23.17 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 .emacs file (see Init File).
This adds a ‘Filesets’ menu to the menu bar.
The simplest way to define filesets is by adding files to them 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 creates 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). Filesets need not be a simple list of
files—you can also define filesets using 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.