@dircategory Editors * Dired-X: (dired-x). Dired Extra Features.
Dired Extra Version 2 For The GNU Emacs 19 Directory Editor Manual Revision: 2.52 1994/08/09 16:51:31 Lawrence R. Dodd dodd@roebling.poly.edu (Based on `dired.texi' by Sebastian Kremer <sk@thp.uni-koeln.de>) Copyright (C) 1993, 1994 Free Software Foundation
Permission is granted to make and distribute verbatim copies of this manual provided the copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved on all copies.
Permission is granted to copy and distribute modified versions of this manual under the conditions for verbatim copying, provided that the entire resulting derived work is distributed under the terms of a permission notice identical to this one.
Permission is granted to copy and distribute translations of this manual into another language, under the above conditions for modified versions, except that this permission notice may be stated in a translation approved by the Free Software Foundation.
The file used to create this is called `dired-x.texi', but the original work that was altered to make that file was called `dired.texi' written by Sebastian Kremer.
This documents the extra features for Dired Mode for GNU Emacs 19. It is derived from version 1.191 of Sebastian Kremer's `dired-x.el' and is GNU Emacs v19 compatible.
In adopting this `dired-x.el' to GNU Emacs v19 some material that has
been incorporated into `dired.el' and `dired-aux.el' of the GNU Emacs
19 distribution has been removed and some material was modified for agreement
with the functions in `dired.el' and `dired-aux.el'. For example,
the code using gmhist
history functions was replaced with code using
the mini-buffer history now built into GNU Emacs 19. Finally, a few other
features have been added and a few more functions have been bound to keys.
Please note that `dired-x.el' and this texinfo file `dired-x.texi' are bundled with GNU Emacs versions 19.23 and later.
Some features provided by Dired Extra
`dired-x.el' binds some functions to keys in Dired Mode (see section Key Index) and also binds C-x C-j and C-x 4 C-j globally to
dired-jump
(see section Miscellaneous Commands). It may also bind C-x
C-f and C-x 4 C-f to dired-x-find-file
and
dired-x-find-file-other-window
, respectively (see section Find File At Point).
When loaded this code redefines the following functions of GNU Emacs from `dired.el'
dired-clean-up-after-deletion
dired-find-buffer-nocreate
dired-initial-position
dired-up-directory
and the following functions from `dired-aux.el'
dired-add-entry
dired-read-shell-command
One drawback is that `dired-x.el' will load `dired-aux.el' as soon as dired is loaded. Thus, the advantage of separating out non-essential dired stuff into `dired-aux.el' and only loading when necessary will be lost when `dired-x.el' is used.
This manual describes the dired features provided by the file `dired-x.el'. To take advantage of these features, you must load the file and (optionally) set some variables.
In your `.emacs' file in your home directory, or in the system-wide initialization file `default.el' in the `site-lisp' directory, put
(add-hook 'dired-load-hook (function (lambda () (load "dired-x") ;; Set dired-x global variables here. For example: ;; (setq dired-guess-shell-gnutar "gtar") ;; (setq dired-x-hands-off-my-keys nil) ))) (add-hook 'dired-mode-hook (function (lambda () ;; Set dired-x buffer-local variables here. For example: ;; (setq dired-omit-files-p t) )))
This will load `dired-x.el' when dired is first invoked (for example, when you first do C-x d).
In order to have dired-jump
and dired-jump-other-window
(see section Miscellaneous Commands) work before dired
and
dired-x
have been properly loaded the user should set-up an autoload
for these functions. In your `.emacs' file put
;;; Autoload `dired-jump' and `dired-jump-other-window'. ;;; We autoload from FILE dired.el. This will then load dired-x.el ;;; and hence define `dired-jump' and `dired-jump-other-window'. (define-key global-map "\C-x\C-j" 'dired-jump) (define-key global-map "\C-x4\C-j" 'dired-jump-other-window) (autoload (quote dired-jump) "dired" "\ Jump to dired buffer corresponding to current buffer. If in a file, dired the current directory and move to file's line. If in dired already, pop up a level and goto old directory's line. In case the proper dired file line cannot be found, refresh the dired buffer and try again." t nil) (autoload (quote dired-jump-other-window) "dired" "\ Like \\[dired-jump] (dired-jump) but in other window." t nil)
Note that in recent releases of GNU Emacs 19 (i.e., 19.25 or later) the file
`../lisp/loaddefs.el' of the Emacs distribution already contains the
proper auto-loading for dired-jump
so you need only put
(define-key global-map "\C-x\C-j" 'dired-jump)
in your `.emacs' file in order to have C-x C-j work
before dired
is loaded.
