Open dired and select the file associated with the previous buffer?

Question

Let's say I am editing blah.txt with Emacs and I decide to open dired to rename the file blah.txt. When I press C-x d RET (or C-x C-f RET), a dired buffer will show up to display the content of the directory containing blah.txt, but the cursor will not be on blah.txt. So I need to search my file first (C-s blah.txt) to place my cursor on it and then I can rename it (R).

How do I automate or remove the step C-s blah.txt?

score 12 · Accepted Answer · answered Oct 14 '10 at 15:19

12

dired-jump is exactly what you want.

(autoload 'dired-jump "dired-x" "Jump to dired corresponding current buffer.")
(autoload 'dired-jump-other-window "dired-x" "jump to dired in other window.")

Then call:

M-x dired-jump

or

M-x dired-jump-other-window

answered Oct 14 '10 at 15:19

Tao Peng

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If you follow the instructions in the manual, you'll get the correct key bindings as well: `C-h i g` `(dired-x) Optional Installation Dired Jump` `RET` – phils Aug 23 '14 at 06:25

score 5 · Answer 2 · answered Oct 14 '10 at 13:51

5

You want C-x C-j.

answered Oct 14 '10 at 13:51

offby1

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And what is `C-x C-j`? It's not bound in text buffers or dired buffers (Emacs 23.2). – Trey Jackson Oct 14 '10 at 14:06
4

@Trey: `C-x C-j` is bound to `dired-jump`, but only when `dired-x` is loaded. (I think there's an Emacs policy that `dired-x` doesn't comply with here.) – Gilles 'SO- stop being evil' Oct 14 '10 at 19:53
Thanks, Gilles; I hadn't realized that it wasn't bound by default. – offby1 Oct 19 '10 at 03:50

score 2 · Answer 3 · answered Oct 14 '10 at 13:59

2

Sunrise Commander is a much improved dired. and it does what you need by default.

answered Oct 14 '10 at 13:59

VitoshKa

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score 1 · Answer 4 · answered Oct 14 '10 at 13:33

1

You can do something like that:

M-: (dired (buffer-name (current-buffer)))

Then the only file visible in dired will be your current file and cursor will be right on it.

answered Oct 14 '10 at 13:33

Alexey Voinov

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score 1 · Answer 5 · answered Oct 14 '10 at 14:23

This piece of advice will do what you want:

(defadvice dired (around dired-jump-to-buffer activate)
  "When running dired, move cursor to the line for the buffer we came from"
  (interactive (list nil nil)) ;; bogus values, will be overwritten below
  (let ((coming-from (buffer-file-name)))
(ad-set-args 0 (dired-read-dir-and-switches ""))
ad-do-it
(when (and coming-from
       (equal (file-truename default-directory) (file-truename (file-name-directory coming-from))))
    (goto-char (point-min))
    (search-forward (file-name-nondirectory coming-from) nil t))))

Note: Works for C-x d, but not the C-x C-f entry point to dired.

score 0 · Answer 6 · answered Aug 23 '14 at 03:07

0

$ emacs --version
GNU Emacs 24.3.1

In .emacs:

(require 'dired-x)

Now C-x C-j should be bound to dired-jump.

answered Aug 23 '14 at 03:07

Jackson

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Open dired and select the file associated with the previous buffer?

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