nanorc
NANORC(5) File Formats Manual NANORC(5)
NAME
nanorc - GNU nano's configuration file
DESCRIPTION
The nanorc files contain the default settings for nano, a small and
friendly editor. They should be in Unix format, not in DOS or Mac for-
mat. During startup, if --rcfile is not given, nano will read two
files: first the system-wide settings, from /etc/nanorc (the exact path
might be different on your system), and then the user-specific set-
tings, either from ~/.nanorc or from $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/nano/nanorc or
from ~/.config/nano/nanorc, whichever is encountered first. If --rc-
file is given, nano will read just the specified settings file.
NOTICE
Since version 4.0, nano by default:
o does not automatically hard-wrap lines that become overlong,
o includes the line below the title bar in the editing area,
o does linewise (smooth) scrolling.
To get the old, Pico behavior back, you can use set breaklonglines, set
emptyline, and set jumpyscrolling.
OPTIONS
The configuration file accepts a series of set and unset commands,
which can be used to configure nano on startup without using command-
line options. Additionally, there are some commands to define syntax
highlighting and to rebind keys -- see the two separate sections on
those. nano reads one command per line. All commands and keywords
should be written in lowercase.
Options in nanorc files take precedence over nano's defaults, and com-
mand-line options override nanorc settings. Also, options that do not
take an argument are unset by default. So using the unset command is
only needed when wanting to override a setting of the system's nanorc
file in your own nanorc. Options that take an argument cannot be un-
set.
Quotes inside the characters parameters below should not be escaped.
The last double quote on the line will be seen as the closing quote.
The supported commands and arguments are:
set afterends
Make Ctrl+Right stop at word ends instead of beginnings.
set allow_insecure_backup
When backing up files, allow the backup to succeed even if its per-
missions can't be (re)set due to special OS considerations. You
should NOT enable this option unless you are sure you need it.
set atblanks
When soft line wrapping is enabled, make it wrap lines at blank
characters (tabs and spaces) instead of always at the edge of the
screen.
set autoindent
Automatically indent a newly created line to the same number of tabs
and/or spaces as the previous line (or as the next line if the pre-
vious line is the beginning of a paragraph).
set backup
When saving a file, create a backup file by adding a tilde (~) to
the file's name.
set backupdir directory
Make and keep not just one backup file, but make and keep a uniquely
numbered one every time a file is saved -- when backups are enabled
with set backup or --backup or -B. The uniquely numbered files are
stored in the specified directory.
set boldtext
Use bold instead of reverse video for the title bar, status bar, key
combos, function tags, line numbers, and selected text. This can be
overridden by setting the options titlecolor, statuscolor, keycolor,
functioncolor, numbercolor, and selectedcolor.
set brackets "characters"
Set the characters treated as closing brackets when justifying para-
graphs. This may not include blank characters. Only closing punc-
tuation (see set punct), optionally followed by the specified clos-
ing brackets, can end sentences. The default value is ""')>]}".
set breaklonglines
Automatically hard-wrap the current line when it becomes overlong.
set casesensitive
Do case-sensitive searches by default.
set constantshow
Constantly display the cursor position in the status bar. This
overrides the option quickblank.
set cutfromcursor
Use cut-from-cursor-to-end-of-line by default, instead of cutting
the whole line.
set emptyline
Do not use the line below the title bar, leaving it entirely blank.
set errorcolor fgcolor,bgcolor
Use this color combination for the status bar when an error message
is displayed. The default value is brightwhite,red. See set title-
color for valid color names.
set fill number
Set the target width for justifying and automatic hard-wrapping at
this number of columns. If the value is 0 or less, wrapping will
occur at the width of the screen minus number columns, allowing the
wrap point to vary along with the width of the screen if the screen
is resized. The default value is -8.
set functioncolor fgcolor,bgcolor
Specify the color combination to use for the function descriptions
in the two help lines at the bottom of the screen. See set title-
color for more details.
