From: Lars Ingebrigtsen Date: Thu, 2 Dec 2021 09:47:18 +0000 (+0100) Subject: Make dired-virtual doc string less confusing X-Git-Tag: emacs-29.0.90~3629^2 X-Git-Url: http://git.eshelyaron.com/gitweb/?a=commitdiff_plain;h=3f98188b864fb4f16a7c2878a96c880ec55452dd;p=emacs.git Make dired-virtual doc string less confusing * lisp/dired-x.el (dired-virtual): Make the doc string less confusing (bug#20992). --- diff --git a/lisp/dired-x.el b/lisp/dired-x.el index de21dcf7a60..499d5cd2f01 100644 --- a/lisp/dired-x.el +++ b/lisp/dired-x.el @@ -580,17 +580,16 @@ files in the active region if `dired-mark-region' is non-nil." (defalias 'virtual-dired 'dired-virtual) (defun dired-virtual (dirname &optional switches) - "Put this Dired buffer into Virtual Dired mode. - -In Virtual Dired mode, all commands that do not actually consult the -filesystem will work. - -This is useful if you want to peruse and move around in an ls -lR -output file, for example one you got from an ftp server. With -ange-ftp, you can even Dired a directory containing an ls-lR file, -visit that file and turn on Virtual Dired mode. But don't try to save -this file, as `dired-virtual' indents the listing and thus changes the -buffer. + "Try to make the current buffer into a Dired buffer. +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 +file system. + +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.) If you have saved a Dired buffer in a file you can use \\[dired-virtual] to resume it in a later session.