lesspipe.sh, a preprocessor for less
Version: 1.53
License: GPL
Usage: lesspipe.sh is called when the environment variable LESSOPEN is set:
------ LESSOPEN="|lesspipe.sh %s"; export LESSOPEN (sh like shells)
setenv LESSOPEN "|lesspipe.sh %s" (csh, tcsh)
Use the fully qualified path if lesspipe.sh is not in the search path
View files in multifile archives:
less archive_file:contained_file
This can be used to extract single files from a multifile archive:
less archive_file:contained_file > extracted_file
As less is not good for extracting binary data use instead:
lesspipe.sh archive_file:contained_file > extracted_file
Even a file in a multifile archive that itself is contained in yet
another archive can be viewed this way:
less super_archive:archive_file:contained_file
To display the last file in the file1:..:fileN chain in raw format the
following options do exist:
Suppress input filtering: less file1:..:fileN: (append 1 colon)
Suppress decompression: less file1:..:fileN:: (append 2 colons)
Suppress syntax highlighting: less file1:..:fileN: (append 1 colon)
Syntax highlighting is only tried if less is called with -r or -R !!!
Force highlighting for another language:
less file1:..:fileN:suffix
where suffix denotes the language: .ada .asm .inc .awk .c .h .cpp .cxx
.groff .html .php .xml .java .js .lsp
.m4 makefile .pas .patch .diff .pm
.pl .pod .pov .py .rb .sh .sql
To view files and filesystems on removable media (examples: DOS
formatted disk or floppy containing tar file) use the appropriate
device file (e.g. less /dev/fd0)
Required programs:
bash (at least version 2.03) or zsh or ksh (also pdksh, tested with
version 5.2). Configure puts an appropriate first line in the script
file (a version that recognizes the supported formats)
(GNU file 3.27 or above recommended)
perl (for configure and code2color, lesspipe.sh can work without it)
ls, rm, cat, cut and further programs for special formats (see below)
Support for the following compression methods:
gzip, compress, pack requires gzip
bzip2 requires bzip2
zip requires unzip
rar requires rar or unrar
7-zip requires 7za
Syntax highlighting for the following types of languages:
ada, asm, awk, c, c++, groff, html, xml, java, javascript, lisp, m4,
make, pascal, patch, perl, povray, python, ruby, shellscript, sql
requires the installation of the perl program 'code2color'
(included in the lesspipe package)
Preprocesssing of the following file types (also compressed):
tar requires GNU tar
nroff(mandoc) requires groff
ar library requires ar
shared library requires nm
executable requires strings
directory
RPM requires rpm, rpm2cpio and GNU cpio
Microsoft Word requires antiword
Debian displays more info if dpkg is installed
html requires html2text or lynx
pdf requires pdftotext (comes with xpdf)
perl requires pod2text
unmounted media requires programs to read from these media
(GNU file 3.27 or above, tar, mdir, mtype, mtoolstest)
rtf requires unrtf (and optionally html2text)
dvi requires dvi2tty
ps requires pstotext or ps2ascii and gs
mp3 requires mp3info
iso images requires isoinfo
MacOSX archives requires lsbom (and an updated /etc/magic file)
MacOS X bom requires lsbom (and an updated /etc/magic file)
cab requires cabextract (version 1.0 or above)
perl storable requires perl
Openoffice.org 1.x and Opendocument (OASIS) text documents
requires o3read, html2text and an up to date
magic file' from 'file' version 4.17 or later
Latest version available from:
http://www.desy.de/zeuthen/~friebel/unix/lesspipe.html
Extended description:
http://www.linux-magazin.de/ausgabe/2001/01/lesspipe/lesspipe.html
Appeared in Linux-Magazin 1/2001 pp. 172-174 (in german)
http://ref.cern.ch/CERN/CNL/2002/001/unix-less/ (in english)
(see also the files english.txt and german.txt with a similar content)
Links to some utilities mentioned above (valid as of Mar 29 2006):
file ftp://ftp.astron.com/pub/file/
antiword http://www.winfield.demon.nl/
html2text http://www.mbayer.de/html2text/
cabextract http://www.kyz.uklinux.net/cabextract.php
Thanks to:
Florian Cramer: MS Word, Openoffice support (o3read), ASCIIart
Vincent Lefevre: Openoffice support (sxw2txt)
Michael Wiedmann: Debian packages support
Derek B. Noonburg: PDF files support
Heinrich Kuettler: formatting, html via lynx
Philippe Defert: unattended installation
Vladimir Linek: inspired me to add ps and dvi support
Carl Greco: enhanced output for .deb files
Eduard Bloch: proposed support for ISO images
Istvan Marko: speedup of the procedure
Remi Mommsen: Mac OS X support
Bastian Fuchs: Issues using bash vs. sh
Slaven Rezic: Cygwin support, bug fixes
Ben Kibbey: works on FreeBSD
Sören Andersen: PPD files colorization requested
Chelban Vasile: trap command not working under /bin/sh
Jens Schleusener: ksh syntax fixes
Andrew Barnert: shell syntax fix
Ken Teague?: support more versions of file command
Jürgen Kahnert: display debian files without dpkg
Author: Wolfgang Friebel DESY Zeuthen (Wolfgang.Friebel AT desy.de)