Chapter 5: Shell Command Guessing

Based upon the name of a filename, Dired tries to guess what shell command you might want to apply to it. For example, if you have point on a file named `foo.tar' and you press !, Dired will guess you want to `tar xvf' it and suggest that as the default shell command.

The default will be mentioned in brackets and you can type M-p to get the default into the minibuffer so that you can edit it, e.g., changing `tar xvf' to `tar tvf'. If there are several commands for a given file, e.g., `xtex' and `dvips' for a `.dvi' file, you can type M-p several times to see each of the matching commands.

Dired only tries to guess a command for a single file, never for a list of marked files.

`dired-guess-shell-alist-default`	Predefined rules for shell commands. Set this to `nil` to turn guessing off. The elements of `dired-guess-shell-alist-user` (defined by the user) will override these rules.
`dired-guess-shell-alist-user`	If non-`nil`, a user-defined alist of file regexps and their suggested commands. These rules take precedence over the predefined rules in the variable `dired-guess-shell-alist-default` (to which they are prepended) when `dired-do-shell-command` is run). Each element of the alist looks like (`regexp` `command`...) where each `command` can either be a string or a lisp expression that evaluates to a string. If several `COMMAND`s are given, all will temporarily be pushed on the history. You can set this variable in your ``~/.emacs`'. For example, to add rules for ``.foo`' and ``.bar`' file extensions, write (setq dired-guess-shell-alist-user (list (list "\\.foo$" "`foo-command`");; fixed rule ;; possibly more rules... (list "\\.bar$";; rule with condition test '(if `condition` "`bar-command-1`" "`bar-command-2`")))) This will override any predefined rules for the same extensions.
`dired-guess-shell-gnutar`	Default: `nil` If non-`nil`, name of the GNU tar executable (e.g., ``"tar"`' or ``"gnutar"`'). GNU tar's ``z`' switch is used for compressed tar files. If you don't have GNU tar, set this to `nil`: a pipe using ``zcat`' is then used.
`dired-guess-shell-gzip-quiet`	Default: `t` A non-`nil` value means that `-q` is passed to gzip overriding a verbose GNU zip's ``GZIP`' environment variable.
`dired-guess-shell-znew-switches nil`	Default: `nil` A string of switches passed to GNU zip's ``znew`'. An example is ``"-K"`' which will make ``znew`' keep a .Z file when it is smaller than the .gz file.
`dired-shell-command-history nil`	History list for commands that read dired-shell commands.

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