Ubuntu
debianutils package

sensible-editor fails when there is only one alternative

Bug #238879 reported by Dustin Kirkland 
4
Affects Status Importance Assigned to Milestone
debianutils (Ubuntu)
Fix Released
Low
Dustin Kirkland 

Bug Description

Binary package hint: debianutils

dustin@intrepid:~$ crontab -e
no crontab for dustin - using an empty one
.: 17: Can't open /home/dustin/.selected_editor
crontab: "/usr/bin/sensible-editor" exited with status 2

This occurs when `update-alternatives --list editor` only returns one entry.

To reproduce, remove the nano and ed packages, then run something that uses sensible-editor, such as dch.

I have a debdiff that fixes this. I will attach it in a subsequent post.

:-Dustin

Related branches

lp:ubuntu/karmic/debianutils
Revision history for this message
Dustin Kirkland  (kirkland) wrote :

Marking confirmed, as "geser" on #ubuntu-devel reported this issue, and I have confirmed it.

:-Dustin

Changed in debianutils:
assignee: nobody → kirkland
importance: Undecided → Low
status: New → Confirmed
Revision history for this message
Dustin Kirkland  (kirkland) wrote :

The pertinent code in sensible-editor looks like this:

if [ -r ~/.selected_editor ]; then
        . ~/.selected_editor
elif [ -z "$EDITOR" ] && [ -z "$SELECTED_EDITOR" ]; then
        select-editor && . ~/.selected_editor
fi

There's a problem if running select-editor does not write a ~/.selected_editor file. We should handle this by explicitly exiting 0 if it is created, and 1 otherwise in the select-editor utility.

Patch attached, requesting sponsorship.

:-Dustin

Revision history for this message
Dustin Kirkland  (kirkland) wrote :

Marking 'In Progress' ... patch awaiting sponsorship.

Changed in debianutils:
status: Confirmed → In Progress
Revision history for this message
Michael Bienia (geser) wrote :

I've applied the patch locally and can confirm that it fixes the issue.

Revision history for this message
Launchpad Janitor (janitor) wrote :

This bug was fixed in the package debianutils - 2.28.6ubuntu2

---------------
debianutils (2.28.6ubuntu2) intrepid; urgency=low

  * select-editor: ensure that select-editor exits 0 if and only if a
    ~/.selected_editor file is written, and exits 1 otherwise (LP: #238879).

 -- Dustin Kirkland <email address hidden> Tue, 10 Jun 2008 09:40:00 -0500

Changed in debianutils:
status: In Progress → Fix Released
Revision history for this message
Dustin Kirkland  (kirkland) wrote :

I'm attaching an auxiliary patch, which would have also fixed this problem, but is also necessary for catching silly race conditions where .selected_editor exists, but then gets deleted before sourcing. None of this should cause user heart ache.

:-Dustin

Revision history for this message
Dustin Kirkland  (kirkland) wrote :

Bug in the previous patch, the parens will cause the sourcing to happen in a subshell--not what we want.

Updated patch attached.

:-Dustin

Revision history for this message
Dustin Kirkland  (kirkland) wrote :

Last patch said "hardy", not "intrepid". Argggh...

Updated accordingly.

:-Dustin

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