(emacs.info) Shell Commands in Dired

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 Shell Commands in Dired
 =======================
 
    The dired command `!' (`dired-do-shell-command') reads a shell
 command string in the minibuffer and runs that shell command on all the
 specified files.  You can specify the files to operate on in the usual
 ways for Dired commands ( Operating on Files).  There are two
 ways of applying a shell command to multiple files:
 
    * If you use `*' in the shell command, then it runs just once, with
      the list of file names substituted for the `*'.  The order of file
      names is the order of appearance in the Dired buffer.
 
      Thus, `! tar cf foo.tar * <RET>' runs `tar' on the entire list of
      file names, putting them into one tar file `foo.tar'.
 
    * If the command string doesn't contain `*', then it runs once _for
      each file_, with the file name added at the end.
 
      For example, `! uudecode <RET>' runs `uudecode' on each file.
 
    What if you want to run the shell command once for each file but with
 the file name inserted in the middle?  Or if you want to use the file
 names in a more complicated fashion?  Use a shell loop.  For example,
 this shell command would run `uuencode' on each of the specified files,
 writing the output into a corresponding `.uu' file:
 
      for file in *; do uuencode $file $file >$file.uu; done
 
    The working directory for the shell command is the top-level
 directory of the Dired buffer.
 
    The `!' command does not attempt to update the Dired buffer to show
 new or modified files, because it doesn't really understand shell
 commands, and does not know what files the shell command changed.  Use
 the `g' command to update the Dired buffer ( Dired Updating).
 

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(emacs.info) Transforming File Names