DESCRIPTION

       This manual page 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 number".

       The  nanorc  file  contains  the  default  settings  for  nano.  During
       startup,  nano  will  first  read   its   system-wide   settings   from
       $SYSCONFDIR/nanorc, and then user-specific 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  com-
       mand-line  options. Additionally, the "syntax" and "color" keywords are
       used to define syntax highlighting rules for different  text  patterns.
       GNU nano will read one command per line.

       Options  in  rcfiles  take precedence over nano's defaults, and command
       line options override rcfile settings.

       Options are unset by default, except for options that take an argument.

       The supported commands and arguments are:


       set/unset autoindent
          Use auto-indentation.

       set/unset backup
          Create backup files in filename~.

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

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

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

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

       set/unset keypad
          Use alternate keypad routines.


       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 dir.  By default the operating directory fea-
          ture is turned off.

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

       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

               set quotestr "^([ \t]*[|>:}#])+"

          if you have regexps, otherwise set quotestr "> ".   Note  that  '\t'
          above stands for a literal Tab character.

       set/unset regexp
          Do regular expression searches by default.

       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 with ^Z.

       set tabsize n
          Use a tab size of n instead of the default (8); must be greater than
          0.

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

       set/unset view
          Disallow file modification.

       syntax str ["fileregex" ... ]
          Defines  a  syntax named str which can be activated via the -Y flag,
          or will be automatically activated if the current  filename  matches
          fileregex.   All  following  color  statements  will apply to syntax
          until a new syntax is defined.

       color fgcolor[,bgcolor] regex ...
          For the currently defined syntax, display all  expressions  matching
          regex  with  foreground  color fgcolor and optional background color

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  sys-
       tem)

AUTHOR

       Chris  Allegretta  <chrisa@asty.org>, et al (see AUTHORS and THANKS for
       details).   This   manual   page   was   written   by   Jordi   Mallach
       <jordi@gnu.org>.



                                 June 19, 2003                       NANORC(5)