End of File In Terminal Cannot Quit Sometimes

rtrahan · 01-25-2009, 06:56 AM

Sometimes when I do a "ls | less" I will get to the end of the file and most of the time I can press CTRL+ D to get back to the prompt. Other time it does not work and I have to click on close and start over? Any other ways to get back to prompt?

Thanks in advance

repo · 01-25-2009, 06:59 AM

try to press
q
or CTRL-C

colucix · 01-25-2009, 07:14 AM

To exit from less, you can press 'q'. Other applications may have a different terminator, depending on the fact they expect an EOF (Ctrl-D) or a termination signal (Ctrl-C). For example you can use Ctrl-D to send the "end of input" signal when using

Code:

cat > textfile

other commands don't receive input from the terminal and you will stop them using Ctrl-C. For exemple when using

Code:

tail -f logfile

Another signal is Ctrl-Z that means suspend. This is useful when you launch a command from the terminal and you want to put it in background, for example

Code:

$ command
<Ctrl-Z>
$ # prompt returns here and the job is suspended
$ bg # this put the last (previous) job in background.

Hope this helps.