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

[Yuri Khan <yuri.v.khan@gmail.com>]

On Tue, 16 Jul 2024 at 01:51, Ihor Radchenko <yantar92@posteo.net> wrote:

> Why only to file that _begins_ with a character? Why not also moving to
> a file that have specific wor[d] in its name? regexp?

Prior art: In file managers descending from Norton Commander, there is
usually a way to start typing to get incremental prefix search over
file names; if you enter a * at the search prompt, it becomes
substring/glob search.

In my experience, wanting to use the full power of regular expressions
has been rare; the extension of glob mini-language with character sets
like [aoeui] or [0-9] proved to be handy at times.

(Anyway, isearch solves both needs; type-to-search-by-prefix only
makes it more convenient for the most common case.)

(Somewhat off-topic but related: In those same NC-descending file
managers, when you start typing, the default behavior is for typed
characters to go into the shell prompt. I have missed this
type-to-shell feature in Dired on many occasions.)