lesspipe.sh, a preprocessor for less
====================================

Version: 1.53
-------------

License: GPL
------------

Usage:	lesspipe.sh is called when the environment variable LESSOPEN is set:
------	LESSOPEN="|lesspipe.sh %s"; export LESSOPEN	(sh like shells)
	setenv LESSOPEN "|lesspipe.sh %s"		(csh, tcsh)
	Use the fully qualified path if lesspipe.sh is not in the search path
	View files in multifile archives:
			less archive_file:contained_file
	This can be used to extract single files from a multifile archive:
			less archive_file:contained_file > extracted_file
	As less is not good for extracting binary data use instead:
			lesspipe.sh archive_file:contained_file > extracted_file
	Even a file in a multifile archive that itself is contained in yet
	another archive can be viewed this way:
			less super_archive:archive_file:contained_file
	To display the last file in the file1:..:fileN chain in raw format the
	following options do exist:
		Suppress input filtering:	less file1:..:fileN:	(append 1 colon)
		Suppress decompression:		less file1:..:fileN::	(append 2 colons)
		Suppress syntax highlighting:	less file1:..:fileN:	(append 1 colon)

	Syntax highlighting is only tried if less is called with -r or -R !!!
	Force highlighting for another language:
			less file1:..:fileN:suffix
	where suffix denotes the language: .ada .asm .inc .awk .c .h .cpp .cxx
					   .groff .html .php .xml .java .js .lsp
					   .m4 makefile .pas .patch .diff .pm
					   .pl .pod .pov .py .rb .sh .sql

	To view files and filesystems on removable media (examples: DOS
	formatted disk or floppy containing tar file) use the appropriate
	device file (e.g. less /dev/fd0)

Required programs:
------------------
	bash (at least version 2.03) or zsh or ksh (also pdksh, tested with
	  version 5.2). Configure puts an appropriate first line in the script
	file (a version that recognizes the supported formats)
	  (GNU file 3.27 or above recommended)
	perl (for configure and code2color, lesspipe.sh can work without it)
	ls, rm, cat, cut and further programs for special formats (see below)

Support for the following compression methods:
----------------------------------------------
	gzip, compress, pack	requires gzip
	bzip2			requires bzip2
	zip			requires unzip
        rar			requires rar or unrar
        7-zip			requires 7za

Syntax highlighting for the following types of languages:
---------------------------------------------------------
	ada, asm, awk, c, c++, groff, html, xml, java, javascript, lisp, m4,
	make, pascal, patch, perl, povray, python, ruby, shellscript, sql
	requires the installation of the perl program 'code2color'
	(included in the lesspipe package)

Preprocesssing of the following file types (also compressed):
-------------------------------------------------------------
	tar		requires GNU tar
	nroff(mandoc)	requires groff
	ar library	requires ar
	shared library	requires nm
	executable	requires strings
	directory
	RPM		requires rpm, rpm2cpio and GNU cpio
	Microsoft Word	requires antiword
	Debian 		displays more info if dpkg is installed
	html		requires html2text or lynx
	pdf		requires pdftotext (comes with xpdf)
	perl		requires pod2text
	unmounted media requires programs to read from these media
			(GNU file 3.27 or above, tar, mdir, mtype, mtoolstest)
	rtf		requires unrtf (and optionally html2text)
	dvi		requires dvi2tty
	ps		requires pstotext or ps2ascii and gs
	mp3		requires mp3info
	iso images	requires isoinfo
	MacOSX archives requires lsbom (and an updated /etc/magic file)
	MacOS X bom	requires lsbom (and an updated /etc/magic file)
	cab		requires cabextract (version 1.0 or above)
	perl storable   requires perl
	Openoffice.org 1.x and Opendocument (OASIS) text documents
			requires o3read, html2text and an up to date
			magic file' from 'file' version 4.17 or later     

Latest version available from:
------------------------------
	http://www.desy.de/zeuthen/~friebel/unix/lesspipe.html

Extended description:
---------------------
	http://www.linux-magazin.de/ausgabe/2001/01/lesspipe/lesspipe.html
	Appeared in Linux-Magazin 1/2001 pp. 172-174 (in german)
	http://ref.cern.ch/CERN/CNL/2002/001/unix-less/ (in english)
	(see also the files english.txt and german.txt with a similar content)

Links to some utilities mentioned above (valid as of Mar 29 2006):
------------------------------------------------------------------
	file       ftp://ftp.astron.com/pub/file/
	antiword   http://www.winfield.demon.nl/
	html2text  http://www.mbayer.de/html2text/
	cabextract http://www.kyz.uklinux.net/cabextract.php

Thanks to:
----------
	Florian Cramer: MS Word, Openoffice support (o3read), ASCIIart
	Vincent Lefevre: Openoffice support (sxw2txt)
	Michael Wiedmann: Debian packages support
	Derek B. Noonburg: PDF files support
	Heinrich Kuettler: formatting, html via lynx
	Philippe Defert: unattended installation
	Vladimir Linek: inspired me to add ps and dvi support
	Carl Greco: enhanced output for .deb files
	Eduard Bloch: proposed support for ISO images
	Istvan Marko: speedup of the procedure
	Remi Mommsen: Mac OS X support
	Bastian Fuchs: Issues using bash vs. sh
	Slaven Rezic: Cygwin support, bug fixes
	Ben Kibbey: works on FreeBSD
	Sören Andersen: PPD files colorization requested
	Chelban Vasile: trap command not working under /bin/sh
	Jens Schleusener: ksh syntax fixes
	Andrew Barnert: shell syntax fix
	Ken Teague?: support more versions of file command
	Jürgen Kahnert: display debian files without dpkg

Author:  Wolfgang Friebel DESY Zeuthen (Wolfgang.Friebel AT desy.de)