comparison man/dired.texi @ 36149:a1ff91eda21c

Just a short xref for dired-x. Clean up dired-recursive-deletes and dired-recursive-copies. Clean up ? in shell command. Mention M-x locate here.

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  Dired makes an Emacs buffer containing a listing of a directory, and
optionally some of its subdirectories as well.  You can use the normal
Emacs commands to move around in this buffer, and special Dired commands
to operate on the files listed.

@menu
* Enter: Dired Enter.         How to invoke Dired.
* Commands: Dired Commands.   Commands in the Dired buffer.
* Deletion: Dired Deletion.   Deleting files with Dired.

* Subdirectories in Dired::   Adding subdirectories to the Dired buffer.
* Subdirectory Motion::	      Moving across subdirectories, and up and down.
* Hiding Subdirectories::     Making subdirectories visible or invisible.
* Updating: Dired Updating.   Discarding lines for files of no interest.
* Find: Dired and Find.	      Using `find' to choose the files for Dired.
* Extra: Dired Extra Features. Dired-X provides more features.
@end menu

@node Dired Enter
@section Entering Dired

  You can flag a file for deletion by moving to the line describing the
file and typing @kbd{d} (@code{dired-flag-file-deletion}).  The deletion flag is visible as a @samp{D} at
the beginning of the line.  This command moves point to the next line,
so that repeated @kbd{d} commands flag successive files.  A numeric
argument serves as a repeat count.
@vindex dired-recursive-deletes
The variable @code{dired-recursive-deletes} determines if the delete
command will delete non-empty directories recursively.  The default
is to delete only empty directories.

@kindex u @r{(Dired deletion)}
@kindex DEL @r{(Dired)}
  The files are flagged for deletion rather than deleted immediately to
reduce the danger of deleting a file accidentally.  Until you direct

@cindex copying files (in Dired)
@item C @var{new} @key{RET}
Copy the specified files (@code{dired-do-copy}).  The argument @var{new}
is the directory to copy into, or (if copying a single file) the new
name.
@vindex dired-recursive-copies
The variable @code{dired-recursive-copies} determines if directories are
copied recursively.  The default is to not copy recursively.

@vindex dired-copy-preserve-time
If @code{dired-copy-preserve-time} is non-@code{nil}, then copying with
this command sets the modification time of the new file to be the same
as that of the old file.

@item D
@findex dired-do-delete
@kindex D @r{(Dired)}
Delete the specified files (@code{dired-do-delete}).  Like the other

For example, @kbd{! uudecode @key{RET}} runs @code{uudecode} on each
file.
@end itemize

What if you want to run the shell command once for each file but with
the file name inserted in the middle?  Or if you want to use the file
names in a more complicated fashion?  Use a shell loop.  For example,
this shell command would run @code{uuencode} on each of the specified
files, writing the output into a corresponding @file{.uu} file:

@example
for file in *; do uuencode $file $file >$file.uu; done
@end example

@noindent
In simple cases you can instead use @samp{?} in the command.  This is
similar to @samp{*} but the command will be run on each file
individually.

The working directory for the shell command is the top-level directory
of the Dired buffer.

The @kbd{!} command does not attempt to update the Dired buffer to show

minibuffer arguments, @var{directory} and @var{find-args}; it runs
@code{find} in @var{directory}, passing @var{find-args} to tell
@code{find} what condition to test.  To use this command, you need to
know how to use @code{find}.

@vindex find-ls-option
  The format of listing produced by these commands is controlled by the
variable @code{find-ls-option}, whose default value specifies using
options @samp{-ld} for @code{ls}.  If your listings are corrupted, you
may need to change the value of this variable.

@node Dired Extra Features
@section Extra Features for Dired

The Dired-X package provides various extra features for Dired mode.  You
can load it with @code{M-x load-library} or customize
@code{dired-load-hook} to add @code{dired-require-dired-x}.
@xref{,Dired-X,,dired-x, Dired Extra Version 2 User's Manual}.

