EnvVar/EDITOR

• $EDITOR

  • A POSIX-defined EnvVar that specifies the user's preferred line-oriented text editor.
  • Defined in IEEE Std 1003.1 (POSIX.1), under the "Environment Variables" chapter.

  • Convention

    • Programs that need to open a text editor should check EnvVar/VISUAL first, then fall back to $EDITOR, then to a default (typically vi).
    • In practice, most users set both $VISUAL and $EDITOR to the same value (e.g., vim, nvim, nano).

  • Examples

    • Setting in Bash/.bashrc or Zsh/.zshrc:
      bash

      export EDITOR="vim"

  • See also

    • EnvVar/VISUAL - the companion variable for screen-oriented editors