Get relative file paths

[it6]

Is there a way to get relative file path based on current file you are in?

[basil-conto]

Can you please elaborate on what you mean by "get" and what you intend to do with this path? Both find-file (and counsel-find-file, by extension) begin filename completion in the current default-directory, for example, so anything you enter is completed relative to the same parent directory as the currently visited file until a different directory is specified.

[it6]

Say I am in fileA in the following project structure, I want to import fileB into fileA using relative path

|---- src/
       |-----folder1/
                  |------fileA
       |------folder2/
                  |------folder3/
                             |-----fileB

I need to copy path as ../folder2/folder3/fileB

[abo-abo]

Press DEL to go one level up.

[it6]

I need to copy relative file path of fileB (../folder2/folder3/fileB) into fileA

[jeberger]

There is a file-relative-name function in emacs, so you can probably do it with (file-relative-name fileB (file-name-directory fileA))

[it6]

I found this snippet really helpful, it is integrated with ivy.

;;----------------------------------------------------------------------------
;; insert relative/full path between two files
;;----------------------------------------------------------------------------
(defun bjm/insert-file-name (filename &optional args)
  "Insert name of file FILENAME into buffer after point, takes ARGS.

  Prefixed with \\[universal-argument], expand the file name to
  its fully canocalized path.  See `expand-file-name'.

  Prefixed with \\[negative-argument], use relative path to file
  name from current directory, `default-directory'.  See
  `file-relative-name'.

  The default with no prefix is to insert the file name exactly as
  it appears in the minibuffer prompt."
  ;; Based on insert-file in Emacs -- ashawley 20080926
  (interactive "*fInsert file name: \nP")
  (cond ((eq '- args)
         (insert (expand-file-name filename)))
        ((not (null args))
         (insert filename))
        (t
         (insert (file-relative-name filename)))))

(global-set-key (kbd "C-c i p") 'bjm/insert-file-name)

Is there any way to extend this so I can open counsel-git prompt instead ?

[abo-abo]

Is there any way to extend this so I can open counsel-git prompt instead ?

Can you elaborate? You open counsel-find-file, then press C-c i p to call counsel-git? Why?

[it6]

The current snippet above lets me insert relative file path using counsel-find-file

for example

Instead of opening counsel-find-file and navigating directories, I would like to open prompt with counsel-git and start typing any file name in my git project.

Also anything like this already exists in counsel?

Again the whole idea is not to open a file, but to insert a relative path to any file in the project.

[Dickby]

why would you want to do that? With. projectile for example you just have to enter the file name. And you allready can just type the "relative directory" in counsel-find-file like ../bin/ Maybe i misunderstood the problem!?

[basil-conto]

Also anything like this already exists in counsel?

No, but the usual mechanism/approach is to use custom actions, e.g.

(ivy-add-actions
 #'counsel-git
 '(("I" my-insert-relative "insert relative")))

Where my-insert-relative is a custom function which takes a completion candidate and acts on it as you desire.

The problem with counsel-git is that it let-binds default-directory around the entire ivy-read call, so there is currently no reliable way to determine the default-directory of the buffer from which counsel-git was called, which is needed to calculate a relative file path. This is, I think, a separate bug in its own right.