NL

Section: User Commands (1)
Updated: December 2009
Index Return to Main Contents
 

NAME

nl - number lines of files  

SYNOPSIS

nl [OPTION]... [FILE]...  

DESCRIPTION

Write each FILE to standard output, with line numbers added. With no FILE, or when FILE is -, read standard input.

Mandatory arguments to long options are mandatory for short options too.

-b, --body-numbering=STYLE
use STYLE for numbering body lines
-d, --section-delimiter=CC
use CC for separating logical pages
-f, --footer-numbering=STYLE
use STYLE for numbering footer lines
-h, --header-numbering=STYLE
use STYLE for numbering header lines
-i, --line-increment=NUMBER
line number increment at each line
-l, --join-blank-lines=NUMBER
group of NUMBER empty lines counted as one
-n, --number-format=FORMAT
insert line numbers according to FORMAT
-p, --no-renumber
do not reset line numbers at logical pages
-s, --number-separator=STRING
add STRING after (possible) line number
-v, --starting-line-number=NUMBER
first line number on each logical page
-w, --number-width=NUMBER
use NUMBER columns for line numbers
--help
display this help and exit
--version
output version information and exit

By default, selects -v1 -i1 -l1 -sTAB -w6 -nrn -hn -bt -fn. CC are two delimiter characters for separating logical pages, a missing second character implies :. Type \\ for \. STYLE is one of:

a
number all lines
t
number only nonempty lines
n
number no lines
pBRE
number only lines that contain a match for the basic regular expression, BRE

FORMAT is one of:

ln
left justified, no leading zeros
rn
right justified, no leading zeros
rz
right justified, leading zeros
 

AUTHOR

Written by Scott Bartram and David MacKenzie.  

REPORTING BUGS

Report nl bugs to bug-coreutils@gnu.org
GNU coreutils home page: <http://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/>
General help using GNU software: <http://www.gnu.org/gethelp/>  

COPYRIGHT

Copyright © 2009 Free Software Foundation, Inc. License GPLv3+: GNU GPL version 3 or later <http://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>.
This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it. There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law.  

SEE ALSO

The full documentation for nl is maintained as a Texinfo manual. If the info and nl programs are properly installed at your site, the command
info coreutils aqnl invocationaq

should give you access to the complete manual.