lesspipe.sh, a preprocessor for less
====================================

Version: 1.10
-------------

License: GPL
------------

Usage:	lesspipe.sh is called when the environment variable LESSOPEN is set:
------	LESSOPEN="|lesspipe.sh %s"; export LESSOPEN	(sh like shells)
	setenv LESSOPEN "|lesspipe.sh %s"		(csh, tcsh)
	Use the fully qualified path if lesspipe.sh is not in the search path
	View files in multifile archives:
				less archive_file:contained_file
	This can be used to extract single files from a multifile archive:
				less archive_file:contained_file>extracted_file
        Even a file in a multifile archive that itself is contained in yet
        another archive can be viewed this way:
				less super_archive:archive_file:contained_file
	Display the last file in the file1:..:fileN chain in raw format:
	Suppress input filtering:	less file1:..:fileN:   (append a colon)
	Suppress decompression:	less file1:..:fileN::  (append 2 colons)

Required programs:
------------------
	bash (at least version 2.04 or ksh from vendor or zsh)
	(choose the appropriate line as the first line in the script)
	file (a version that recognizes the supported formats)
	ls, rm, cat, cut and further programs for special formats (see below)

Support for the following compression methods:
----------------------------------------------
	gzip, compress	requires gzip
	bzip2		requires bzip2
	zip		requires unzip

Preprocesssing of the following file types (also compressed):
-------------------------------------------------------------
	tar		requires GNU tar
	nroff(mandoc)	requires groff
	ar library	requires ar
	shared library	requires nm
	executable	requires strings
	directory
	RPM		requires rpm, rpm2cpio and GNU cpio
	Microsoft Word	requires antiword
	Debian 		requires  dpkg, dpkg-deb
        pdf		requires pdftotext

Latest version available from:
------------------------------
	http://www.desy.de/zeuthen/~friebel/unix/lesspipe.html

Extended description:
---------------------
	Appeared in Linux-Magazin 1/2001 pp. 172-174 (in german)
	(see also the file german.txt)

Thanks to:
----------
	Florian Cramer <cantsin@zedat.fu-berlin.de> MS Word support, ASCIIart
	Michael Wiedmann <mw@miwie.in-berlin.de> Debian packages support
	Derek B. Noonburg <derekn@foolabs.com> PDF files support
	Heinrich Kuettler <ql.heiner@web.de> formatting, html via lynx
	
Author:  Wolfgang Friebel DESY Zeuthen (Wolfgang.Friebel@desy.de)
