Using the tellEddie tool

tellEddie is a command line tool that can be used for opening documents in Eddie from the Terminal.


tellEddie test.cpp
To create a new file if it doesn't exist prior to opening, use the "--create" or "-c" option:

tellEddie -c test.cpp
- If test.cpp doesn't exist, a new copy will be created.

Aside from opening normal documents in Eddie, tellEddie can also be used to pipe any stdout into a new Eddie window. You can for instance type this in the Terminal:


cvs diff | tellEddie
- the resulting diffs will be shown in a new Eddie window.

When piping some temporary output, you may prefer to treat the resulting document as transient and not be prompted to save when you attempt to close it. The "--noSave" option allows you to do just that:


cvs diff | tellEddie --noSave
- as before, the resulting diffs will be shown in a new Eddie window. When you attempt to close the window, you will not be prompted to save the document (you may still save it by using the Save menu item).

In addition to that tellEddie can be used to open a document in a running copy of Eddie and block the command line until the window corresponding to the open document gets closed. This feature is useful with some source control systems such as CVS, Subversion or Perforce for writing checkin notes, etc. Usually systems like this are preconfigured with the editor of your choice (which could be Eddie in your case). During checkin the editor gets launched from the command line you invoked the checkin command from, you type up your chekin notes and close the editor which makes the checkin proceed with checking in files. If you are already running Eddie (you may be executing the checkin commands from your Worksheet), this will not work because Eddie is already running and the launch eddie command will return immediately without the checkin notes being typed up. To prevent this, you may use the blocking feature of tellEddie. Configure your source control environment to list:


export EDITOR='tellEddie -w'
or a corresponding command, depending on the syntax. The -w option used with tellEddie will cause the file opened as a result to block the command line that invoked it untill the corresponding window is closed. See also Shell tips

tellEddie is also used to pipe built-in commands (such as SetKey, Primitives, etc.) from a Worksheet or a shell window back into Eddie for execution. It ensures shell variables are properly expanded and evaluated making the builtin shell commands well integrated with the rest of the original bash commands and makes them behave identically.

tellEddie provides help for the built-in Eddie shell commands. Type:

 tellEddie -h 
to learn more.

You man choose to copy tellEddie into /usr/bin or some similar location within your shell $PATH and bind it to short alias for convenience:

 alias e='tellEddie'