Bash function to open a given "PATH" variable (PATH, LD_LIBRARY_PATH, PYTHONPATH, etc) in an editor with each field on one line, then reassemble the path with colon separators

edit_path.bash

edit_path () 
{ 
    local tmpfile=$(mktemp);
    local variable="${1:-PATH}";
    tr ':' '\n' <<< "${!variable}" > "$tmpfile";
    "$EDITOR" "$tmpfile";
    export ${variable}="$(tr '\n' : < "$tmpfile"| sed -e 's/:$//' )"
}