DIRED 1 "17 August 1998" "Version 4.01" [section 5 of 13]

KEYBOARD COMMANDS

Here are the keyboard commands that control dired, organized into several categories:

Help

?, h

Display a help message summarizing the keyboard commands.

Quitting dired

a

Abort out of the current directory. No deletions are done.

A

Abort completely out of dired, with no deletions.

q

Exit dired, displaying files marked for deletion and requiring confirmation before deleting them. If no confirmation is given (typing anything other than y), dired goes back to its display.

Q

Quit dired, with no deletions.

Actions on files

!

Prompt for a system command to invoke. The command is executed, and confirmation is required before returning to the display. All % characters in the command are replaced with the full pathname of the current entry, and all # chars are replaced with just the trailing filename component (what you see on the screen).

.

Repeat the previous ! shell command, substituting the current entry for any special chars (%#) in the original command.

e

Run the editor defined in the EDITOR environment variable upon the current file. If EDITOR is not defined, vi(1) is used. However, if the current file is a directory, it is not edited, but rather, dired forks a copy of itself upon that directory. In this manner, you can examine the contents of that directory and thus move down the directory hierarchy.

m

Run the program defined by the PAGER environment variable program on the current entry. If PAGER is not defined, run /usr/local/bin/less.

P

Print the current file on the lineprinter.

t

Type the file to the terminal; this is considerably faster than starting an editor on the file. In two-window mode, the bottom window is used, pausing after each screenful. The type-out may be interrupted by <control or q.

T

Same as t, but without any pauses at end-of-screen.

Deletion and undeletion

d

Mark the current entry for deletion. Upon exit and confirmation (or re-reading using the `R' command), this entry will be deleted. Warning: this includes directories! If it is a directory, everything in it and underneath it will be removed.

D

Mark all files for deletion. (`U' undoes this).

~

Mark files with names ending in ~ for deletion.

#

Mark files with names beginning with # for deletion.

u

Undelete the current entry, if it was previously marked for deletion.

U

Cancel all deletion requests.

Display

<space>

Re-print the directory path name.

c

Refresh the current line.

\

Toggle between split-screen mode and full-screen mode.

<control G>

Show the current file number, the total number of files, and the percentage through the file. Useful in full screen mode when there is no linear indicator.

l, <control L>

Refresh the current window.

p

Display the full path name of the current file; embedded control characters are shown with graphics.

R

Re-read the directory or file list. If files are marked for deletion, dired will first ask for confirmation and then delete them before re-reading. This is useful after operations done during shell escapes (e.g., chmod(1)).

r, s

Sort the file list by various fields, with the field selected by the next input character. If that character is <ESC>, then cancel the sort request. See the documentation of the -s option above for a description of the sort fields and sort orders.

Miscellaneous

<ESC>

Cancel a sort or a count.

Moving around

<down arrow>, <lf>,^N, j

Step to the next file. If this crosses a window boundary, the next window is displayed with a one-line overlap. May be preceded by a count.

<up arrow>, ^, -, k, <backspace>, ^P

Step to previous file. If this crosses a window boundary, the previous window is displayed with a one-line overlap. May be preceded by a count.

<PageDown>, <right arrow>, f

Go forward a window, leaving a one-line overlap. May be preceded by a count.

<PageUp>,<left arrow>, b

Go backward a window, leaving a one-line overlap. May be preceded by a count.

<, [, (, {

Go to the start of the file list. With an argument n, go n/10 of the way from the start.

>, ], ), }

Go to the end of the file list. With an argument n, go n/10 of the way from the end.

E

Go up to the next higher level directory. In the case of an argument list of files to dired, go to the parent of the directory which contains the current file.

G

Go to the file number given by the preceding count. With no count, go to the last file as in vi(1).

M

Remember the current entry on the mark stack. You can later return to it with the J (jump) command.

J

Pop the top entry from the mark stack, and jump to it.

L

Pop the top entry from the view stack, and jump to it. Each screen display adds an entry to the view stack, except for views created by this command, so you can use L to display views in reverse order.

Searching

/<regular-expression>

Locate a file matching the given regular expression, as defined in re_comp(3) and re_exec(3). The search is in the forward direction. The regular expression is remembered for subsequent use by the n and N commands. If the regular expression is empty, the last one remembered is used.

n

Find the next instance in the forward direction of the regular expression previously-defined by a `/' command.

N

Find the next instance in the backward direction of the regular expression previously-defined by a `/' command.