buffer for unopened file?

buffer for unopened file?

[David L]

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I'd like to be able to give emacs a big list of filenames
and have each file appear as if it has been visited with
respect to having it appear in my buffer list.  But only
when changing to that buffer do I want it to actually open
the file.  Is that possible?  It takes a minute or so to open
all of the files and wastes memory to open them all.  But
I like to have a menu of the files I might be needing.

Thanks!

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Re: buffer for unopened file?

[Amy Templeton]

"David L" <idht4n@gmail.com> wrote:
> I'd like to be able to give emacs a big list of filenames and have each
> file appear as if it has been visited with respect to having it appear in
> my buffer list. But only when changing to that buffer do I want it to
> actually open the file. Is that possible? It takes a minute or so to open
> all of the files and wastes memory to open them all. But I like to have a
> menu of the files I might be needing.

I don't know about that, but I'm sure it's possible. I solution I'm fond of
is registers. For example...

(set-register ?e '(file . "~/.emacs.el"))

...allows me to use `C-x r j e' to jump to my .emacs file, whether it was
previously open or not. I believe it's also possible to specify positions
within the file. Registers are pretty cool.

Amy

-- 
Never put off until tomorrow what you can do the day after.

Re: buffer for unopened file?

[Sebastian Tennant]

Quoth "David L" <idht4n@gmail.com>:
> I'd like to be able to give emacs a big list of filenames
> and have each file appear as if it has been visited with
> respect to having it appear in my buffer list.  But only
> when changing to that buffer do I want it to actually open
> the file.  Is that possible?  It takes a minute or so to open
> all of the files and wastes memory to open them all.  But
> I like to have a menu of the files I might be needing.

How about just creating a plain text file, such as:


 ~/workspace/file1
 ~/workspace/file2
 .
 .
 .
 ~/workspace/fileN

and save it as ~/workspace/files-i-often-visit.txt

Then add the following to your ~/.emacs:

 (global-set-key "\C-cf" 'find-file-at-point) ;Ctrl-C f  to visit file at point 

 ;;; this should be the last line
 (find-file "~/workspace/files-i-often-visit.txt")

Then all you need to do is select the buffer files-i-often-visit.txt
(which will be visited at startup), and using C-p and C-n to navigate up
and down in your list, you can simply visit whichever file you like
using C-cf <RET>.

Sebastian

P.S. You could add the string -*- mode: view -*- as the first line of
     file-i-visit-often.txt to ensure the buffer is always visited
     read-only

RE: buffer for unopened file?

[Drew Adams]

> > I'd like to be able to give emacs a big list of filenames
> > and have each file appear as if it has been visited with
> > respect to having it appear in my buffer list.  But only
> > when changing to that buffer do I want it to actually open
> > the file.  Is that possible?  It takes a minute or so to open
> > all of the files and wastes memory to open them all.  But
> > I like to have a menu of the files I might be needing.
>
> How about just creating a plain text file, such as:
>  ~/workspace/file1
>  ~/workspace/file2
...
>  ~/workspace/fileN
> and save it as ~/workspace/files-i-often-visit.txt
> Then add the following to your ~/.emacs:
>  (global-set-key "\C-cf" 'find-file-at-point)
>  (find-file "~/workspace/files-i-often-visit.txt")
> Then all you need to do is...

You don't need to do all that. Just use Dired. Put this in your .emacs:
(require 'dired-x)

Then, in Dired:

1. Mark each of the files you want to visit (without displaying).

2. C-u F

You will see the file buffers in the buffer list (C-x C-b), where you can
choose them individually or in groups. Use `C-h m' to see the possibilities.

Re: buffer for unopened file?

