Function: virtual-dired
virtual-dired is a function alias and interactive for dired-virtual,
defined in dired-x.el.gz.
Signature
(virtual-dired DIRNAME &optional SWITCHES)
Documentation
Treat the current buffer as a Dired buffer showing directory DIRNAME.
Interactively, prompt for DIRNAME.
This command is rarely useful, but may be convenient if you want
to peruse and move around in the output you got from "ls
-lR" (or something similar), without having access to the actual
file system.
Most Dired commands that don't consult the file system will work as advertised, but commands that try to alter the file system will usually fail. (However, if the output is from the current system, most of those commands will work fine.)
If you have saved a Dired buffer in a file you can use M-x dired-virtual (dired-virtual) to
resume it in a later session.
Type g (revert-buffer) in the Virtual Dired buffer and answer \y to convert
the virtual to a real Dired buffer again. You don't have to do this, though:
you can relist single subdirs using l (dired-do-redisplay).
Key Bindings