What are the functions of the ‘more’ and ‘less’ commands in Linux?

Both the more and less commands in Linux are used for paging through text file contents, allowing long text files to be displayed one page at a time as needed.

The ‘more’ command first appeared on UNIX systems, allowing users to display file content page by page. Users can press the space bar to view the next page and press the ‘q’ key to exit. One characteristic of the ‘more’ command is that it only allows users to scroll forward and not backward. For example, to view the contents of a file named file.txt, you can use the following command:

more file.txt

In contrast, the less command is an improved version of the more command and is also the default pagination browser for Linux systems. The less command not only supports forward paging, but also supports backward paging, searching, prefix and suffix matching, and other functions. Users can press the space bar to page down, the b key to page up, and the / key to search. For example, to browse the contents of a file named file.txt, you can use the following command:

less file.txt

In general, both the more and less commands are used to view the contents of large text files, but the less command provides more features and a better interactive experience.