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(emacs)Quoted File Names

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Quoted File Names
=================

   You can "quote" an absolute file name to prevent special characters
and syntax in it from having their special effects.  The way to do this
is to add `/:' at the beginning.

   For example, you can quote a local file name which appears remote, to
prevent it from being treated as a remote file name.  Thus, if you have
a directory named `/foo:' and a file named `bar' in it, you can refer
to that file in Emacs as `/:/foo:/bar'.

   `/:' can also prevent `~' from being treated as a special character
for a user's home directory.  For example, `/:/tmp/~hack' refers to a
file whose name is `~hack' in directory `/tmp'.

   Likewise, quoting with `/:' is one way to enter in the minibuffer a
file name that contains `$'.  However, the `/:' must be at the
beginning of the minibuffer in order to quote `$'.

   You can also quote wildcard characters with `/:', for visiting.  For
example, `/:/tmp/foo*bar' visits the file `/tmp/foo*bar'.  However, in
most cases you can simply type the wildcard characters for themselves.
For example, if the only file name in `/tmp' that starts with `foo' and
ends with `bar' is `foo*bar', then specifying `/tmp/foo*bar' will visit
just `/tmp/foo*bar'.  Another way is to specify `/tmp/foo[*]bar'.