Uses Pygments to provide syntax highlighting
for supported file types. The .lessfilter
is generated by parsing the Pygments documentation website.
Ensure that you have the latest version of Pygments installed by using pip, as your
distro's packaged version is likely outdated. You'll also need awk
.
# remove any installed packaged versions
sudo apt autoremove python-pygments python3-pygments
# install latest version
sudo pip install Pygments --upgrade
# install some implementation of `awk`
sudo apt install gawk
Most Linux distros already have lesspipe
enabled, but you can check for certain by running:
echo $LESSOPEN
If you don't see lesspipe
or lessfile
in the output, install lesspipe.
Add the following to ~/.bashrc
# sets LESSOPEN and LESSCLOSE variables
eval "$(SHELL=/bin/sh lesspipe)"
# interpret color characters
export LESS='-R'
# to list available styles: `pygmentize -L styles`
export PYGMENTIZE_STYLE='paraiso-dark'
# optional
alias ls='ls --color=always'
alias grep='grep --color=always'
If you don't have or want lesspipe
, replace the above eval
statement with:
export LESSOPEN='|~/.lessfilter %s'
Run main.py to generate the latest .lessfilter
file and place it in your home directory.
Or you can download a pre-generated .lessfilter which is currently at version 2.15.1
.
Check your program version by running pygmentize -V
to ensure that it is this version or newer.
chmod +x ~/.lessfilter
Done. Test it out by running less ~/.lessfilter