Question

For whatever reason, zsh doesn’t like me setting command-line arguments for my $EDITOR variable, but from what I can tell, it’s not supposed to be this way. I’ve seen people use

export EDITOR='open -Wn'

in their ~/.zshrc file, but when I try to do that, I just get a complaint.

zsh: command not found: open -Wn

Any reason why this might be happening? Setting the $EDITOR to 'mate', 'vim' or 'open' seems to work just fine, but 'mate -w' and 'open -Wn' don’t work.

I’m running zsh inside screen on Mac OS X, and my ~/.zshrc is as follows:

# -----------------------------------------------
# Screen Settings
# -----------------------------------------------

# If screen isn't already running, turn it on.
if [[ $STY == '' ]]; then
    # Execute screen.
    exec screen -aADRU
fi

# -----------------------------------------------
# Startup Scripts
# -----------------------------------------------

cd ~/Desktop
[[ -s "~/.rvm/scripts/rvm" ]] && source "~/.rvm/scripts/rvm"

# -----------------------------------------------
# Environment Variables
# -----------------------------------------------

export HISTFILE=~/.zsh_history
export HISTSIZE=10000
export HISTCONTROL=ignoredups
export SAVEHIST=10000

export PATH=.:/usr/local/bin:/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/narwhal/bin:/bin:/sbin:/usr/bin:/usr/local/share:/usr/sbin:/usr/local/texlive/2011/bin/universal-darwin
export EDITOR='open -Wn'
export LC_TYPE=en_US.UTF-8
export LSCOLORS=exFxcxdxAxexbxHxGxcxBx

# -----------------------------------------------
# Prompt
# -----------------------------------------------

## Root Prompt
[ $UID = 0 ] && export PROMPT="%~ +=> " && export RPROMPT="%*"

## General Prompt
[ $UID != 0 ] && export PROMPT="%~ => " && export RPROMPT="%*"

# -----------------------------------------------
# Aliases
# -----------------------------------------------

## Command Aliases
alias ..='cd ..'
alias ...='cd ../..'
alias internet='lsof -P -i -n | cut -f 1 -d " " | uniq'
alias restart='sudo shutdown -r NOW'
alias ls='ls -@1AFGph'
alias tree='tree -alCF --charset=UTF-8 --du --si'
alias mate='mate -w'
alias zshrc='$EDITOR ~/.zshrc && source ~/.zshrc'
alias vimrc='$EDITOR ~/.vimrc.local'
alias gvimrc='$EDITOR ~/.gvimrc.local'

## Root Aliases
[ $UID = 0 ] && \
    alias rm='rm -i' && \
    alias mv='mv -i' && \
    alias cp='cp -i'

# -----------------------------------------------
# User-defined Functions
# -----------------------------------------------

# Usage: extract <file>
# Description: extracts archived files / mounts disk images.
# Note: .dmg/hdiutil is Mac OS X-specific.
extract () {
    if [ -f $1 ]; then
        case $1 in
            *.tar.bz2)  tar -jxvf $1        ;;
            *.tar.gz)   tar -zxvf $1        ;;
            *.bz2)      bunzip2 $1          ;;
            *.dmg)      hdiutul mount $1    ;;
            *.gz)       gunzip $1           ;;
            *.tar)      tar -xvf $1         ;;
            *.tbz2)     tar -jxvf $1        ;;
            *.tgz)      tar -zxvf $1        ;;
            *.zip)      unzip $1            ;;
            *.Z)        uncompress $1       ;;
            *)          echo "'$1' cannot be extracted/mounted via extract()." ;;
        esac
    else
        echo "'$1' is not a valid file."
    fi
}


# Usage: pman <manpage>
# Description: opens up the selected man page in Preview.
pman () {
    man -t $@ | open -f -a /Applications/Preview.app
}

# Usage: fp <name>
# Description: find and list processes matching a case-insensitive partial-match string.
fp () {
    ps Ao pid,comm|awk '{match($0,/[^\/]+$/); print substr($0,RSTART,RLENGTH)": "$1}'|grep -i $1|grep -v grep
}

# Usage: fk <name>
# Description: find and kill a process matching a case-insensitive partial-match string.
fk () {
    IFS=$'\n'
    PS3='Kill which process? (1 to cancel): '
    select OPT in "Cancel" $(fp $1); do
        if [ $OPT != "Cancel" ]; then
            kill $(echo $OPT|awk '{print $NF}')
        fi
        break
    done
    unset IFS
}

