TIL: Control less options globally with LESS

While researching interactive flags in less I learned about the LESS env var. This lets you set less’s startup flags globally. For example, if you always want ANSI color escape sequences to be interpreted (so you see colors instead of control characters), put LESS=-R in your shell config.

export LESS=-R
less request.log

Screenshot of HTTP request log with HTTP status codes in color.

export LESS=
less request.log

Screenshot of HTTP request log with HTTP status codes surrounded by control characters like ESC[33m.

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