How do I make Emacs load a directory full of .el files?

[akraut]

So I wanted to make a directory to put system or location-specific emacs configs. So, for example, I can have extra configs for my work laptop, or a config to turn off graphics and menubars on my server.

So I did some playing around in ielm:

ELISP> (directory-files "~/.emacs.d/system/" nil "\.el$" nil)
("orgfixer.el" "osx.el" "work.el")

Great, that returns the .el files in the directory. Time to make it load stuff:

(add-to-list 'load-path "~/.emacs.d/system")
(dolist (file (directory-files "~/.emacs.d/system" nil "\.el$" nil))
  (load (file-name-sans-extension file)))

So... Why does that not load any of the files? For example: work.el adds ~/.org-jira to the org-agenda-files list, but after I start emacs, it's not in the list. (load "work") will load the file and work just fine from the minibuffer. Any ideas what gives?

[BaseCase]

It's possible the dolist loop is choking on '.' and '..', which directory-files oh-so-helpfully returns. Here's a modified snippet that seems to work OK for me on a test folder I set up:

(add-to-list 'load-path "~/elisp-test")
(dolist (file (directory-files "~/elisp-test"))
  (unless (or (string= "." file)
	      (string= ".." file))
    (load (file-name-sans-extension file))))

[akraut]

The regex in the 3rd parameter should be excluding . or .. (or .keep which also exists in that folder). That's assuming the test I did in ielm is anywhere close to the way it runs at startup.

EDIT: Apparently my assumption of the problem is wrong... Running Emacs with --debug-init is showing "Loading ..." appropriately. It's this line that's not doing what I expect:

(add-to-list 'org-agenda-files "~/.org-jira/")

[BaseCase]

EDIT: just saw your edit above. Good that the load loop is working, at least One less mystery.

[akraut]

So odd that in ielm it works. This is even after that file has been loaded:

ELISP> (org-agenda-files)
("/Users/akraut/Dropbox/OrgMode/Diary.org" "/Users/akraut/Dropbox/OrgMode/Inbox.org" "/Users/akraut/Dropbox/OrgMode/from-mobile.org" "/Users/akraut/Dropbox/OrgMode/Personal/Home.org" "/Users/akraut/Dropbox/OrgMode/Personal/Jobs.org" "/Users/akraut/Dropbox/OrgMode/Personal/Projects.org" "/Users/akraut/Dropbox/OrgMode/Work/Work.org")

ELISP> (add-to-list 'org-agenda-files "~/.org-jira/")
("~/.org-jira/" "~/Dropbox/OrgMode/" "~/Dropbox/OrgMode/Personal/" "~/Dropbox/OrgMode/Work/")

ELISP> (org-agenda-files)
("/Users/akraut/.org-jira/APPSEC.org" "/Users/akraut/Dropbox/OrgMode/Diary.org" "/Users/akraut/Dropbox/OrgMode/Inbox.org" "/Users/akraut/Dropbox/OrgMode/from-mobile.org" "/Users/akraut/Dropbox/OrgMode/Personal/Home.org" "/Users/akraut/Dropbox/OrgMode/Personal/Jobs.org" "/Users/akraut/Dropbox/OrgMode/Personal/Projects.org" "/Users/akraut/Dropbox/OrgMode/Work/Work.org")

[BaseCase]

That is weird...
Is the value of org-agenda-files correct while execution is still inside work.el? Like, if you print it out after the add and then again once you're back in .emacs, does it get reverted or something?

[akraut]

Ok, at long last, I have found a solution.

First of all, org-agenda-files is a variable that contains a list of 1 or more files and directories where org-mode files can be found. In the case of a single file, that contains a line-by-line list of all the org-mode files. In the case of any number of directories, it expands the list, finding all files that match org-agenda-file-pattern in each directory.

Now, org-agenda-files is a function that does the aforementioned file expansion. You read that right. It's both a variable and a function.

The issue I was having, is that variables set with customize, don't become set until (I think) during the after-init-hook which is after running your init file. Since my init file was trying to add-to-list to a variable that hadn't yet been set, it was failing or being overwritten by the customize stuff.

My solution:

(defun add-orgjira-dir ()
       "Add .org-jira to orgmode"
       (add-to-list 'org-agenda-files "~/.org-jira/"))

(add-hook 'after-init-hook 'add-orgjira-dir 1)

[BaseCase]

Huh, you learn something new every day. I had no idea you could have a distinct variable and function with the same name. That seems...not ideal @_@

[BaseCase]

That makes sense about the customize thing. I actually always delete everything that customize auto-inserts and rewrite as immediately executed variable setting in my init, because I feel like that's cleaner, but I don't use customize super often, so I can see that getting very cumbersome if I did.