Write lines to a file from less

While in vim I can write a range of lines from the file I’m viewing to another file. For example,

:1,10 w outfile.txt

will write lines 1 through 10 to outfile.txt.

Can I do the same while I’m viewing a file using less?

Answers:

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Method 1

10Gmm1G|mcat > outfile.txt

(typed within less) seems to work as long as the input doesn’t fit in one screen (in which case all the input ends up in outfile.txt for some reason).

• 10G brings you to line 10
• mm sets the m mark there
• 1G (same as g in this case) brings you to line 1
• |m pipe from the current line to mark m
• cat > outfile.txt: that’s piped to that command.

Method 2

You could use view which is the same as vi -r

All methods was sourced from stackoverflow.com or stackexchange.com, is licensed under cc by-sa 2.5, cc by-sa 3.0 and cc by-sa 4.0