KUESVR(1)

💅 KUESVR(1) — the CERN KUIP edit server, bestie edition 🎀

okay so picture this: it's KUESVR(1), it's from the General Commands Manual, and it's genuinely iconic. sit down, grab a strawberry drink 🍓, and let me tell you about the littlest edit server that could.

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✨ NAME ✨

kuesvr — the CERN KUIP edit server. that's the whole vibe. it serves edits. it's from CERN. slay.

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🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

kuesvr -p pid -c cmd -t tmpfile [ -e editor ] file

that's the shape of it, periodt. -p, -c, -t are the required besties, -e is optional (but like, not really, you'll see), and file is the file. 💖

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🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

so kuesvr is this little program that gets called from KUIP. and before you ask — KUIP stands for Kit for a User Interface Package, and it's part of the Packlib library from CERN. very demure, very particle-physics.

what it does is lowkey magic: it lets you call up an editor from inside a KUIP program (PAW, for instance — hi PAW 👋) on the file given by file, and then keep using the program asynchronously. you're editing AND you're working. main character energy fr fr.

so in general? you do not call kuesvr directly from the command line. like, in Debian it isn't even located in the $PATH — she's not on the street like that 🙈. instead it just runs automatically from a KUIP program whenever an editor is needed, and that happens as long as both of these are true:

• the command line set with KUIP's HOST_EDITOR command ends with an ampersand ('&')
• and $DISPLAY is set

if $DISPLAY is unset (or, on non-Debian systems, if kuesvr can't be found in $PATH), the ampersand will simply be ignored. no drama, it just moves on. for instance:

PAW > HOST_EDITOR 'emacs -geometry 80x48 &'

the editor is expected to create its own graphical window — that's the whole point, bestie. BUT. plot twist. since 'vi' is a frequent choice (we love a classics girlie), setting HOST_EDITOR to 'vi &' will automatically be interpreted as 'x-terminal-emulator -e vi &' instead. literally so thoughtful of it. 💅

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🔥 OPTIONS 🔥

• -c cmd — specifies the KUIP command invoking the edit server. that's it, that's the one. 💜
• -e editor — specifies the editor to be used. by default it's vi. and even though this flag is optional, it will be set anyway when kuesvr is called from the KUIP library — so it's optional in the docs but not optional in practice, iykyk 🫶
• -p pid — specifies the process ID of the calling program. gotta know who's calling 👑
• -t tmpfile — specifies the name of the temporary file used for communication between the calling program and the edit server. now listen — this one is a Debian extension added for security reasons 🛡️. and it's a required argument, which means:

⚠️ this version of kuesvr will not work with a KUIP application using CERN's unmodified Packlib. and going the other way? CERN's unmodified kuesvr will not work with the Debian version of Packlib either. it's a two-way incompatibility, bestie, no cap. 😭

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🌈 SEE ALSO 🌈

• paw(1) — a program that can use the edit server. she's a user, she's a fan 🎀
• the KUIP online help available with command "help host_editor"
• the KUIP manual, available at http://wwwasdoc.web.cern.ch/wwwasdoc/psdir/kuip.ps.gz

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👑 AUTHOR 👑

this manual page was written by Kevin McCarty <kmccarty@debian.org> for the Debian GNU/Linux system (but may be used by others). king behavior, honestly. 🌟

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and that's the page!! March 4, 2005 is the date on this absolute classic, and it's KUESVR(1) all the way down — go edit something, bestie 💖✨🧚