Execute commands in nano

In nano, it’s trivial to execute command and paste command’s output to the current buffer. That’s what Ctrl-t does.

So, for example, you want to insert list of files with specified name. you can do this in a such way:

  • Ctrl-t
  • type ls -l | grep emacs, press Enter

How to filter rows in nano editor

We can pass text in the current buffer as input to a pipe that will pass it to another program. To do this, press Alt-\ before typing command to execute.

For example, it’s very handy to filter rows. Imagine you have these rows in your buffer:

emacs
some string
I love emacs
I hate vim
I use web-mode for emacs to write html

To leave only strings that contain word “emacs”:

  • Alt-t
  • Alt-\
  • type grep emacs
  • Enter

After that buffer will conain filtered rows:

emacs
I love emacs
I use web-mode for emacs to write html