set guidestripe number
Draw a vertical stripe at the given column, to help judge the width
of the text. (The color of the stripe can be changed with set
stripecolor.)
set historylog
Save the last hundred search strings and replacement strings and ex-
ecuted commands, so they can be easily reused in later sessions.
set jumpyscrolling
Scroll the buffer contents per half-screen instead of per line.
set keycolor fgcolor,bgcolor
Specify the color combination to use for the shortcut key combos in
the two help lines at the bottom of the screen. See set titlecolor
for more details.
set linenumbers
Display line numbers to the left of the text area.
set locking
Enable vim-style lock-files for when editing files.
set matchbrackets "characters"
Set the opening and closing brackets that can be found by bracket
searches. This may not include blank characters. The opening set
must come before the closing set, and the two sets must be in the
same order. The default value is "(<[{)>]}".
set morespace
Deprecated option since it has become the default setting. When
needed, use unset emptyline instead.
set 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. Text can
still be selected through dragging by holding down the Shift key.
set multibuffer
When reading in a file with ^R, insert it into a new buffer by de-
fault.
set noconvert
Don't convert files from DOS/Mac format.
set nohelp
Don't display the two help lines at the bottom of the screen.
set nonewlines
Don't automatically add a newline when a text does not end with one.
(This can cause you to save non-POSIX text files.)
set nopauses
Obsolete option. Ignored.
set nowrap
Deprecated option since it has become the default setting. When
needed, use unset breaklonglines instead.
set numbercolor fgcolor,bgcolor
Specify the color combination to use for line numbers. See set ti-
tlecolor for more details.
set operatingdir directory
nano will only read and write files inside directory and its subdi-
rectories. Also, the current directory is changed to here, so files
are inserted from this directory. By default, the operating direc-
tory feature is turned off.
set positionlog
Save the cursor position of files between editing sessions. The
cursor position is remembered for the 200 most-recently edited
files.
set preserve
Preserve the XON and XOFF keys (^Q and ^S).
set punct "characters"
Set the characters treated as closing punctuation when justifying
paragraphs. This may not include blank characters. Only the spec-
fified closing punctuation, optionally followed by closing brackets
(see brackets), can end sentences. The default value is "!.?".
set quickblank
Do quick status-bar blanking: status-bar messages will disappear af-
ter 1 keystroke instead of 25. The option constantshow overrides
this.
set quotestr "regex"
Set the regular expression for matching the quoting part of a line.
The default value is "^([ \t]*([!#%:;>|}]|//))+". (Note that \t
stands for an actual Tab character.) This makes it possible to re-
justify blocks of quoted text when composing email, and to rewrap
blocks of line comments when writing source code.
set rawsequences
Interpret escape sequences directly (instead of asking ncurses to
translate them). If you need this option to get your keyboard to
work properly, please report a bug. Using this option disables
nano's mouse support.
set rebinddelete
Interpret the Delete and Backspace keys differently so that both
Backspace and Delete work properly. You should only use this option
when on your system either Backspace acts like Delete or Delete acts
like Backspace.
set regexp
Do regular-expression searches by default. Regular expressions in
nano are of the extended type (ERE).
set selectedcolor fgcolor,bgcolor
Specify the color combination to use for selected text. See set ti-
tlecolor for more details.
set showcursor
Put the cursor on the highlighted item in the file browser, to aid
braille users.
set 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 backwards). If the
cursor is already at that position, it will jump to the true begin-
ning of the line.
set smooth
Deprecated option since it has become the default setting. When
needed, use unset jumpyscrolling instead.
set softwrap
Enable soft line wrapping for easier viewing of very long lines.
set speller "program [argument ...]"