If you choose to have `dired-x.el' bind dired-x-find-file
over
find-file
(see section Find File At Point), then you will need to set
dired-x-hands-off-my-keys
and make a call to the function
dired-x-bind-find-file
in the dired-load-hook
:
(add-hook 'dired-load-hook (function (lambda () (load "dired-x") ;; Bind dired-x-find-file. (setq dired-x-hands-off-my-keys nil) ;; Make sure our binding preference is invoked. (dired-x-bind-find-file) )))
Alternatively, you can set the variable before `dired-x.el' is loaded
(add-hook 'dired-load-hook (function (lambda () ;; Bind dired-x-find-file. (setq dired-x-hands-off-my-keys nil) (load "dired-x") )))
If `dired-x.el' was not bundled with the version of GNU Emacs
installed at your site (i.e., not in the default `../lisp' directory)
then you must put the file `dired-x.el' in a directory known to GNU
Emacs. Examine the variable load-path
for a list of these directories.
If you wish to add a new directory on this list of directories use something
like this in your `.emacs' file
;;; LOAD PATH (setq load-path (append load-path ; default at top (list "/the/directory/where/you/put/dired-x")))
If you wish to put the new directory at the head of the list (where it will be found first) then you should use instead
;;; LOAD PATH (setq load-path (append (list "/the/directory/where/you/put/dired-x") load-path)) ; default at bottom
You must also byte compile the file (for example, hitting B in
dired-mode
). When byte-compiling `dired-x.el' you may get
messages about functions vm-visit-folder
, Man-notify-when-ready
,
and reporter-submit-bug-report
not being defined. These are warnings
and should be ignored.
CAUTION: If you are using a version of GNU Emacs earlier than 19.20
than you may have to edit `dired.el'. The copy of `dired.el' in GNU
Emacs versions earlier than 19.20 incorrectly had the call to run-hooks
before the call to provide
. In such a case, it is possible that
byte-compiling and/or loading dired can cause an infinite loop. To prevent
this, make sure the line of code
(run-hooks 'dired-load-hook)
is the last executable line in the file `dired.el'. That is, make sure it comes after the line
(provide 'dired)
Omitting a file means removing it from the directory listing. Omitting is useful for keeping Dired buffers free of "uninteresting" files (for instance, auto-save, auxiliary, backup, and revision control files) so that the user can concentrate on the interesting files. Like hidden files, omitted files are never seen by Dired. Omitting differs from hiding in several respects:
dired-omit-toggle
) Toggle between displaying and omitting
"uninteresting" files. With a prefix argument, don't toggle and just mark
the files, but don't actually omit them.
In order to make Dired Omit work you first need to load `dired-x.el'
inside dired-load-hook
(see section Installation) and then set
dired-omit-files-p
in some way (see section Omitting Variables).
The following variables can be used to customize omitting.
dired-omit-files-p
nil
If non-nil
, "uninteresting" files are not listed. Uninteresting
files are those whose filenames match regexp dired-omit-files
, plus
those ending with extensions in dired-omit-extensions
. M-o
(dired-omit-toggle
) toggles its value, which is buffer-local. Put
(setq dired-omit-files-p t)inside your
dired-mode-hook
to have omitting initially turned on in
every Dired buffer (see section Installation). You can then use M-o to
unomit in that buffer.
