How to show line numbering in nano when opening a file

The keyboard combination to display the current line number whilst you are using nano is CTRL+C.

Alternatively, to display the line & column number position you could just use the -c parameter when launching nano i.e:

nano -c [filename]

To make this permanent, nano uses a configuration in your home folder ~/.nanorc

Thus to display line numbers always when using nano...

nano ~/.nanorc

(don't worry if its empty - this file doesn't exist by default)

type set constantshow

N.B. the deprecated syntax set const is shown in the animation

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Since you are using line numbers remember you can use ALT+G to jump to a specific line number.

Accidentally found nice shortcut: Alt+#, which in some keyboard layouts can be done with Alt+Shift+3.

click me gently

Compile Nano from source:

git clone git://git.savannah.gnu.org/nano.git;cd nano;./autogen.sh;./configure;sudo make install

Then add the following to your .nanorc file:

set linenumbers

You can use Meta+# to turn line numbers on and off from within Nano.

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