On Feb 28, 2013 10:26 AM, "Florian v. Savigny" <florian@fsavigny.de> wrote:
>
>
> Encouraged by Ronaldos post, I thought I might rephrase one aspect of
> my problem, hoping this might lead to the (or some) solution:
>
> When I call
>
> emacsclient -a emacs --eval "(rmail)"
>
> Emacs will start up and run rmail if it is started as emacsclient
> (i.e. if emacs and its server are already running). But when started
> as emacs, it starts by opening a new file called "(rmail)".
>
> This is confusing to me, as the --eval option is documented for both
> emacsclient and emacs, leading me to think both should interpret it in
> the same way.
>
> This seems basic enough - can anybody explain to me what I am missing
> here?
>
> Thanks so much in advance!

Not an answer to your question, but it might be helpful to know that if
your alternate editor is "" , then emacsclient will start the emacs server
and try again to run your original command.