How can I set sublime as default text editor for crontab?

Solution 1:

This is likely due to missing the -w/--wait flag which makes the command (subl) exit only after you close the file (the temporary cron file in this case). Without it, "cron" thinks you finished editing immediately as the command exits and any changes just ends up in the temporary file left for nothing.

So, one solution is:

Create a new file sublime-wait:

#!/bin/sh
subl -w $*

Add to your ~/.bashrc or ~/.profile:

export EDITOR='/path/to/sublime-wait'

Solution 2:

The sequence to pick the editor by cron is following, the first one wins:

• VISUAL environment variable
• EDITOR environment variable
• /usr/bin/editor

So set the VISUAL as sublime's path e.g.:

export VISUAL=/usr/bin/subl

Add this to your ~/.bashrc for permanent assignment.

For just one run, send VISUAL to crontab's environment:

VISUAL=/usr/bin/subl crontab -e