Use the given program to do spell checking and correcting, instead
of using the built-in corrector that calls hunspell or GNU spell.
set statuscolor fgcolor,bgcolor
Specify the color combination to use for the status bar. See set
titlecolor for more details.
set stripecolor fgcolor,bgcolor
Specify the color combination to use for the vertical guiding
stripe. See set titlecolor for more details.
set suspend
Allow nano to be suspended.
set tabsize number
Use a tab size of number columns. The value of number must be
greater than 0. The default value is 8.
set tabstospaces
Convert typed tabs to spaces.
set tempfile
Save automatically on exit, don't prompt.
set titlecolor fgcolor,bgcolor
Specify the color combination to use for the title bar. Valid names
for the foreground and background colors are: white, black, blue,
green, red, cyan, yellow, magenta, and normal -- where normal means
the default foreground or background color. The name of the fore-
ground color may be prefixed with bright. And either "fgcolor" or
",bgcolor" may be left out.
set trimblanks
Remove trailing whitespace from wrapped lines when automatic hard-
wrapping occurs or when text is justified.
set unix
Save a file by default in Unix format. This overrides nano's de-
fault behavior of saving a file in the format that it had. (This
option has no effect when you also use set noconvert.)
set view
Disallow file modification: read-only mode. This mode allows the
user to open also other files for viewing, unless --restricted is
given on the command line.
set whitespace "characters"
Set the two characters used to indicate the presence of tabs and
spaces. They must be single-column characters. The default pair
for a UTF-8 locale is ">>.", and for other locales ">.".
set wordbounds
Detect word boundaries differently by treating punctuation charac-
ters as parts of words.
set wordchars "characters"
Specify which other characters (besides the normal alphanumeric
ones) should be considered as parts of words. This overrides the
option wordbounds.
set zap
Let an unmodified Backspace or Delete erase the marked region (in-
stead of a single character, and without affecting the cutbuffer).
SYNTAX HIGHLIGHTING
Coloring the different syntactic elements of a file is done via regular
expressions (see the color command below). This is inherently imper-
fect, because regular expressions are not powerful enough to fully
parse a file. Nevertheless, regular expressions can do a lot and are
easy to make, so they are a good fit for a small editor like nano.
All regular expressions in nano are POSIX extended regular expressions.
This means that ., ?, *, +, ^, $, and several other characters are spe-
cial. The period . matches any single character, ? means the preceding
item is optional, * means the preceding item may be matched zero or
more times, + means the preceding item must be matched one or more
times, ^ matches the beginning of a line, and $ the end, \< matches the
start of a word, and \> the end, and \s matches a blank. It also means
that lookahead and lookbehind are not possible. A complete explanation
can be found in the manual page of GNU grep: man grep.
For each kind of file a separate syntax can be defined via the follow-
ing commands:
syntax name ["fileregex" ...]
Start the definition of a syntax with this name. All subsequent
color and other such commands will be added to this syntax, un-
til a new syntax command is encountered.
When nano is run, this syntax will be automatically activated if
the current filename matches the extended regular expression
fileregex. Or the syntax can be explicitly activated by using
the -Y or --syntax command-line option followed by the name.
The syntax default is special: it takes no fileregex, and ap-
plies to files that don't match any syntax's regexes. The syn-
tax none is reserved; specifying it on the command line is the
same as not having a syntax at all.
header "regex" ...
If from all defined syntaxes no fileregex matched, then compare
this regex (or regexes) against the first line of the current
file, to determine whether this syntax should be used for it.
magic "regex" ...
If no fileregex matched and no header regex matched either, then
compare this regex (or regexes) against the result of querying
the magic database about the current file, to determine whether
this syntax should be used for it. (This functionality only
works when libmagic is installed on the system and will be
silently ignored otherwise.)
formatter program [argument ...]
Run the given program on the full contents of the current buf-
fer. (The current buffer is written out to a temporary file,
the program is run on it, and then the temporary file is read
back in, replacing the contents of the buffer.)
linter program [argument ...]
