Forcing emacs to run with `-nw` when called from terminal

Question

note: This question might have been asked before ( I think I saw it somewhere), but a quick search did not reveal anything.

I would like to tell the difference when a command is run from a shell.

Emacs can be initialized with the -nw flag to disable the gui window, and I want this to be the default behaviour. However if emacs is run from a non-shell environment, ( e.g. from the Open With in your filemanager, a desktop configured hotkey, or even from bashrun ), it should not be called with the -nw flag.

update: This should be a global change, running sudo emacs in Terminal should'nt suddenly open a gui. Where do I make these changes?

Warren Young · Answer 1 · 2012-09-21T21:03:16.913

9

Say this:

$ echo "alias emacs='emacs -nw'" >> ~/.bashrc

Log out, then log back in, and you will get the behavior you are asking for. The alias applies only to Bash.

edited Sep 21 '12 at 21:03

answered Nov 03 '10 at 17:59

Warren Young

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and how do I get passed **bashrun**? – Stefan Nov 03 '10 at 18:04
According to the manual, `bashrun` doesn't read `~/.bashrc`. If the manual is wrong, you can say "unalias emacs" in $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/bashrun/rc to remove the alias for `bashrun`. – Warren Young Nov 03 '10 at 18:09
mmm... you win! but.. Gilles wins more :) ( I want to cover more than just bash ) – Stefan Nov 03 '10 at 19:01
@Stefan I think most shells load from `.bashrc`; if they don't they almost certainly have an equivalent configuration file you could put the same line in – Michael Mrozek Nov 03 '10 at 23:29
@Michael, I don't want to store the same config setting in two different files, that is just bad practise. Also, I used `emacs` from `sh`, it opened a **gui** instead. – Stefan Nov 04 '10 at 05:01
@Stefan Well, `ln -s .bashrc .whateverrc`. Or use `.profile`, etc. – Michael Mrozek Nov 04 '10 at 14:32
1

Putting my solution into `.profile` will work if `/bin/sh` is Bash or another shell that understands aliases, but that is not the case on all systems. That said, I don't see why it really matters. `/bin/sh` exists for running shell scripts, not for interactive use, which use of X implies. If you have a shell script you wrote for use interactively, instead of trying to shoehorn my solution into working for `/bin/sh`, just put `#!/bin/bash` or whatever at the top instead. – Warren Young Nov 04 '10 at 16:36
I'll be damned, I tried it some time ago and it didn't work. Then I retested it this morning (probably doing some stupid thing) with the same result. I just now RE-added the alias (alias emacs='emacs -nw') and it works... Removing previous comment and +1-ing. – Morlock Sep 22 '12 at 04:56

score 7 · Accepted Answer · edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:36

I think you want to determine if a command is run in a terminal.

if [ -t 2 ]; then
  # Standard error is a terminal
  emacs -nw "$@"
elif [ -n "$DISPLAY" ]; then
  # An X display is available
  xterm -e emacs -nw "$@"
else
  # We have nothing
  emacs --daemon "$@"
fi

If you want this to always happen when you run Emacs, put it in a script and invoke that script instead. You can call the script /usr/local/bin/emacs (assuming Linux) if you want it to be called emacs and invoked in preference to the “real” emacs executable in /usr/bin.

Note that to edit files as root, you should use sudoedit (benefits: the editor runs as you so you get all your settings; the edited file is put into place atomically when you finish editing, reducing the chance of a mishap). You can also edit files as root directly inside Emacs by opening /sudo::/path/to/file.

Forcing emacs to run with `-nw` when called from terminal

2 Answers2