less

Print line number with unix less command :

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Less command introduction:

As you know Unix less command writes the contents of a file onto the screen a page at a time and this is one of the utilities using which one can view the content of a file without opening it in an editor.

Press the [space-bar] if you want to see another page, and type [q] if you want to quit reading.

This is how we can print line number with Unix less command.

1)

From man page of CAT(1):

       -n, --number

              number all output lines

So,

$ cat -n file.txt | less

will print the line number in-front of each line.

2)

From man page of LESS(1):

       -N or --LINE-NUMBERS

              Causes a line number to be displayed at the beginning of each line in the display.

So,

$ less -N file.txt

will do the same as 1) above.

3) One can set the following to print line number with less by default:

$ export LESS='-RS#3NM~g