This documents the ``extra'' features for Dired Mode for GNU Emacs found in the file dired-x.el.

Copyright © 1993, 1994, 2001, 2002 Free Software Foundation, Inc.

     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 that are provided by the file dired-x.el.

  * Based on dired.texi by Sebastian Kremer <sk@thp.uni-koeln.de>

  * For dired-x.el revision 2

Introduction
************

This documents the extra features for Dired Mode for GNU Emacs.  It is derived from version 1.191 of Sebastian Kremer's dired-x.el.

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.  Finally, a few other features have been added and a few more functions have been bound to keys.

Features
========

Some features provided by Dired Extra

 1. Omitting uninteresting files from Dired listing.

          See Omitting Files in Dired.

 2. Local variables for Dired directories.

          See Local Variables.

 3. Guessing shell commands in Dired buffers.

          See Shell Command Guessing.

 4. Running Dired command in non-Dired buffers.

          See Virtual Dired.

 5. Finding a file mentioned in a buffer

          See Find File At Point.

 6. Commands using file marking.

          See Advanced Mark Commands.

dired-x.el binds some functions to keys in Dired Mode (see Key Index) and also binds C-x C-j and C-x 4 C-j globally to dired-jump (see 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 Find File At Point).

Technical Details
=================

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

Installation
************

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
               (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
               (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 type C-x d).

Optional Installation Dired Jump
================================

In order to have dired-jump and dired-jump-other-window (see 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.

Optional Installation File At Point
===================================

If you choose to have dired-x.el bind dired-x-find-file over find-file (see 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
               (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
               (lambda ()
                 ;; Bind dired-x-find-file.
                 (setq dired-x-hands-off-my-keys nil)
                 (load "dired-x")
                 ))

Omitting Files in 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:

  * Omitting works on individual files, not on directories; an entire directory cannot be omitted (though each of its files could be).

  * Omitting is wholesale; if omitting is turned on for a Dired buffer, then all uninteresting files listed in that buffer are omitted.  The user does not omit (or unomit) files one at a time.

  * Omitting can be automatic; uninteresting file lines in the buffer can be removed before the user ever sees them.

  * Marked files are never omitted.

M-o
     (dired-omit-toggle) Toggle between displaying and omitting ``uninteresting'' files.  With a prefix argument, 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 Installation) and then set dired-omit-files-p in some way (see Omitting Variables).

Omitting Variables
==================

The following variables can be used to customize omitting.

dired-omit-files-p

     Default: nil

     If non-nil, ``uninteresting'' files are not listed. Uninteresting files are those whose files whose names 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 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 Local Variables).

     dired-omit-here-always

          This is an interactive function that creates a local variables file exactly like the example above (if it does not already exist) in the file dired-local-variables-file in the current directory and then refreshes the directory listing (see Local Variables).

dired-omit-files

     Default: "^#\\|\\.$"

     Files whose names match this buffer-local regexp will not be displayed. This only has effect when dired-omit-files-p's value is t.

     The default value omits the special directories . and ..  and autosave files (plus other files ending in .) (see Omitting Examples).

dired-omit-extensions

     Default: The elements of completion-ignored-extensions, 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

     Default:  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 file name.  Set it to nil if you need to match the whole file name or t to match the file name relative to the buffer's top-level directory.

dired-omit-marker-char
     Default: C-o

     Temporary marker used by Dired to implement omitting.  Should never be used as marker by the user or other packages.  There is one exception to this rule: by adding

          (setq dired-mark-keys "\C-o")
          ;; i.e., the value of dired-omit-marker-char
          ;; (which is not defined yet)

     to your ~/.emacs, you can 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.

Examples of Omitting Various File Types
=======================================

  * If you wish to avoid seeing RCS files and the RCS directory, then put

          (setq dired-omit-files
                (concat dired-omit-files "\\|^RCS$\\|,v$"))

     in the dired-load-hook (see 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.

  * If you use tib, the bibliography program for use with TeX and LaTeX, and you want to omit the INDEX and the *-t.tex files, then put

          (setq dired-omit-files
                (concat dired-omit-files "\\|^INDEX$\\|-t\\.tex$"))

     in the dired-load-hook (see Installation).

  * If you do not wish to see dot files (files starting with a .), then put

          (setq dired-omit-files
                (concat dired-omit-files "\\|^\\..+$"))

     in the dired-load-hook (see Installation).

Some Technical Details of Omitting
==================================

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.

Local Variables for Dired Directories
*************************************

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

 1. sorted by date

 2. omitted automatically

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 Local Variables in Files (The GNU Emacs Manual).

The following variables affect Dired Local Variables

dired-local-variables-file
     Default: ".dired"

     If non-nil, file name 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
     Default: t

     Controls the 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.

Shell Command Guessing
**********************

Based upon the name of a file, 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 is mentioned in brackets and you can type M-p to get the default into the minibuffer and then edit it, e.g., to change 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
     Predefined rules for shell commands.  Set this to 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
     If non-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 of them will temporarily be pushed onto the history.

     If * in the shell command, that means to substitute the file name.

