Display line numbers

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created February 25, 2001 · complexity basic · author scrott · version 7.3

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It is sometimes useful to display line numbers so the number of each line can easily be seen.

Enabling

To display line numbers:

:set number

or:

:set nu

Disabling

This will turn off the line number display:

:set nonumber

or:

:set nonu

The following command is useful because it toggles the display of line numbers. Assuming no numbers are currently displayed, this command will display them. Entering the command again will hide them.

:set nu!

Mapping to toggle line numbers

You can also define a mapping to toggle the option, for example:

:nmap <C-N><C-N> :set invnumber<CR>

By pressing Ctrl-N twice in normal mode, Vim toggles between showing and hiding line numbers.

Enabling line numbers on startup

To enable line numbers on startup, simply add the following to your vimrc.

set number

Adding line numbers only to certain files

Create a filetype plugin for each filetype where you'd like to have numbering enabled (see :help ftplugin-overrule) and add the following line:

setwidth

:set numberwidth=3

You can use the number column for the text of wrapped lines:

:set cpoptions+=n

Finally, you can change the color used for the line numbers. For example:

:highlight LineNr term=bold cterm=NONE ctermfg=DarkGrey ctermbg=NONE gui=NONE guifg=DarkGrey guibg=NONE

Relative line numbers

For some commands, it is easier to know how many lines a give bit of text is, relative to the current cursor position. For example, moving with j and k with a count like 5j; or deleting 8 lines with 8dd can be easier if you have an at-a-glance view of distance from the cursor line instead of distance from the top of the file as with :set number.

To display line numbers relative to the line with the cursor, use:

:set relativenumber

'relativenumber' is not a complete replacement for 'number'; rather, these two options interact so that you can show only relative numbers (number off and relativenumber on), only absolute line numbers (relativenumber off and number on), or show the absolute number on the cursor line and relative numbers everywhere else (both relativenumber and number on).

References

• :help 'number'
• :help 'numberwidth' (Vim 7 and greater only)
• :help 'relativenumber' (Vim 7.3 and greater only)
• :help :highlight