cat mod_log_config.c | shmore or shmore < mod_log_config.c Most pagers like less, more, most, and others require additional processes to be loaded, additional cpu time used, and if that wasn't bad enough, most of them modify the output in ways that can be undesirable. What I wanted was a "more" pager that was basically the same as running: cat file Without modifying the output and without additional processes being created, cpu used, etc. Normally if you want to scroll the output of cat file without modifying the output I would have to scroll back my terminal or screen buffer because less modifies the output. After looking over many examples ranging from builtin cat functions created for csh, zsh, ksh, sh, and bash from the 80's, 90s, and more recent examples shipped with bash 4, and after much trial and error, I finally came up with something that satisifed my objective. It automatically adjusts to the size of your terminal window by using the LINES variable (or 80 lines if that is empty) so This is a great function that will work as long as your shell works, so it will work just find if you are booted in single user mode and your /usr/bin directory is missing (where less and other pagers can be). Using builtins like this is fantastic and is comparable to how busybox works, as long as your shell works this will work. One caveat/note: I always have access to a color terminal, and I always setup both the termcap and the terminfo packages for color terminals (and/or ncurses and slang), so for that reason I stuck the tput setab 4; tput setaf 7 command at the beginning of the function, so it only runs 1 time, and that causes the -- SHMore -- prompt to have a blue background and bright white text. This is one of hundreds of functions I have in my http://www.askapache.com/linux-unix/bash_profile-functions-advanced-shell.html">.bash_profile at http://www.askapache.com/">AskApache.com, but actually won't be included till the next update. If you can improve this in any way at all please let me know, I would be very grateful! ( Like one thing I want is to be able to continue to the next screen by pressing any key instead of now having to press enter to continue) Show Sample Output

Manpages, command summaries, and pretty much everything else usually have the information you're most likely to want at the beginning. Seeing just the last 40 or so lines of options from a command that has 100 is not super useful, and having to scroll up each time you want to glance at something is spastic. Run this and then do something like p do vi --help and you'll get the first screen(-mostly-)full of vi's usage info and options list Then use p d to page down, and p u to page up. To see the current page again: p r Also useful for situations like p do aptitude search ~dsmorgasbord p next #p sudo aptitude -r install libwickedawesome-perl-snoochieboochies p next p sudo aptitude -r install libwickedawesome-perl-snoochieboochies snazztasticorama-dev-v0.∞ where you're using readline up-arrow, HOME, END, etc., to quickly recall commented commands. For the unaware, that option to aptitude search will bring up all of the packages whose descriptions contain the string "smorgasbord". Depending on your distro, there could potentially be hundreds of them.

Don't want to open up an editor just to view a bunch of XML files in an easy to read format? Now you can do it from the comfort of your own command line! :-) This creates a new function, xmlpager, which shows an XML file in its entirety, but with the actual content (non-tag text) highlighted. It does this by setting the foreground to color #4 (red) after every tag and resets it before the next tag. (Hint: try `tput bold` as an alternative). I use 'xmlindent' to neatly reflow and indent the text, but, of course, that's optional. If you don't have xmlindent, just replace it with 'cat'. Additionally, this example shows piping into the optional 'less' pager; note the -r option which allows raw escape codes to be passed to the terminal. Show Sample Output