     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
     Default: nil

     If non-nil, this is the 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
     Default: t

     A non-nil value means that -q is passed to gzip overriding a verbose option in the GZIP environment variable.

dired-guess-shell-znew-switches nil
     Default: nil

     A string of switches passed to 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

     History list for commands that read dired-shell commands.

Virtual Dired
*************

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.

Advanced Mark Commands
**********************

F
     (dired-do-find-marked-files) Find all marked files at once displaying them 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
     Mark all files with a certain extension for use in later commands.  A . is not automatically prepended to the string entered, you must type it explicitly.

     When called from Lisp, EXTENSION may also be a list of extensions and an optional argument MARKER-CHAR specifies the marker used.

dired-flag-extension
     Flag all files with a certain extension for deletion.  A . is not automatically prepended to the string entered.

Advanced Cleaning Functions
===========================

dired-clean-patch
     Flag dispensable files created by the patch program for deletion.  See variable dired-patch-unclean-extensions.

dired-clean-tex
     Flag dispensable files created by TeX, LaTeX, and texinfo for deletion.  See the following variables (see Advanced Cleaning Variables):

       * dired-tex-unclean-extensions

       * dired-texinfo-unclean-extensions

       * dired-latex-unclean-extensions

       * dired-bibtex-unclean-extensions

dired-very-clean-tex
     Flag dispensable files created by TeX, LaTeX, texinfo, and *.dvi files for deletion.

Advanced Cleaning Variables
===========================

Variables used by the above cleaning commands (and in the default value for variable dired-omit-extensions, see Omitting Variables)

dired-patch-unclean-extensions
     Default: (".rej" ".orig")

     List of extensions of dispensable files created by the patch program.

dired-tex-unclean-extensions
     Default:  (".toc" ".log" ".aux")

     List of extensions of dispensable files created by TeX.

dired-texinfo-unclean-extensions
     Default: (".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
     Default: (".idx" ".lof" ".lot" ".glo")

     List of extensions of dispensable files created by LaTeX.

dired-bibtex-unclean-extensions
     Default:  (".blg" ".bbl")

     List of extensions of dispensable files created by BibTeX.

Special Marking Function
========================

M-(
     (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
          [integer] the inode of the file (only for ls -i output)

     s
          [integer] the size of the file for ls -s output (usually in blocks or, with -k, in KBytes)

     mode
          [string]  file permission bits, e.g., -rw-r--r--

     nlink
          [integer] number of links to file

     uid
          [string]  owner

     gid
          [string]  group  (If the gid is not displayed by ls, this will still be set (to the same as uid))

     size
          [integer] file size in bytes

     time
          [string]  the time that ls displays, e.g., Feb 12 14:17

     name
          [string]  the name of the file

     sym
          [string]  if file is a symbolic link, the linked-to name, else ""

     For example, use

          (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.

Multiple Dired Directories and Non-Dired Commands
*************************************************

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 it still has only 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
     Default: ((dired-mode . (dired-current-directory)))

     Alist of major modes and their notion of default-directory, as a lisp expression to evaluate.  A resulting value of nil is ignored in favor of default-directory.

default-directory
     Function with usage like variable default-directory, but knows about the special cases in variable default-directory-alist.

Find File At Point
==================

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 file name.

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 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 file name 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.gz

     then 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.gz

     with the point after the last /.  If you hit RET, 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
     If set to 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 Optional Installation File At Point.

dired-x-bind-find-file
     A function, which can be called interactively or in your ~/.emacs file, that uses the value of 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 Optional Installation File At Point.

Miscellaneous Commands
**********************

Miscellaneous features not fitting anywhere else:

dired-find-subdir
     Default: 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.

M-G
     (dired-goto-subdir) Go to the header line of an inserted directory. This command reads its argument, with completion derived from the names of the inserted subdirectories.

dired-smart-shell-command
     Like function shell-command, but in the current Dired directory. Bound to M-! in Dired buffers.

dired-jump
     Bound to C-x C-j.  Jump back to Dired: If in a file, edit the current directory and move to file's line.  If in Dired already, pop up a level and go to old directory's line.  In case the proper Dired file line cannot be found, refresh the Dired buffer and try again.

dired-jump-other-window
     Bound to C-x 4 C-j. Like 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 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
     Bound to V if 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
     Bound to V if dired-bind-vm is nil.  Run Rmail on this file (assumed to be mail folder in Rmail/BABYL format).

dired-info
     Bound to I.  Run Info on this file (assumed to be a file in Info format).

     If the variable dired-bind-info is nil, dired-info will not be bound to I.

dired-man
     Bound to N.  Run man on this file (assumed to be a file in nroff format).

     If the variable dired-bind-man is nil, dired-man will not be bound to N.

dired-do-relative-symlink
     Bound to Y.  Relative symlink all marked (or next ARG) files into a directory, or make a relative symbolic link to the current file.  This creates relative symbolic links like

              foo -> ../bar/foo

     not absolute ones like

              foo -> /ugly/path/that/may/change/any/day/bar/foo

dired-do-relative-symlink-regexp
     Bound to %Y.  Relative symlink all marked files containing REGEXP to NEWNAME.  See functions dired-do-rename-regexp and dired-do-relsymlink for more info.

Bugs
****

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