Open dired and select the file associated with the previous buffer?

Question

Let's say I am editing blah.txt with Emacs and I decide to open dired to rename the file blah.txt. When I press C-x d RET (or C-x C-f RET), a dired buffer will show up to display the content of the directory containing blah.txt, but the cursor will not be on blah.txt. So I need to search my file first (C-s blah.txt) to place my cursor on it and then I can rename it (R).

How do I automate or remove the step C-s blah.txt?

Answer 1

dired-jump is exactly what you want.

(autoload 'dired-jump "dired-x" "Jump to dired corresponding current buffer.")
(autoload 'dired-jump-other-window "dired-x" "jump to dired in other window.")

Then call:

M-x dired-jump

or

M-x dired-jump-other-window

Answer 2

You want C-x C-j.

Answer 3

Sunrise Commander is a much improved dired. and it does what you need by default.

Answer 4

You can do something like that:

M-: (dired (buffer-name (current-buffer)))

Then the only file visible in dired will be your current file and cursor will be right on it.