noble (1) sensible-editor.1.gz

Provided by: sensible-utils_0.0.22_all bug

NAME
       sensible-editor - launch sensibly chosen text editor


SYNOPSIS
       sensible-editor [OPTIONS...]


DESCRIPTION
       sensible-editor  makes  sensible  decisions  on which editor to call.  Programs in Debian can invoke this
       script to get a good default editor.

       sensible-editor looks for an appropriate choice of editor in a series  of  places,  and  uses  the  first
       candidate  that  works.   It starts by checking environment variables, followed by a variable defined via
       select-editor, then tries the default editor command defined by the alternatives system, with a series of
       hard-coded command names as fallbacks.

       Variables will be skipped if unset or null, but may include extra whitespace-separated parameters such as
       a --verbose flag.  Once sensible-editor has a candidate commandline, it will try to run  it  (passing  on
       the  arguments  it  was  given as the files to be edited).  If this fails because the command couldn't be
       executed (exit code 126) or was not found (exit code 127), it tries the next candidate.

       The specific candidates sensible-editor tries, in order, are:

       • $VISUAL – see environ (7)

       • $EDITOR – see environ (7)

       • $SENSIBLE_EDITOR

       • $SELECTED_EDITOR – see select-editor (1)

       • editor – see editor (1), update-alternatives (1)

       • nano

       • nano-tiny

       • vi

       If all of these fail, sensible-editor errors out.  This system is designed to make it easy for individual
       users to set a personal and/or temporary default, overriding the system-wide defaults.


BUGS
       This   command  takes  precautions  against  launching  itself  in  an  infinite  loop  if  a  user  sets
       EDITOR=sensible-editor but indirect loops are still possible.


SEE ALSO
       sensible-browser(1), sensible-pager(1), select-editor(1), environ(7), editor(1), update-alternatives(1)


CONFORMS TO
       The behavior of sensible-utils under a Debian system is documented  in  section  11.4  of  Debian-Policy,
       available   under   /usr/share/doc/debian-policy   if   debian-policy   is   installed,   or   online  at
       https://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/