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  Dired makes an Emacs buffer containing a listing of a directory, and
optionally some of its subdirectories as well.  You can use the normal
Emacs commands to move around in this buffer, and special Dired commands
to operate on the files listed.

  The Dired-X package provides various extra features for Dired mode.
@xref{,Dired-X,,dired-x, Dired Extra Version 2 User's Manual}.

@menu
* Enter: Dired Enter.         How to invoke Dired.
* Commands: Dired Commands.   Commands in the Dired buffer.
* Deletion: Dired Deletion.   Deleting files with Dired.

* Subdirectories in Dired::   Adding subdirectories to the Dired buffer.
* Subdirectory Motion::	      Moving across subdirectories, and up and down.
* Hiding Subdirectories::     Making subdirectories visible or invisible.
* Updating: Dired Updating.   Discarding lines for files of no interest.
* Find: Dired and Find.	      Using `find' to choose the files for Dired.
@end menu

@node Dired Enter
@section Entering Dired

  You can flag a file for deletion by moving to the line describing the
file and typing @kbd{d} (@code{dired-flag-file-deletion}).  The deletion flag is visible as a @samp{D} at
the beginning of the line.  This command moves point to the next line,
so that repeated @kbd{d} commands flag successive files.  A numeric
argument serves as a repeat count.

@vindex dired-recursive-deletes
  The variable @code{dired-recursive-deletes} controls whether the
delete command will delete non-empty directories (including their
contents).  The default is to delete only empty directories.

@kindex u @r{(Dired deletion)}
@kindex DEL @r{(Dired)}
  The files are flagged for deletion rather than deleted immediately to
reduce the danger of deleting a file accidentally.  Until you direct

@cindex copying files (in Dired)
@item C @var{new} @key{RET}
Copy the specified files (@code{dired-do-copy}).  The argument @var{new}
is the directory to copy into, or (if copying a single file) the new
name.

@vindex dired-copy-preserve-time
If @code{dired-copy-preserve-time} is non-@code{nil}, then copying with
this command sets the modification time of the new file to be the same
as that of the old file.

@vindex dired-recursive-copies
The variable @code{dired-recursive-copies} controls whether
directories are copied recursively.  The default is to not copy
recursively, which means that directories cannot be copied.

@item D
@findex dired-do-delete
@kindex D @r{(Dired)}
Delete the specified files (@code{dired-do-delete}).  Like the other

For example, @kbd{! uudecode @key{RET}} runs @code{uudecode} on each
file.
@end itemize

What if you want to run the shell command once for each file, with the
file name inserted in the middle?  You can use @samp{?} in the command
instead of @samp{*}.  The current file name is substituted for
@samp{?}.  You can use @samp{?} more than once.  For instance, here is
how to uuencode each file, making the output file name by appending
@samp{.uu} to the input file name:

@example
uuencode ? ? > ?.uu
@end example

To use the file names in a more complicated fashion, you can use a
shell loop.  For example, this shell command is another way to
uuencode each file:

@example
for file in *; do uuencode $file $file >$file.uu; done
@end example

The working directory for the shell command is the top-level directory
of the Dired buffer.

The @kbd{!} command does not attempt to update the Dired buffer to show

minibuffer arguments, @var{directory} and @var{find-args}; it runs
@code{find} in @var{directory}, passing @var{find-args} to tell
@code{find} what condition to test.  To use this command, you need to
know how to use @code{find}.

@pindex locate
@findex locate
@findex locate-with-filter
@cindex file database (locate)
@vindex locate-command
  @kbd{M-x locate} provides a similar interface to the @code{locate}.
@kbd{M-x locate-with-filter} is similar, but keeps only lines matching
a given regular expression.

@vindex find-ls-option
  The format of listing produced by these commands is controlled by the
variable @code{find-ls-option}, whose default value specifies using
options @samp{-ld} for @code{ls}.  If your listings are corrupted, you
may need to change the value of this variable.