Variable: ff-search-directories

ff-search-directories is a customizable and buffer-local variable defined in find-file.el.gz.

Documentation

List of directories to search for a specific file.

Set by default to cc-search-directories, expanded at run-time.

This list is searched through with each extension specified in ff-other-file-alist that matches this file's extension. So the longer the list, the longer it'll take to realize that a file may not exist.

A typical format is

    ("." "/usr/include" "$PROJECT/*/include")

Environment variables can be inserted between slashes (/). They will be replaced by their definition. If a variable does not exist, it is replaced (silently) with an empty string.

The stars are *not* wildcards: they are searched for together with the preceding slash. The star represents all the subdirectories except
.., and each of these subdirectories will be searched in turn.

Source Code

;; Defined in /usr/src/emacs/lisp/find-file.el.gz
(defcustom ff-search-directories 'cc-search-directories
  "List of directories to search for a specific file.

Set by default to `cc-search-directories', expanded at run-time.

This list is searched through with each extension specified in
`ff-other-file-alist' that matches this file's extension.  So the
longer the list, the longer it'll take to realize that a file
may not exist.

A typical format is

    (\".\" \"/usr/include\" \"$PROJECT/*/include\")

Environment variables can be inserted between slashes (`/').
They will be replaced by their definition.  If a variable does
not exist, it is replaced (silently) with an empty string.

The stars are *not* wildcards: they are searched for together with
the preceding slash.  The star represents all the subdirectories except
`..', and each of these subdirectories will be searched in turn."
  :type '(choice (repeat directory) symbol))