Displaying line numbers in text editors like Nano, Vi, and Vim can be a crucial feature for developers, system administrators, and technical writers. These text editors are available on Linux. It aids in navigation and makes it easier to reference specific lines of code or text. Below is a detailed procedure for enabling line numbers in each of these text editors.
Open the Nano Editor: Launch your terminal and type nano followed by the name of the file you wish to edit. For example:
Bash
nanoexample.txt
Access the Nano Menu: Once the editor is open, you’ll notice a menu at the bottom of the screen. This menu contains various commands prefixed by the caret symbol (^), which represents the Ctrl key.
Enable Line Numbers: To display line numbers, press Alt + Shift + #. This will toggle line numbers on or off.
Save Changes: To save any changes you’ve made to the file, press Ctrl + O, then press Enter.
Exit Nano: To exit the Nano editor, press Ctrl + X.
Displaying Line Numbers in Vi
Open the Vi Editor: In your terminal, type vi followed by the name of the file you want to edit. For instance:
Bash
viexample.txt
Enter Command Mode: By default, Vi starts in “Normal” mode. To enter “Command” mode, press Esc.
Enable Line Numbers: In “Command” mode, type :set number and press Enter. This will display line numbers along the left-hand side of the editor.
Save and Exit: To save changes and exit Vi, type :wq and press Enter.
Displaying Line Numbers in Vim
Launch Vim: Open your terminal and type vim followed by the name of the file you wish to edit. For example:
Bash
vimexample.txt
Switch to Command Mode: Vim starts in “Normal” mode. Press Esc to switch to “Command” mode.
Activate Line Numbers: In “Command” mode, type :set number and press Enter. This will enable line numbers.
Persistent Line Numbers: If you want to make this setting permanent, you can add the set number command to your Vim configuration file. To do this, open your .vimrc file by typing vim ~/.vimrc and add the line set number.
Save and Close: To save your changes and exit Vim, type :wq and press Enter.
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The Short Answer. In vim, display or showing line numbers is synonymous with setting line numbers: set number or set nu will show or turn on line numbers. set nonumber or set nonu will hide the line numbers.
The Short Answer. In vim, display or showing line numbers is synonymous with setting line numbers: set number or set nu will show or turn on line numbers. set nonumber or set nonu will hide the line numbers.
To go to a specific line number, enter the line number in Command-line Mode (:<line number>) or the line number and G (<line number>G) in Normal Mode. For more information on how to switch between the different Vim modes, check out our brief introduction to the different Vim modes.
Here's how. On the menu bar, select Tools > Options > Text Editor, and then select either the language you're using or All Languages to turn on line numbers in all supported programming languages. You can also type line number in the Search box, and then choose Turn line numbers on or off from the results.
In vi, you can also display the current line number on the bottom of the screen. CTRL-G is useful either for displaying the line number to use in a command or for orienting yourself if you have been distracted from your editing session.
To show line numbers in the current window, go to Options and click Show Line Numbers . To show them automatically, go to Options > Configure IDLE > General and check the Show line numbers in new windows box.
Click on the “View” tab.Click on “Status Bar” to enable it.Move the cursor to the line you want to find the number for.Look at the bottom of the status bar; you will see the line and column numbers.
Vim's plugin API is restrictive and cumbersome. The plugin architecture of NeoVim is a lot better than Vim. Apart from plugin implementation in Vimscript (VimL), we can also use the Lua programming language. In addition, NeoVim has a lot more powerful plugins, which are not compatible with Vim.
By default, it prints out lines matching this pattern without the corresponding line numbers. However, we can utilize the -n option to include line numbers alongside the matched lines.
To activate the line numbering, set the number flag:Press the Esc key to switch to command mode.Press : (colon) and the cursor will move at the bottom left corner of the screen.Type set number or set nu and hit Enter .
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