Is it possible to run one emacs but from two terminals?

Question

I was thinking about how I work normally on services. Where I might write code in an editor via Emacs in a terminal view, and in another terminal run the code, and yet still in another view tail the log.

I'd like to do something similar but with Emacs. For instance, write some code in elisp which updates a buffer that's something like a log, but I'd like to put that log/view on another window in another terminal altogether, but controlled from one Emacs. Is this possible? If so how?

Answer 1

It sounds like this would be addressed by running Emacs in daemon mode. For instance, when I start up I run:

emacs --daemon

Then I can start a new client with

emacsclient -nw my/file

And in another terminal open a client with no file with

emacsclient -nw

(-nw = use console rather than opening a GUI window, but also avoids needing to provide a file.)

Both clients share the same set of buffers; it's like opening a new frame in a GUI version of Emacs.

I have an idiosyncratic config for server mode, but I believe this will work as described out of the box, as it were. You can read in more detail at https://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/EmacsAsDaemon