.TH LESSECHO 1 "08 Sep 2026" "less 710"
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.%%
.SH NAME
lessecho \- expand metacharacters
.SH SYNOPSIS
.HP
.B lessecho
.RB [ \-a ]
.RB [ \-o\c
.IR x ]
.RB [ \-c\c
.IR x ]
.RB [ \-p\c
.IR n ]
.RB [ \-d\c
.IR n ]
.RB [ \-m\c
.IR x ]
.RB [ \-n\c
.IR n ]
.RB [ \-e\c
.IR x ]
.I file
\&.\|.\|.
.PP
.B "lessecho \-\-version"
.SH "DESCRIPTION"
.B lessecho
is a program that simply echos its arguments on standard output.
But any metacharacter in the output is preceded by an "escape"
character, which by default is a backslash.
.B lessecho
is invoked internally by
.BR less ,
and is not intended to be used directly by humans.
.SH OPTIONS
A summary of options is included below.
.TP
.B \-e\fIx\fP
Specifies "\fIx\fP", rather than backslash, to be the escape char for metachars.
If \fIx\fP is "\-", no escape char is used and arguments containing metachars
are surrounded by quotes instead.
.TP
.B \-o\fIx\fP
Specifies "\fIx\fP", rather than double-quote, to be the open quote character,
which is used if the \-e\- option is specified.
.TP
.B \-c\fIx\fP
Specifies "\fIx\fP" to be the close quote character.
.TP
.B \-p\fIn\fP
Specifies "\fIn\fP" to be the open quote character, as an integer.
.TP
.B \-d\fIn\fP
Specifies "\fIn\fP" to be the close quote character, as an integer.
.TP
.B \-m\fIx\fP
Specifies "\fIx\fP" to be a metachar.
By default, no characters are considered metachars.
.TP
.B \-n\fIn\fP
Specifies "\fIn\fP" to be a metachar, as an integer.
.TP
.B \-f\fIn\fP
Specifies "\fIn\fP" to be the escape char for metachars, as an integer.
.TP
.B \-a
Specifies that all arguments are to be quoted.
The default is that only arguments containing metacharacters are quoted.
.SH "SEE ALSO"
.BR less (1)
.SH AUTHOR
This manual page was written by
.MT schoepf@debian.org
Thomas Schoepf
.ME ,
for the Debian GNU/Linux system (but may be used by others).
.PP
Report bugs at
.UR https://\*:github\*:.com/\*:gwsw/\*:less/\*:issues
.UE .