NANO man page on Debian

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NANO(1)								       NANO(1)

NAME
       nano - Nano's ANOther editor, an enhanced free Pico clone

SYNOPSIS
       nano [OPTIONS] [[+LINE,COLUMN] FILE]...

DESCRIPTION
       This manual page briefly documents the nano command.

       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 and column number".

OPTIONS
       +LINE,COLUMN
	      Places  cursor  at line number LINE and column number COLUMN (at
	      least one of which must be specified) on startup, instead of the
	      default of line 1, column 1.

       -?     Same as -h (--help).

       -A (--smarthome)
	      Make the Home key smarter.  When Home is pressed anywhere but at
	      the very beginning of non-whitespace characters on a  line,  the
	      cursor  will  jump  to  that beginning (either forwards or back‐
	      wards).  If the cursor is already at that position, it will jump
	      to the true beginning of the line.

       -B (--backup)
	      When  saving  a  file, back up the previous version of it to the
	      current filename suffixed with a ~.

       -C dir (--backupdir=dir)
	      Set the directory where nano puts unique backup  files  if  file
	      backups are enabled.

       -D (--boldtext)
	      Use bold text instead of reverse video text.

       -E (--tabstospaces)
	      Convert typed tabs to spaces.

       -F (--multibuffer)
	      Enable multiple file buffers, if available.

       -H (--historylog)
	      Log  search  and replace strings to ~/.nano_history, so they can
	      be retrieved in later sessions, if nanorc support is available.

       -I (--ignorercfiles)
	      Don't look at SYSCONFDIR/nanorc or ~/.nanorc, if nanorc  support
	      is available.

       -K (--rebindkeypad)
	      Interpret	 the  numeric  keypad keys so that they all work prop‐
	      erly.  You should only need to use this option if they don't, as
	      mouse support won't work properly with this option enabled.

       -L (--nonewlines)
	      Don't add newlines to the ends of files.

       -N (--noconvert)
	      Disable automatic conversion of files from DOS/Mac format.

       -O (--morespace)
	      Use the blank line below the titlebar as extra editing space.

       -Q str (--quotestr=str)
	      Set   the	  quoting  string  for	justifying.   The  default  is
	      "^([ \t]*[#:>\|}])+" if extended regular expression  support  is
	      available, or "> " otherwise.  Note that \t stands for a Tab.

       -R (--restricted)
	      Restricted  mode:	 don't read or write to any file not specified
	      on the command line; read any nanorc  files;  allow  suspending;
	      allow  a	file to be appended to, prepended to, or saved under a
	      different name if it already has one; or	use  backup  files  or
	      spell  checking.	Also accessible by invoking nano with any name
	      beginning with 'r' (e.g.	"rnano").

       -S (--smooth)
	      Enable smooth scrolling.	Text will scroll line-by-line, instead
	      of the usual chunk-by-chunk behavior.

       -T cols (--tabsize=cols)
	      Set  the	size  (width)  of a tab to cols columns.  The value of
	      cols must be greater than 0.  The default value is 8.

       -U (--quickblank)
	      Do quick statusbar blanking.  Statusbar messages will  disappear
	      after 1 keystroke instead of 25.	Note that -c overrides this.

       -V (--version)
	      Show the current version number and exit.

       -W (--wordbounds)
	      Detect  word  boundaries more accurately by treating punctuation
	      characters as part of a word.

       -Y str (--syntax=str)
	      Specify a specific syntax highlighting from the nanorc  to  use,
	      if available.

       -c (--const)
	      Constantly  show	the cursor position.  Note that this overrides
	      -U.

       -d (--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.

       -h (--help)
	      Show a summary of command line options and exit.

       -i (--autoindent)
	      Indent new lines to the  previous	 line's	 indentation.	Useful
	      when editing source code.

       -k (--cut)
	      Enable cut from cursor to end of line.

