Re: dired mode recursive delete

[David Kastrup]

Juri Linkov <address@hidden> writes:

>>> But advantages of using external commands are numerous: they are
>>> rich of features whose reimplementation in Emacs doesn't sound
>>> reasonable.
>>
>> What use are numerous features in external commands when there is no
>> interface from Emacs to them?
>>
>> I can call external programs as much as I like for solving some
>> Emacs-internal task, but the number of options that I am not going to
>> use is not relevant at all.
>
> Designing a good interface for using them is a good goal.  For example,
> I imagine that just like some dired commands, when invoked with the prefix
> key, ask for the command switches (`C-u =' asks for diff switches and `C-u s'
> asks for ls switches), in the same way `C-u C' and `C-u R' could ask
> for cp and mv switches and call these commands.

But Emacs can't use external commands for moving and copying non-local
files, anyway, so there is no point in asking for command line options
which Emacs itself does not understand when Emacs will likely not be
able to use a command line.

-- 
David Kastrup