4 Local Variables for Dired Directories

This Dired-X feature is obsolete as of Emacs 24.1. The standard Emacs directory local variables mechanism (see Directory Variables in The Gnu Emacs manual) replaces it. For an example of the new mechanisms, see Omitting Variables.

When Dired visits a directory, it looks for a file whose name is the value of variable dired-local-variables-file (default: .dired). If such a file is found, Dired will temporarily insert it into the Dired buffer and run hack-local-variables.

For example, if the user puts

Local Variables:
dired-actual-switches: "-lat"
dired-omit-mode: t
End:

into a file called .dired in a directory then when that directory is viewed it will be

1. sorted by date
2. omitted automatically

You can set dired-local-variables-file to nil to suppress this. The value of dired-enable-local-variables controls if and how these local variables are read. This variable exists so that it may override the default value of enable-local-variables.

Please see the GNU Emacs Manual to learn more about local variables. See Local Variables in Files in The GNU Emacs Manual.

The following variables affect Dired Local Variables

dired-local-variables-file

Default: ".dired"

If non-nil, file name for local variables for Dired. If Dired finds a file with that name in the current directory, it will temporarily insert it into the Dired buffer and run hack-local-variables.

dired-enable-local-variables

Default: t

Controls the use of local-variables lists in Dired. This variable temporarily overrides the value of enable-local-variables when the Dired Local Variables are hacked. It takes the same values as that variable. A value of nil means to ignore any Dired Local Variables.