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linuxshellcatless-unix

How to pipe help results to less by default?

I use "--help" or "-h" a lot. By default it uses cat to open help file. How can i set it to use less by default. I want the result of "command --help |less" to be the same as "command --help"

Solution

  • An alias for --help wouldn't work. Aliases only apply to command names, not to their arguments. I wouldn't recommend a completely invisible solution, anyways. Too much command-line magic can create bad habits.

    You could create a help command instead.

    h() { "$@" --help | less; }

    $ h cat
Usage: cat [OPTION]... [FILE]...
<snip>