\ke END
\kx DELETE
A backslash followed by any other character indicates that character
is to be taken literally. Characters which must be preceded by
backslash include caret, space, tab and the backslash itself.
An action may be followed by an "extra" string. When such a command
is entered while running less, the action is performed, and then the
extra string is parsed, just as if it were typed in to less. This
feature can be used in certain cases to extend the functionality of a
command. For example, see the "{" and ":t" commands in the example
below. The extra string has a special meaning for the "quit" action:
when less quits, first character of the extra string is used as its
exit status.
The following input file describes the set of default command keys
used by less:
#command
\r forw-line
\n forw-line
e forw-line
j forw-line
\kd forw-line
^E forw-line
^N forw-line
k back-line
y back-line
^Y back-line
^K back-line
^P back-line
J forw-line-force
K back-line-force
Y back-line-force
d forw-scroll
^D forw-scroll
u back-scroll
^U back-scroll
\40 forw-screen
f forw-screen
^F forw-screen
^V forw-screen
\kD forw-screen
b back-screen
^B back-screen
\ev back-screen
\kU back-screen
z forw-window
w back-window
\e\40 forw-screen-force
F forw-forever
\eF forw-until-hilite
R repaint-flush
r repaint
^R repaint
^L repaint
\eu undo-hilite
g goto-line
\kh goto-line
< goto-line
\e< goto-line
p percent
% percent
\e[ left-scroll
\e] right-scroll
\e( left-scroll
\e) right-scroll
\kl left-scroll
\kr right-scroll
\e{ no-scroll
\e} end-scroll
{ forw-bracket {}
} back-bracket {}
( forw-bracket ()
) back-bracket ()
[ forw-bracket []
] back-bracket []
\e^F forw-bracket
\e^B back-bracket
G goto-end
\e> goto-end
> goto-end
\ke goto-end
\eG goto-end-buffered
= status
^G status
:f status
/ forw-search
? back-search
\e/ forw-search *
\e? back-search *
n repeat-search
\en repeat-search-all
N reverse-search
\eN reverse-search-all
& filter
m set-mark
' goto-mark
^X^X goto-mark
E examine
:e examine
^X^V examine
:n next-file
:p prev-file
t next-tag
T prev-tag
:x index-file
:d remove-file
- toggle-option
:t toggle-option t
s toggle-option o
_ display-option
| pipe
v visual
! shell
+ firstcmd
H help
h help
V version
0 digit
1 digit
2 digit
3 digit
4 digit
5 digit
6 digit
7 digit
8 digit
9 digit
q quit
Q quit
:q quit
:Q quit
ZZ quit
Commands specified by lesskey take precedence over the default
commands. A default command key may be disabled by including it in
the input file with the action "invalid". Alternatively, a key may
be defined to do nothing by using the action "noaction". "noaction"
is similar to "invalid", but less will give an error beep for an
"invalid" command, but not for a "noaction" command. In addition,
ALL default commands may be disabled by adding this control line to
the input file:
#stop
This will cause all default commands to be ignored. The #stop line
should be the last line in that section of the file.
Be aware that #stop can be dangerous. Since all default commands are
disabled, you must provide sufficient commands before the #stop line
to enable all necessary actions. For example, failure to provide a
"quit" command can lead to frustration.
The line-editing section begins with the line:
#line-edit
This section specifies new key bindings for the line editing
commands, in a manner similar to the way key bindings for ordinary
commands are specified in the #command section. The line-editing
section consists of a list of keys and actions, one per line as in
the example below.
The following input file describes the set of default line-editing
keys used by less:
#line-edit
\t forw-complete
\17 back-complete
\e\t back-complete
^L expand
^V literal
^A literal
\el right
\kr right
\eh left
\kl left
\eb word-left
\e\kl word-left
\ew word-right
\e\kr word-right
\ei insert
\ex delete
\kx delete
\eX word-delete
\ekx word-delete
\e\b word-backspace
\e0 home
\kh home
\e$ end
\ke end
\ek up
\ku up
\ej down
^G abort
The environment variable section begins with the line
#env
Following this line is a list of environment variable assignments.
Each line consists of an environment variable name, an equals sign
(=) and the value to be assigned to the environment variable. White
space before and after the equals sign is ignored. Variables
assigned in this way are visible only to less. If a variable is
specified in the system environment and also in a lesskey file, the
value in the lesskey file takes precedence. Although the lesskey
file can be used to override variables set in the environment, the
main purpose of assigning variables in the lesskey file is simply to
have all less configuration information stored in one file.
The following input file sets the -i option whenever less is run, and
specifies the character set to be "latin1":
#env
LESS = -i
LESSCHARSET = latin1
less(1)
On MS-DOS and OS/2 systems, certain keys send a sequence of
characters which start with a NUL character (0). This NUL character
should be represented as \340 in a lesskey file.
Copyright (C) 1984-2016 Mark Nudelman
less is part of the GNU project and is free software. You can
redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of either (1) the
GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software
Foundation; or (2) the Less License. See the file README in the less
distribution for more details regarding redistribution. You should
have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with the
source for less; see the file COPYING. If not, write to the Free
Software Foundation, 59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston, MA
02111-1307, USA. You should also have received a copy of the Less
License; see the file LICENSE.
less is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT
ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or
FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License
for more details.
Mark Nudelman
Send bug reports or comments to <bug-less@gnu.org>.
This page is part of the less (A file pager) project. Information
about the project can be found at
⟨http://www.greenwoodsoftware.com/less/⟩. If you have a bug report
for this manual page, see
⟨http://www.greenwoodsoftware.com/less/faq.html#bugs⟩. This page was
obtained from the tarball less-487.tar.gz fetched from
⟨http://www.greenwoodsoftware.com/less/download.html⟩ on 2017-07-05.
If you discover any rendering problems in this HTML version of the
page, or you believe there is a better or more up-to-date source for
the page, or you have corrections or improvements to the information
in this COLOPHON (which is not part of the original manual page),
send a mail to man-pages@man7.org
Version 487: 25 Oct 2016 LESSKEY(1)