more
Example output of themore command
Original authors	Daniel Halbert Eric Shienbrood Geoff Peck[1] John Foderaro[2]
Developers	DR,Microsoft,IBM,Toshiba,TSL,Jim Hall
Initial release	1978, 47–48 years ago
Written in	MS-DOS,PC-MOS:x86 assembly language FreeDOS,ReactOS:C
Operating system	Cross-platform
Type	Command
License	Unix, Unix-like:BSD License,CDDL MS-DOS:MIT FreeDOS, ReactOS:GPL v2 PC-MOS:GPL v3

Incomputing,more is acommand to view (but not modify) the contents of atext file one screen at a time. It is available onUnix andUnix-like systems,MS-DOS,^[3]Digital ResearchFlexOS,^[4]IBM/Toshiba4690 OS,^[5] IBMOS/2,^[6]Windows andReactOS.^[7] Programs of this sort are calledpagers.^[8]more is a very basic pager, originally allowing only forward navigation through a file, though newer implementations do allow for limited backward movement.

Themore command was originally written by Daniel Halbert, a graduate student at theUniversity of California, Berkeley, in 1978. It was later expanded on by Eric Shienbrood, Geoff Peck (added underlining, single spacing) and John Foderaro (added -c,more environment variablehistory). It was first included in 3.0BSD, and has since become a standard program in all Unix systems.less, a similar command with the extended capability of allowing both forward and backward navigation through the file, was written by Mark Nudelman between 1983 and 1985 and is now included in most Unix and Unix-like systems.

The command is available inMS-DOS versions 2 and later.^[9] Amore command is also part ofASCII'sMSX-DOS2 Tools forMSX-DOS version 2.^[10]The Software Link'sPC-MOS includes an implementation ofmore.^[11] Like the rest of the operating system, it is licensed under theGPL v3.^[12] TheFreeDOS version was developed byJim Hall and is licensed under theGPL v2.^[13] The command is also available in theKolibriOS Shell.^[14]

Thenumerical computing environmentsMATLAB andGNU Octave include amore function that turns output pagination on or off.^[15][16]

The command-syntax is:

more [options] [file_name]

If no file name is provided,more looks for input fromstandard input.

Oncemore has obtained input, it displays as much as can fit on the current screen and waits for user input to advance, with the exception that a form feed (^L) will also causemore to wait at that line, regardless of the amount of text on the screen. In the lower-left corner of the screen is displayed the text "--More--" and a percentage, representing the percent of the file thatmore has paged through. (This percentage includes the text displayed on the current screen.) Whenmore reaches the end of a file (100%) it exits. The most common methods of navigating through a file areEnter, which advances the output by one line, andSpace, which advances the output by one screen.

There are also other commands that can be used while navigating through the document; consultmore'sman page for more details.^[17]

Options are typically entered before the file name, but can also be entered in theenvironment variable$MORE. Options entered in the actual command line will override those entered in the$MORE environment variable. Available options may vary between Unix systems, but a typical set of options is as follows:

• -num: This option specifies an integer which is the screen size (in lines).
• -d:more will prompt the user with the message[Press space to continue, 'q' to quit.] and will display[Press 'h' for instructions.] instead of ringing the bell when an illegal key is pressed.
• -l:more usually treats^L (form feed) as a special character, and will pause after any line that contains a form feed. The-l option will prevent this behavior.
• -f: Causesmore to count logical, rather than screen lines (i.e., long lines are not folded).
• -p: Do not scroll. Instead, clear the whole screen and then display the text.
• -c: Do not scroll. Instead, paint each screen from the top, clearing the remainder of each line as it is displayed.
• -s: Squeeze multiple blank lines into one.
• -u: Backspaces and carriage returns to be treated as printable characters;
• +/: This option specifies a string that will be searched for before each file is displayed. (Ex.:more +/Preamble gpl.txt)
• +num: Start at line numbernum.

The command-syntax is:^[18]

command | more [/c] [/p] [/s] [/tn] [+n]more [[/c] [/p] [/s] [/tn] [+n]] < [Drive:] [Path] FileNamemore [/c] [/p] [/s] [/tn] [+n] [files]

To display the file named letter.txt on the screen, the user can type either of the following two commands:

more letter.txttype letter.txt | more

The command displays the first screen of information from letter.txt, and then the following prompt appears:

-- More—When the spacebar is pressed, the next screen of information will be displayed.

It is also possible to clear the screen and remove all extra blank lines before displaying the file:

more /c /s < letter.txttype letter.txt | more /c /s

The command-syntax is:

MORE < [drive:][path]filenamecommand | more

• drive:\path\filename – Specifies the location of the file to display one screen at a time.
• command | – Specifies the command whose output will be displayed.

Return the content of the OS/2system directory using thedir command and display it one screen at a time using themore command:

[C:\]dir C:\OS2 | more

• pg (Unix)
• less (Unix)
• most (Unix)

• Cooper, Jim (2001).Special Edition Using MS-DOS 6.22, Third Edition.Que Publishing.ISBN 978-0789725738.
• Kathy Ivens; Brian Proffit (1993).OS/2 Inside & Out.Osborne McGraw-Hill.ISBN 978-0078818714.
• Stanek, William R. (2008).Windows Command-Line Administrator's Pocket Consultant, 2nd Edition.Microsoft Press.ISBN 978-0735622623.
• McElhearn, Kirk (2006).The Mac OS X Command Line: Unix Under the Hood.John Wiley & Sons.ISBN 978-0470113851.

Wikibooks has a book on the topic of:Guide to Windows Commands

The WikibookGuide to Unix has a page on the topic of:Commands

• "FOLDOC entry for pager"; see definition #2.
• manpage of more
• more | Microsoft Docs
• Open source MORE implementation that comes with MS-DOS v2.0
• https://www.question-defense.com/documentation/linux-manpages/moreArchived 2020-06-10 at theWayback Machine

• Windows commands
• Standard Unix programs
• Unix SUS2008 utilities
• Terminal pagers
• External DOS commands
• Microsoft free software
• OS/2 commands
• ReactOS commands
• Windows administration

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