How can I get all file links in one org-mode file?

Question

There are some local file links existed randomly in my org-mode file. most of them are image links, like (file:images/samples.png) along with some other urls. What I want to do is that parse all these links from the file and store them in a lisp list for afterwards use.

Here is a sample file:

* headline1
  [[file:images/sample1.png][description1]]
* headline2
  [[file:images/sample2.png][description2]]
  [[http://www.google.com]]

After parsing, a list of all file links should obtained.

(list "images/sample1.png" "images/sample1.png")

The links randomly distribute in all the org-mode file. Actually, I would like to find a function to find all the links, and store them in a list. — Leu_Grady, Sep 25 '15 at 00:29
@kaushalmodi thanks, but i would like to do it in program way. — Leu_Grady, Sep 25 '15 at 04:52

score 6 · Accepted Answer · answered Sep 25 '15 at 09:00

Assuming the current buffer is an org-mode buffer, the following code collects paths of file links in the current buffer.

(org-element-map (org-element-parse-buffer) 'link
  (lambda (link)
    (when (string= (org-element-property :type link) "file")
      (org-element-property :path link))))

In an org buffer, (org-element-parse-buffer) returns the parse tree of the current buffer. And you can map over it with org-element-map.

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Sep 24 '15 at 23:54

1

The built-in command for such searching is org-occur.

org-occur RET file: RET

will return a org tree of file links in current buffer. See the org manual for options with this command and how you can customize the regex search.

answered Sep 24 '15 at 23:54

Emacs User

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score 1 · Answer 3 · answered Oct 02 '15 at 16:22

To expand on the answer by @sho.

(defun jlp/org-link-info (link)
  (let ((path (org-element-property :path link))
        (type (org-element-property :type link))
        (desc (substring-no-properties (nth 2 link))))
    (list type path desc)))

Then use

(org-element-map (org-element-parse-buffer) 'link 'jlp/org-link-info)

This will return a list of all links in the buffer of format

(list
  (list link-type link-path link-description))

You can then filter by link type file,fuzzy,elisp,etc using nth 0, pull all the links (for example to open in bulk) using nth 1 and the descriptions nth 2.

How can I get all file links in one org-mode file?

3 Answers3

Linked