NAME

       e - invoke your editor, with optional file:lineno handling

SYNOPSIS

       e [<editor's options>] <file>[:line] [<file>...]
       <pipeline> | e -: [<editor's options>]
       <pipeline> | e -:: [<editor's options>]

DESCRIPTION

       Programs  that  mention  line  numbers in messages have mostly standardized on "file:line:
       Message" or "file:line:col: Message".  Alas, this is not what editors  support,  which  is
       almost always "+line" "file".

       e  takes  a list of file names, optionally followed with :line, then possibly with :column
       and/or an additional colon, and gives to your editor.  The line numbers are  passed  as  a
       separate argument "+line" before the file name which is what editors expect.

       Alternatively,  you can provide file names on the standard input, and specify -: or -:: as
       the first argument.  The former  allows  file  names  without  line  numbers,  the  latter
       silently ignores anything not in the expected format.

       Examples:

              git grep FIXME|e -:

              make 2>&1 >/dev/null|grep error:|e -::

       This is roughly a shorthand for "e `pipeline|cut -d: -f1-2`".

       e  is  also handy as a general-purpose smart alias for running the editor.  If yours has a
       long name like "jstar" or "emacs", you save four keystrokes on what  for  a  typical  Unix
       user is the most often issued command.

EDITOR SELECTION

       If  the  environment  variable  $EDITOR  is  set,  e  will  use that.  Otherwise, it calls
       sensible-editor, which asks what editor to use  then  saves  your  answer.   You  can  run
       select-editor to get asked again.