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To invoke Dired, do C-x d or M-x dired. The command
reads a directory name or wildcard file name pattern as a minibuffer
argument to specify which files to list. C-x C-f given a
directory name also invokes Dired. Where dired
differs from
list-directory
is that it puts the buffer into Dired mode, so
that the special commands of Dired are available.
The variable dired-listing-switches
specifies the options to
give to ls
for listing the directory; this string must contain
‘-l’. If you use a numeric prefix argument with the dired
command, you can specify the ls
switches with the minibuffer
before you enter the directory specification. No matter how they are
specified, the ls
switches should all be short options (that
is, single characters) requiring no arguments.
To display the Dired buffer in another window rather than in the
selected window, use C-x 4 d (dired-other-window
) instead
of C-x d. C-x 5 d (dired-other-frame
) uses a
separate frame to display the Dired buffer.