view

Open a file in read-only mode

$ view [file]

$ view [file1] [file2]

$ view +[line_number] [file]

$ view +/[pattern] [file]

view [options] [file ...]

view is a read-only mode of Vim. It is equivalent to running vim -R and opens files with the readonly option set, preventing accidental modifications.
You can still navigate, search, and use all viewing features of vim. Attempting to save will produce a warning, though you can force a write with :w! if you have permission.
All standard vim commands work for navigation: h/j/k/l for movement, / for search, G to go to end, gg to go to start, :q to quit.

All vim options are available. Common ones include:
+num

Open file at line number.

Open file at first occurrence of pattern.

Execute command after loading file.

No swap file (useful for sensitive files).

Open files in horizontal splits.

Open files in vertical splits.

Open files in tabs.

While view prevents accidental saves, it doesn't prevent editing the buffer entirely. For stricter read-only mode, use vim -M which disables all modifications. Unlike less or cat, view loads the entire file and uses swap files by default.

view has been part of vi and vim since the early days. The original vi was written by Bill Joy at UC Berkeley in 1976. vim (Vi IMproved), created by Bram Moolenaar, was first released in 1991 and included view as a standard way to invoke read-only mode. The naming follows Unix convention where different names for the same binary trigger different behaviors.

vim(1), less(1), cat(1), more(1)