How to detect netrw directory listing from autocommand?

Question

I want to detect from a BufEnter autocommand whether the buffer is a netrw directory listing.

It seems that when the autocommand is fired, the filetype is empty and there are no netrw-related buffer variables. Furthermore the bufname() is empty. However when I manually look at the filetype it is "netrw", the b:netrw_curdir variable is set, and the buffer has a name (the directory it shows).

How can I determine during the autocommand when the buffer is a netrw directory listing?

This is on Vim 9.0.1276.

Answer 1

Obviously, netrw intercepts BufEnter itself to set the things up. So upon first BufEnter it depends on which autocmd was registered first: yours or netrw's one. As you want to go after netrw you can move your code under ~/.vim/after/plugin directory, for example.

However, I'd rather switched to BufWinEnter event, as it gets triggered less often than BufEnter (only after the buffer is shown in a window for the first time, and not after every buffer switching) and after the first BufEnter event anyway. In many cases it might be just what one needs.

Also, I would consider dropping netrw at all, as it is... well, what to say, I really dislike it.

Answer 2

Thanks to Matt's answer I realised I couldn't detect a netrw directory listing in a BufEnter autocommand (unless the code is running from an after directory).

So I switched to using a Filetype netrw autocommand.