pg(1) — Linux manual page

NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | OPTIONS | COMMANDS | ENVIRONMENT | NOTES | SEE ALSO | AVAILABILITY | COLOPHON

PG(1)                         User Commands                        PG(1)

NAME         top

       pg - browse pagewise through text files

SYNOPSIS         top

       pg [-amount] [-p prompt] [-cefnrs] [+line] [+/pattern/] [file...]

DESCRIPTION         top

       pg displays a text file on a CRT one screenful at once.  After
       each page, a prompt is displayed.  The user may then either press
       the newline key to view the next page or one of the keys
       described below.

       If no filename is given on the command line, pg reads from
       standard input.  If standard output is not a terminal, pg acts
       like cat(1) but precedes each file with its name if there is more
       than one.

       If input comes from a pipe, pg stores the data in a buffer file
       while reading, to make navigation possible.

OPTIONS         top

       pg accepts the following options:

       +number
              Start at the given line number.

       +/pattern/
              Start at the line containing the Basic Regular Expression
              pattern given.

       -number
              The number of lines per page.  By default, this is the
              number of CRT lines minus one.

       -c     Clear the screen before a page is displayed, if the
              terminfo entry for the terminal provides this capability.

       -e     Do not pause and display (EOF) at the end of a file.

       -f     Do not split long lines.

       -n     Without this option, commands must be terminated by a
              newline character.  With this option, pg advances once a
              command letter is entered.

       -p string
              Instead of the normal prompt :, string is displayed.  If
              string contains %d, its first occurrence is replaced by
              the number of the current page.

       -r     Disallow the shell escape.

       -s     Print messages in standout mode, if the terminfo entry for
              the terminal provides this capability.

       -V, --version
              Display version information and exit.

       -h, --help
              Display help text and exit.

COMMANDS         top

       The following commands may be entered at the prompt.  Commands
       preceded by i in this document accept a number as argument,
       positive or negative.  If this argument starts with + or -, it is
       interpreted relative to the current position in the input file,
       otherwise relative to the beginning.

       i<Enter>
              Display the next or the indicated page.

       id or ^D
              Display the next halfpage.  If i is given, it is always
              interpreted relative to the current position.

       il     Display the next or the indicated line.

       if     Skip a page forward.  i must be a positive number and is
              always interpreted relative to the current position.

       iw or iz
              As <Enter> except that i becomes the new page size.

       . or ^L
              Redraw the screen.

       $      Advance to the last line of the input file.

       i/pattern/
              Search forward until the first or the i-th occurrence of
              the Basic Regular Expression pattern is found.  The search
              starts after the current page and stops at the end of the
              file.  No wrap-around is performed.  i must be a positive
              number.

       i?pattern? or i^pattern^
              Search backward until the first or the i-th occurrence of
              the Basic Regular Expression pattern is found.  The search
              starts before the current page and stops at the beginning
              of the file.  No wrap-around is performed.  i must be a
              positive number.

       The search commands accept an added letter.  If t is given, the
       line containing the pattern is displayed at the top of the
       screen, which is the default.  m selects the middle and b the
       bottom of the screen.  The selected position is used in following
       searches, too.

       in     Advance to the next file or i files forward.

       ip     Reread the previous file or i files backward.

       s filename
              Save the current file to the given filename.

       h      Display a command summary.

       !command
              Execute command using the shell.

       q or Q Quit.

       If the user presses the interrupt or quit key while pg reads from
       the input file or writes on the terminal, pg will immediately
       display the prompt.  In all other situations these keys will
       terminate pg.

ENVIRONMENT         top

       The following environment variables affect the behavior of pg:

       COLUMNS
              Overrides the system-supplied number of columns if set.

       LANG, LC_ALL, LC_COLLATE, LC_CTYPE, LC_MESSAGES
              See locale(7).

       LINES  Overrides the system-supplied number of lines if set.

       SHELL  Used by the ! command.

       TERM   Determines the terminal type.

NOTES         top

       pg expects the terminal tabulators to be set every eight
       positions.

       Files that include NUL characters cannot be displayed by pg.

SEE ALSO         top

       cat(1), more(1), sh(1p), terminfo(5), locale(7), regex(7),
       term(7)

AVAILABILITY         top

       The pg command is part of the util-linux package and is available
       from https://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/util-linux/.

COLOPHON         top

       This page is part of the util-linux (a random collection of Linux
       utilities) project.  Information about the project can be found
       at ⟨https://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/util-linux/⟩.  If you
       have a bug report for this manual page, send it to
       util-linux@vger.kernel.org.  This page was obtained from the
       project's upstream Git repository
       ⟨git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/utils/util-linux/util-linux.git⟩ on
       2021-03-21.  (At that time, the date of the most recent commit
       that was found in the repository was 2021-03-19.)  If you
       discover any rendering problems in this HTML version of the page,
       or you believe there is a better or more up-to-date source for
       the page, or you have corrections or improvements to the
       information in this COLOPHON (which is not part of the original
       manual page), send a mail to man-pages@man7.org

util-linux                      July 2014                          PG(1)