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i keep forgetting and I am not sure how to look this up

if for example i want to see the ls commands --help, its very long i remember there's a command that allows you to go up and down on the output text - how do i do that?

i tried nano but for some reason it doesn't work as well as i thought it did

(also PS the command i am looking for ls is to see hidden files, if u want you could tell me what that is on the way)

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3 Answers 3

You can simply use Shift+PgUp and Shift+PgDn to scroll the output in your terminal.

Or you can pipe your output to less, e.g.:

ls --help | less

then you can scroll with cursor up/down.

And the command you are actually looking for is ls -A to show all files.

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thank you! exactly what i was looking.. ill try to remember it by saying "less is more" haha –  Askinu Dec 5 '13 at 12:20

I'm not sure if I understand what you mean but when you do

man ls

you can use following commands:

space to advance one page

d to advance half a page

b to go back one page

u to go back half a page

arrow keys to go up/down with one line at a time

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Pipe the output into less, for example

ls --help | less

Use q to quit less.

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thank you for taking the time! –  Askinu Dec 5 '13 at 12:40

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