Q: setting/changing search path for links by id

Q: setting/changing search path for links by id

[Julius Dittmar]

Hi,

I'd like to use links for cross referencing. As filenames are very prone
to change in my system, I'd like to use IDs for those links.

What I could not fathom yet is how the search path for those IDs is created.

Is there a way of (session-globally) setting that search path, in a
specialized init file for example?

Is there a way of adding a directory to this search path from inside an
org file?

Thanks for any hints,

Julius

Re: Q: setting/changing search path for links by id

[John Kitchin]

I think you are looking for the variable org-id-locations-file. This
file contains entries like ("~/vc/journal/2018/03/29/2018-03-29.org"
"A6509542-9C85-46ED-BFE3-715CE44BAA70") and is used to create a hash
table that provides a way to search for Ids. You can see it still holds
information to a file name, so if these change, then at some point the
location file will be out of date and need to be updated.

I think the function org-id-find is used to search for ids.

You can add files with the function org-id-update-id-locations.

I hope that helps.


Julius Dittmar writes:

> Hi,
>
> I'd like to use links for cross referencing. As filenames are very prone
> to change in my system, I'd like to use IDs for those links.
>
> What I could not fathom yet is how the search path for those IDs is created.
>
> Is there a way of (session-globally) setting that search path, in a
> specialized init file for example?
>
> Is there a way of adding a directory to this search path from inside an
> org file?
>
> Thanks for any hints,
>
> Julius


--
Professor John Kitchin
Doherty Hall A207F
Department of Chemical Engineering
Carnegie Mellon University
Pittsburgh, PA 15213
412-268-7803
@johnkitchin
http://kitchingroup.cheme.cmu.edu

Re: Q: setting/changing search path for links by id

[Samuel Wales]

there is org-id-extra-files.  you will need to code around it to set it right.

by default it is set to text search extra files, as a symbol.
however, that symbol probably cannot be put in as a pseudo-file.  i.e.
part of a list with files.  [it seems that perhaps 'agenda-archives
/can/ be put in as a pseudo-file, but this is not seem to be
documented in the docstring or the manual.  and there is also a
separate variable controlling whether agenda files are searched.]  so
it's slightly confusing.

if you want the default, plus some files of your own, which is what
most people want to do with the variable, i think you need to get the
value of text search extra files, append or concatenate your own,
remove duplicates, and set it.  [*org feature suggestion*] perhaps org
could do the remove duplicates step for the user, and maybe allow text
search extra files as a pseudo-file, so that the user need only set
the variable to a list.  org already does a remove duplicates for the
user for org-agenda-files.


On 5/2/18, Julius Dittmar <Julius.Dittmar@gmx.de> wrote:
> Is there a way of adding a directory to this search path from inside an
> org file?

i'm not sure, but i don't think it searches directories either
recursively or at top level.  you will need to do that yourself in
lisp using something like (directory-files (getenv "dorg") t regexp)).
exercise caution if any files are compressed or you changed org or org
archive extensions.