Numbering lines of pseudocode in Vim

Another short one today. When I write pseudocode that I want to share with others, I like to number the lines so that I can easily refer to them. In Vim this is easy thanks to the nl command.

Select the desired line to number and then type :!nl. By default nl uses tabs. I prefer spaces so I use :!nl -s " " instead. man nl details the other twiddling options that you may find useful.

Piping text blocks in vim through bash is a powerful method of text interaction. Some other times I use it are to sort my #inclues and to evaluate simple math expressions with bc.

Written on January 17, 2016