       -l (--nofollow)
	      If  the  file  being edited is a symbolic link, replace the link
	      with a new file instead of following it.	Good for editing files
	      in /tmp, perhaps?

       -m (--mouse)
	      Enable  mouse  support,  if  available  for  your	 system.  When
	      enabled, mouse clicks can be used to place the cursor,  set  the
	      mark  (with  a  double click), and execute shortcuts.  The mouse
	      will work in the X Window System, and on the console when gpm is
	      running.

       -o dir (--operatingdir=dir)
	      Set operating directory.	Makes nano set up something similar to
	      a chroot.

       -p (--preserve)
	      Preserve the XON and XOFF sequences (^Q and ^S) so they will  be
	      caught by the terminal.

       -q (--quiet)
	      Do  not  report  errors  in  the	nanorc file and ask them to be
	      acknowledged by pressing Enter at startup.

       -r cols (--fill=cols)
	      Wrap lines at column cols.  If this value is 0 or less, wrapping
	      will  occur at the width of the screen less cols columns, allow‐
	      ing the wrap point to vary along with the width of the screen if
	      the screen is resized.  The default value is -8.

       -s prog (--speller=prog)
	      Enable alternative spell checker command.

       -t (--tempfile)
	      Always save changed buffer without prompting.  Same as Pico's -t
	      option.

       -u (--undo)
	      Enable experimental generic-purpose undo code.  By default,  the
	      undo and redo shortcuts are Meta-U and Meta-E, respectively.

       -v (--view)
	      View file (read only) mode.

       -w (--nowrap)
	      Disable wrapping of long lines.

       -x (--nohelp)
	      Disable help screen at bottom of editor.

       -z (--suspend)
	      Enable suspend ability.

       -$ (--softwrap)
	      Enable 'soft wrapping'.  nano will attempt to display the entire
	      contents of a line, even if it is longer than the screen	width.
	      Since  '$'  normally refers to a variable in the Unix shell, you
	      should specify this option last when using other	options	 (e.g.
	      'nano -wS$') or pass it separately (e.g. 'nano -wS -$').

       -a, -b, -e, -f, -g, -j
	      Ignored, for compatibility with Pico.

INITIALIZATION FILE
       nano   will   read   initialization   files  in	the  following	order:
       SYSCONFDIR/nanorc, then ~/.nanorc.  Please see nanorc(5) and the	 exam‐
       ple file nanorc.sample, both of which should be provided with nano.

NOTES
       If  no  alternative  spell  checker command is specified on the command
       line or in one of the nanorc files, nano will check the SPELL  environ‐
       ment variable for one.

       In  some cases nano will try to dump the buffer into an emergency file.
       This will happen mainly if nano receives a SIGHUP or  SIGTERM  or  runs
       out of memory.  It will write the buffer into a file named nano.save if
       the buffer didn't have a name already, or will add a ".save" suffix  to
       the  current  filename.	 If  an	 emergency file with that name already
       exists in the current directory, it will	 add  ".save"  plus  a	number
       (e.g.  ".save.1")  to  the current filename in order to make it unique.
       In multibuffer mode, nano will write all	 the  open  buffers  to	 their
       respective emergency files.

BUGS
       Please send any comments or bug reports to nano@nano-editor.org.

       The nano mailing list is available from nano-devel@gnu.org.

       To  subscribe,  email  to  nano-devel-request@gnu.org with a subject of
       "subscribe".

HOMEPAGE
       http://www.nano-editor.org/

SEE ALSO
       nanorc(5)
       /usr/share/doc/nano/ (or equivalent on your system)

AUTHOR
       Chris Allegretta <chrisa@asty.org>, et al (see AUTHORS and  THANKS  for
       details).   This	 manual	 page  was originally written by Jordi Mallach
       <jordi@gnu.org>, for the Debian system (but may be used by others).

November 30, 2009		 version 2.2.0			       NANO(1)
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