emacsclient - tells a running Emacs to visit a file
emacsclient [options] files ...
This manual page documents briefly the
emacsclient command. Full
documentation is available in the GNU Info format; see below. This manual page
was originally written for the Debian GNU/Linux distribution, but is not
specific to that system.
emacsclient works in conjunction with the built-in Emacs server.
You can either call
emacsclient directly or let other programs run it for
you when necessary. On GNU and Unix systems many programs consult the
environment variable EDITOR (sometimes also VISUAL) to obtain the command used
for editing. Thus, setting this environment variable to 'emacsclient' will
allow these programs to use an already running Emacs for editing. Other
operating systems might have their own methods for defining the default
editor.
For
emacsclient to work, you need an already running Emacs with a server.
Within Emacs, call the functions "server-start" or
"server-mode". (Your ".emacs" file can do this
automatically if you add either "(server-start)" or
"(server-mode 1)" to it.)
When you've finished editing the buffer, type "C-x #"
("server-edit"). This saves the file and sends a message back to the
emacsclient program telling it to exit. The programs that use EDITOR
wait for the "editor" (actually,
emacsclient) to exit.
"C-x #" also checks for other pending external requests to edit
various files, and selects the next such file.
If you set the variable "server-window" to a window or a frame,
"C-x #" displays the server buffer in that window or in that frame.
Most options follow the usual GNU command line syntax, with long options
starting with two dashes ("-").
- +line[:column]
- Go to the specified line and column. A missing column
is treated as column 1. This option applies only to the next file
specified.
- -a, --alternate-editor=COMMAND
- if the Emacs server is not running, run the specified shell command
instead. This can also be specified via the ALTERNATE_EDITOR environment
variable. If the value of ALTERNATE_EDITOR is the empty string, run
"emacs --daemon" to start Emacs in daemon mode, and try to
connect to it.
- -c, --create-frame
- create a new frame instead of trying to use the current Emacs frame
- -F, --frame-parameters=ALIST
- set the parameters of a newly-created frame.
- -d, --display=DISPLAY
- tell the server to display the files on the given display.
- -e, --eval
- do not visit files but instead evaluate the arguments as Emacs Lisp
expressions.
- -f, --server-file=FILENAME
- use TCP configuration file FILENAME for communication. This can also be
specified via the EMACS_SERVER_FILE environment variable.
- -n, --no-wait
- returns immediately without waiting for you to "finish" the
buffer in Emacs.
- -nw, -t, --tty
- open a new Emacs frame on the current terminal
- -s, --socket-name=FILENAME
- use socket named FILENAME for communication.
- -V, --version
- print version information and exit
- -H, --help
- print this usage information message and exit
Normally, the exit status is 0. If emacsclient shuts down due to Emacs signaling
an error, the exit status is 1.
The program is documented fully in
Using Emacs as a Server available via
the Info system.
This manual page was written by Stephane Bortzmeyer
<bortzmeyer@debian.org>, for the Debian GNU/Linux system (but may be
used by others).
This manual page is in the public domain.