On Thu, 13 Feb 1997 20:42:59 -0500 (EST) 
 Michael Graff <explorer@flame.org> wrote:

 > >Description:
 > Setting EDITOR to any editor string which contains arguments causes
 > chfn and probably others to fail.
 > 
 > The code in libutil is probably to blame, but I haven't looked at it
 > yet.

>From the revision log of libutil/passwd.c:

revision 1.3
date: 1996/12/09 22:23:34;  author: thorpej;  state: Exp;  lines: +44 -7
Deal with complex EDITOR strings (e.g. `pico -t').  Fixes PR #2520.

 > >How-To-Repeat:
 > root@kechara# setenv EDITOR "emacs -nw"
 > root@kechara# chfn 
 > chfn: emacs -nw: No such file or directory
 > chfn: /etc/master.passwd: unchanged

So, I just tried this example...

basalt (thorpej) /sys/arch/powerpc/compile/GENERIC 173% echo $EDITOR
emacs -nw
basalt (thorpej) /sys/arch/powerpc/compile/GENERIC 174% chfn
[ editor starts up, I frob the entry, C-x C-c ]
Old password:
The YP password information has been changed on basalt.OG.ORG, the
master YP passwd server.

So, I'm guessing that your libutil sources are not up to date.

Jason R. Thorpe                                       thorpej@nas.nasa.gov
NASA Ames Research Center                               Home: 408.866.1912
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