Use the given program to run a syntax check on the current buf-
fer.
comment "string"
Use the given string for commenting and uncommenting lines. If
the string contains a vertical bar or pipe character (|), this
designates bracket-style comments; for example, "/*|*/" for CSS
files. The characters before the pipe are prepended to the line
and the characters after the pipe are appended at the end of the
line. If no pipe character is present, the full string is
prepended; for example, "#" for Python files. If empty double
quotes are specified, the comment/uncomment function is dis-
abled; for example, "" for JSON. The default value is "#".
tabgives "string"
Make the <Tab> key produce the given string. Useful for lan-
guages like Python that want to see only spaces for indentation.
This overrides the setting of the tabstospaces option.
color fgcolor,bgcolor "regex" ...
Paint all pieces of text that match the extended regular expres-
sion regex with the given foreground and background colors, at
least one of which must be specified. Valid color names are:
white, black, blue, green, red, cyan, yellow, magenta, and nor-
mal -- where normal means the default foreground or background
color. You may use the prefix bright for the foreground color
to get a stronger highlight. If your terminal supports trans-
parency, not specifying a bgcolor tells nano to attempt to use a
transparent background.
All coloring commands are applied in the order in which they are
specified, which means that later commands can recolor stuff
that was colored earlier.
icolor fgcolor,bgcolor "regex" ...
Same as above, except that the matching is case insensitive.
color fgcolor,bgcolor start="fromrx" end="torx"
Paint all pieces of text whose start matches extended regular
expression fromrx and whose end matches extended regular expres-
sion torx with the given foreground and background colors, at
least one of which must be specified. This means that, after an
initial instance of fromrx, all text until the first instance of
torx will be colored. This allows syntax highlighting to span
multiple lines.
icolor fgcolor,bgcolor start="fromrx" end="torx"
Same as above, except that the matching is case insensitive.
include "syntaxfile"
Read in self-contained color syntaxes from syntaxfile. Note
that syntaxfile may contain only the above commands, from syntax
to icolor.
extendsyntax name command argument ...
Extend the syntax previously defined as name with another com-
mand. This allows adding a new color, icolor, header, magic,
formatter, linter, comment, or tabgives command to an already
defined syntax -- useful when you want to slightly improve a
syntax defined in one of the system-installed files (which nor-
mally are not writable).
REBINDING KEYS
Key bindings can be changed via the following three commands:
bind key function menu
Rebinds the given key to the given function in the given menu
(or in all menus where the function exists when all is used).
bind key "string" menu
Makes the given key produce the given string in the given
menu (or in all menus where the key exists when all is used).
The string can consist of text or commands or a mix of them.
(To enter a command into the string, precede its keystroke
with M-V.)
unbind key menu
Unbinds the given key from the given menu (or from all menus
where the key exists when all is used).
The format of key should be one of:
^X where X is a Latin letter, or one of several ASCII characters
(@, ], \, ^, _), or the word "Space". Example: ^C.
M-X where X is any ASCII character except [, or the word "Space".
Example: M-8.
Sh-M-X where X is a Latin letter. Example: Sh-M-U. By default,
each Meta+letter keystroke does the same as the corresponding
Shift+Meta+letter. But when any Shift+Meta bind is made,
that will no longer be the case, for all letters.
FN where N is a numeric value from 1 to 24. Example: F10. (Of-
ten, F13 to F24 can be typed as F1 to F12 with Shift.)
Ins or Del.
Rebinding ^M (Enter) or ^I (Tab) is probably not a good idea. On some
terminals it's not possible to rebind ^H (unless --raw is used) because
its keycode is identical to that of the Backspace key.
Valid function names to be bound are:
help
Invokes the help viewer.
cancel
Cancels the current command.
exit
Exits from the program (or from the help viewer or the file
browser).
writeout
Writes the current buffer to disk, asking for a name.
savefile
Writes the current file to disk without prompting.
insert
Inserts a file into the current buffer (at the current cursor po-
sition), or into a new buffer when option multibuffer is set.
whereis
Starts a forward search for text in the current buffer -- or for
filenames matching a string in the current list in the file
browser.
wherewas
Starts a backward search for text in the current buffer -- or for
filenames matching a string in the current list in the file
browser.
findprevious
Searches the next occurrence in the backward direction.
findnext
Searches the next occurrence in the forward direction.
replace
Interactively replaces text within the current buffer.
cut
Cuts and stores the current line (or the marked region).
copy
Copies the current line (or the marked region) without deleting
it.
paste
Pastes the currently stored text into the current buffer at the
current cursor position.
zap
Throws away the current line (or the marked region). (This func-
tion is bound by default to <Meta+Delete>.)
chopwordleft
Deletes from the cursor position to the beginning of the preceding
word. (This function is bound by default to <Shift+Ctrl+Delete>.
