How do I enable syntax highlighting in nano?

Question

Can nano do syntax highlighting like gedit and vim? How can I enable it? I need at least bash and python syntax highlights.

Solution 1

The nano editor provides syntax highlighting for a few languages and scripts by itself. Check out /usr/share/nano/

nits@nits-excalibur:~$ ls /usr/share/nano/
asm.nanorc     fortran.nanorc   man.nanorc     ocaml.nanorc   ruby.nanorc
awk.nanorc     gentoo.nanorc    mgp.nanorc     patch.nanorc   sh.nanorc
c.nanorc       groff.nanorc     mutt.nanorc    perl.nanorc    tcl.nanorc
cmake.nanorc   html.nanorc      nano-menu.xpm  php.nanorc     tex.nanorc
css.nanorc     java.nanorc      nanorc.nanorc  pov.nanorc     xml.nanorc
debian.nanorc  makefile.nanorc  objc.nanorc    python.nanorc

Link them to your user's nano configuration file (present at ~/.nanorc, ${XDG_CONFIG_HOME}/nano/nanorc, or ~/.config/nano/nanorc, whichever is encountered first) with something similiar to this line:

nits@nits-excalibur:~$ cat ~/.nanorc
include /usr/share/nano/sh.nanorc

Now, syntax highlighting is enabled in nano for whatever file you linked (You could also link multiple files)

Note: Sometimes you might get a segmentation fault after you have edited your ~/.nanorc file. If such an error occurs, unsetting the LANG environment variable helps. You can unset it with unset LANG in the terminal. (Solution obtained from here)

There are also other solutions if you are not satisfied with your bash highlighting. One example of such can be found here

You can also write include /usr/share/nano/* to the ~/.nanorc file to enable all languages to be highlighted if your nano version supports it.

Solution 2

Yes you can, however the default syntax definitions are quite poor and incomplete. I'm maintaining a more accurate set of definitions here, for anyone who finds them useful.

To install, run:

git clone https://github.com/scopatz/nanorc.git
cd nanorc
make install

Add these lines to the ~/.nanorc

include ~/.nano/syntax/html.nanorc
include ~/.nano/syntax/css.nanorc
include ~/.nano/syntax/php.nanorc
include ~/.nano/syntax/ALL.nanorc

Specify the ones you want to have colorizing for, and you will have to tune these colors to your preferences. The ALL.nanorc describes features for all yet unclassified files. These are the tools you need to get started, not the end polished product.

Solution 3

I used this command to quickly enable all available languages.

find /usr/share/nano/ -iname "*.nanorc" -exec echo include {} \; >> ~/.nanorc

As mentioned in other answers, /usr/share/nano/ contains the definitions for different languages.

$ ls /usr/share/nano
asm.nanorc     fortran.nanorc   man-html       ocaml.nanorc   ruby.nanorc
awk.nanorc     gentoo.nanorc    man.nanorc     patch.nanorc   sh.nanorc
cmake.nanorc   groff.nanorc     mgp.nanorc     perl.nanorc    tcl.nanorc
c.nanorc       html.nanorc      mutt.nanorc    php.nanorc     tex.nanorc
css.nanorc     java.nanorc      nanorc.nanorc  pov.nanorc     xml.nanorc
debian.nanorc  makefile.nanorc  objc.nanorc    python.nanorc

Also mentioned, to enable highlighting for a language, you add include and the path to the language definition you want to enable to your ~/.nanorc file. So, for example, to enable C/C++ you would add this line.

include /usr/share/nano/c.nanorc

The find command searches for files or directories within the specified directory.

• The -iname flag tells it to only look for files with a name that ends with .nanorc.
• The -exec flags defines a command to execute on each file found.
• The {} gets replaced with the file name.
• \; is used to signify the end of the command to execute to the find command.
• Lastly, >> ~/.nanorc causes the output to be appended to your ~/.nanorc file.

Solution 4

This should include all the syntax highlighting plugins included by default, and any you add to /usr/share/nano:

find /usr/share/nano -name '*.nanorc' -printf "include %p\n" > ~/.nanorc

Or, edit /etc/nanorc and see if you can uncomment the includes.

This works if you have a version of nano that refuses to accept wildcards in the .nanorc file.

Just run this line every time you add an additional .nanorc colour config.

Solution 5

I accidentally disabled highlighting using the keyboard shortcut Alt+Y. It can be turned on again with the same keyboard shortcut.

View more solutions

Comments

[Oxwivi]

Those lines are uncommented in /etc/nanorc - are the global settings being overwritten by ~/.nanorc? How do I disable .nanorc?

[Oxwivi]

Oh wait, I don't even have a ~/.nanorc file.

