git commit with emacs as editor under Windows

Question

Using git bash in Windows, I set my core.editor to the following:

 c:/program/emacs-24.2/bin/emacs --no-splash -geometry 110x58+200+2

Upon git commit , a new emacs frame opens as expected. The opened buffer has $@ as a name. I cannot save the buffer and exit emacs. Git complains that the commit message was empty.

I have a workaround, which is to set my core.editor to:

c:/program/emacs-24.2/bin/emacs --no-splash -geometry 110x58+200+2 .git/COMMIT_EDITMSG

This works, but with a couple of drawbacks:

• I must be in the directory that contains the.git folder. It does not work if I am in a child directory.
• the emacs frame that opens has two windows, one with COMMIT_EDITMSG , one with $@ .

Is there a better way to choose emacs as commit editor (besides making it open in the terminal)?

Answer 1

I suggest that you either

• run Emacs as a daemon - but that is, apparently, unix-only, or
• run Emacs as usual and start the server with Mx server-start RET or add (server-start) to .emacs

and use emacsclient instead of emacs as your core.editor if you insist on running git from the command line (hit Cx # in the client buffer when done editing to pass the control back to git ).

However, the best way to use Emacs with git is vc :

In Emacs , type Cx vd your/git/repo/root/dir RET to get the list of modified files, mark those you want to commit with m , type Cx vv to commit them - a buffer for the commit message appears (initialized for you with the ChangeLog entry, if any), edit it, type Cc Cc and you are done.

Answer 2

Another very nice interface to git within emacs is provided by magit . The idea behind magit is to provide you with an interactive interface within emacs to easily run all the frequently used git commands, essentially eliminating the need for you to directly run git from the commands-line.

Although it is not standard (unlike vc , which was mentioned in another answer), you can install it very simply using the packaging system, for example from the melpa or marmalade repositories.

Answer 3

This works for me under msysgit 1.7.11:

git config core.editor '/d/bin/emacs-24.3/bin/emacs.exe'

but when I switched to this:

git config core.editor '/d/bin/emacs-24.3/bin/emacs.exe --no-splash'

I got the same '$@' buffer as you do.

Answer 4

Nothing I found online worked the way I wanted, and surprisingly I did not see this command yet..so, here is how I made emacs work in Git for windows:

git config --global core.editor "'C:\Program Files\Emacs\x86_64\bin\runemacs.exe' -wait"