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NL(1) User Commands NL(1)

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.

use STYLE for numbering body lines
use CC for separating logical pages
use STYLE for numbering footer lines
use STYLE for numbering header lines
line number increment at each line
group of NUMBER empty lines counted as one
-n, --number-format=FORMAT
insert line numbers according to FORMAT
do not reset line numbers at logical pages
add STRING after (possible) line number
first line number on each logical page
use NUMBER columns for line numbers
display this help and exit
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:

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

FORMAT is one of:

left justified, no leading zeros
right justified, no leading zeros
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/>
Report nl translation bugs to <http://translationproject.org/team/>

COPYRIGHT

Copyright © 2010 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 'nl invocation'

should give you access to the complete manual.

June 2018 GNU coreutils 8.4