Get colors in 'less'' command

Question

when I read a file in Linux with the command 'less' or 'more', how can I get the content in colors?

Answer 1

You can utilize the power of pygmentize with less - automatically! (No need to pipe by hand.)

Write a file ~/.lessfilter

#!/bin/sh
case "$1" in
    *.awk|*.groff|*.java|*.js|*.m4|*.php|*.pl|*.pm|*.pod|*.sh|\
    *.ad[asb]|*.asm|*.inc|*.[ch]|*.[ch]pp|*.[ch]xx|*.cc|*.hh|\
    *.lsp|*.l|*.pas|*.p|*.xml|*.xps|*.xsl|*.axp|*.ppd|*.pov|\
    *.diff|*.patch|*.py|*.rb|*.sql|*.ebuild|*.eclass)
        pygmentize -f 256 "$1";;
    .bashrc|.bash_aliases|.bash_environment)
        pygmentize -f 256 -l sh "$1"
        ;;
    *)
        grep "#\!/bin/bash" "$1" > /dev/null
        if [ "$?" -eq "0" ]; then
            pygmentize -f 256 -l sh "$1"
        else
            exit 1
        fi
esac

exit 0

In your .bashrc add

export LESS='-R'
export LESSOPEN='|~/.lessfilter %s'

Tested on debian.

The idea comes from here Using Pygments with less.

Answer 2

Use VIM as a syntax highlighting pager.

Answer 3

I got the answer in another post: Less and Grep - Color

When you simply run grep --color it implies grep --color=auto which detects whether the output is a terminal and if so enables colors. However, when it detects a pipe it disables coloring. The following command:

grep --color=always -R "search string" * | less

Will always enable coloring and override the automatic detection, and you will get the color highlighting in less.

Answer 4

Try the following:

less -R

Answer 5

You didn't say what this color should mean, e.g. what should the colors be for a text file?

If what you want is syntax highlighting for source code, you need a source code highlighter. I sometimes use pygmentize like this

pygmentize file.cpp | less

or

pygmentize file.cpp | more

There are other highlighters around.

This is pretty fast. If you don't mind firing up vim there is a read-only mode that can give you syntax highlighting if you have it in vim.

view file.cpp

or alternatively see churnd's answer.