dired-mark

dired-mark

[Andreas Röhler]

Hi all,
 
`dired-mark' is able to mark all files in the current directory,
including "." and "..". As marking these directories
causes errors, I reflect to prevent that. Or exist
known cases, where marks on directories are useful?

Thanks

Andreas Röhler

Re: dired-mark

[Peter Dyballa]

Am 28.11.2007 um 17:39 schrieb Andreas Röhler:

> Or exist known cases, where marks on directories are useful?


Go up one level and try there! (It depends on what you intend, of  
course.)

The problem could be that a user could delete . or .. or make it  
unreachable. My imagination is failing here ...

--
Mit friedvollen Grüßen

   Pete

  "A designer knows he has arrived at perfection not when there is no  
longer anything to add, but when there is no longer anything to take  
away."
                                  -- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Re: dired-mark

[Andreas Röhler]

Am Donnerstag, 29. November 2007 01:31 schrieb Peter Dyballa:
> Am 28.11.2007 um 17:39 schrieb Andreas Röhler:
> > Or exist known cases, where marks on directories are useful?
>
> Go up one level and try there! (It depends on what you intend, of
> course.)
>

Do you know any command which marks these
directory-chars and operates on them after marking?

> The problem could be that a user could delete . or .. or make it
> unreachable. 
...

To prevent from deleting, OK. But then it seems better,
to skip i.e. block marking them from the very
beginning. (?)

Thanks

Andreas Röhler

Re: dired-mark

[Peter Dyballa]

Am 29.11.2007 um 07:47 schrieb Andreas Röhler:

>> Go up one level and try there! (It depends on what you intend, of
>> course.)
>>
>
> Do you know any command which marks these
> directory-chars and operates on them after marking?


Does not compute! What do you mean? What do you try to perform?

--
Mit friedvollen Grüßen

   Pete

When you meet a master swordsman,
show him your sword.
When you meet a man who is not a poet,
do not show him your poem.
                 -- Rinzai, ninth century Zen master

dired-mark

[Andreas Röhler]

dired-mark doku says: 

If on a subdir headerline, mark all its files except `.' and `..'.

In the current directory however `.' and `..' are
marked too. This may cause errors later on, a need to
search and unmark them.

What about a change, which would skip or block marking
of `.' and `..' in current directory.

Any opinions?

Thanks

Andreas Röhler 

Re: dired-mark

[Tassilo Horn]

Andreas Röhler <andreas.roehler@online.de> writes:

> dired-mark doku says: 
>
> If on a subdir headerline, mark all its files except `.' and `..'.
>
> In the current directory however `.' and `..' are marked too. This may
> cause errors later on, a need to search and unmark them.
>
> What about a change, which would skip or block marking of `.' and `..'
> in current directory.
>
> Any opinions?

But what if you really intend to mark "." or ".."?

To mark all files and directories in the current directory I use `% m'
(`dired-mark-files-regexp') with the regexp ".*".  This will omit "."
and "..".

Bye,
Tassilo

Re: dired-mark

[Andreas Röhler]

Am Donnerstag, 29. November 2007 09:34 schrieb Tassilo Horn:
> Andreas Röhler <andreas.roehler@online.de> writes:
> > dired-mark doku says:
> >
> > If on a subdir headerline, mark all its files except `.' and `..'.
> >
> > In the current directory however `.' and `..' are marked too. This may
> > cause errors later on, a need to search and unmark them.
> >
> > What about a change, which would skip or block marking of `.' and `..'
> > in current directory.
> >
> > Any opinions?
>
> But what if you really intend to mark "." or ".."?


That's precisely the question. For the moment I can't
imagine any case I would need it. However, as
experience tells our imagination runs short
occasionally...

Nonewithstanding I think `dired-mark' acts wisely in
subdirs. So why not let come in this behaviour into
current dir? 
>
> To mark all files and directories in the current directory I use `% m'
> (`dired-mark-files-regexp') with the regexp ".*".  This will omit "."
> and "..".


The task here is:

a temporary buffer is filled with results, sometimes
erroneously. 

As output is not always forseen and for other reason,
names are not easy to grasp with a regexp (this
would take time too).

Faster I get it with the time of output, have them
arranged at the bottom of dired-buffer. Then sometimes
the dirs are between...

Below the code as it runs successfully so far.

Thanks

Andreas Röhler

(defun dired-mark (arg)
  "Mark the current (or next ARG) files.
If on a subdir headerline, mark all its files except `.' and `..'.
Use \\[dired-unmark-all-files] to remove all marks
and \\[dired-unmark] on a subdir to remove the marks in
this subdir."
  (interactive "P")
  (if (dired-get-subdir)
      (save-excursion (dired-mark-subdir-files))
    ;; 2007-11-29 a.roehler@web.de changed section start    
    (let ((col (current-column)) buffer-read-only)
      (if
	  (save-excursion
	    (progn
	      (move-to-column col)
	      (or (looking-at "\\.")(looking-at "\\.\\."))))
	  (progn (forward-line 1)
		 (move-to-column col))
	;; 2007-11-29 a.roehler@web.de changed section end	
	(dired-repeat-over-lines
	 (prefix-numeric-value arg)
	 (function (lambda () (delete-char 1) (insert dired-marker-char))))))))

RE: dired-mark

[Drew Adams]

> > But what if you really intend to mark "." or ".."?
>
> That's precisely the question.

