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NANORC(5)                                                                                          NANORC(5)



NAME
       nanorc - GNU nano's rcfile

DESCRIPTION
       This manual page briefly documents GNU nano's rcfile.

       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".

       The nanorc file contains the default settings for nano.  It should not be in DOS or Mac format.  Dur-ing During
       ing startup, nano will first read its system-wide settings from SYSCONFDIR/nanorc, and then user-spe-cific user-specific
       cific settings from ~/.nanorc.


OPTIONS
       The configuration file accepts a series of set and unset commands, which can  be  used  to  configure
       nano  on startup without using the command line options.  Additionally, the syntax, color, and icolor
       keywords are used to define syntax highlighting rules for different text patterns.   nano  will  read
       one command per line.

       Options  in  nanorc  files  take  precedence  over nano's defaults, and command line options override
       nanorc settings.  Also, options are unset by default, except for those that take arguments.

       Quotes inside string parameters don't have to be escaped with backslashes.  The last double quote  in
       the  string will be treated as its end.  For example, for the brackets option, ""')>]}" will match ",
       ', ), >, ], and }.

       The supported commands and arguments are:


       set/unset autoindent
          Use auto-indentation.

       set/unset backup
          Create backup files in filename~.

       set backupdir directory
          Set the directory where nano puts unique backup files if file backups are enabled.

       set/unset backwards
          Do backwards searches by default.

       set/unset boldtext
          Use bold text instead of reverse video text.

       set brackets string
          Set the characters treated as closing brackets when justifying paragraphs.   They  cannot  contain
          blank characters.  Only closing punctuation, optionally followed by closing brackets, can end sen-tences. sentences.
          tences.  The default value is ""')>]}".

       set/unset casesensitive
          Do case sensitive searches by default.

       set/unset const
          Constantly display the cursor position in the status bar.

       set/unset cut
          Use cut to end of line by default.

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

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

       set matchbrackets string
          Set  the  opening and closing brackets that can be found by bracket searches.  They cannot contain
          blank characters.  The former set must come before the latter set, and both must be  in  the  same
          order.  The default value is "(<[{)>]}".

       set/unset morespace
          Use the blank line below the titlebar as extra editing space.

       set/unset 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.

       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 nonewlines
          Don't add newlines to the ends of files.

       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 diractory.  By default, the  operat-ing operating
          ing directory feature is turned off.

       set/unset preserve
          Preserve the XON and XOFF keys (^Q and ^S).

       set punct string
          Set the characters treated as closing punctuation when justifying paragraphs.  They cannot contain
          blank characters.  Only closing punctuation, optionally followed by closing brackets, can end sen-tences. sentences.
          tences.  The default value is "!.?".

       set/unset quickblank
          Do quick statusbar blanking.  Statusbar messages will disappear after 1 keystroke instead of 25.

       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
          "^([ \t]*[#:>\|}])+"  if  you  have  extended regular expression support, or "> " otherwise.  Note
          that '\t' 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 rebindkeypad
          Interpret  the  numeric  keypad  keys so that they all work properly.  You should only need to use
          this option if they don't, as mouse support won't work properly with this option enabled.

       set/unset regexp
          Do extended regular expression searches by default.

       set/unset smarthome
          Make the Home key smarter.  When Home is pressed anywhere but at the very beginning of  non-white-space non-whitespace
          space 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 beginning of the line.

       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.

       set tabsize n
          Use a tab size of n columns.  The value of n must be greater than 0.  The default value is 8.

       set/unset tabstospaces
          Convert typed tabs to spaces.

       set/unset tempfile
          Save automatically on exit, don't prompt.

       set/unset view
          Disallow file modification.

       set whitespace string
          Set the two characters used to display the first characters of tabs and spaces.  They must be sin-gle-column single-column
          gle-column characters.

       set/unset wordbounds
          Detect word boundaries more accurately by treating punctuation characters as parts of words.

       syntax str ["fileregex" ... ]
          Defines a syntax named str which can be activated via the -Y/--syntax command line option, or will
          be automatically activated if the current filename matches the extended  regular  expression  fil-eregex. fileregex.
          eregex.   All  following  color  and  icolor statements will apply to syntax until a new syntax is
          defined.

          The none syntax is reserved; specifying it on the command line is the same as not having a  syntax
          at  all.   The  default  syntax is special: it takes no fileregex, and applies to files that don't
          match any other syntax's fileregex.

       color fgcolor,bgcolor regex ...
          For the currently defined syntax, display all expressions matching the extended regular expression
          regex  with  foreground  color fgcolor and background color bgcolor, at least one of which must be
          specified.  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
          for the foreground.  If your terminal supports transparency, not specifying a bgcolor  tells  nano
          to attempt to use a transparent background.

       icolor fgcolor,bgcolor regex ...
          Same as above, except that the expression matching is case insensitive.

       color fgcolor,bgcolor start="sr" end="er"
          Display  expressions which start with the extended regular expression sr and end with the extended
          regular expression er with foreground color fgcolor and background color bgcolor, at least one  of
          which  must  be specified.  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.

       icolor fgcolor,bgcolor start="sr" end="er"
          Same as above, except that the expression matching is case insensitive.

       include syntaxfile
          Read in self-contained color syntaxes from syntaxfile.  Note that syntaxfile can only contain syn-tax, syntax,
          tax, color, and icolor commands.

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
       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 oth-ers). others).
       ers).



October 28, 2006                                version 2.0.0                                      NANORC(5)

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