To enable omitting automatically only in certain directories one can use Dired
Local Variables and put
Local Variables: dired-omit-files-p: t End:into a file `.dired' (the default value of
dired-local-variables-file
) in that directory (see section Local Variables for Dired Directories).
dired-omit-here-always
dired-local-variables-file
in the current directory and then refreshes
the directory listing (see section Local Variables for Dired Directories).
dired-omit-files
"^#\\|\\.$"
Filenames matching this buffer-local regexp will not be displayed.
This only has effect when dired-omit-files-p
is t.
The default value omits the special directories `.' and `..' and
autosave files (plus other files ending in ".") (see section Examples of Omitting Various File Types).
dired-omit-extensions
completion-ignored-extensions
(as defined in
the file `loaddefs.el' of the GNU Emacs distribution),
dired-latex-unclean-extensions
, dired-bibtex-unclean-extensions
and dired-texinfo-unclean-extensions
.
If non-nil
, a list of extensions (strings) to omit from Dired listings.
Its format is the same as that of completion-ignored-extensions
.
dired-omit-localp
'no-dir
The localp argument dired-omit-expunge
passes to
dired-get-filename
. If it is 'no-dir
, omitting is much faster,
but you can only match against the non-directory part of the filename. Set it
to nil
if you need to match the whole pathname or t
to match the
pathname relative to the buffer's top-level directory.
dired-omit-marker-char
(setq dired-mark-keys "\C-o") ;; i.e., the value of dired-omit-marker-char ;; (which is not defined yet)anywhere in your `~/.emacs', you will bind the C-o key to insert a C-o marker, thus causing these files to be omitted in addition to the usually omitted files. Unfortunately the files you omitted manually this way will show up again after reverting the buffer, unlike the others.
(setq dired-omit-files (concat dired-omit-files "\\|^RCS$\\|,v$"))in the
dired-load-hook
(see section Installation). This assumes
dired-omit-localp
has its default value of 'no-dir
to make the
^
-anchored matches work. As a slower alternative, with
dired-omit-localp
set to nil
, you can use /
instead of
^
in the regexp.
(setq dired-omit-files (concat dired-omit-files "\\|^INDEX$\\|-t\\.tex$"))in the
dired-load-hook
(see section Installation).
(setq dired-omit-files (concat dired-omit-files "\\|^\\..+$"))in the
dired-load-hook
(see section Installation).
Loading `dired-x.el' will install Dired Omit by putting
dired-omit-expunge
on your dired-after-readin-hook
, and will
call dired-extra-startup
, which in turn calls dired-omit-startup
in your dired-mode-hook
.
When Dired visits a directory, it looks for a file whose name is the value of
variable dired-local-variables-file
(default: `.dired'). If such
a file is found, Dired will temporarily insert it into the Dired buffer and
run hack-local-variables
.
For example, if the user puts
Local Variables: dired-actual-switches: "-lat" dired-omit-files-p: t End:
into a file called `.dired' in a directory then when that directory is viewed it will be
You can set dired-local-variables-file
to nil
to suppress this.
The value of dired-enable-local-variables
controls if and how these
local variables are read. This variable exists so that if may override the
default value of enable-local-variables
.
Please see the GNU Emacs Manual to learn more about local variables. See section `Local Variables in Files' in The GNU Emacs Manual.
The following variables affect Dired Local Variables
dired-local-variables-file
".dired"
If non-nil
, filename for local variables for Dired. If Dired finds a
file with that name in the current directory, it will temporarily insert it
into the dired buffer and run `hack-local-variables'.
dired-enable-local-variables
t
Controls use of local-variables lists in dired. The value can be t
,
nil
, or something else. A value of t
means local-variables
lists are obeyed in the dired-local-variables-file
; nil
means
they are ignored; anything else means query. This variable temporarily
overrides the value of enable-local-variables
when the Dired Local
Variables are hacked.
Based upon the name of a filename, Dired tries to guess what shell command you might want to apply to it. For example, if you have point on a file named `foo.tar' and you press !, Dired will guess you want to `tar xvf' it and suggest that as the default shell command.
