Emacs Tip #11: uniquify

Do you dislike the buffer names Emacs generates when two files have the same name? e.g. "myfile.txt" and "myfile.txt<2>"

A package 'uniquify' changes the default naming of buffers to include parts of the file name (directory names) until the buffer names are unique.

For instance, buffers visiting the files:

    /u/mernst/tmp/Makefile
    /usr/projects/zaphod/Makefile

would be named

    Makefile|tmp
    Makefile|zaphod

respectively (instead of "Makefile" and "Makefile<2>").

There are other naming schemes possible.

I use this to my .emacs:

    (require 'uniquify)
    (setq uniquify-buffer-name-style 'reverse)
    (setq uniquify-separator "/")
    (setq uniquify-after-kill-buffer-p t) ; rename after killing uniquified
    (setq uniquify-ignore-buffers-re "^\\*") ; don't muck with special buffers

For the *info* page,

    C-h i m emacs RET s uniquify RET