NANORC

NAME

DESCRIPTION

nano is a small, free and friendly editor which aims to replace Pico, the default editor included in the non-free Pine package. Rather than just copying Pico's look and feel, nano also implements some missing (or disabled by default) features in Pico, such as "search and replace" and "go to line number".

The nanorc file contains the default settings for nano. During startup, nano will first read its system-wide settings from SYSCONFDIR/nanorc, and then user-specific settings from ~/.nanorc.

OPTIONS

Options in rcfiles take precedence over nano's defaults, and command line options override rcfile settings.

Options are unset by default, except for options that take an argument.

The supported commands and arguments are:

set/unset autoindent

Use auto-indentation.

set/unset backup

Create backup files in filename~.

set/unset const

Constantly display the cursor position in the status bar.

set/unset cut

Use cut to end of line with ^K by default.

set fill n

Wrap lines at column number n. If n is 0 or less, the line length will be the screen width less n. The default value is -8.

set/unset historylog

Enable ~/.nano_history for saving and reading search/replace strings.

set/unset multibuffer

Allow inserting files into their own buffers.

set/unset noconvert

Don't convert files from DOS/Mac format.

set/unset nofollow

Don't follow symlinks when writing files.

set/unset nohelp

Don't display the help lists at the bottom of the screen.

set/unset nowrap

Don't wrap text at all.

set operatingdir "directory"

nano will only read and write files inside directory and its subdirectories. Also, the current directory is changed to here, so files are inserted from this dir. By default the operating directory feature is turned off.

set/unset preserve

Preserve the XON and XOFF keys (^Q and ^S).

set quotestr "string"

The email-quote string, used to justify email-quoted paragraphs. This is an "extended regular expression" if your system supports them, otherwise a literal string. The default value is

        set quotestr "^([ \t]*[|>:}#])+"

if you have regexps, otherwise set quotestr "> ". Note that '\t' above stands for a literal Tab character.

set/unset rebinddelete

Interpret the Delete key differently so that both Backspace and Delete work properly. You should only need to use this option if Backspace acts like Delete on your system.

set/unset regexp

Do regular expression searches by default.

set/unset smooth

Use smooth scrolling by default.

set speller spellprog

Use spelling checker spellprog instead of the built-in one, which calls spell.

set/unset suspend

Allow nano to be suspended with ^Z.

set tabsize n

Use a tab size of n instead of the default (8); must be greater than 0.

set/unset tempfile

Save automatically on exit, don't prompt.

set/unset view

Disallow file modification.

syntax str [fileregex ... ]

Defines a syntax named str which can be activated via the -Y flag, or will be automatically activated if the current filename matches fileregex. All following color statements will apply to syntax until a new syntax is defined.

color fgcolor[,bgcolor] regex ...

For the currently defined syntax, display all expressions matching regex with foreground color fgcolor and optional background color bgcolor. Legal colors for foreground and background color are: white, black, red, blue, green, yellow, magenta, and cyan. You may use the prefix "bright" to force a stronger color highlight. If your terminal supports transparency, not specifying a bgcolor tells nano to attempt to use a transparent background.

color fgcolor[,bgcolor] start=sr end=er

Display expressions which start with sr and end with er with foreground color fgcolor and optional background color bgcolor. This allows syntax highlighting to span multiple lines. Note that all subsequent instances of sr after an initial sr is found will be highlighted until the first instance of er.

FILES

SYSCONFDIR/nanorc

System-wide configuration file

~/.nanorc

Per-user configuration file

SEE ALSO

nano(1)

/usr/share/doc/nano/examples/nanorc.sample (or equivalent on your system)  

AUTHOR

Index

NAME

DESCRIPTION

OPTIONS

FILES

SEE ALSO

AUTHOR