                                  most

Name

   most -- browse or page through a text file

Synopsis

   most [-1] [-b] [-C] [-c] [-d] [-M] [-r] [-s] [-t] [-u] [-v]
   [-w] [-z] [+/string] [+line-number] [+d] [+s] [+u] [file...]

DESCRIPTION

   most is a paging program that displays, one windowful at a
   time, the contents of a file on a terminal. It pauses after
   each windowful and prints on the window status line the screen
   the file name, current line number, and the percentage of the
   file so far displayed.

   Unlike other paging programs, most is capable of displaying an
   arbitrary number of windows as long as each window occupies at
   least two screen lines. Each window may contain the same file
   or a different file. In addition, each window has its own mode.
   For example, one window may display a file with its lines
   wrapped while another may be truncating the lines. Windows may
   be `locked' together in the sense that if one of the locked
   windows scrolls, all locked windows will scroll. most is also
   capable of ignoring lines that are indented beyond a user
   specified value. This is useful when viewing computer programs
   to pick out gross features of the code. See the `:o' command
   for a description of this feature.

   In addition to displaying ordinary text files, most can also
   display binary files as well as files with arbitrary ascii
   characters. When a file is read into a buffer, most examines
   the first 32 bytes of the file to determine if the file is a
   binary file and then switches to the appropriate mode. However,
   this feature may be disabled with the -k option. See the
   description of the -b, -k, -v, and -t options for further
   details.

   Text files may contain combinations of underscore and backspace
   characters causing a printer to underline or overstrike. When
   most recognizes this, it inserts the appropriate escape
   sequences to achieve the desired effect. In addition, some
   files cause the printer to overstrike some characters by
   embedding carriage return characters in the middle of a line.
   When this occurs, most displays the overstruck character with a
   bold attribute. This feature facilitates the reading of UNIX
   man pages or a document produced by runoff. In particular,
   viewing this document with most should illustrate this behavior
   provided that the underline characters have not been stripped.
   This may be turned off with the -v option.

   By default, lines with more characters than the terminal width
   are not wrapped but are instead truncated. When truncation
   occurs, this is indicated by a `$' in the far right column of
   the terminal screen. The RIGHT and LEFT arrow keys may be used
   to view lines which extend past the margins of the screen. The
   -w option may be used to override this feature. When a window
   is wrapped, the character `\' will appear at the right edge of
   the window.

   Commands are listed below.

OPTIONS

   -1
          VT100 mode. This is meaningful only on VMS systems. This
          option should be used if the terminal is strictly a
          VT100. This implies that the terminal does not have the
          ability to delete and insert multiple lines. VT102s and
          above have this ability.

   -b
          Binary mode. Use this switch when you want to view files
          containing 8 bit characters. most will display the file
          16 bytes per line in hexadecimal notation. A typical
          line looks like:

   01000000 40001575 9C23A020 4000168D     ....@..u.#. @...

          When used with the -v option, the same line looks like:

   ^A^@^@^@  @^@^U u 9C #A0    @^@^V8D     ....@..u.#. @...

   -C
          Disable color support.

   -c
          Make searches case-sensitive

   -d
          Omit the backslash mark used to denote a wrapped line.

   -M
          Disable the use of mmap.

   -r
          Default to using regexp searches

   -s
          Squeeze-mode. Replace multiple blank lines with a single
          blank line.

   -t
          Display tabs as ^I. If this option is immediately
          followed by an integer, the integer sets the tab width,
          e.g., -t4

   -u
          Disable UTF-8 mode even if the locale dictates it

   +u
          Force UTF-8 mode. By default most will use the current
          locale to determine if UTF-8 mode should be used. The +u
          and -u switches allow the behavior to be overridden

   -v
          Display control characters as in `^A' for control A.
          Normally most does not interpret control characters.

   -w
          Wrap lines

   -z
          Disable gunzip-on-the-fly

   +/string
          Start up at the line containing the first occurrence of
          string

   +lineno
          Start up at the specified line-number

   +d
          This switch should only be used if you want the option
          to delete a file while viewing it. This makes it easier
          to clean unwanted files out of a directory. The file is
          deleted with the interactive key sequence `:D' and then
          confirming with `y'.

