Re: Running an editor from ANSI C

On 2024-06-08, Keith Thompson <Keith.S.Thompson+u@gmail.com> wrote:

Michael S <already5chosen@yahoo.com> writes:

On Fri, 7 Jun 2024 10:47:57 -0000 (UTC)
Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:

On Fri, 07 Jun 2024 02:37:42 -0700, Keith Thompson wrote:

As for portability, I'm not aware of the $EDITOR convention being
used on non-POSIX systems. 

 
Can non-POSIX systems offer anything better? Any worthwhile
alternative?
 
No.

>
Yes. The one below is better.
ShellExecute(NULL, "edit", filename, NULL, NULL, SW_NORMAL);

>
For those not familiar with Windows, "edit" is not a command name, it's
an "object verb".  The above call invokes the user's configured command
to edit the specified file.  It might invoke a text editor for foo.txt,
an image editor for foo.png.  It's similar to right-clicking a file in
the file explorer and selecting "Edit".  Other verbs include "open",
"print", and "properties".

That seems poor to use. If we know that the file is a text file
regardless of its suffix, it would make much more sense to use the
Windows APIs necessary to resolve the association between .txt and a
program, if one exists, and then use the indicated program.

Basically this:

1. Call getenv("EDITOR"); if that yields something use it.

2. Else, dig up the association between .txt and a program.
   If it exists, use that program.

3. Fallback on notepad.exe or error out.

(Using EDITOR on Windows makes sense in a cross-platform tool
oriented toward cross-platform users.)

--
TXR Programming Language: http://nongnu.org/txr
Cygnal: Cygwin Native Application Library: http://kylheku.com/cygnal
Mastodon: @Kazinator@mstdn.ca