[Sebastian Tennant]

Quoth "Drew Adams" <drew.adams@oracle.com>:
>> > I'd like to be able to give emacs a big list of filenames
>> > and have each file appear as if it has been visited with
>> > respect to having it appear in my buffer list.  But only
>> > when changing to that buffer do I want it to actually open
>> > the file.  Is that possible?  It takes a minute or so to open
>> > all of the files and wastes memory to open them all.  But
>> > I like to have a menu of the files I might be needing.
>>
>> How about just creating a plain text file, such as:
>>  ~/workspace/file1
>>  ~/workspace/file2
> ...
>>  ~/workspace/fileN
>> and save it as ~/workspace/files-i-often-visit.txt
>> Then add the following to your ~/.emacs:
>>  (global-set-key "\C-cf" 'find-file-at-point)
>>  (find-file "~/workspace/files-i-often-visit.txt")
>> Then all you need to do is...
>
> You don't need to do all that. Just use Dired. Put this in your .emacs:
> (require 'dired-x)
>
> Then, in Dired:
>
> 1. Mark each of the files you want to visit (without displaying).

I'm no expert on dired-x (and apologies if C-u F doesn't actually visit
any files) but I think he wants the list of files to hand without even
_visiting_ them, let alone displaying them.

"It takes a minute or so to open all of the files and wastes memory to
 open them all."

Sebastian

RE: buffer for unopened file?

[Drew Adams]

> > You don't need to do all that. Just use Dired. Put this in your .emacs:
> > (require 'dired-x)
> >
> > Then, in Dired:
> >
> > 1. Mark each of the files you want to visit (without displaying).
>
> I'm no expert on dired-x (and apologies if C-u F doesn't actually visit
> any files) but I think he wants the list of files to hand without even
> _visiting_ them, let alone displaying them.
>
> "It takes a minute or so to open all of the files and wastes memory to
>  open them all."

Dunno what he really meant. He said this:

  "have each file appear as if it has been visited with
   respect to having it appear in my buffer list"

So he wants it in his buffer list.

But you're right that he also said this:

  "be able to give emacs a big list of filenames"

and this:

  "It takes a minute or so to open all of the files and
   wastes memory to open them all."

Making files available in the buffer list means visiting them, even if they
are not displayed. So if by "open" he means visit, then what he wants is
impossible (put them in the buffer list without visiting them).

But if by "open" he means display, and if he doesn't really care about
supplying a "list of filenames" to Emacs, then my suggestion should be
useful. The file names will all appear in the buffer list, but the files
will not be displayed. File display time is saved, but not file opening
time.

If he wants to provide an explicit list and not visit the files, then your
suggestion is appropriate. He will see the files listed, as he requested,
but not in the buffer list.

So I think he's gotten some help for his problem from both of us, depending
on what he really wants. ;-)

Re: buffer for unopened file?

[David L]

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On 10/19/07, Drew Adams <drew.adams@oracle.com> wrote:
<snip>

> Making files available in the buffer list means visiting them, even if
> they
> are not displayed. So if by "open" he means visit, then what he wants is
> impossible

That's what I figured, but I hoped there might be a layer
of abstraction between the list of buffers and the actual
buffers that would allow the buffer to be lazy opened
when the buffer was actually visited.  So the buffer
list would be a combination of real buffers and
buffers that could exist by visiting a file if the user
tried to view that buffer.

The use case is that I have a makefile that
generates dependencies for an application
and those dependencies are scattered around
a directory tree with other files that aren't
dependencies.  When I'm working on the source
code, I sometimes want to open a file that I know
starts with xyz, but I don't know its directory or
what it ends with.  It would be nice to use buffer
name completion to find the file.  What I do today
is a tags search for something I know is in that
file, but sometimes I can't think of exactly what's
in it.  If I could just type C-x b xyz<tab> and see
a list of all of the (pseudo)buffers that begin
with xyz or search my ECB alphabetized
buffer list for the file, that would be great.


>
> So I think he's gotten some help for his problem from both of us,
> depending
> on what he really wants. ;-)

Yes, thank you all for your suggestions.  I'll try them out.

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RE: buffer for unopened file?

[Drew Adams]

> The use case is that I have a makefile that
> generates dependencies for an application
> and those dependencies are scattered around
> a directory tree with other files that aren't
> dependencies.  When I'm working on the source
> code, I sometimes want to open a file that I know
> starts with xyz, but I don't know its directory or
> what it ends with.  It would be nice to use buffer
> name completion to find the file.  What I do today
> is a tags search for something I know is in that
> file, but sometimes I can't think of exactly what's
> in it.  If I could just type C-x b xyz<tab> and see
> a list of all of the (pseudo)buffers that begin
> with xyz or search my ECB alphabetized
> buffer list for the file, that would be great.

