Dired

Dired

Dired as implemented in Emacs, showing multiple buffers with custom colors.
Developer(s)	Stan Kugell (original), Richard Stallman (for Emacs), Mike Lijewski, Stuart Cracraft (standalone Unix versions)
Initial release	Circa 1974
Stable release	7.17 / 30 July 2009
Operating system	Unix-like, Microsoft Windows, OSX, Emacs
Type	File manager
License	GPL (Free Software)
Website	Mike Sperber's dired page

Dired (for Directory Editor) is a visual directory editor, a computer program for editing file system directories. It typicallly runs inside Emacs as a specialized mode, though standalone versions have been written. Dired was the first file manager, or visual editor of file system information.^[1][2] The first version of Dired was written as a stand-alone program circa 1974 by Stan Kugell at the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (SAIL).^[1] It was incorporated into GNU Emacs from the earliest versions,^[3] and re-implemented in C and C++ on other operating systems.^[4][5]

When run in Emacs, dired displays an ls-like file listing in an Emacs buffer. The list can be navigated using standard navigation commands. Several Emacs Lisp scripts have been developed to extend Dired in Emacs. In combination with Tramp^[6] it is able to access remote file systems for editing files by means of SSH, FTP, telnet and many other protocols, as well as the capability of accessing local files as another user in the same session. There are also functions that make it possible to rename multiple files via Emacs search and replace capabilities^[7] or apply regular expressions for marking (selecting) multiple files.^[8] Once marked, files can be operated on in various ways from deleting, to renaming, to executing an external shell command or elisp function on them.

GNU's dired manual stated that its main use is in deleting files.^[9] Many users find it too abstruse for performing other operations.^[10]

References

1. Kugell, Stanley G. (1974). "SAILDART/1978-08". Stanford Artificial Intelligence Lab DART (Dump and Restore Technique) Archive. Retrieved 2014-02-19.
2. SAILDART Username key for above
3. "Emacs NEWS.1-17 file". Dired has a new command...
4. "DED". it is indisputable that both were inspired by an earlier stand-alone program running on Tenex available in the Stanford AI Lab (SAIL) in 1978.
5. "The Cracraft and Lijewski DIRED Programs". Historically, shortly after emacs "dired" appeared in the TECO implementation, a stand-alone version was written...
6. "Tramp User Manual". Free Software Foundation. Retrieved 2009-04-04.
7. "WDired".
8. "Dired Marks vs. Flags".
9. "Dired, the Directory Editor". The primary use of Dired is to flag files for deletion and then delete the files previously flagged.
10. "The Cracraft and Lijewski DIRED Programs". The program tends to be used for browsing and deleting files; users find the other features too obtuse for daily use. Too many commands. Its hard to remember what key does which command.

External links

• Dired manual at GNU.org
• Entry at the Emacs wiki; focuses mostly on the many scripts and tweaks that can modify the default Dired's behavior.