'more' fails, but 'vi' works??

In article <1171696623.532022.125720@t69g2000cwt.googlegroups.com>,
wrote:
>'more ' does not show anything in the file. It exits
>immediately without showing the contents.
>But, I can do 'vi'. The 'ls -l ' also shows 80 bytes as the
>size and all the permission bits are set.
>
>'file ' shows
>: commands text
>
>What is the reason why the 'more ' fails?

Maybe you have "more" aliased to ":".

On 2007-02-17, qazmlp1209@rediffmail.com wrote:
> 'more ' does not show anything in the file. It exits
> immediately without showing the contents.
> But, I can do 'vi'. The 'ls -l ' also shows 80 bytes as the
> size and all the permission bits are set.

Many mores will exit immediately if the file is less than a screenful,
which will probably be the case with an 80 byte file. As for why
nothing appears, I can't say for sure. Are there any strange
characters in the file (eg carriage returns or backspaces) that
could cause the output to be overwritten by your shell prompt? Try
a "clear; more filename; sleep 10" - see if anything shows before
you get your prompt back.

--
Andrew Smallshaw
andrews@sdf.lonestar.org