Re: ${EDITOR} with spaces (was: Re: [PATCH] initialization of main keymap)

[Lawrence Velázquez <larryv@xxxxxxx>]

On Mon, Sep 5, 2022, at 5:15 AM, Vincent Lefevre wrote:
> Indeed, for EDITOR, under "mailx", POSIX says "name of a utility"
> and not "command". This is a bit unclear about the possibility of
> full pathnames, but under "more", POSIX says "If the last pathname
> component in EDITOR is either vi or ex, [...]" so it is now clear
> that EDITOR may contain a full pathname (there wasn't any practical
> reason for a restriction).
>
> For VISUAL, POSIX says "pathname of a utility".
>
> So, in both cases, options should not be accepted, i.e. spaces
> should be regarded as part of the name (though I wonder whether
> this is portable in practice).

It isn't.  As far as I'm aware, POSIX only addresses EDITOR and
VISUAL as used by a handful of specific utilities (mailx, more, and
so on).  Even you assume that these discrete descriptions imply a
global specification, nonstandardized tools can do whatever they
please.  For instance, Git shell-evaluates the contents of EDITOR
and VISUAL.

https://git-scm.com/docs/git-var#Documentation/git-var.txt-GITEDITOR

-- 
vq