If your terminal produces ^H for <Ctrl+Backspace>, you can make
<Ctrl+Backspace> delete the word to the left of the cursor by re-
binding ^H to this function.)
chopwordright
Deletes from the cursor position to the beginning of the next
word. (This function is bound by default to <Ctrl+Delete>.)
cutrestoffile
Cuts all text from the cursor position till the end of the buffer.
mark
Sets the mark at the current position, to start selecting text.
Or, when it is set, unsets the mark.
curpos
Shows the current cursor position: the line, column, and character
positions.
wordcount
Counts the number of words, lines and characters in the current
buffer.
speller
Invokes a spell-checking program, either the default hunspell or
GNU spell, or the one defined by --speller or set speller.
formatter
Invokes a full-buffer-processing program (if the active syntax de-
fines one).
linter
Invokes a syntax-checking program (if the active syntax defines
one).
justify
Justifies the current paragraph. A paragraph is a group of con-
tiguous lines that, apart from possibly the first line, all have
the same indentation. The beginning of a paragraph is detected by
either this lone line with a differing indentation or by a preced-
ing blank line.
fulljustify
Justifies the entire current buffer.
indent
Indents (shifts to the right) the currently marked text.
unindent
Unindents (shifts to the left) the currently marked text.
comment
Comments or uncomments the current line or marked lines, using the
comment style specified in the active syntax.
complete
Completes the fragment before the cursor to a full word found
elsewhere in the current buffer.
left
Goes left one position (in the editor or browser).
right
Goes right one position (in the editor or browser).
up
Goes one line up (in the editor or browser).
down
Goes one line down (in the editor or browser).
scrollup
Scrolls the viewport up one row (meaning that the text slides
down) while keeping the cursor in the same text position, if pos-
sible.
scrolldown
Scrolls the viewport down one row (meaning that the text slides
up) while keeping the cursor in the same text position, if possi-
ble.
prevword
Moves the cursor to the beginning of the previous word.
nextword
Moves the cursor to the beginning of the next word.
home
Moves the cursor to the beginning of the current line.
end
Moves the cursor to the end of the current line.
beginpara
Moves the cursor to the beginning of the current paragraph.
endpara
Moves the cursor to the end of the current paragraph.
prevblock
Moves the cursor to the beginning of the current or preceding
block of text. (Blocks are separated by one or more blank lines.)
nextblock
Moves the cursor to the beginning of the next block of text.
pageup
Goes up one screenful.
pagedown
Goes down one screenful.
firstline
Goes to the first line of the file.
lastline
Goes to the last line of the file.
gotoline
Goes to a specific line (and column if specified). Negative num-
bers count from the end of the file (and end of the line).
findbracket
Moves the cursor to the bracket (brace, parenthesis, etc.) that
matches (pairs) with the one under the cursor.
prevbuf
Switches to editing/viewing the previous buffer when multiple buf-
fers are open.
nextbuf
Switches to editing/viewing the next buffer when multiple buffers
are open.
verbatim
Inserts the next keystroke verbatim into the file.
tab
Inserts a tab at the current cursor location.
enter
Inserts a new line below the current one.
delete
Deletes the character under the cursor.
backspace
Deletes the character before the cursor.
recordmacro
Starts the recording of keystrokes -- the keystrokes are stored as
a macro. When already recording, the recording is stopped.
runmacro
Replays the keystrokes of the last recorded macro.