[Nitin Venkatesh]

The global settings (in /etc) provide settings for all users. The ~/.nanorc provides additional settings for your user-profile. To disable your '~/.nanorc' you can just rename it or delete it. (Edit after the second comment), you can create one by touch ~/.nanorc

[Oxwivi]

Wait, wait, how come the global setting with all the include lines not enabling syntax highlights even though I have not .nanorc?

[Nitin Venkatesh]

This is an excerpt from the /etc/nanorc - ## Please note that you must have configured nano with --enable-nanorc for this file to be read!

[Oxwivi]

Ah, I did not read it properly. I see now, thanks. So either I have a .nanorc file or I modify .bashrc to add --enable-nanorc flag whenever I type nano... And I was hoping that I would be able to do away with user-specific changes... Anyway, thanks for all the help.

[Nitin Venkatesh]

Most welcome :)

[Kevin Bowen]

It would be helpful if you could explain why this is a useful answer for newer users. What is the command doing? What does it change? Randomly suggesting to run a command line is not helpful.

[trusktr]

How do you do it while inside nano?

[Carlton]

My *.js files weren't working...edited /etc/nanorc to remove any other syntax includes as per the FAQ github.com/nanorc/…. ♥ Nano ♥ nanorc

[Tom Busby]

I just installed your syntax defs on Mac OSX. There's only one thing I'd note, which is the black colour of the open-bracket in python gets lost against the black background of my terminal

[dukevin]

Actually there is a problem, some of the colored text is black! If our terminal background is black, these words are invisible!

[code_monk]

thanks for your hard work! you should get this into the upstream repo, IMHO

[TachyonVortex]

To enable syntax highlighting when editing a file with an unrecognised filename extension (such as ~/.bashrc), you can use the --syntax option. For example: nano --syntax=sh ~/.bashrc

[A.B.]

The solution is good, but I would use an other folder for git clone. The content otf the /tmp folder will be deleted on every system start and therefore you could never run a git pull.

[A.B.]

Your language tag is wrong. js isn't bash or shell-script and I have placed the link behind the word here. Where is the problem?

[kodybrown]

+druciferre provides a great command below that adds all syntax files automatically to your .nanorc file. I changed the path to point to your default install location: find $HOME/.nano/syntax/ -iname "*.nanorc" -exec echo include {} \; >> ~/.nanorc

[Abdull]

weird, XML syntax highlighting does not work for me.

[Thom Porter]

ls -1 /usr/share/nano/*.nanorc | sed 's/^\//include \//' >> ~/.nanorc append them all to your .nanorc file, or create it if it does not exist.

[daveoncode]

great tip and explanation, thanks a lot man! ;)

[Jarek Jakubowski]

include /usr/share/nano/* is not working

[aalaap]

Even I didn't have a ~/.nanorc file, but I just created one using nano itself. I can't believe this stuff isn't enabled by default!

[user3757405]

If I write include /usr/share/nano/* to ~/.nanorc, I just get Error reading /usr/share/nano/*: No such file or directory on starting nano. Could I be doing something wrong, or should that bit be removed from the answer?

[mareoraft]

On FreeBSD with nano 2.4.3, with or without BSDREGEX=1, I get error message make: "/usr/home/freebsd/nanorc/Makefile" line 40: Missing dependency operator make: "/usr/home/freebsd/nanorc/Makefile" line 42: Need an operator ...(skipping similar lines)...make: Fatal errors encountered -- cannot continue make: stopped in /usr/home/freebsd/nanorc. Any ideas?

[Will]

@mwfearnley It should probably be removed. Fileglob is not supported throughout all versions of nano.

[Pablo Bianchi]

@A.B. it doesn't matter if that folder is gone since when you make install all the syntax files are copied to the safe place where they belong: ~/.nano/syntax.

[Pablo Bianchi]

Same procedure with all syntax files at once: find $HOME/.nano/syntax/ -iname "*.nanorc" -exec echo include {} \; >> ~/.nanorc. Also, since all syntax files are now on $HOME/.nano/syntax/ is safe to delete the cloned folder.

[Liker777]

this didn't work for me...

[muru]

Pretty much the same as askubuntu.com/a/865425/158442 and askubuntu.com/a/538674/158442 do

[not2qubit]

You have a dead link

[Milind]

Thanks and doesn't look like you need the iname flag. The following seems to work as well find /usr/share/nano/*.nanorc

[IronEagle]

github.com/scopatz/nanorc same idea as dead link

[VIX]

Thansk very much!

[Artanis Zeratul]

this doesn't work :(

[mchid]

@JarekJakubowski use include "/usr/share/nano/*.nanorc" I think it needs double quotes

[Steve Robillard]

I realize this is an old question, but I just added this to my puppet configuration and would make one small addition, adding sort before appending to the file. find /usr/share/nano/ -iname "*.nanorc" -exec echo include {} \; || sort >> ~/.nanorc this will make it easier to see if you have language support or not when adding a new language.