Re: Q: Is there a built-in way to read multiple file names?

[Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org>]

> From: Ihor Radchenko <yantar92@posteo.net>
> Cc: emacs-devel@gnu.org
> Date: Sun, 07 Jul 2024 15:56:45 +0000
> 
> Daniel Martín <mardani29@yahoo.es> writes:
> 
> >> I feel that such command should exist, but I cannot find it.
> >
> > You can read each filename by calling read-file-name in a loop, ending
> > with RET.  There is multi-isearch-read-files, but the prompt message is
> > coupled to isearch; it should be easy to generalize this function.
> 
> That indeed works, but it is far from ideal:
> 
> 1. It is not very extendable via helm/consult/ivy
> 2. When x-file-dialog is used, it is extremely annoying to run it in a loop
> 
> I am wondering if `read-file-name' could be extended to read multiple
> file names at once.

I think you are generalizing the wrong UI.  A good UI for specifying
several file names is not reading them one after the other, it is
marking the files you want to operate on, and then clicking GO.  Like
in Ibuffer, for example.