RE: A quick way of opening any file with given extension within adirectory hierarchy?

[Drew Adams]

> I am wondering if this functionality has been written by someone.
> 1. I call func-i-look-for.
> 2. The mini buffer switches to "What file do you want?: "
> 3. When I start typing, there is a buffer that shows all files within
>    a given directory hierarchy whose filenames start with what I have
>    written.
> 4. I can cycle between available completions with C-n C-p (without
>    messing up what I have written in the minibuffer) and <return> takes
>    me to chosen buffer.
>
> Let's clarify with an example. I have the following source tree:
>
> root/file.cpp
> root/gtk/gtk.cpp
> root/msw/file2.cpp
>
> And call (after requred setup is made) func-i-look-for, then type "fi"
> I would now have file.cpp and file2.cpp listed in the buffer, and C-n
> <return> would get me to file2.cpp.
> Does anyone know if there is elisp code that does this somewhere?

Icicles does what you want. Specifically, command `icicle-locate-file'.

Your input matches any part of the complete file name, however, including
the directory part, so if you didn't want that, you would either:

1) Type a regexp such as "/fi" (or, to be rigorous, "/fi[^/]*$", because
that prohibits matches against subdirectory names that start with "fi")

or

2) Define your own command, based on `icicle-locate-file', which would take
care of that.

http://www.emacswiki.org/cgi-bin/wiki/Icicles_-_File-Name_Input