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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 |
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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
M set-mark-bottom
\em clear-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) 1984-2020 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-563.tar.gz fetched from
⟨http://www.greenwoodsoftware.com/less/download.html⟩ on
2020-12-18. 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 563: 13 Jun 2020 LESSKEY(1)
Pages that refer to this page: less(1)
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