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Top Forums UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers Using color escape codes in less Post 302237689 by Source2Exe on Thursday 18th of September 2008 07:23:52 AM
Old 09-18-2008
Error Using color escape codes in less

Hi all,
Not sure how "for dummies" this question is, but I'd better use understatement...

A. My Environment
==============
I am using RedHat Linux, version 2.6.18-53.el5.
When I type less --version I get:

less 394
Copyright (C) 1984-2005 Mark Nudelman
...

My terminal is configured as Xterm, using ANSI colors and indeed, typing
ls --color=yes produces a colored list.

B. Background
===========
I am using a small pearl script that colors lines of text according to predefined key words.
This is a very nice utility. When I redirect tail -f output to it, it produces nice color logs of my server, with words such as "Exception" or "Error" conveniently colored.

Recently I wanted to try a more ambitious use of this script: To use it together with less command.

Anyone can understand, that less +F is better than tail -f, as one can press CTRL+C at any given time when viewing a file online, and scroll or search within it effortlessly, without ever returning to the shell prompt.

Which leads me to:

C. The Problem
===========
1. I can not get less to show color.
Even typing "ls --color=yes > test.txt"
and then less -r text.txt or less -R text.txt NEVER displays the content in color. The output is actually the same as doing a "ls --color=no"

2. I read a bit about less input preprocessor the related Environment Variables in UNIX man pages : less ().

3.But, I can not figure out how I can turn less to use colors on a regular basis, How I can make less to "relay" all its output through my color pearl script, and mostly - Is it possible at all?

Any help would be highly appreciated.

Attached are my colorlogs.pl and colorlogs.conf files, to complement this post.

Thank you in advance.

Last edited by Source2Exe; 09-20-2008 at 11:13 AM.. Reason: Change icon
 

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COLORS(3)						   libbash colors Library Manual						 COLORS(3)

NAME
colors -- libbash library for setting tty colors. SYNOPSIS
colorSet <color> colorReset colorPrint [<indent>] <color> <text> colorPrintN [<indent>] <color> <text> DESCRIPTION
General colors is a collection of functions that make it very easy to put colored text on tty. The function list: colorSet Sets the color of the prints to the tty to COLOR colorReset Resets current tty color back to normal colorPrint Prints TEXT in the color COLOR indented by INDENT (without adding a newline) colorPrintN The same as colorPrint, but trailing newline is added Detailed interface description follows. Available colors: Green Red Yellow White The color parameter is non-case-sensitive (i.e. RED, red, ReD, and all the other forms are valid and are the same as Red). FUNCTIONS DESCRIPTIONS
colorSet <color> Sets the current printing color to color. colorReset Resets current tty color back to normal. colorPrint [<indent>] <color> Prints text using the color color indented by indent (without adding a newline). Parameters: <indent> The column to move to before start printing. This parameter is optional. If ommitted - start output from current cursor position. <color> The color to use. <color> The text to print. colorPrintN [<indent>] <color> The same as colorPrint, except a trailing newline is added. EXAMPLES
Printing a green 'Hello World' with a newline: Using colorSet: $ colorSet green $ echo 'Hello World' $ colorReset Using colorPrint: $ colorPrint 'Hello World'; echo Using colorPrintN: $ colorPrintN 'Hello World' AUTHORS
Hai Zaar <haizaar@haizaar.com> Gil Ran <gil@ran4.net> SEE ALSO
ldbash(1), libbash(1) Linux Epoch Linux
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