sensible-editor - Man Page

• Open a file in the default editor: sensible-editor path/to/file
• Open a file in the default editor, with the cursor at the end of the file: sensible-editor + path/to/file
• Open a file in the default editor, with the cursor at the beginning of line 10: sensible-editor +10 path/to/file
• Open 3 files in vertically split editor windows at the same time: sensible-editor -O3 file_1 file_2 file_3

tldr.sh

sensible-editor [OPTIONS...]

sensible-editor makes sensible decisions on which editor to call. Programs in Debian can use this script as their default editor. sensible-editor try to do in the following order:

1. if VISUAL environment variable exists, execute VISUAL [OPTIONS]
2. if EDITOR environment variable exists, execute EDITOR [OPTIONS]
3. source the contents of file ~/.selected_editor and, if SELECTED_EDITOR environment variable exists execute SELECTED_EDITOR [OPTIONS]
4. run editor [OPTIONS] command
5. finally run nano-tiny [OPTIONS] command

environ(7) for documentation of the EDITOR, VISUAL variables
select-editor(1) for changing a user's default editor.
editor(1) for default system wide editor.

This command is protected against trivial fork bomb, when user set EDITOR=sensible-editor wider loops are still possible.

Documentation of behavior of sensible-utils under a debian system is available under section 11.4 of debian-policy usually installed under /usr/share/doc/debian-policy (you might need to install debian-policy)

cdist-type__sensible_editor(7), nmudiff(1), select-editor(1).