The default will be mentioned in brackets and you can type M-p to get the default into the minibuffer so that you can edit it, e.g., changing `tar xvf' to `tar tvf'. If there are several commands for a given file, e.g., `xtex' and `dvips' for a `.dvi' file, you can type M-p several times to see each of the matching commands.
Dired only tries to guess a command for a single file, never for a list of marked files.
dired-guess-shell-alist-default
nil
to turn guessing off.
The elements of dired-guess-shell-alist-user
(defined by the
user) will override these rules.
dired-guess-shell-alist-user
nil
, a user-defined alist of file regexps and their suggested
commands. These rules take precedence over the predefined rules in the
variable dired-guess-shell-alist-default
(to which they are prepended)
when dired-do-shell-command
is run).
Each element of the alist looks like
(regexp command...)where each command can either be a string or a lisp expression that evaluates to a string. If several COMMANDs are given, all will temporarily be pushed on the history. You can set this variable in your `~/.emacs'. For example, to add rules for `.foo' and `.bar' file extensions, write
(setq dired-guess-shell-alist-user (list (list "\\.foo$" "foo-command");; fixed rule ;; possibly more rules... (list "\\.bar$";; rule with condition test '(if condition "bar-command-1" "bar-command-2"))))This will override any predefined rules for the same extensions.
dired-guess-shell-gnutar
nil
If non-nil
, name of the GNU tar executable (e.g., `"tar"' or
`"gnutar"'). GNU tar's `z' switch is used for compressed tar files.
If you don't have GNU tar, set this to nil
: a pipe using `zcat' is
then used.
dired-guess-shell-gzip-quiet
t
A non-nil
value means that -q
is passed to gzip overriding a
verbose GNU zip's `GZIP' environment variable.
dired-guess-shell-znew-switches nil
nil
A string of switches passed to GNU zip's `znew'. An example is
`"-K"' which will make `znew' keep a .Z file when it is smaller than
the .gz file.
dired-shell-command-history nil
Using Virtual Dired means putting a buffer with Dired-like contents in Dired mode. The files described by the buffer contents need not actually exist. This is useful if you want to peruse an `ls -lR' output file, for example one you got from an FTP server. You can use all motion commands usually available in Dired. You can also use it to save a Dired buffer in a file and resume it in a later session.
Type M-x dired-virtual to put the current buffer into virtual
Dired mode. You will be prompted for the top level directory of this
buffer, with a default value guessed from the buffer contents. To
convert the virtual to a real Dired buffer again, type g (which
calls dired-virtual-revert
) in the virtual Dired buffer and
answer `y'. You don't have to do this, though: you can relist
single subdirectories using l (dired-do-redisplay
) on the subdirectory
headerline, leaving the buffer in virtual Dired mode all the time.
The function `dired-virtual-mode' is specially designed to turn on
virtual Dired mode from the auto-mode-alist
. To edit all
`*.dired' files automatically in virtual Dired mode, put this into your
`~/.emacs':
(setq auto-mode-alist (cons '("[^/]\\.dired$" . dired-virtual-mode) auto-mode-alist))
The regexp is a bit more complicated than usual to exclude ".dired" local variable files.
dired-do-find-marked-files
) Find all marked files at once displaying
simultaneously. If optional NOSELECT is non-nil
then just find the
files but do not select. If you want to keep the dired buffer displayed, type
C-x 2 first. If you want just the marked files displayed and nothing
else, type C-x 1 first.
The current window is split across all files marked, as evenly as possible.
