Recently, I needed to edit a php file in Vi and although I need the line of the error, I didn’t see line numbers like I normally do in my Sublime Text 2 editor. It turns out that if you’re in Vi/Vim, you can type
:set numbers
or
:set nu
and line numbers will show up. Much better! But, that only works for the current Vi session. If you want Vi to always show line numbers, edit the .vimrc file in your home folder
vi ~/.vimrc
and append “set number” to it.