undo
Undoes the last performed text action (add text, delete text,
etc).
redo
Redoes the last undone action (i.e., it undoes an undo).
refresh
Refreshes the screen.
suspend
Suspends the editor (if the suspending function is enabled, see
the "suspendenable" entry below).
casesens
Toggles whether searching/replacing ignores or respects the case
of the given characters.
regexp
Toggles whether searching/replacing uses literal strings or regu-
lar expressions.
backwards
Toggles whether searching/replacing goes forward or backward.
older
Retrieves the previous (earlier) entry at a prompt.
newer
Retrieves the next (later) entry at a prompt.
flipreplace
Toggles between searching for something and replacing something.
flipgoto
Toggles between searching for text and targeting a line number.
flipexecute
Toggles between inserting a file and executing a command.
flippipe
When executing a command, toggles whether the current buffer (or
marked region) is piped to the command.
flipnewbuffer
Toggles between inserting into the current buffer and into a new
empty buffer.
flipconvert
When reading in a file, toggles between converting and not con-
verting it from DOS/Mac format. Converting is the default.
dosformat
When writing a file, switches to writing a DOS format (CR/LF).
macformat
When writing a file, switches to writing a Mac format.
append
When writing a file, appends to the end instead of overwriting.
prepend
When writing a file, 'prepends' (writes at the beginning) instead
of overwriting.
backup
When writing a file, creates a backup of the current file.
discardbuffer
When about to write a file, discard the current buffer without
saving. (This function is bound by default only when option
--tempfile is in effect.)
browser
Starts the file browser, allowing to select a file from a list.
gotodir
Goes to a directory to be specified, allowing to browse anywhere
in the filesystem.
firstfile
Goes to the first file when using the file browser (reading or
writing files).
lastfile
Goes to the last file when using the file browser (reading or
writing files).
nohelp
Toggles the presence of the two-line list of key bindings at the
bottom of the screen.
constantshow
Toggles the constant display of the current line, column, and
character positions.
softwrap
Toggles the displaying of overlong lines on multiple screen lines.
linenumbers
Toggles the display of line numbers in front of the text.
whitespacedisplay
Toggles the showing of whitespace.
nosyntax
Toggles syntax highlighting.
smarthome
Toggles the smartness of the Home key.
autoindent
Toggles whether a newly created line will contain the same amount
of leading whitespace as the preceding line -- or as the next line
if the preceding line is the beginning of a paragraph.
cutfromcursor
Toggles whether cutting text will cut the whole line or just from
the current cursor position to the end of the line.
nowrap
Toggles whether long lines will be hard-wrapped to the next line.
tabstospaces
Toggles whether typed tabs will be converted to spaces.
mouse
Toggles mouse support.
suspendenable
Toggles whether the suspend sequence (normally ^Z) will suspend
the editor window.
Valid menu sections are:
main
The main editor window where text is entered and edited.
search
The search menu (AKA whereis).
replace
The 'search to replace' menu.
replacewith
The 'replace with' menu, which comes up after 'search to replace'.
yesno
The 'yesno' menu, where the Yes/No/All/Cancel question is asked.
gotoline
The 'goto line (and column)' menu.
writeout
The 'write file' menu.
insert
The 'insert file' menu.
extcmd
The menu for inserting output from an external command, reached
from the insert menu.
help
The help-viewer menu.
spell
The menu of the integrated spell checker where the user can edit a
misspelled word.
linter
The linter menu.
browser
The file browser for inserting or writing a file.
whereisfile
The 'search for a file' menu in the file browser.
gotodir
The 'go to directory' menu in the file browser.
all
A special name that encompasses all menus. For bind it means all
menus where the specified function exists; for unbind it means all
menus where the specified key exists.
FILES
/etc/nanorc
System-wide configuration file.
~/.nanorc or $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/nano/nanorc or ~/.config/nano/nanorc
Per-user configuration file.
SEE ALSO
nano(1)
February 2020 version 4.8 NANORC(5)
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