nano.1

.\" Hey, EMACS: -*- nroff -*-
.\" nano.1 is copyright (C) 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003 by
.\" Chris Allegretta <chrisa@asty.org>
.\"
.\" This is free documentation, see the latest version of the GNU General
.\" Public License for copying conditions.  There is NO warranty.
.\"
.\" $Id$
.TH NANO 1 "version 1.3.5" "November 6, 2004"
.\" Please adjust this date whenever revising the manpage.
.\"

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

.SH SYNOPSIS
.B nano
.I [\+LINE]\ [options]\ [file]
.br

.SH DESCRIPTION
This manual page documents briefly the \fBnano\fP command.
.PP
.\" TeX users may be more comfortable with the \fB<whatever>\fP and
.\" \fI<whatever>\fP escape sequences to invoke bold face and italics,
.\" respectively.
\fBnano\fP 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, \fBnano\fP also implements some
missing (or disabled by default) features in Pico, such as "search and
replace" and "go to line number".

.SH OPTIONS
.TP
.B \+\fILINE\fP
Places cursor at \fILINE\fP on startup.
.TP
.B \-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 backwards).  If the cursor is
already at that position, it will jump to the true beginning of the
line.
.TP
.B \-B (\-\-backup)
When saving a file, back up the previous version of it to the current
filename suffixed with a ~.
.TP
.B \-E \fIdir\fP (\-\-backupdir=\fIdir\fP)
Set the directory where \fBnano\fP puts the backup files if file backups
are enabled.
.TP
.B \-F (\-\-multibuffer)
Enable multiple file buffers, if available.
.TP
.B \-H (\-\-historylog)
Log search and replace strings to
.I ~/.nano_history
so they may be stored for later editing, if nanorc support is
configured.
.TP
.B \-I (\-\-ignorercfiles)
Don't look at
.I SYSCONFDIR/nanorc
or
.IR ~/.nanorc ,
if nanorc support is available.
.TP
.B \-N (\-\-noconvert)
Disable automatic conversion of files from DOS/Mac format.
.TP
.B \-Q \fIstr\fP (\-\-quotestr=\fIstr\fP)
Set the quoting string for justifying.  The default is
"^([\ \\t]*[|>:}#])+" if regular expression support is available, or
">\ " otherwise.
.TP
.B \-R (\-\-regexp)
Enable regular expression matching for search strings, as well as
\\n subexpression replacement for replace strings, if available.
.TP
.B \-S (\-\-smooth)
Enable smooth scrolling.  Text will scroll line-by-line, instead of the
usual chunk-by-chunk behavior.
.TP
.B \-T \fIcols\fP (\-\-tabsize=\fIcols\fP)
Set the size (width) of a tab to \fIcols\fP columns.
.TP
.B \-V (\-\-version)
Show the current version number and author.
.TP
.B \-Y \fIstr\fP (\-\-syntax=\fIstr\fP)
Specify a specific syntax highlighting from the
.I nanorc
to use, if available.
.TP
.B \-Z (\-\-restricted)
Restricted mode: Don't read or write to any file not specified on the
command line, read any nanorc files, allow suspending, or allow a file
to be appended to, prepended to, or saved under a different name if it
already has one.  Also accessible by invoking \fBnano\fP with any name
beginning with 'r' (e.g. "rnano").
.TP
.B \-c (\-\-const)
Constantly show the cursor position.
.TP
.B \-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.
.TP
.B \-h (\-\-help)
Display a summary of command line options.
.TP
.B \-i (\-\-autoindent)
Indent new lines to the previous line's indentation.  Useful when
editing source code.
.TP
.B \-k (\-\-cut)
Enable cut from cursor to end of line with ^K.
.TP
.B \-l (\-\-nofollow)
If the file being edited is a symbolic link, replace the link with
a new file, do not follow it.  Good for editing files in
.IR /tmp ,
perhaps?
.TP
.B \-m (\-\-mouse)
Enable mouse support (if available for your system).
.TP
.B \-o \fIdir\fP (\-\-operatingdir=\fIdir\fP)
Set operating directory.  Makes nano set up something similar to a
chroot.
.TP
.B \-p (\-\-preserve)
Preserve the XON and XOFF sequences (^Q and ^S) so they will be caught
by the terminal.
.TP
.B \-r \fIcols\fP (\-\-fill=\fIcols\fP)
Wrap lines at column \fIcols\fP.  By default, this is the width of the
screen, less eight.  If this value is negative, wrapping will occur at
\fIcols\fP columns from the right of the screen, allowing the wrap point
to vary along with the screen width if resized.
.TP
.B \-s \fIprog\fP (\-\-speller=\fIprog\fP)
Enable alternative spell checker command.
.TP
.B \-t (\-\-tempfile)
Always save changed buffer without prompting.  Same as Pico -t option.
.TP
.B \-v (\-\-view)
View file (read only) mode.
.TP
.B \-w (\-\-nowrap)
Disable wrapping of long lines.
.TP
.B \-x (\-\-nohelp)
Disable help screen at bottom of editor.
.TP
.B \-z (\-\-suspend)
Enable suspend ability.
.TP
.B \-a, \-b, \-e, \-f, \-g, \-j
Ignored, for compatibility with Pico.

.SH INITIALIZATION FILE
\fBnano\fP will read initialization files in the following order:
.IR SYSCONFDIR/nanorc ,
then
.IR ~/.nanorc .
Please see
.BR nanorc (5)
and the example file \fBnanorc.sample\fP which should be provided with
\fBnano\fP.

.SH NOTES
If no alternative spell checker command is specified on the command
line or in one of the nanorc files, \fBnano\fP will check the
\fBSPELL\fP environment variable for one.

\fBnano\fP will try to dump the buffer into an emergency file in some
cases.  Mainly, this will happen if \fBnano\fP receives a SIGHUP or
SIGTERM or runs out of memory, when it will write the buffer into a file
named
.I 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, ".save" and a number (e.g. ".save.1")
will be suffixed to the current filename in order to make it unique.  In
multibuffer mode, \fBnano\fP will write all the open buffers to the
respective emergency files.

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

The \fBnano\fP mailing list is available from
.BR nano-devel@gnu.org .

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

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

.SH SEE ALSO
.PD 0
.TP
\fBnanorc\fP(5)
.PP
\fI/usr/share/doc/nano/\fP (or equivalent on your system)

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