How do I make Git use the editor of my choice for commits?
Posted By: Anonymous
I would prefer to write my commit messages in Vim, but it is opening them in Emacs.
How do I configure Git to always use Vim? Note that I want to do this globally, not just for a single project.
Solution
If you want to set the editor only for Git, do either (you don’t need both):
- Set
core.editor
in your Git config:git config --global core.editor "vim"
- Set the
GIT_EDITOR
environment variable:export GIT_EDITOR=vim
If you want to set the editor for Git and also other programs, set the standardized VISUAL
and EDITOR
environment variables*:
export VISUAL=vim
export EDITOR="$VISUAL"
* Setting both is not necessarily needed, but some programs may not use the more-correct VISUAL
. See VISUAL
vs. EDITOR
.
Some editors require a --wait
flag, or they will open a blank page. For example:
-
Sublime Text (if correctly set up; or use the full path to the executable in place of
subl
):export VISUAL="subl --wait"
-
VS Code (after adding the shell command):
export VISUAL="code --wait"
Answered By: Anonymous
Disclaimer: This content is shared under creative common license cc-by-sa 3.0. It is generated from StackExchange Website Network.