Remaining lines go to the bottom-most window. The number of files that can be
displayed this way is restricted by the height of the current window and the
variable window-min-height
.
dired-mark-extension
dired-flag-extension
dired-clean-patch
dired-patch-unclean-extensions
.
dired-clean-tex
dired-tex-unclean-extensions
dired-texinfo-unclean-extensions
dired-latex-unclean-extensions
dired-bibtex-unclean-extensions
dired-very-clean-tex
Variables used by the above cleaning commands (and in the default value for
variable dired-omit-extensions
, see section Omitting Variables)
dired-patch-unclean-extensions
'(".rej" ".orig")
List of extensions of dispensable files created by the `patch' program.
dired-tex-unclean-extensions
'(".toc" ".log" ".aux")
List of extensions of dispensable files created by TeX.
dired-texinfo-unclean-extensions
'(".cp" ".cps" ".fn" ".fns" ".ky" ".kys"
".pg" ".pgs" ".tp" ".tps" ".vr" ".vrs")
List of extensions of dispensable files created by `texinfo'.
dired-latex-unclean-extensions
'(".idx" ".lof" ".lot" ".glo")
List of extensions of dispensable files created by LaTeX.
dired-bibtex-unclean-extensions
'(".blg" ".bbl")
List of extensions of dispensable files created by BibTeX.
dired-mark-sexp
) Mark files for which predicate returns
non-nil
. With a prefix argument, unflag those files instead.
The predicate is a lisp expression that can refer to the following
symbols:
inode
s
mode
nlink
uid
gid
size
time
name
sym
(equal 0 size)to mark all zero length files. To find out all not yet compiled Emacs lisp files in a directory, dired all `.el' files in the lisp directory using the wildcard `*.el'. Then use M-( with
(not (file-exists-p (concat name "c")))to mark all `.el' files without a corresponding `.elc' file.
An Emacs buffer can have but one working directory, stored in the
buffer-local variable default-directory
. A Dired buffer may have
several subdirectories inserted, but still has but one working
directory: that of the top level Dired directory in that buffer. For
some commands it is appropriate that they use the current Dired
directory instead of default-directory
, e.g., find-file
and
compile
.
A general mechanism is provided for special handling of the working directory in special major modes:
default-directory-alist
((dired-mode . (dired-current-directory)))
Alist of major modes and their opinion on default-directory
, as a
lisp expression to evaluate. A resulting value of nil
is ignored
in favor of default-directory
.
default-directory
default-directory
, but knows about the
special cases in variable default-directory-alist
.
`dired-x' provides a method of visiting or editing a file mentioned in the buffer you are viewing (e.g., a mail buffer, a news article, a README file, etc.) or to test if that file exists. You can then modify this in the minibuffer after snatching the filename.
When installed `dired-x' will substitute dired-x-find-file
for
find-file
(normally bound to C-x C-f) and
dired-x-find-file-other-window
for find-file-other-window
(normally bound to C-x 4 C-f).
In order to use this feature, you will need to set
dired-x-hands-off-my-keys
to nil
inside dired-load-hook
(see section Optional Installation File At Point).
dired-x-find-file
dired-x-find-file
behaves exactly like find-file
(normally bound
to C-x C-f) unless a prefix argument is passed to the function in which
case it will use the filename at point as a guess for the file to visit.
For example, if the buffer you were reading contained the words
Available via anonymous ftp in /roebling.poly.edu:/pub/lisp/crypt++.el.gzthen you could move your cursor to the line containing the ftp address and type C-u C-x C-f (the C-u is a universal argument). The minibuffer would read
Find file: /roebling.poly.edu:/pub/lisp/crypt++.el.gzwith the point after the last
/
. If you hit return emacs will visit
the file at that address. This also works with files on your own computer.
dired-x-find-file-other-window
dired-x-find-file-other-window
behaves exactly like
find-file-other-window
(normally bound to C-x 4 C-f) unless a
prefix argument is used. See dired-x-find-file
for more information.
dired-x-hands-off-my-keys
t
, then it means that `dired-x' should not bind
dired-x-find-file
over find-file
on keyboard. Similarly, it
should not bind dired-x-find-file-other-window
over
find-file-other-window
. If you change this variable after
`dired-x.el' is loaded then do M-x dired-x-bind-find-file. The
default value of this variable is t; by default, the binding is not
done. See See section Optional Installation File At Point.
dired-x-bind-find-file
dired-x-hands-off-my-keys
to determine if
dired-x-find-file
should be bound over find-file
and
dired-x-find-file-other-window
bound over
find-file-other-window
. See See section Optional Installation File At Point.
