How do I launch an editor from a shell script?

vim shell emacs tcsh
Marc Eaddy picture Marc Eaddy · Nov 6, 2009 · Viewed 11.8k times · Source

I would like my tcsh script to launch an editor (e.g., vi, emacs):

#!/bin/tcsh
vi my_file

This starts up vi with my_file but first displays a warning "Vim: Warning: Output is not to a terminal" and my keystrokes don't appear on the screen. After I kill vi, my terminal window is messed up (no newlines), requiring a "reset". I tried "emacs -nw", "xemacs -nw", and pico with similar results. "xemacs" works but launches a separate window. I want to reuse the same terminal window.

Is there a way to launch an editor from a script so that it reuses the same terminal window?

Answer

Marc Eaddy picture Marc Eaddy · Nov 6, 2009

I answered my own question! You have to redirect terminal input and output:

#!/bin/tcsh
vi my_file < `tty` > `tty`

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