How to show other files and subdirectories in current dired file buffer?

Question

If I open dired buffer with filename as parameter, and not directory, only that one file is displayed in dired mode. But I wish I could open dired buffer like that (dired "/usr/bin/pwd") and see not only one pwd entry, but all other files and subdirectories, and cursor will be on pwd.

That is the default behavior of dired-jump, and I wish I could somehow do the same for ordinary filepath, and not current buffer.

Answer 1

C-h f dired-jump tells us:

dired-jump is an interactive autoloaded compiled Lisp function in dired-x.el.

It is bound to C-x C-j.

(dired-jump &optional OTHER-WINDOW FILE-NAME)

Jump to Dired buffer corresponding to current buffer.

If in a file, Dired the current directory and move to file’s line.

If in Dired already, pop up a level and goto old directory’s line.

In case the proper Dired file line cannot be found, refresh the dired buffer and try again.

When OTHER-WINDOW is non-nil, jump to Dired buffer in other window.

When FILE-NAME is non-nil, jump to its line in Dired.

Interactively with prefix argument, read FILE-NAME.

So you can get what you request using C-u M-x dired-jump or just C-u C-x C-j.

If you don't want to hit C-u each time, you can define your own command that does the same thing without hitting C-u:

(defun my-dired-jump (&optional other-window file)
  "..."
  (interactive (list nil (read-file-name "Jump to Dired file: ")))
  (dired-jump other-window file))