Sebastian's reply was probably more helpful than mine, in that case.

However, I'd suggest you take a look at Emacs Wiki. There are several
libraries that provide something close to what you are requesting, if
Sebastian's suggestion doesn't do it for you 100%.

There are libraries that let you define a named set of files or buffers that
you frequently want to visit, search, etc.  Icicles, filename-cache, and
bs.el come to mind, but there are others.

FYI, in Icicles:

* You can save a buffer configuration (list of buffers etc.) persistently.

* You can save a list of regions (in multiple buffers) persistently.

* You can create a custom list of completion candidates (file names, buffer
names, whatever), save that persistently, and reuse it later (for
completion).

* You can save a set of file-name candidates persistently, and later open
Dired for just those files.

All of those work with completion, including substring and regexp
completion.

Some Icicles links that might help here:

http://www.emacswiki.org/cgi-bin/wiki/Icicles_-_Candidate_Sets

http://www.emacswiki.org/cgi-bin/wiki/Icicles_-_Persistent_Completions

http://www.emacswiki.org/cgi-bin/wiki/Icicles_-_Multiple_Regions

http://www.emacswiki.org/cgi-bin/wiki/Icicles_-_Search_Commands%2c_Overview

Re: buffer for unopened file?

[Dieter Wilhelm]

"Drew Adams" <drew.adams@oracle.com> writes:
>
> FYI, in Icicles:
>
> * You can save a buffer configuration (list of buffers etc.) persistently.
>
> * You can save a list of regions (in multiple buffers) persistently.
>
> * You can create a custom list of completion candidates (file names, buffer
> names, whatever), save that persistently, and reuse it later (for
> completion).
>
> * You can save a set of file-name candidates persistently, and later open
> Dired for just those files.
>
> All of those work with completion, including substring and regexp
> completion.
>
> Some Icicles links that might help here:
>
> http://www.emacswiki.org/cgi-bin/wiki/Icicles_-_Candidate_Sets
>
> http://www.emacswiki.org/cgi-bin/wiki/Icicles_-_Persistent_Completions
>
> http://www.emacswiki.org/cgi-bin/wiki/Icicles_-_Multiple_Regions
>
> http://www.emacswiki.org/cgi-bin/wiki/Icicles_-_Search_Commands%2c_Overview

Icicles is fine but maybe a built-in feature of Emacs is good enough
for the beginning: Bookmarks.

C-x r m -- save current file as a bookmark
C-x r l -- list bookmarks (this is similar to C-x C-b)

and at some stage you should do "M-x bookmark-save".

-- 
    Best wishes

    H. Dieter Wilhelm
    Darmstadt, Germany

RE: buffer for unopened file?

[Drew Adams]

> > FYI, in Icicles:
> > * You can save a buffer configuration (list of buffers etc.)
> >   persistently.
> > * You can save a list of regions (in multiple buffers) persistently.
> > * You can create a custom list of completion candidates (file
> >   names, buffer names, whatever), save that persistently, and
> >   reuse it later (for completion).
> > * You can save a set of file-name candidates persistently, and
> >   later open Dired for just those files.
> >
> > All of those work with completion, including substring and regexp
> > completion. Some Icicles links that might help here:
> > http://www.emacswiki.org/cgi-bin/wiki/Icicles_-_Candidate_Sets
> > http://www.emacswiki.org/cgi-bin/wiki/Icicles_-_Persistent_Completions
> > http://www.emacswiki.org/cgi-bin/wiki/Icicles_-_Multiple_Regions
> >
http://www.emacswiki.org/cgi-bin/wiki/Icicles_-_Search_Commands%2c_Overview
>
> Icicles is fine but maybe a built-in feature of Emacs is good enough
> for the beginning: Bookmarks.
> C-x r m -- save current file as a bookmark
> C-x r l -- list bookmarks (this is similar to C-x C-b)
> and at some stage you should do "M-x bookmark-save".

