Directory Editing

Epsilon has a special mode used for examining and changing the contents of a directory conveniently. The dired command, bound to Ctrl-x d, asks for the name of a directory and puts a listing of the directory, similar to what the DOS "dir" command produces (or, for Unix, "ls -lF"), in a special dired buffer. By default, dired uses the current directory. You can supply a file pattern, such as "*.c", and only matching files will appear. The dired command puts the information in a buffer whose name matches the directory and file pattern, then displays the buffer in the current window. You can have multiple dired buffers, each displaying the result of a different file pattern.

You can also invoke dired from the find-file command. If you press <Enter> without typing any file name when find-file asks for a file, it does a dired on the current directory. If you give find-file a file name with wild card characters, it runs the dired command giving it that pattern. If you give find-file a directory name, it does a dired of that directory. (When using ftp:// URLs that refer to a directory, end them with /. See URL Syntax for details.)

You can use extended file patterns to list files from multiple directories. (See Extended file patterns.) If you use a file pattern that matches files in more than one directory, Epsilon will divide the resulting dired buffer into sections. Each section will list the files from a single directory. Epsilon sorts each section separately.

While in a dired buffer, alphabetic keys run special dired commands. See the next section in Dired Subcommands for a complete list.

The quick-dired-command command on Alt-o is like running a dired on the current file, then executing a single dired command and discarding the dired buffer. It provides a convenient way of performing various simple file operations without running dired. It prompts for another key, one of C, D, M, G, !, T, V, or @. Then it (respectively) copies, deletes, or renames the current file, changes Epsilon's current directory to the one containing that file, runs a command on the file, shows the file's properties dialog, views it using associations, or toggles whether it's read-only. Alt-o + creates a new directory, prompting for its name. Alt-o . displays a dired of the current file. Alt-o a lets you set the file's attributes or permission bits. Alt-o f views its folder in File Explorer on Windows, the Finder on macOS, or corresponding programs on Unix. The other keys are similar to their corresponding dired subcommands; see the next section for more details. (The T option is only available in Epsilon for Windows.)

By default, Epsilon records dired buffers in its session file and recreates them the next time you start Epsilon, except for remote direds that use a URL. See the variables session-restore-directory-buffers and session-restore-max-directories.

The locate-file command prompts for a file name and then searches for that file, using dired to display the matches. In Windows, it searches for the file on all local hard drives, skipping over removable drives, CD-ROM drives, and network drives. On Unix, it searches through particular parts of the directory hierarchy specified by the locate-path-unix variable.

The list-files command also takes a file pattern and displays a list of files. Unlike dired, its file list uses absolute pathnames, and it omits the file's size, date, and other information. It provides just the file names, one to a line. The command also doesn't list directory names, as dired does. The command is often useful when preparing response files for other programs.

Standard bindings:

Ctrl-x d    dired

Alt-o    quick-dired-command

   list-files

Subtopics:

Dired Subcommands

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