# Usage: create <file>
# Description: creates and opens a file for editing.
create () {
    touch $1 && open $1
}

# Usage: reset
# Description: 'resets' the terminal by changing the current working directory
# to the desktop and clearing the screen.
reset () {
    cd ~/Desktop; clear
}

# Usage: quit
# Description: exits the terminal.
quit () {
    killall Terminal
}

# -----------------------------------------------
# zsh Options
# -----------------------------------------------

# Directories
setopt                  \
    AUTO_CD             \
    AUTO_PUSHD          \
    CD_ABLE_VARS        \
    CHASE_DOTS          \
    CHASE_LINKS         \

# Completion
setopt                  \
    AUTO_LIST           \
    AUTO_MENU           \
    AUTO_PARAM_SLASH    \
    COMPLETE_IN_WORD    \
    LIST_TYPES          \
    MENU_COMPLETE       \
    REC_EXACT           \

# History
setopt                  \
    APPEND_HISTORY      \
    EXTENDED_HISTORY    \

# Input/Output
setopt                  \
    CORRECT             \

# Scripts and Functions
setopt                  \
    MULTIOS             \

# Other
setopt                  \
    NO_BEEP             \
    ZLE

# Key Bindings
bindkey "^[[3~" delete-char

# -----------------------------------------------
# zsh Autocompletion
# -----------------------------------------------

# Turn on auto-completion.
autoload -U compinit && compinit -C && autoload -U zstyle+

# Attempt to complete as much as possible.
zstyle ':completion:*' completer _complete _list _oldlist _expand _ignored _match _correct
zstyle ':completion:*::::' completer _expand _complete _ignored _approximate

# Sort files by name.
zstyle ':completion:*' file-sort name

# Allow for case-insensitive completion.
zstyle ':completion:*' matcher-list 'm:{a-zA-Z}={A-Za-z}'

# Color completions.
zstyle ':completion:*' list-colors ${LSCOLORS}
zstyle ':completion:*:*:kill:*:processes' command 'ps -axco pid,user,command'
zstyle ':completion:*:*:kill:*:processes' list-colors '=(#b) #([0-9]#)*=0=01;31'

# Set the amount of completions that triggers the menu.
zstyle ':completion:*' menu select=long

# Ignore certain patterns.
zstyle ':completion:*:functions' ignored-patterns '_*'
zstyle ':completion:*:complete:-command-::commands' ignored-patterns '*\~'
zstyle ':completion:*:*:(^rm):*:*files' ignored-patterns '*?.(o|c~|old|pro|zwc)'

# Cache completions.
zstyle ':completion::complete:*' use-cache 1
zstyle ':completion::complete:*' cache-path ~/.zcompcache/$HOST

# Allow errors.
zstyle -e ':completion:*:approximate:*' max-errors 'reply=( $(( ($#PREFIX+$#SUFFIX)/2 )) numeric )'

# Insert all expansions for expand completer (eh, don't know what this does).
zstyle ':completion:*:expand:*' tag-order all-expansions

# Formatting and messages.
zstyle ':completion:*' list-prompt '%SAt %p: Hit TAB for more, or the character to insert%s'
zstyle ':completion:*' verbose yes
zstyle ':completion:*:descriptions' format '%B%d%b'
zstyle ':completion:*:messages' format '%d'
zstyle ':completion:*:warnings' format 'No matches for: %d'
zstyle ':completion:*:corrections' format '%B%d (errors: %e)%b'
zstyle ':completion:*' group-name ''

# Offer indexes before parameters in subscripts.
zstyle ':completion:*:*:-subscript-:*' tag-order indexes parameters

Answer 1

In zsh, when you write $EDITOR, it expands to a single word. Unlike other Bourne-style shells, zsh does not split words when it expands unquoted expansions. You can make it happen with the
= modifier on parameter expansion.

$=EDITOR $file

A more portable method is to ensure that EDITOR does not contain any space. Most applications treat $EDITOR as a shell snippet or as a whitespace-separated list of words, but I’ve encountered a few that treat it as a command name. Make EDITOR point to a shell script.

% cat ~/bin/EDITOR
#!/bin/sh
open -Wn -- "$@"
% grep EDITOR ~/.profile
export EDITOR=~/bin/EDITOR