help with dired function i wrote..how to insert current file at point into buffer?

Question

i have zero coding skills but somehow (mainly goggle) managed to write this script

(defun z/dired-shell-other-window-beets ()
  "Open a shell with dired path in a new window and issue beet import on file at point "
  (interactive)
  (let ((buf (shell)))
    (switch-to-buffer (other-buffer buf))
    (switch-to-buffer-other-window buf)
(insert (concat "beet import "  (dired-copy-filename-as-kill) ))

))

what im trying to do is issue a interactive shell command (beet import) on the current folder point is on in dired

i managed to get the beet import inserted to the new shell buffer thats opened but how do i follow that with the current dir name/path?

Answer 1

So there are already two keybindings that do something similar which we'll talk about and then we'll talk about making you're own command. First of all you can use dired-do-async-shell-command which is bound to & in dired. This will prompt for a command and will execute the command on the name of the filename that is marked or under your point. So you press & and then type "beet import" this will run your command! In a similar vein there is also dired-do-shell-command which is bound to !

The last option is if you will be calling this very very often you can write your own function modeled after dired-do-async-shell-command like this:

(defun dired-do-beet-import (&optional arg file-list)
  (interactive
   (let ((files (dired-get-marked-files t current-prefix-arg)))
     (list
      current-prefix-arg
      files)))
  (dired-do-shell-command "beet import" arg file-list))

This version of the command opens a subshell to run the command in, it has less error checking and it only works for the file under the point and not for any files that are marked:

(defun dired-do-beet-import ()
  (interactive)
  (let ((command (concat "beet import " (format "%S" (dired-get-filename)))))
    (with-current-buffer (shell)
      (insert command)
      (comint-send-input))))