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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  terminal,  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 charac-
       ters already typed together 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 pre-
       ceded  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  fol-
	      lowed  by	 a new-line.  This option is needed in order to	make p
	      binary transparent, so reading files that	do not follow DOS new-
	      line 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
	      content  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 com-
		      mands.

       other	      Error.  All other	input will cause a beep	if  the	 envi-
		      ronment 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 glob-
	      bing 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 en-
	      try or the pathname to be	used to	find a termcap database	 file.
	      If it holds a precompiled	entry that does	not match the TERM en-
	      vironment,  the termcap database is parsed as if the TERMCAP en-
	      vironment	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  de-
	      fined.

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 charac-
       ters, 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
       retrieved 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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