less command g vs p option
In less for navigation purposes according with this tutorial
indicates:
g Go to the first line in the file.
p Go to the beginning of the file.
I tested both, and of course the result is the same (of course using G to go bottom) and testing each one.
But just at a first glance if g and G do the opposite to each other and they are enough to go to the first line (top) and last line (bottom) respectively – so why there is the p option if it does the same as g?
He, this is mischaracterizing what these commands actually do. p is for "percentage".
Try typing 20p and you’ll jump to 20% of the file length. Nifty!
20g works too, but it goes to the twentieth line.
Simply typing g or p just implies 0g or 0p; because the zeroth line and the zeroth byte are both the file’s beginning, that works out as the same.
You can test this rather easily; I’m assuming you’re using zsh:
#!/usr/bin/zsh
(for i in {1..1000}; echo $i) | less
will display 1000 numbered lines, and 33g will jump to line 33, but 33.3p will jump to line 333 🙂
It says in the less help (less a file, press h) that you can go to the percent mark of the file with p. For example, you can do 50p in the less prompt and it will go to the 50% point (halfway point) of the file. I think the reason why it goes to the start of the file is because you haven’t supplied a number (for where to go) before the p, so it just goes to the start.
For example:
$ less example.txt
example.txt:
This is the start
This is the middle
This is the end
When I do 50p:
This is the middle
This is the end
~
~
~
~
~
~
When I do p:
This is the start
This is the middle
This is the end
~
~
~
~