NAME

Term::CallEditor - solicit data from an external editor

SYNOPSIS

  use Term::CallEditor qw(solicit);

  my $fh = solicit('FOO: please replace this text');
  die "$Term::CallEditor::errstr\n" unless $fh;

  print while <$fh>;

DESCRIPTION

This module calls an external editor with an optional text message, then returns any data from this editor as a file handle. By default, the EDITOR environment variable will be used, otherwise vi.

The solicit() function supports different input formats, including a scalar, scalar reference, array, or objects with the getlines method (IO::Handle or IO::All, for example).

On error, solicit() returns undef. Consult $Term::CallEditor::errstr for details.

EXAMPLES

Pass in a block of text to the editor.

  my $fh = solicit(<< "END_BLARB");

  FOO: This is an example designed to span multiple lines for the sake
  FOO: of an example that span multiple lines.
  END_BLARB

Support bbedit(1) on Mac OS X.

To use BBEdit as the external editor, create a shell script wrapper to call bbedit(1), then set this wrapper as the EDITOR environment variable.