Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!mailrus!uwmcsd1!bbn!bbn.com!akhanna
From: akhanna@bbn.com (Atul Khanna)
Newsgroups: comp.emacs
Subject: Re: z-mode.el
Message-ID: <27240@bbn.COM>
Date: 20 Jul 88 19:28:10 GMT
References: <8807200126.AA15162@EDDIE.MIT.EDU>
Sender: news@bbn.COM
Reply-To: akhanna@alexander.bbn.com (Atul Khanna)
Organization: Bolt Beranek and Newman Inc., Cambridge MA
Lines: 67

In article <8807200126.AA15162@EDDIE.MIT.EDU> aks%nowhere@HUB.UCSB.EDU (Alan Stebbens) writes:
>Speaking of auto-uncompressing ".Z" files when visiting them, here
>is my little Emacs hack to do this.  It is invoked automatically
>by including the function in the auto-mode-alist in my .emacs
>startup file.
> ...
>(defun z-mode () "\
>Temporary major mode triggered by the \".Z\" suffix on a file,
>used to automatically uncompress the file when visiting.  After
>running the buffer contents through \"uncompress\", the buffer
>name is changed by truncating the \".Z\" (as well as the visited
>file name).  Also, the buffer is marked as read-only.  Finally,
>normal-mode is invoked to process the buffer for its normal mode."
>  (if (and (not (null buffer-file-name))
>	   (string-match "^\\(.*\\)\\.Z$" buffer-file-name))
>      (let ((new (substring buffer-file-name
>			    (match-beginning 1) (match-end 1))))
>	(setq buffer-read-only nil)
>	(message "Uncompressing text...")
>	(shell-command-on-region (point-min) (point-max)
>				 "uncompress" t)
>	(message "Uncompressing text...done")
>	(goto-char (point-min))
>	(set-visited-file-name new)
>	(set-buffer-modified-p nil)
>	(setq buffer-read-only t)))
>  (normal-mode))

I do something similar.  I have the following binding: (global-set-key
"" 'find-and-uncompress-file).

The function, which follows, does not uncompress the file.  Instead,
it uncompresses the buffer.  If you edit and save the resulting
buffer, you'll end up with both an up-to-date uncompressed version of
the file and an out-of-date compressed version, so you have to be
careful.  I've chosen to do it this way since in most cases I just
read compressed files without editing them.

(defun find-and-uncompress-file (filename)
  "Find and uncompress its buffer, if necessary, file FILENAME"
  (interactive "FFind [uncompress] file: ")
  (if (string-match "\\.Z$" filename)
      (let* ((ascii-filename (substring filename 0 (string-match "\\.Z$" filename)))
	     (ascii-buffer (get-file-buffer ascii-filename)))
	(if ascii-buffer
	    (switch-to-buffer ascii-buffer)
	  (progn
	    (find-file filename)
	    (mark-whole-buffer)
	    (if buffer-read-only (toggle-read-only))
	    (shell-command-on-region (region-beginning) (region-end) "uncompress" t)
	    (beginning-of-buffer)
	    (set-visited-file-name ascii-filename)
	    (setq buffer-read-only t)
	    (not-modified))))
    (find-file filename)))




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