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### 18.18 Filesets

If you regularly edit a certain group of files, you can define them as a fileset. This lets you perform certain operations, such as visiting, `query-replace`, and shell commands on all the files at once. To make use of filesets, you must first add the expression `(filesets-init)` to your init file (see Init File). This adds a ‘`Filesets`’ menu to the menu bar.

The simplest way to define a fileset is by adding files to it one at a time. To add a file to fileset name, visit the file and type `M-x filesets-add-buffer RET name RET`. If there is no fileset name, this creates a new one, which initially contains only the current file. The command `M-x filesets-remove-buffer` removes the current file from a fileset.

You can also edit the list of filesets directly, with `M-x filesets-edit` (or by choosing ‘`Edit Filesets`’ from the ‘`Filesets`’ menu). The editing is performed in a Customize buffer (see Easy Customization). Normally, a fileset is a simple list of files, but you can also define a fileset as a regular expression matching file names. Some examples of these more complicated filesets are shown in the Customize buffer. Remember to select ‘`Save for future sessions`’ if you want to use the same filesets in future Emacs sessions.

You can use the command `M-x filesets-open` to visit all the files in a fileset, and `M-x filesets-close` to close them. Use `M-x filesets-run-cmd` to run a shell command on all the files in a fileset. These commands are also available from the ‘`Filesets`’ menu, where each existing fileset is represented by a submenu.

See Version Control, for a different concept of filesets: groups of files bundled together for version control operations. Filesets of that type are unnamed, and do not persist across Emacs sessions.

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