| 1 | .TH EMACSCLIENT 1 |
| 2 | .\" NAME should be all caps, SECTION should be 1-8, maybe w/ subsection |
| 3 | .\" other parms are allowed: see man(7), man(1) |
| 4 | .SH NAME |
| 5 | emacsclient \- tells a running Emacs to visit a file |
| 6 | .SH SYNOPSIS |
| 7 | .B emacsclient |
| 8 | .I "[options] files ..." |
| 9 | .SH "DESCRIPTION" |
| 10 | This manual page documents briefly the |
| 11 | .BR emacsclient |
| 12 | command. |
| 13 | This manual page was written for the Debian GNU/Linux distribution |
| 14 | because the original program does not have a manual page. |
| 15 | Instead, it has documentation in the GNU Info format; see below. |
| 16 | .PP |
| 17 | .B emacsclient |
| 18 | works in conjunction with the built-in server of Emacs. |
| 19 | .PP |
| 20 | You typically does not call |
| 21 | .B emacsclient |
| 22 | directly. Instead, you set the environment variable EDITOR |
| 23 | to |
| 24 | .B emacsclient |
| 25 | and let programs like 'vipw' or 'bug' or anything run |
| 26 | it for you, which will use an existing Emacs to visit the file. |
| 27 | |
| 28 | For |
| 29 | .B emacsclient |
| 30 | to work, you need an already running Emacs with a server. Within Emacs, call |
| 31 | the function |
| 32 | `server-start'. (Your `.emacs' file can do this automatically if you |
| 33 | add the expression `(server-start)' to it.) |
| 34 | |
| 35 | When you've finished editing the buffer, type `C-x #' |
| 36 | (`server-edit'). This saves the file and sends a message back to the |
| 37 | `emacsclient' program telling it to exit. The programs that use |
| 38 | `EDITOR' wait for the "editor" (actually, `emacsclient') to exit. `C-x |
| 39 | #' also checks for other pending external requests to edit various |
| 40 | files, and selects the next such file. |
| 41 | |
| 42 | If you set the variable `server-window' to a window or a frame, `C-x |
| 43 | #' displays the server buffer in that window or in that frame. |
| 44 | |
| 45 | .SH OPTIONS |
| 46 | The programs follow the usual GNU command line syntax, with long |
| 47 | options starting with two dashes (`-'). |
| 48 | .TP |
| 49 | .B \-n, \-\-no-wait |
| 50 | returns |
| 51 | immediately without waiting for you to "finish" the buffer in Emacs. |
| 52 | .SH "SEE ALSO" |
| 53 | The program is documented fully in |
| 54 | .IR "Using Emacs as a Server" |
| 55 | available via the Info system. |
| 56 | .SH BUGS |
| 57 | If there is no running Emacs server, |
| 58 | .B emacsclient |
| 59 | cannot launch one. I use a small Perl script instead of raw |
| 60 | .B emacsclient |
| 61 | to do it (it works only with systems which have BSD sockets, which is fine |
| 62 | for Debian GNU/Linux). |
| 63 | .SH AUTHOR |
| 64 | This manual page was written by Stephane Bortzmeyer <bortzmeyer@debian.org>, |
| 65 | for the Debian GNU/Linux system (but may be used by others). |