python-editor is a library that provides the editor module for programmatically interfacing with your system's $EDITOR.

Examples

import editor
commit_msg = editor.edit(contents="# Enter commit message here")

Opens an editor, prefilled with the contents, # Enter commit message here. When the editor is closed, returns the contents in variable commit_msg.

import editor
editor.edit(file="README.txt")

Opens README.txt in an editor. Changes are saved in place.

How it Works

editor first looks for the ${EDITOR} environment variable. If set, it uses the value as-is, without fallbacks.

If no $EDITOR is set, editor will search through a list of known editors, and use the first one that exists on the system.

For example, on Linux, editor will look for the following editors in order:

• vim
• emacs
• nano

When calling the edit() function, editor will open the editor in a subprocess, inheriting the parent process's stdin, stdout