DVTM-EDITOR(1)

💖 DVTM-EDITOR — the little filter-glam bestie from the dvtm manual, section 1 ✨

okay so real talk, this is the dvtm-editor page from the General Commands Manual, and she's tiny but she's doing the most. let's get into it 🎀

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🌸 NAME 🌸

dvtm-editor — make a text editor act as a filter

like, your editor but she's a pipeline girlie now 💅

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✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

dvtm-editor ARGS...

that's it. that's the whole vibe. args go in, magic comes out 🦋

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💜 DESCRIPTION 💜

so dvtm-editor is a file buffering utility that the dvtm(1) terminal multiplexer uses to make its copy mode work. she reads standard input, saves it to a temporary file, and then opens an editor — and which editor she opens is decided by the "ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES" section below. iykyk 😌

now here's the important part, bestie, listen up:

• if the editor you invoked exits with a non-zero exit status, dvtm-editor outputs nothing at all. silence. ghosted. 👻
• if the file's modification time stays unchanged, same deal — nothing gets output.
• but if neither of those things happened? she dumps the content of the modified temporary file straight to stdout. slay. 🔥

and every single command line argument gets forwarded verbatim, no edits, no notes. dvtm(1) uses this to adjust the initial view port by passing +n, which means "the start of line n should be displayed." periodt. 👑

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🌈 ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES 🌈

she goes hunting for your user editor by checking these variables, in order:

• DVTM_EDITOR — lets you invoke an editor that's specific to dvtm, or set particular flags. the VIP pass 🎟️
• VISUAL, EDITOR — the fallback to global defaults. the reliable besties 🫶

and if literally no editor is found? vi(1) gets used. she's always there for you. iconic behaviour fr fr.

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🎀 FILES 🎀

the temporary files get created according to this template:

/tmp/dvtm-editor.XXXXXX

and /dev/tty gets opened to obtain a controlling tty, which is then used for the standard input/output streams of the invoked editor. so the editor has somewhere to actually be, you know? main character energy 🧚

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💅 NOTES 💅

using vis(1) as your editor is particularly convenient because :wq! in visual mode will reduce the file down to the currently active selection(s). that's the trick, bestie. that's the whole hack. 🔥

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👑 SEE ALSO 👑

vi(1), dvtm(1), dvtm-pager(1) — go read the family, they're all lovely 🌸

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🦋 AUTHOR 🦋

dvtm is written by Marc André Tanner <mat at brain-dump.org> — thank you for your service, king 💜

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okay and one last thing before you go: this is dvtm version 0.15+40.g311a8c0-1build1, dated December 27, 2016. so like, vintage but still eating. no cap. 💖✨🎀