Yes, as I said, if you go to Emacs Wiki you will find lots of info about
ways to save and later access files. Bookmarking is one (good) way that is
discussed there. It's not clear exactly what the OP's use case is, and
whether Sebastian's suggestion or bookmarks or filecache or Icicles or
whatever will satisfy it. I suggest again that the OP take a look at the
possibilities mentioned on the wiki, to see which might correspond best to
his need.

Re: buffer for unopened file?

[Dieter Wilhelm]

"Drew Adams" <drew.adams@oracle.com> writes:

> Yes, as I said, if you go to Emacs Wiki you will find lots of info about
> ways to save and later access files. Bookmarking is one (good) way that is
> discussed there. It's not clear exactly what the OP's use case is, and
> whether Sebastian's suggestion or bookmarks or filecache or Icicles or
> whatever will satisfy it. I suggest again that the OP take a look at the
> possibilities mentioned on the wiki, to see which might correspond best to
> his need.

Yes, your advise is a very good one in general.  I just wanted to
mention an immediate (maybe incomplete) solution.  The user might not
be in the mood for longer research or is in a hurry.  I think we are
complementing each other here 8-).

-- 
    Best wishes

    H. Dieter Wilhelm
    Darmstadt, Germany

Re: buffer for unopened file?

[Dieter Wilhelm]

"Drew Adams" <drew.adams@oracle.com> writes:

>> > FYI, in Icicles:
>> > * You can save a buffer configuration (list of buffers etc.)
>> >   persistently.
>> > * You can save a list of regions (in multiple buffers) persistently.
>> > * You can create a custom list of completion candidates (file
>> >   names, buffer names, whatever), save that persistently, and
>> >   reuse it later (for completion).
>> > * You can save a set of file-name candidates persistently, and
>> >   later open Dired for just those files.
>> >
>> > All of those work with completion, including substring and regexp
>> > completion. Some Icicles links that might help here:
>> > http://www.emacswiki.org/cgi-bin/wiki/Icicles_-_Candidate_Sets
>> > http://www.emacswiki.org/cgi-bin/wiki/Icicles_-_Persistent_Completions
>> > http://www.emacswiki.org/cgi-bin/wiki/Icicles_-_Multiple_Regions
>> >
> http://www.emacswiki.org/cgi-bin/wiki/Icicles_-_Search_Commands%2c_Overview
>>
>> Icicles is fine but maybe a built-in feature of Emacs is good enough
>> for the beginning: Bookmarks.
>> C-x r m -- save current file as a bookmark
>> C-x r l -- list bookmarks (this is similar to C-x C-b)
>> and at some stage you should do "M-x bookmark-save".
>
> Yes, as I said, if you go to Emacs Wiki you will find lots of info about
> ways to save and later access files. Bookmarking is one (good) way that is
> discussed there. It's not clear exactly what the OP's use case is, and
> whether Sebastian's suggestion or bookmarks or filecache or Icicles or
> whatever will satisfy it. I suggest again that the OP take a look at the
> possibilities mentioned on the wiki, to see which might correspond best to
> his need.

By the way, there was work on integrating Icicles into Emacs 23
proper.  What is the current status, will it be included in the code
base?

-- 
    Best wishes

    H. Dieter Wilhelm
    Darmstadt, Germany

Icicles and Emacs [was: buffer for unopened file?]

[Drew Adams]

> By the way, there was work on integrating Icicles into Emacs 23
> proper.  What is the current status, will it be included in the code
> base?

No, Icicles won't be added to Emacs. Perhaps someday some of its features
will inspire similar features for Emacs. Perhaps not.

Actually, a few of the minor features have been added, such as allowing text
properties for completions. None of the major features have been adopted or
adapted.

If you are interested, this is the discussion thread:
http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-devel/2007-06/msg00482.html.
That's the first message of the thread, and this is the last:
http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-devel/2007-07/msg00186.html.

Icicles integration into CVS emacs (was: buffer for unopened file?)

