Automatic UUID creation in some Org-mode files

2021-05-04

209 words, ~2min reading time

I am currently exploring the option in Org mode to export a file (or some entries) to an ics-file which I can then in turn import into my calendar. For reliably creating (and most importantly: updating) entries it is necessary that each one has an unique ID. To create a ID for the current entry I could just run M-x org-id-get-create and for an entire file execute the following Emacs Lisp (org-map-entries 'org-id-get-create). Of course this is not an ideal solution. But adding this s-expression to org-mode-hook would create IDs in all Org file I edit which I also don't like. Since the amount of files I do want the automatic creation is (currently) not that large it is OK for me to do some work on my own, at least if it is only a one time setup.

The idea which I had to achieve this goal was to create a file-local variable (called mmk2410/org-create-uuids) that I set to t in the buffers I need the automatic adding of IDs and adding a hook to org-mode-hook that in turn adds a hook to before-save-hook for calling the function mmk2410/org-create-all-uuids that executes the previously named s-expression to add a ID to each entry in the buffer.

(setq mmk2410/org-create-uuids nil)

(defun mmk2410/org-create-all-uuids ()
  "Create UUIDs for all entries in the current org-mode buffer."
  (interactive)
  (when mmk2410/org-create-uuids
    (org-map-entries 'org-id-get-create)))

(add-hook 'org-mode-hook
          (lambda () (add-hook 'before-save-hook 'mmk2410/org-create-all-uuids nil t)))