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I am trying to use Emacs 25.1.1 (graphical version, Windows 10) as both the primary editor and the editor for git operations.

In my workflow, I invoke git through M-x shell-command.

I tried the following two options so far:

  1. git config --global core.editor "emacs -Q"

    With this, M-x shell-command RET git commit works just fine, as a new light-weight instance of emacs is used.

    Downside: Completion with M-/ aka dabbrev-expand is less useful than it could be.

  2. git config --global core.editor "emacsclient --no-wait --create-frame"

    With this setting, trying to execute git synchrnously as M-x shell-command RET git commit on the other hand causes the emacsclient and server emacs processes to hang indefinitely, until `emacsclient is killed, while the asynchrnous invocation M-x shell-command RET git commit & works, but this setup is too brittle, as forgetting the & causes Emacs to all but crash.

Is there some way to use emacsclient as git editor, that is compatible with M-x shell-command?

kdb
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    As a workaround (not answering your question), you could consider using magit (which is amazing) or the `vc-*` commands that are built-in (e.g. `C-x v v`). As another workaround, you could use `M-x async-shell-command`. – aplaice Nov 14 '17 at 20:59
  • @aplaice The first workaround seems viable, though I can't seem to figure out an equivalent of ``git commit -a`` or `git commit file1 file2`. Due to such issues I prefer working directly with the shell commands over learning multiple interfaces for the same action. The second workaround is equivalent to the use got ``shell-command`` with leading ``&`` and suffers from the same problems; Most of the time the synchronous version is preferable for me, so its likely I'll end up crashing emacs by forgetting to use the asynchrnous version. The downsides of using `runemacs -Q` are smaller than that. – kdb Nov 16 '17 at 11:12
  • Little correction: It should be ``emacs -Q`` not ``runemacs -Q`` as I had originally written. With ``runemacs -Q`` the editor is detached from git, making git think it was closed with an empty commit message. – kdb Nov 16 '17 at 15:03
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    I think you want https://github.com/magit/with-editor – Ista Apr 10 '18 at 17:58

2 Answers2

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If you run git within a posix environment (cygwin or msys, I believe git-bash uses msys), you could create a function in your ~/.profile:

function already_emacsing () {
   emacsclient --eval '(find-file-other-window $1)'
}
EDITOR="already_emacsing"

I can't test it on your setup right now, but the individual parts all work and I can't see any reason they shouldn't fit together well enough. I can't think of a way to do the same with batch scripting, but it's probable you could do the same emacsclient call with a powershell script or something as well.

Chrstfer CB
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  • I am running git from within the Windows version of Emacs, so it is executed through ``cmdproxy.exe``, not through a posix shell, and thus this solution isn't applicable. – kdb Nov 16 '17 at 11:01
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Does Emacs 25.1.1 not have async-shell-command?

Per the docstring,

Like ‘shell-command’, but adds ‘&’ at the end of COMMAND to execute it asynchronously.

It is bound to M-& by default.

Lorem Ipsum
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