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Full Discussion: Help with the "less" command
Top Forums Shell Programming and Scripting Help with the "less" command Post 302377693 by nrogers64 on Friday 4th of December 2009 06:53:16 PM
Old 12-04-2009
Question Help with the "less" command
I've noticed that on Ubuntu, the "more" and "less" command seem to behave quite differently. I imagine the same is true with other distros, but I know for sure that what I'm about to describe is true with Ubuntu.

When using the "less" command in a shell script, it outputs the text as though it's a separate program, and then once it's done outputting, the script's output goes back to where it left off. It's pretty difficult to explain, so maybe I should just post the code:

--------------------------------------------------
Code:
#!/bin/bash

if [ ! -d "/tmp/script_test/" ]; then
    mkdir "/tmp/script_test/"
fi

for (( i = 1 ; i <= 40 ; i++ ))
do
    if [ $i == 1 ]; then
        echo "Title 1" > "/tmp/script_test/list_of_titles.txt"
    else
        echo "Title $i" >> "/tmp/script_test/list_of_titles.txt"
    fi

    echo "       This is a description of Title $i" > "/tmp/script_test/Title $i Description.txt"
done

BYELLOW="\E[1;33;40m"
WHITE="\E[0;37;40m"

function list_display() {
    i=1
    while read Title
    do
        echo -e "${BYELLOW}${i}: ${Title}${WHITE}"

        if [ -e "/tmp/script_test/$Title Description.txt" ]; then
            cat "/tmp/script_test/$Title Description.txt"
        fi

        i=`expr $i + 1`
    done < /tmp/script_test/list_of_titles.txt
}

echo
echo ---
echo "Displaying the list using 'more'..."
echo ---
sleep 2
list_display | more

echo
echo ---
echo "Displaying the list using 'less'..."
echo ---
sleep 2
list_display | less -E -F -r --prompt="Press Space for more or q when done"

--------------------------------------------------
Any help would be appreciated.
Last edited by pludi; 12-05-2009 at 06:29 AM.. Reason: code tags, please...
 

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LEARN ABOUT SUNOS

shell

shell(1F)							   FMLI Commands							 shell(1F)

NAME

       shell - run a command using shell

SYNOPSIS

       shell command [command] ...

DESCRIPTION

       The  shell  function  concatenate  its arguments, separating each by a space, and passes this string to the shell ($SHELL if set, otherwise
       /usr/bin/sh).

EXAMPLES

       Example 1: A sample output of shell command.

       Since the Form and Menu Language does not directly support background processing, the shell function can be used instead.

       `shell "build prog > /dev/null &"`

       If you want the user to continue to be able to interact with the application while the background job is running, the  output  of  an  exe-
       cutable	run  by shell in the background must be redirected: to a file if you want to save the output, or to /dev/null if you don't want to
       save it (or if there is no output), otherwise your application may appear to be hung until the background job finishes processing.

       shell can also be used to execute a command that has the same name as an FMLI built-in function.

NOTES

       The arguments to shell will be concatenate using spaces, which may or may not do what is expected. The variables set in local  environments
       will not be expanded by the shell because "local" means "local to the current process."

ATTRIBUTES

       See attributes(5) for descriptions of the following attributes:

       +-----------------------------+-----------------------------+
       |      ATTRIBUTE TYPE	     |	    ATTRIBUTE VALUE	   |
       +-----------------------------+-----------------------------+
       |Availability		     |SUNWcsu			   |
       +-----------------------------+-----------------------------+

SEE ALSO

       sh(1), attributes(5)

SunOS 5.10							    5 Jul 1990								 shell(1F)
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