from the spacemacs shell, how do I edit a file in a new buffer in the main window?

Question

I open a new shell using space-'. From that shell window I can type ls to see files. Let's say I want to edit ~/.zshrc. From the shell prompt, what do I type to edit that file in a new buffer in the main window?

Note - I do not want to browse to the file location again using space-f-f, as I might be several dirs deep. And typing emacs <filename> opens a new instance of Emacs. vim <filename> works close to what I want.

I'm using Macos with the d12frosted homebrew install of Emacs.

Answer 1

Add export ALTERNATE_EDITOR="" #Causes Emacs to start a daemon if one is not found. to somewhere your system shell sources (e.g., ~/.profile_bash). Then you can use emacsclient "PATH" to open a file in your current emacs session.