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5
  • If the output (or lack of it) of lsof is to be believed and my understanding is correct, less opens a file but emacs does not. Strange. Commented May 25, 2011 at 19:12
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    I think that editors just open and read the file to the memory and close it. After that they only monitor file for changes (like vim). Commented May 25, 2011 at 19:27
  • The column that says r would be different if it were writing it. Commented May 25, 2011 at 20:04
  • 3
    Lukasz is correct; if you use inotify -m /tmp/file you can see that both vim and nano open, read/write to the file and close it immediately. Commented May 26, 2011 at 0:43
  • Vim opens a buffer in memory and writes to a file on save, emacs is similar i believe. Commented Jul 13, 2011 at 8:08