#318 hard to exit FreeDOS MORE if you run it without arguments

[Jim Hall]

Luca L. shared this bug with me: It's very hard to exit FreeDOS MORE if you run it without arguments on DOSBox.

Brief background: You'd usually use MORE as part of a command line, like one of these:
FIND "Hello" STRINGS.TXT | MORE
MORE STRINGS.TXT
MORE < STRINGS.TXT

But if you just run MORE without arguments, MORE "listens" to stdin and prints to stdout until it reaches a screenful of text.

On QEMU, you can press ctrl-c to abort immediately. On DOSBox, ctrl-c doesn't work until you get the "More" prompt.

[Jim Hall]

I've been thinking about this. I might be able to add some code to detect if the user called MORE this way .. and if so, to exit gracefully.

For example: if no files indicated, and input is a TTY, then exit with a message.

Low priority bug.

[Trolzen]

To exit more opened that way you should send the EOF character: Ctrl-D Enter. This should be entered on an empty line.

[Jim Hall]

FYI: On DOS, you need to use ctrl-Z instead of ctrl-D. That's the graceful way to exit MORE, just enter ^Z on an empty line (^Z then Enter)

[Trolzen]

Yes, you are absolutely right, it's Ctrl-Z, not Ctrl-D. Apparently I confused it with Linux's way of makring the end of the input.

[fritz.mueller]

I had this problems while testing too. The reason was different, but simple: the international keyboard layouts, german has quertz whereas US standard is querty.
So if you install FD CD in english and forget this, it does not work, you have to look explicitely for this.

[fritz.mueller]

more /? offers "Qq" to quit the program. But it does not work when you are at "more"- nothing else. So it would be fine if Qq would work too. Additional STRG-Z could also be mentioned at the /? help. And a hint that you have to use the correct keyboard driver for "Z".