I'm trying to implement a replacement for raw_input() that would use a configurable text editor like vim as the interface to to the user.

The ideal workflow would be like this:

1. Your python script is running, and makes a call to my_raw_input().
2. Vim (or emacs, or gedit, or any other text editor) opens w/ a blank document
3. You type some text into the document, then save and exit
4. The python script resumes running, with the contents of the file as the return value of my_raw_input().

If you're familiar with git, this is the experience when using git commit, where the editor is configured via core.editor. Other utilities like crontab -e also do this.

Ultimately, I would like this my_raw_input() function to also take an optional string w/ the default input contents, which the user could then edit.

Research so far

• os.exec replaces the current process with the editor command, but does not return. Ie, your python script exits when vim starts.
• popen does not start the child process interactively, there is no user interface displayed.
• vim has a - command-line parameter to read from stdin, but nothing to write to stdout with :w.
• I took a look at the code for git, which I can't follow at all.

Is this possible?

Edit

Good answers so far. I also found the mecurial code that's doing the same thing. I also came up with an example that works from looking at the crontab code, but it looks like it's needlessly complicated compared to some of the responses.

#!/usr/bin/pythonimport osimport tempfiledef raw_input_editor(default=None, editor=None):''' like the built-in raw_input(), except that it uses a visual    text editor for ease of editing. Unline raw_input() it can also    take a default value. '''    editor = editor or get_editor()    with tempfile.NamedTemporaryFile(mode='r+') as tmpfile:        if default:            tmpfile.write(default)            tmpfile.flush()        child_pid = os.fork()        is_child = child_pid == 0        if is_child:            os.execvp(editor, [editor, tmpfile.name])        else:            os.waitpid(child_pid, 0)            tmpfile.seek(0)            return tmpfile.read().strip()def get_editor():    return (os.environ.get('VISUAL')        or os.environ.get('EDITOR')        or 'vi')if __name__ == "__main__":    print raw_input_editor('this is a test')