[Giles Chamberlin]

Dieter Wilhelm <dieter@duenenhof-wilhelm.de> writes:

> By the way, there was work on integrating Icicles into Emacs 23
> proper.  What is the current status, will it be included in the code
> base?

On emacs-devel, RMS and Drew Adams agreed to discontinue the work on
integration:

  From: "Drew Adams" <drew.adams@oracle.com>
  Subject: RE: propose adding Icicles to Emacs
  Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel
  To: <rms@gnu.org>
  Cc: monnier@iro.umontreal.ca, emacs-devel@gnu.org
  Date: Tue, 3 Jul 2007 23:13:48 -0700

  > The number of misunderstandings that have occurred in this
  > conversation have exausted my patience.  I cannot continue it.

  That makes two of us. Thanks for pulling the plug - quite a relief. Now we
  can each get back to more productive endeavors.


-- 
Giles

Re: buffer for unopened file?

[David L]

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>
> There are libraries that let you define a named set of files or buffers
> that
> you frequently want to visit, search, etc.  Icicles, filename-cache, and
> bs.el come to mind, but there are others.



I played with filename-cache a bit.  It is an ok solution for
what I'm trying to do, but IMHO, it would be much better
if something like that could be integrated better so that
buffer lists could list a combination of real buffers or
pseudo-buffers (buffer names that would exist if all
files in the filecache were opened).  This would integrate
better with ECB, etc.  I also wouldn't have to have any
if else logic in my brain when changing to a new file
(ie, if a file is already opened, change to its buffer
else open a file-cached file).

If I weren't lisp-challenged, I'd try to implement what
I'm suggesting, but for now I'll just complain. ;)

In any case, I added a makefile target "filecache" that
creates a file of the format that is read using the
file-cache-read-cache-from-file function:

$(EXECDIR)$(EXECROOT).filecache: $(EXECDIR)$(EXECROOT).files
    @echo "(" > $@;\
    for i in `cat $(EXECDIR)$(EXECROOT).files`; \
    do echo `basename $$i` $(CVSROOTLEVEL) `dirname $$i` \
    | awk '{printf("(\"%s\" \"%s/%s/\")\n", $$1,$$2,$$3)}' >> $@;\
    done; \
    echo ")" >> $@;

A little bit of background to explain this code... I run make from
a directory that is the root of my CVS working copy, so all of the
file names in my list are relative to that directory (not absolute).
$(EXECDIR) is the directory name relative to the CVS root level
that I put my binary in.  $(EXECROOT) is the root name of the
application that I'm building.  In a separate target, I have
commands that create a file that lists all of the .c, .cpp, .h, etc
files that are dependencies of my binary.  This target takes that
list of files and creates another list of absolute filenames that can
be digested by file-cache-read-cache-from-file function.  I also
have an etags target:

$(EXECDIR)$(EXECROOT).etags: $(EXECDIR)$(EXECROOT).files
    etags --members -C `cat $(EXECDIR)$(EXECROOT).files` -o $@

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Re: buffer for unopened file?

[Mathias Dahl]

"David L" <idht4n@gmail.com> writes:

> I also wouldn't have to have any if else logic in my brain when
> changing to a new file (ie, if a file is already opened, change to
> its buffer else open a file-cached file).

I suggest you take a look at anything.el and all the possible sources
you can add to it. I have `anything' bound to F3 in my Emacs and I
type F3 to switch buffers or to open recent files or to open files
from my bookmarks. No need to think anymore :) Some day I will
integrate my file name cache into it as well...

/Mathias

Re: buffer for unopened file?

[Stefan Monnier]

> I'd like to be able to give emacs a big list of filenames
> and have each file appear as if it has been visited with
> respect to having it appear in my buffer list.  But only
> when changing to that buffer do I want it to actually open
> the file.  Is that possible?  It takes a minute or so to open
> all of the files and wastes memory to open them all.  But
> I like to have a menu of the files I might be needing.

I don't think there's such a feature anywhere.
You'll probably have more luck looking for a way to do "file-switching"
like that.  For example, you may want to take a look at fileset.el.


        Stefan