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P(1L)			     Schily's USER COMMANDS			   P(1L)

NAME
     p - browse or page through files and filter unprintable characters

SYNOPSIS
     p [ options ] [ file1 ... filen ]

DESCRIPTION
     p reads the files from the argument list and displays them on standard out.
     If  the argument list is empty and standard in is not connected to a termi-
     nal, p reads from standard in.  After displaying a screen full of	text,  p
     stops and displays a MORE ?  prompt.  If p is reading input from a file and
     not from a pipe, it displays the percentage of characters already typed to-
     gether with the MORE prompt.

     p interprets non printable characters, such as control characters.  Control
     characters  are transformed into the printable character space and preceded
     by a "^" character. If the eight bit in a character is on and the character
     appears to unprintable, a tilde "~" character is preceded in addition. Tabs
     are expanded into spaces as usual on UNIX and lines that  exceed  the  line
     length of the terminal are wrapped around and continued on the next line of
     the screen.

OPTIONS
     All options can be abbreviated by their first letter.

     length=#
	    Set  the  number  of  lines  per page.  If no termcap entry could be
	    found length defaults to 24.

     width=#
	    Set the number of characters per line.  If no termcap entry could be
	    found width defaults to 79.

     -blank
	    Suppress multiple blank lines on the output.

     -clear
	    Clear the screen before displaying each new page.

     -debug
	    Print additional debugging information.

     -dos   Hide carriage-return characters that are directly followed by a new-
	    line.

     -end   Mark the end of each line with the character '$'.

     -help  Print a short summary of the available options and commands.

     -nodos
	    Do not hide carriage-return characters that are directly followed by
	    a new-line.  This option is needed in order to make p binary  trans-
	    parent,  so reading files that do not follow DOS newline conventions
	    will not be automatically converted.

     -raw   Do not expand control characters.

     -raw8  Do not expand characters with top bit set.

     -silent
	    Do not print a MORE ?  prompt. Only do the formatting for  the  con-
	    tent of the files.	This option may be used when p is only used as a
	    filter.

     -tab   Do not expand tabs to spaces, expand them to '^I'.

     -visible
	    Underlining and bold sequences become visible.

     -help  Prints a short summary of the p(1) options and exists.

     -version
	    Prints the p(1) version number string and exists.

	    If a

COMMANDS
     MORE ?  prompt is displayed, the following commands are valid:

     y,Y,<CR>,<LF>  Yes.  Display the next full screen of text.

     h,H	    Half.  Display the next half screen of text.

     q,Q	    Quarter.  Display the next quarter screen of text.

     l,L	    Line.  Display the next line of text.

     1-9	    Lines.  Display the next 1-9 lines of text.

     n,N	    Next/No.   Display the next file. If the current file is the
		    last file in the list exit p.

     p,P	    Previous.  Display the previous file. If the current file is
		    the first file in the list just start to display  the  first
		    file.

     s,S	    Stop.  Exit the p program.

     /pattern	    Search.  Start searching for pattern.

     r,R	    Research.  Re search for previous pattern.

     ^L 	    Redraw.  Redisplay the current screen content.

     v,V	    View (Edit).  Start the editor in read only mode with cursor
		    position set to the current line.

     !		    Shell.   Execute a shell using the rest of the input line as
		    shell command.

     ?		    Help.  Print a short help message that lists valid commands.

     other	    Error.  All other input will cause a beep if the environment
		    BEEP is not set to off.

     If the end of a file is reached, p will start with the next file.

ENVIRONMENT
     SHELL  For the shell to use for shell command escapes, file  name	globbing
	    and similar.

     EDITOR
	    The name of the editor (used for the v command).

     HOME   To find the private files like ~/.termcap

     TERM   The type of terminal for which the output should be formatted.

     TERMCAP
	    This  environment  variable holds either a precompiled termcap entry
	    or the pathname to be used to find a termcap database file.   If  it
	    holds  a precompiled entry that does not match the TERM environment,
	    the termcap database is parsed as if the TERMCAP environment is  not
	    set.

     TERMPATH
	    If	TERMCAP  is  empty, then the TERMPATH environment is scanned for
	    pathnames of files that contain a termcap database.  It holds a list
	    of filenames separated by colons or spaces (i.e.,  ":" or " ").   If
	    the  TERMPATH  symbol  is  not  set,  the  files  $HOME/.termcap and
	    /etc/termcap are scanned in that order.

     BEEP   The environment variable BEEP is used to suppress beeping  when  set
	    to off.  This helps to use p on a notebook in a meeting.

FILES
     /etc/termcap
	    The system's terminal capabilities database.

     ~/.termcap
	    The  private  terminal  capabilities database.  This file is checked
	    first, in case that the TERMPATH environment is not defined.

NOTES
     If you type p with no arguments and do not redirect its standard  input,  p
     will display its usage message.

     If  the terminal driver is configured to strip the eight bit in characters,
     p will display a tilde character before any character that  has  the  eight
     bit set (i.e. ~V).

BUGS
     None currently known.

     Mail  bugs  and  suggestions  to  schilytools@mlists.in-berlin.de or open a
     ticket at https://codeberg.org/schilytools/schilytools/issues.

     The mailing list archive may be found at:

     https://mlists.in-berlin.de/mailman/listinfo/schilytools-mlists.in-berlin.de.

AUTHORS
     Joerg Schilling and the schilytools project authors.

SOURCE DOWNLOAD
     The source code for p is included in the schilytools project and may be re-
     trieved from the schilytools project at Codeberg at

     https://codeberg.org/schilytools/schilytools.

     The download directory is

     https://codeberg.org/schilytools/schilytools/releases.

Joerg Schilling 		   2022/08/20				   P(1L)

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