Right align line numbers with linum-mode?

Question

I would like that my linum-mode numbering is right aligned. The closest thing I've found is on emacswiki, but it doesn't work - it seems to left align the digits instead of right align it. The snippet is found here. Sorry for the horrible indenting, lisp is pretty alien to me :)

(setq linum-format                               
      (lambda (line)                                    
    (propertize                                  
     (format                                 
      (let                                   
      ((w (length (number-to-string (count-lines (point-min)         
                             (point-max))))))    
    (concat "%" (number-to-string w) "d ")) line) 'face 'linum)))

Any ideas?

Appendage

Answer 1

Customize variable linum-format, for example to align on the right on 7 characters :

(custom-set-variables '(linum-format (quote "%7d")))

Goldeye

I would have liked this a lot more if it'd been dynamically done, but once a file passes 1000 lines it doesn't matter anyways. Thanks! :) I settled for %4d. – Appendage

Answer 2

You can just use the value 'dynamic so you don't have to choose an arbitrary amount of padding:

(custom-set-variables '(linum-format 'dynamic))

Or you can also customize it with: M-x customize-variable RET linum-format

Also, @asmeurer asked how to still add a space after the number with dynamic. There is no easy way to do that, but it can be accomplished using defadvice around the linum-update-window function that I adapted from the code for dynamic that is already in that function:

(defadvice linum-update-window (around linum-dynamic activate)
  (let* ((w (length (number-to-string
                     (count-lines (point-min) (point-max)))))
         (linum-format (concat "%" (number-to-string w) "d ")))
    ad-do-it))

Chism

Thanks. You can also change this with M-x customize. – Allergen

How can you use use dynamic and still add a space after the number? I'm sure it's straight-forward, but I'm still pretty new to lisp. – Allergen

@Allergen I updated my answer to show how to use defadvice to still add a space after the number. And yes, you can use customize which is related to custom-set-variables. – Chism

Answer 3

In 2022, for Emacs 28.1, the command is:

(setq linum-format 'dynamic)

Rickirickie

Answer 4

change the linum.el and byte-compile-file to .elc.

for emacs 23.3

line 143 of linum.el

                  (concat "%" (number-to-string w) "d" " | ")))))

I change the default fort to "xxx | ".

Som

Changing the code directly is not a good long-term solution unless you are going to submit a patch upstream that you think will be accepted, otherwise when your emacs installation is upgraded you are going to lose those changes. Instead, in your init.el file you can add defadvice for the linum-update-window function, as the latest edits to my answer shows how to do. – Chism