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kaushalmodi · 2017-08-31 16:21:47+00:00

Sorry, I was mistaken. I confirm that that works too. I was just comparing with wdired.. wdired (Emacs) creates that foo/ dir if it doesn't exist.

m463 | karma 17870 | avg karma 1.89 · | 2020-10-29 18:29:35

directory-local variables in emacs? thank you! I will look at that.

raibosome | karma 107 | avg karma 2.33 · | 2019-03-18 01:59:46+00:00

Okay I think this is more elegant than my workaround. But it doesn’t work for directories, does it?

zwischenzug | karma 4169 | avg karma 4.19 · | 2016-07-10 19:01:10+00:00

That's just an illustration, not 'ideal' code. Of course mkdir -p serves the same purpose; the point is to show the 'file_exists' function.

Mostly it's where using the shell would be painful. Do you have other specific examples?

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mrud | karma 1188 | avg karma 5.55 · | 2010-12-16 15:45:12

I have a function for it which is quite useful: mcd () { mkdir "$@" cd "$@" }

Just run mcd foobar and you (try) to create the directory and enter it. IMO a nice shortcut.

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saagarjha | karma 56017 | avg karma 2.29 · | 2018-01-07 00:23:15

I've been looking for something like <() for a long time. Thanks for sharing it!

Regarding :h, is it any different than just using dirname?

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johntash | karma 210 | avg karma 0.83 · | 2021-02-16 06:26:09

Thanks! I didn't realize you could pass in a non-existent directory, that makes it an easier trick.

saagarjha | karma 56017 | avg karma 2.29 · | 2020-06-23 10:58:51+00:00

That doesn't actually create real directories; it's just symbolic links. For certain use cases (nix) this isn't enough.

julian37 | karma 3510 | avg karma 7.6 · | 2014-02-18 16:16:12+00:00

Yep, and wdired does a few more things as well. From its commentary:

- To move files to another directory (by typing their path, absolute or relative, as a part of the new filename).

- To change the target of symbolic links.

- To change the permission bits of the filenames (in systems with a working unix-alike `dired-chmod-program'). [...]

- To mark files for deletion, by deleting their whole filename.

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kkielhofner | karma 4469 | avg karma 3.68 · | 2023-01-11 19:30:31

Thankfully it works in Powershell on Windows. I lost any muscle memory for `dir` a long long time ago.

farresito | karma 1147 | avg karma 2.53 · | 2017-08-31 14:27:53+00:00

It works for me if the directory exists.

bryanlarsen | karma 33883 | avg karma 3.16 · | 2023-07-31 18:44:25

That's its behaviour in an empty directory, but it works for me on a non-empty directory.

kijin | karma 10374 | avg karma 2.8 · | 2021-02-26 11:30:22+00:00

Even worse, there was (and still is) no requirement for a command and its switches to be separated with whitespace.

"DIR/W" is the same as "DIR /W".

Which would have made it impossible to determine whether you want to invoke the command "DIR" in the current directory, or the command "W" in a subdirectory named "DIR".

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0x0 | karma 17884 | avg karma 5.06 · | 2020-08-23 14:43:04

You almost never need to use "*". Use ".", or go up a dir and type the name of the dir.

int_19h | karma 21203 | avg karma 1.69 · | 2017-05-08 04:20:32+00:00

Except that only works for absolute paths. And then also changes other semantics that you might expect to be there - e.g. it disables handling of .. and . to mean parent and current directory (which is valid even in absolute paths, and often useful).

spenuke | karma 274 | avg karma 2.98 · | 2014-01-10 17:52:28+00:00

I didn't know this one, and glad I do now! Is it possible that the other one I wish existed is already commonplace? I'd like to have an arg that cd's to a directory automatically after mkdir'ing it... or mv'ing a file to a directory.

Something like:

mkdir foo -go and mv foo ~/bar -go

... Probably simple enough to script, but I guess I'm too lazy at the moment.

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drinchev | karma 3580 | avg karma 3.62 · | 2018-03-25 07:23:18+00:00

Not an actual bug, but I found this a couple of days ago. And it seems like an elegant hack, allowing `/` in directory, files, etc.

Typing `mkdir foo:bar` in my macOS's terminal leads to a directory, that Finder shows as `foo/bar`.

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Mithaldu | karma 8182 | avg karma 2.9 · | 2016-04-05 20:51:48+00:00

Depends on what you're doing. `dir relative/path` does not work.

tacostakohashi | karma 2448 | avg karma 3.15 · | 2021-11-18 09:42:35

It depends, could be either, often depends on flags.

For example, mkdir dir (error if it exists) / mkdir -p dir (no error if it exists).

The latter style allows for creating idempotent scripts, which can be nice.

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0xdeadbeefbabe | karma 1034 | avg karma 0.53 · | 2017-08-18 20:54:14+00:00

What is the dir/... syntax. I never saw the doc on that one.