less is a terminal pager program on Unix, Windows, and Unix-like systems used to view (but not change) the contents of a text file one screen at a time. It is similar to more, but has the extended capability of allowing both forward and backward navigation through the file. Unlike most Unix text editors/viewers, less does not need to read the entire file before starting, resulting in faster load times with large files.
less was initially written ...
More
less is a terminal pager program on Unix, Windows, and Unix-like systems used to view (but not change) the contents of a text file one screen at a time. It is similar to more, but has the extended capability of allowing both forward and backward navigation through the file. Unlike most Unix text editors/viewers, less does not need to read the entire file before starting, resulting in faster load times with large files.
less was initially written by Mark Nudelman during 1983-85, in the need of a version of more able to do backward scrolling of the displayed text. The name came from the joke of doing "backwards more." To help remember the difference between less and more, a common joke is to say, "less > more," implying that less has greater functionality than more. A similar saying is that "less is more, more or less". less is now part of the GNU project and it is included in most Unix and Unix-like systems.
less can be invoked with options to change its behaviour, for example, the...
Less
