Re: dired without -l, wdired fails

[Andreas Roehler]

Tassilo Horn wrote:
> Andreas Roehler <andreas.roehler@online.de> writes:
> 
> Hi Andreas,
> 
>> if `dired' is called without the `-l' switch,
>> wdired... no longer works, buffer isn't editable.
> 
> Does dired work without -l?  At least the docs say it MUST contain -l.
> 
> ,----[ C-h v dired-listing-switches RET ]
> | dired-listing-switches is a variable defined in `dired.el'.
> | Its value is "-aDlh"
> | 
> | Documentation:
> | Switches passed to `ls' for Dired.  MUST contain the `l' option.
> | May contain all other options that don't contradict `-l';
> | may contain even `F', `b', `i' and `s'.  See also the variable
> | `dired-ls-F-marks-symlinks' concerning the `F' switch.
> | On systems such as MS-DOS and MS-Windows, which use `ls' emulation in Lisp,
> | some of the `ls' switches are not supported; see the doc string of
> | `insert-directory' in `ls-lisp.el' for more details.
> `----
> 
> Bye,
> Tassilo
> 


Hi Tassilo,

you are right. It's a convenience-bug anyway IMO.

IIRC `dired' basically displays the output of
shell-command `ls [options]' in a buffer, afterwards working
with, send it back to the shell.

>From this I never understood this limitation, which looks
inconvenient in many respects.

Thanks

Andreas