Miscellaneous features not fitting anywhere else:
dired-find-subdir
nil
If non-nil
, Dired does not make a new buffer for a directory if it can
be found (perhaps as subdirectory) in some existing Dired buffer.
If there are several Dired buffers for a directory, the most recently
used is chosen.
Dired avoids switching to the current buffer, so that if you have a
normal and a wildcard buffer for the same directory, C-x d RET
will toggle between those two.
dired-goto-file
) Goto file line of a file (or directory).
dired-goto-subdir
) Goto headerline of an inserted directory.
This commands reads its argument with completion over the names of the
inserted subdirectories.
dired-copy-filename-as-kill
) The w command puts the names
of the marked (or next N) files into the kill ring, as if you had
killed them with C-w. With a zero prefix argument N=0, use the
complete pathname of each file. With a raw (just C-u) prefix argument,
use the relative pathname of each marked file. As a special case, if no
prefix argument is given and point is on a directory headerline, it
gives you the name of that directory, without looking for marked files.
The list of names is also stored onto the variable dired-marked-files
for use, e.g., in the M-: (eval-expression
) command.
As this command also displays what was pushed onto the kill ring you can
use it to display the list of currently marked files in the
echo area (unless you happen to be on a subdirectory headerline).
You can then feed the file name to other Emacs commands with C-y.
For example, say you want to rename a long filename to a slightly
different name. First type w to push the old name onto the kill
ring. Then type R to rename it and use C-y inside R's
minibuffer prompt to insert the old name at a convenient place.
dired-do-toggle
) Toggle marks. That is, currently marked
files become unmarked and vice versa. Files marked with other flags
(such as `D') are not affected. The special directories `.' and `..'
are never toggled.
dired-smart-shell-command
shell-command
, but in the current Dired directory.
Bound to M-! in Dired buffers.
dired-jump
dired-jump-other-window
dired-jump
, but to other window.
These functions can be autoloaded so they work even though `dired-x.el'
has not been loaded yet (see section Optional Installation Dired Jump).
If the variable dired-bind-jump
is nil
, dired-jump
will not be
bound to C-x C-j and dired-jump-other-window
will not be bound to
C-x 4 C-j.
dired-vm
dired-bind-vm
is t. Run VM on this file (assumed
to be a UNIX mail folder).
If you give this command a prefix argument, it will visit the folder
read-only. This only works in VM~5, not VM~4.
If the variable dired-vm-read-only-folders
is t, dired-vm
will
visit all folders read-only. If it is neither nil
nor t
, e.g.,
the symbol 'if-file-read-only
, only files not writable by you are
visited read-only. This is the recommended value if you run VM 5.
If the variable dired-bind-vm
is t, dired-vm
will be bound to
V. Otherwise, dired-bind-rmail
will be bound.
dired-rmail
dired-bind-vm
is nil
. Run Rmail on this
file (assumed to be mail folder in Rmail/BABYL format).
dired-info
dired-bind-info
is nil
, dired-info
will
not be bound to I.
dired-man
dired-bind-man
is nil
, dired-man
will not
be bound to N.
dired-do-relative-symlink
dired-do-relative-symlink-regexp
If you encounter a bug in this package, wish to suggest an enhancement, or want to make a smart remark, then type
M-x dired-x-submit-report
to set up an outgoing mail buffer, with the proper address to the `dired-x.el' maintainer automatically inserted in the `To:' field. This command also inserts information that the Dired X maintainer can use to recreate your exact setup, making it easier to verify your bug or social maladjustment.
Lawrence R. Dodd <dodd@roebling.poly.edu>
Jump to: a - b - d - f - g - h - j - l - m - o - p - r - s - t - v - w
dired-jump
and dired-jump-other-window
dired-x-find-file
Jump to: % - c - f - g - i - m - n - t - v - w - y
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