   +s
          Secure Mode-- no edit, cd, shell, and reading files not
          already listed on the command line.

COMMAND USAGE

   The commands take effect immediately; it is not necessary to
   type a carriage return. In the following commands, i is a
   numerical argument (1 by default).

   SPACE, CTRL-D, NEXT_SCREEN
          Display another windowful, or jump i windowfuls if i is
          specified.

   RETURN, DOWN_ARROW, V, CTRL-N
          Display another line, or i more lines, if specified.

   UP_ARROW, ^, CTRL-P
          Display previous line, or i previous lines, if
          specified.

   T, ESCAPE<
          Move to top of buffer.

   B, ESCAPE>
          Move to bottom of buffer.

   RIGHT_ARROW, TAB, >
          Scroll window left 60i columns to view lines that are
          beyond the right margin of the window.

   LEFT_ARROW, CTRL-B, <
          Scroll window right 60i columns to view lines that are
          beyond the left margin of the window.

   U, CTRL-U, DELETE, PREV_SCREEN
          Skip back i windowfuls and then print a windowful.

   R, CTRL-R
          Redraw the window.

   J, G
          If i is not specified, then prompt for a line number
          then jump to that line otherwise just jump to line i.

   %
          If i is not specified, then prompt for a percent number
          then jump to that percent of the file otherwise just
          jump to i percent of the file.

   W, w
          If the current screen width is 80, make it 132 and
          vice-versa. For other values, this command is ignored.

   Q, CTRL-X CTRL-C, CTRL-K E
          Exit from most. On VMS, ^Z also exits.

   h, CTRL-H, HELP, PF2
          Help. Give a description of all the most commands. The
          most environment variable MOST_HELP must be set for this
          to be meaningful.

   f, /, CTRL-F, FIND, GOLD PF3
          Prompt for a string and search forward from the current
          line for ith distinct line containing the string. CTRL-G
          aborts.

   ?
          Prompt for a string and search backward for the ith
          distinct line containing the string. CTRL-G aborts.

   n
          Search for the next i lines containing an occurrence of
          the last search string in the direction of the previous
          search.

   m, SELECT, CTRL-@, CTRL-K M, PERIOD
          Set a mark on the current line for later reference.

   INSERT_HERE, CTRL-X CTRL-X, COMMA, CTRL-K RETURN, GOLD PERIOD
          Set a mark on the current line but return to previous
          mark. This allows the user to toggle back and forth
          between two positions in the file.

   l, L
          Toggle locking for this window. The window is locked if
          there is a `*' at the left edge of the status line.
          Windows locked together, scroll together.

   CTRL-X 2, CTRL-W 2, GOLD X
          Split this window in half.

   CTRL-X o, CTRL-W o, o, GOLDUP, GOLDDOWN
          Move to other window.

   CTRL-X 0, CTRL-W 0, GOLD V
          Delete this window.

   CTRL-X 1, CTRL-W 1, GOLD O
          Delete all other windows, leaving only one window.

   E, e
          Edit this file.

   $, ESC $
          This is system dependent. On VMS, this causes most to
          spawn a subprocess. When the user exits the process,
          most is resumed. On UNIX systems, most simply suspends
          itself.

   :n
          Skip to the next filename given in the command line. Use
          the arrow keys to scroll forward or backward through the
          file list. `Q' quits most and any other key selects the
          given file.

   :c
          Toggle case sensitive search.

   :D
          Delete current file. This command is only meaningful
          with the +d switch.

   :o, :O
          Toggle various options. With this key sequence, most
          displays a prompt asking the user to hit one of: bdtvw.
          The `b', `t', `v', and `w' options have the same meaning
          as the command line switches. For example, the `w'
          option will toggle wrapping on and off for the current
          window.

          The `d' option must be used with a prefix integer i. All
          lines indented beyond i columns will not be displayed.
          For example, consider the fragment:

   int main(int argc, char **argv)
   {
     int i;
     for (i = 0; i < argc, i++)
       {
         fprintf(stdout,"%i: %s\n",i,argv[i]);
       }
     return 0;
   }

          The key sequence `1:od' will cause most to display the
          file ignoring all lines indented beyond the first
          column. So for the example above, most would display:

   int main(int argc, char **argv)...
   }

          where the `...' indicates lines that follow are not
          displayed.

