Bash – “Chop lines” in `less` isn’t working

bashless

I'm doing:

less -S my_database_dump.sql

In order to see the files with the lines chopped (i.e. line wrapping.) But it's not working, the lines aren't being wrapped and I need to scroll horizontally to see the entire line. What can I do?

Best Answer

Try this:

fold -w $COLUMNS my_database_dump.sql | less

$COLUMNS is set to the terminal width by the shell. You can try other widths depending on your needs, of course. If you're running this in a script you may not have either $COLUMNS or $LINES defined - in that case you can use tput lines instead.

If you really want lines chopped (in this example, keep the first 80 chars) instead do this:

cut -c -80 my_database_dump.sql | less

Related Solutions

Linux – Colors in bash after piping through less

Most likely your ls is aliased to ls --color=auto, which tells ls to only use colors when its output is a tty. If you do ls --color (which is morally equivalent to ls --color=always), that will force it to turn on colors.

You could also change your alias to do that, but I wouldn't really call that a good idea. Better to make a different alias with --color.

less needs -R too, which causes it to output the raw control characters.

Bash – Clean way to write complex multi-line string to a variable

This will put your text into your variable without needing to escape the quotes. It will also handle unbalanced quotes (apostrophes, i.e. '). Putting quotes around the sentinel (EOF) prevents the text from undergoing parameter expansion. The -d'' causes it to read multiple lines (ignore newlines). read is a Bash built-in so it doesn't require calling an external command such as cat.

IFS='' read -r -d '' String <<"EOF"
<?xml version="1.0" encoding='UTF-8'?>
 <painting>
   <img src="madonna.jpg" alt='Foligno Madonna, by Raphael'/>
   <caption>This is Raphael's "Foligno" Madonna, painted in
   <date>1511</date>-<date>1512</date>.</caption>
 </painting>
EOF

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Linux – Colors in bash after piping through less

Bash – Clean way to write complex multi-line string to a variable

Related Topic