How can I define command-line options for the editor?

The Subversion command-line client will invoke the editor that is defined in the environment variable SVN_EDITOR.

This environment variable is passed directly to the operating system, along with the name of a temporary file used to enter and edit the log message.

For example, on Windows if your editor is in C:\Program Files\Posix Tools\bin\vi, you would want to set the variable as follows:

set SVN_EDITOR="C:\Program Files\Posix Tools\bin\vi"

Note that there is no need to escape the quotes in the Windows shell as they are not part of the syntax for the set command.

On UNIX systems you would need to follow your shell's specific methods for setting the variable. For example, in a bash shell, the following should work: * SVN_EDITOR='"/usr/local/more editors/bin/xemacs"' export SVN_EDITOR. In case a command-line option would be needed for the invocation of the editor, just add that after the editor name in the SVN_EDITOR environment variable, just like you would use on the command line. For example, if the options -nx -r would be wanted for the above editors, the following will provide those options.

For Windows:

set SVN_EDITOR="C:\Program Files\Posix Tools\bin\vi" -nx -r

For UNIX/bash:

SVN_EDITOR='"/usr/local/more editors/bin/xemacs" -nx -r' export SVN_EDITOR

Note that SVN_EDITOR is the Subversion-specific environment variable setting for the editor selection. Subversion also supports using the more generic EDITOR variable, but if you need special behaviors with Subversion it is best to use the SVN_EDITOR variable.