On Unix-like operating systems, the nl command numbers the lines in a file.
This page describes the GNU/Linux version of nl.
Syntax
nl [OPTION]… [FILE]…
Options
By default, nl selects -v1 -i1 -l1 -sTAB -w6 -nrn -hn -bt -fn. CC are two delimiter characters for separating logical pages. A missing second character implies a colon (:).
- Syntax
- Examples
- Related commands
- Linux commands help
For a backslash (), two backslashes (\).
STYLE is one of:
FORMAT is one of:
Examples
cat list.txt
apples oranges potatoes lemons garlic
nl list.txt
1 apples
2 oranges
3 potatoes
4 lemons
5 garlic
In the example above, we use the cat command to display the contents of list.txt. Then we use nl to number each line and display the result to standard output.
nl list.txt > nlist.txt
cat nlist.txt
In the example above, we run the same nl command, but redirect the output to a new file, nlist.txt. Then we use cat to display the results.
Related commands
wc — Display a count of lines, words, and characters in a file.