--- layout: page category-title: Basic commands category-page: basic tags: More and less author: Marzio Lunghi title: more and Less ---

Both commands show the content of one or more files and it’s possible to do a research with particular flags, but the “less” one allows us to go also backwards while reading the text of a file.
More is quite old, less is more recent and powerful.
General syntax for both is:

less [flags] path/name-file.*
more [flags] path/name-file.*
The command less provides some useful commands to navigate and modify the file content. Commands does not include flags, which are included under Options.

Commands

Such commands must be used once the file has been displayed. They are not flags. For a single operation there can be multiple commands.

Jumping

Such commands must be used once the file has been displayed. They are not. For a single operation there can be multiple commands.


Flags

Options may be given in one of two forms: either a single character preceded by a "-", or a name preceded by "--" .