Re: Problems setting dired-listing-switches variable

[Glenn Morris <rgm+news@stanford.edu>]

"Paul Batt" wrote:

> I'd like to set the dired listing in such a way that all those
> filenames starting with a point don't show up. But the ..-directory
> should be there, otherwise I see no way to move along the directory
> tree. In the bash shell ls-parameters -al --ignore='.??*' do exactly
> that. The --ignore part of the parameter does not work however, when
> set to the dired-listing-switches variable.

Firstly, use:

(setq dired-listing-switches "-al --ignore=.??*")

Note the absence of '' in the ignore argument. You use these in bash
to protect the argument from expansion by the shell before it is ever
seen by the ls program. When called from Emacs (via call-process),
this does not apply, so if you have '' they will be interpreted
literally.

Secondly, if you are on Windows, this might not work because Emacs
uses ls emulation in lisp, which does not understand all the same
switches as "real" ls. See the doc of the function insert-directory to
see which ls Emacs is using. See also the variable
ls-lisp-use-insert-directory-program.