(defalias 'virtual-dired 'dired-virtual)
(defun dired-virtual (dirname &optional switches)
- "Try to make the current buffer into a Dired buffer.
+ "Treat the current buffer as a Dired buffer showing directory DIRNAME.
+Interactively, prompt for DIRNAME.
+
This command is rarely useful, but may be convenient if you want
to peruse and move around in the output you got from \"ls
-lR\" (or something similar), without having access to the actual
Most Dired commands that don't consult the file system will work
as advertised, but commands that try to alter the file system
-will usually fail. (If the output is from the current system,
-most of those commands, too, will work fine.)
+will usually fail. (However, if the output is from the current
+system, most of those commands will work fine.)
If you have saved a Dired buffer in a file you can use \\[dired-virtual] to
resume it in a later session.