EmacsWiki: WDired (original) (raw)

Note: This package was included in Emacs 22.1. In a Dired buffer, the key sequence ‘C-x C-q’ runs the command ‘wdired-change-to-wdired-mode’ to make a dired buffer editable. Change the filenames as you see fit. Commit changes to disk with ‘C-c C-c’.

Written by JuanLeónLahozGarcía, this library facilitates renaming files in Dired buffers. This is great for renaming all those MP3 files ☺ – especially when combined with gse-number-rect by ScottEvans. An old revision for Emacs 21 and earlier can be found here: Lisp:wdired.el.

Make parent directories patch

Here is a small patch to make wdired create parent directories. This is nice when you are moving files to non-existent directories, when improving a directory structure. JoakimVerona

@@ -518,6 +518,7 @@ (wdired-search-and-rename file-ori file-new) (condition-case err (let ((dired-backup-overwrite nil))

@@ -545,6 +546,13 @@ (set-buffer-modified-p nil) (setq buffer-undo-list nil))

I’ve made an ArchLinux AUR package for this patch (took a little touching up, though) emacs-wdired-parent-dir – ElliottSeyler

Patch: mode-name

*** 336,342 **** (force-mode-line-update) (setq buffer-read-only t) (setq major-mode 'dired-mode) ! (setq mode-name "Dired") (dired-advertise) (remove-hook 'kill-buffer-hook 'wdired-check-kill-buffer t) (set (make-local-variable 'revert-buffer-function) 'dired-revert)) --- 336,342 ---- (force-mode-line-update) (setq buffer-read-only t) (setq major-mode 'dired-mode) ! (dired-sort-set-modeline) (dired-advertise) (remove-hook 'kill-buffer-hook 'wdired-check-kill-buffer t) (set (make-local-variable 'revert-buffer-function) 'dired-revert))

Beware of some renaming operations

I tried to send the following bug report to the address given in wdired.el, but it seems it is no longer valid. So here it is, as a warning to others and possibly as an instigation to someone who can fix it:

Consider a directory with files foo and bar:

c:/trash: total 1 free 1908672 drwxrwxrwx 2 areiner root 0 Okt 23 10:46 . drwxrwxrwx 2 areiner root 0 Jän 1 1970 .. -rw-rw-rw- 1 areiner root 5 Okt 23 10:46 bar -rw-rw-rw- 1 areiner root 5 Okt 23 10:46 foo

In order to overwrite bar with foo using wdired mode, I first deleted bar and overwrote foo with bar, ending up with:

c:/trash: total 1 free 1908672 drwxrwxrwx 2 areiner root 0 Okt 23 10:46 . drwxrwxrwx 2 areiner root 0 Jän 1 1970 .. -rw-rw-rw- 1 areiner root 5 Okt 23 10:46 -rw-rw-rw- 1 areiner root 5 Okt 23 10:46 bar

before hitting C-cC-c (wdired-finish-edit).

Evidently, Wdired first performed the renaming (prompting me with: “File c:/trash/bar already exists; rename to it anyway? (yes or no) “) and left me with the only file, bar, marked for deletion, which is dangerous at least and does not really reflect the change I wanted to make.

c:/trash: total 1 free 1908672 drwxrwxrwx 2 areiner root 0 Okt 23 10:49 . drwxrwxrwx 2 areiner root 0 Jän 1 1970 .. D -rw-rw-rw- 1 areiner root 5 Okt 23 10:46 bar

I know why this happens, but it would be nice if wdired caught the fact that the old bar was already gone when I agreed to rename foo to bar, and that the new bar should not be marked for deletion any more. On a related note, Wdired might also want to catch attempts to rename several files to the same name and similar things.

Improved renaming order

Here is a patch which makes WDired slightly smarter about choosing the order in which to rename files. For example, if you have files named 001.txt and 002.txt and rename them to 000.txt and 001.txt, WDired (unfortunately) attempts to do the second rename first and will ask you whether you want to clobber 001.txt. The patched version changes the order to avoid this kind of situation when possible. – PhilSung

As of 14 June 2008, this has been obsoleted in Emacs CVS by an even better implementation. – PhilSung

Wdired and DiredPlus

Wdired and Sunrise Commander

You can use Wdired in The Sunrise Commander by pressing C-x C-q (then C-c C-c to commit, C-c C-k to cancel)

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