How can I view gzipped files in less without having to type zless?

Question

I am using Ubuntu, and I would like to be able to type less compressed_text_file.gz and page the contents of the text file in uncompressed form. Is there a way to do this?

Answer 1

You can configure the key bindings and set many settings for less in a file called ~/.lesskey. Once you've created the file, run the lesskey command; it generates a file called ~/.less which less reads when it starts.

The setting you want is LESSOPEN. It's an input formatter for less. The less package comes with a sample formatter in /bin/lesspipe; it decompresses gzipped files, shows content listings for many multi-file archive formats, and converts several formatted texts formats to plain text. In your ~/.lesskey:

#env
LESSOPEN=|/bin/lesspipe %s

Answer 2

Use zcat, then pipe it to less.

$ zcat $FILE | less