Hmm... You're a rookie, huh? I was going to give you a "power tip", but it relates to an editor that you'll find a bit cryptic: vim. ls(1) is a strange beast. It changes its output based on its target. When you try to send ls output to a pipe, it changes its format, so be careful. If you're looking for color output to a pipe, use the "--color=always" option for ls. For example: shell$ ls --color=always | PAGER A PAGER is a program like less(1) and more(1), but it can essentially be anything that'll take input from another program. You can pipe output of ls to vim, for example. shell$ ls | vim -f - The "-f -" tells vim that the input is coming from stdin, one of three common file descriptors for any shell program. You have stdin, stdout, and stderr for input, output, and error respectively. Pipes work with stdout and stdin. Let's say you have a cagey program that uses stderr to print "usage" information. Any program by Richard Stallman, for example. ;-) If you try using a pipe to page the output of a "--help" option that doesn't "work", the output is probably being sent to stderr. If you're in bash, you can use this shell redirect: bash$ program --help 2>&1 | PAGER This illustrates common "file descriptors". stdin == 0, stdout == 1, and stderr == 2. In the above redirect, I'm combining stderr with stdout and piping it to my PAGER. For more info, check your manpages for your favorite shell, editor, and pager. ;-) Also, take a look at some of the HOWTO's at "The Linux Documentation Project" at http://www.tldp.org. -- Chad Walstrom <chewie at wookimus.net> http://www.wookimus.net/ assert(expired(knowledge)); /* core dump */ -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 240 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://shadowknight.real-time.com/pipermail/tclug-list/attachments/20030818/16a8ca18/attachment.pgp