HINTS

   CTRL-G aborts the commands requiring the user to type something
   in at a prompt. The back-quote key has a special meaning here.
   It is used to quote certain characters. This is useful when
   search for the occurrence of a string with a control character
   or a string at the beginning of a line. In the latter case, to
   find the occurrence of `The' at the beginning of a line, enter
   `^JThe where ` quotes the CTRL-J.

ENVIRONMENT

   most uses the following environment variables:

   MOST_SWITCHES
          This variable sets commonly used switches. For example,
          some people prefer to use most with the -s option so
          that excess blank lines are not displayed. On VMS this
          is normally done done in the login.com through the line:

   $ define MOST_SWITCHES "-s"

   MOST_EDITOR, SLANG_EDITOR
          Either of these environment variables specify an editor
          for most to invoke to edit a file. The value can contain
          %s and %d formatting descriptors that represent the file
          name and line number, respectively. For example, if JED
          is your editor, then set MOST_EDITOR to 'jed %s -g %d'.

   MOST_HELP
          This variable may be used to specify an alternate help
          file.

   MOST_INITFILE
          Set this variable to specify the initialization file to
          load during startup. The default action is to load the
          system configuration file and then a personal
          configuration file called .mostrc on Unix, and most.rc
          on other systems.

CONFIGURATION FILE SYNTAX

   When most starts up, it tries to read a system configuration
   file and then a personal configuration file. These files may be
   used to specify key-bindings and colors.

   To bind a key to a particular function use the syntax:
    setkey function-name key-sequence

   The setkey command requires two arguments. The function-name
   argument specifies the function that is to be executed as a
   response to the keys specified by the key-sequence argument are
   pressed. For example,
    setkey   "up"     "^P"

   indicates that when Ctrl-P is pressed then the function up is
   to be executed.

   Sometimes, it is necessary to first unbind a key-sequence
   before rebinding it in order via the unsetkey function:
    unsetkey "^F"

   Colors may be defined through the use of the color keyword in
   the the configuration file using the syntax:
    color OBJECT-NAME FOREGROUND-COLOR BACKGROUND-COLOR

   Here, OBJECT-NAME can be any one of the following items:
     status           -- the status line
     underline        -- underlined text
     overstrike       -- overstruck text
     normal           -- anything else

   See the sample configuration files for more information.

BUGS

   Almost all of the known bugs or limitations of most are due to
   a desire to read and interpret control characters in files. One
   problem concerns the use of backspace characters to underscore
   or overstrike other characters. most makes an attempt to use
   terminal escape sequences to simulate this behavior. One side
   effect is the one does not always get what one expects when
   scrolling right and left through a file. When in doubt, use the
   -v and -b options of most.

   The regular-expression searches may fail to find strings that
   involve backspace/underscore used for highlighting. The
   regular-expression syntax is described in the S-Lang Library
   documentation.

AUTHOR

   John E. Davis <jed@jedsoft.org>

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

   Over the years, many people have contributed to most in one way
   or another, e.g., via code patches, bug-fixes, comments, or
   criticisms. I am particularly grateful to the very early
   adopters of the program who took a chance with a fledgling
   software project headed by someone learning the underlying
   language. These include:

   Mats Akerberg, Henk D. Davids, Rex O. Livingston, and Mark
   Pizzolato contributed to the early VMS versions of most. In
   particular, Mark worked on it to get it ready for DECUS.

   Foteos Macrides adapted most for use in cswing and gopher. A
   few features of the present version of most was inspired from
   his work.

   I am grateful to Robert Mills for re-writing the search
   routines to use regular expressions.

   Sven Oliver Moll came up with the idea of automatic detection
   of zipped files.

   I would also like to thank Shinichi Hama for his valuable
   criticisms of most.

   Javier Kohen was instrumental in the support for UTF-8.

   Thanks to David W. Sanderson for adapting the early
   documentation to nroff man page source format.
