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### 5.41 How can I go to a certain line given its number?

Are you sure you indeed need to go to a line by its number? Perhaps all you want is to display a line in your source file for which a compiler printed an error message? If so, compiling from within Emacs using the `M-x compile` and `M-x recompile` commands is a much more effective way of doing that. Emacs automatically intercepts the compile error messages, inserts them into a special buffer called `*compilation*`, and lets you visit the locus of each message in the source. Type `C-x `` to step through the offending lines one by one (starting with Emacs 22, you can also use `M-g M-p` and `M-g M-n` to go to the previous and next matches directly). Click `Mouse-2` or press <RET> on a message text in the `*compilation*` buffer to go to the line whose number is mentioned in that message.

But if you indeed need to go to a certain text line, type `M-g M-g` (which is the default binding of the `goto-line` function starting with Emacs 22). Emacs will prompt you for the number of the line and go to that line.

You can do this faster by invoking `goto-line` with a numeric argument that is the line's number. For example, `C-u 286 M-g M-g` will jump to line number 286 in the current buffer.