Yes.

> I can't imagine any case I would need it. However, as
> experience tells our imagination runs short occasionally...

It doesn't matter if you can't imagine a case where you would need it.

As long as users can operate on marked files and directories, someone will
want to, well, mark `.' or `..' and then operate on it.

Madame Lambda or Mister X might define a command that prints each marked
file and all files in each marked directory. Or search them. Or do whatever
to/with them. And s?he might use that command on `.' or `..' as well as on
other marked directories.

There is no reason that users shouldn't be able to use `dired-mark' to mark
`.' and `..'. If you don't want to mark them, then don't. If you have code
that does something to all marked files and dirs, but you don't want to
treat `.' and `..', then exclude those in your special-purpose code.

Wrt subdirs, it is only when point is on a subdir header line that
`dired-mark' does not mark the subdir's `.' or `..' - in that case, it marks
all files and directories _contained_ in the subdir. `dired-mark' always
marks `.' and `..' whenever they are targeted (e.g. cursor on that line).

That's TRT, IMO. Acting on a directory is not (necessarily) the same thing
as acting on everything in it. It is useful to be able to mark and act on
any directory, including `.' and `..'.

Re: dired-mark

[Andreas Röhler]

Am Donnerstag, 29. November 2007 18:07 schrieb Drew Adams:
> > > But what if you really intend to mark "." or ".."?
> >
> > That's precisely the question.
>
> Yes.
>
> > I can't imagine any case I would need it. However, as
> > experience tells our imagination runs short occasionally...
>
> It doesn't matter if you can't imagine a case where you would need it.
>
> As long as users can operate on marked files and directories, someone will
> want to, well, mark `.' or `..' and then operate on it.
>
> Madame Lambda or Mister X might define a command that prints each marked
> file and all files in each marked directory. Or search them. Or do whatever
> to/with them. And s?he might use that command on `.' or `..' as well as on
> other marked directories.
>
> There is no reason that users shouldn't be able to use `dired-mark' to mark
> `.' and `..'. If you don't want to mark them, then don't. If you have code
> that does something to all marked files and dirs, but you don't want to
> treat `.' and `..', then exclude those in your special-purpose code.
>
> Wrt subdirs, it is only when point is on a subdir header line that
> `dired-mark' does not mark the subdir's `.' or `..' - in that case, it
> marks all files and directories _contained_ in the subdir. `dired-mark'
> always marks `.' and `..' whenever they are targeted (e.g. cursor on that
> line).
>
> That's TRT, IMO. Acting on a directory is not (necessarily) the same thing
> as acting on everything in it. It is useful to be able to mark and act on
> any directory, including `.' and `..'.
>

I have no definite opinion in that point, just
raised the question from my scenario.

Should you know a precise case where marking the "."
and ".." in the dired-buffer are useful, I would like
to read about that.

Andreas Röhler

Re: dired-mark

[Stefan Monnier]

> Should you know a precise case where marking the "."
> and ".." in the dired-buffer are useful, I would like
> to read about that.

E.g. when you want to change the permissions?


        Stefan

Re: dired-mark

[Andreas Schwab]

Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca> writes:

>> Should you know a precise case where marking the "."
>> and ".." in the dired-buffer are useful, I would like
>> to read about that.
>
> E.g. when you want to change the permissions?

Incidentally, dired-do-chmod refuses to operate on "." and "..".

Andreas.

-- 
Andreas Schwab, SuSE Labs, schwab@suse.de
SuSE Linux Products GmbH, Maxfeldstraße 5, 90409 Nürnberg, Germany
PGP key fingerprint = 58CA 54C7 6D53 942B 1756  01D3 44D5 214B 8276 4ED5
"And now for something completely different."

Re: dired-mark

[Stefan Monnier]

>>> Should you know a precise case where marking the "."
>>> and ".." in the dired-buffer are useful, I would like
>>> to read about that.
>> 
>> E.g. when you want to change the permissions?

> Incidentally, dired-do-chmod refuses to operate on "." and "..".

Sounds like a bug to me,


        Stefan "who admits to using zsh rather than dired"

Re: dired-mark

[Andreas Röhler]

Am Freitag, 30. November 2007 16:11 schrieb Stefan Monnier:
> >>> Should you know a precise case where marking the "."
> >>> and ".." in the dired-buffer are useful, I would like
> >>> to read about that.
> >>
> >> E.g. when you want to change the permissions?
> >
> > Incidentally, dired-do-chmod refuses to operate on "." and "..".
>
> Sounds like a bug to me,
>
>
>         Stefan "who admits to using zsh rather than dired"
>

For ".." I think it's ok to have it disabled.

For "." enabling them might be useful.

From the marking question this would constat a special
case, as it addresses remaining files at once.

So to operate on them, should be not need to mark it before,
because it's no alternative selection then.

Andreas Röhler