[darcs-users] Re: darcs 1.0.8 not honouring XEDITOR/EDITOR/VISUAL environment variables

[Jamie Webb]

On Fri, Dec 29, 2006 at 03:05:50PM +0000, Asfand Yar Qazi wrote:
> On 12/29/06, Asfand Yar Qazi <ayqazi at gmail.com> wrote:
> >Hi,
> >
> >Whenever I enter a long comment for a record, darcs keeps pulling up
> >GNU Emacs (via the 'emacs' command) even though I've got the VISUAL,
> >XEDITOR and EDITOR variables set to use 'xemacs'.  Darcs just doesn't
> >seem to be reading those variables.
> >
> >What can I do to make it do what the manual says it's meant to, i.e.
> >read those environment variables and use the contents for the editor
> >for long comment?
> >
> >Thanks
> >
> 
> Just to make a correction, that should be 'DARCS_EDITOR', not 'XEDITOR'

DARCS_EDITOR is correct, and does work (on Linux at least). Check that 
the variable is not just set but also exported? Check that the 
environment in which you are calling darcs is the same environment in 
which you have the variable set?

Specifically, typing this in bash should definitely work:

  DARCS_EDITOR=nano darcs record --edit-long-comment

(Using nano as the example here to be sure that the fault is not with 
your (x)emacs setup.)

Note that if the editor command fails for some reason, darcs will try 
a fallback, which might be emacs.

/J