Open a .raw file as text in less

Question

The output of my program has a .raw file extension. If I try to open this with less I get:

No isoinfo available
Install mkisofs to view ISO images

The file isn't an image file, it's just text. Is there a way to tell less that the file should be opened as plain text?

Solution 1

The attempt to use isoinfo comes from lesspipe, which is generally used as a helper for less via the LESSOPEN variable.

Running

LESSOPEN= less file.raw

will open file.raw without interpretation.

Solution 2

Another option which doesn't involve setting any variables is to pipe the data through less instead of letting less open the file for you.

$ cat file.raw | less

or

$ less <file.raw

would do the trick.

Comments

[Admin]

try with strings command: strings file.raw|less

[Admin]

If I really want to see what's in a file, I use more rather than less.

[Admin]

To really see what's in a file, I use od ;-).

[Jonathan Roberts]

This is also great suggestion; if I could accept two answers I would also accept this.

[Stephen Kitt]

Using redirections into less has a couple of disadvantages: less needs to buffer everything, so it will use more memory (unless -B is specified); it won't know about the file name, and the size will only be available once it's finished reading all the data.