Comments on: Easily add line numbers to a text file

By: AsadChohan

AsadChohan — Sun, 10 Jun 2012 06:42:26 +0000

How to replace : in
awk ‘{printf(“%5d : %s\n”, NR,$0)}’ filename > filenamenumbered
with |

please help

SunKing2 — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 19:55:56 +0000

thankx! Gee nl. wow easy.

Lucas — Tue, 04 Jan 2011 19:22:51 +0000

Thanks for the command. I’ve adapted the command to add C-style comments with counts and added it to http://www.commandlinefu.com/commands/view/7562/add-line-number-count-as-c-style-comments.

Bill Ellis — Thu, 20 May 2010 18:47:55 +0000

Thanks Bernhard and Steven, I didn’t know about either of those methods. Post has been updated!

Steven Simmons — Thu, 20 May 2010 17:55:36 +0000

Nice call on cat – I didn’t know that one. I think in order of increasing flexibility: cat, nl, awk.

Bernhard Essl — Thu, 20 May 2010 16:21:14 +0000

The command cat can do the same:

cat -n file > file_new

Steven Simmons — Thu, 20 May 2010 16:06:00 +0000

Note that there is a specific tool for this: nl. This command should get you the same output as the more complicated awk above

nl -ba -s ‘: ‘ filename > filenamenumbered