What is ctags? - main

21 Sep 2001


      ctags is a utility for speeding up your coding in a variety of languages initi
ally for the vi editor (I think only for c initially hence the name). What it
does is allow you to have your editor jump to the correct line of your code that
defines a function. An example say in nedit you highlifght some code eg
"fopen" and press "ALT d" nedit will open the correct header file at the line
which defines the function.
ctags only works for files included in ctags list of files to scan fortunatly
as I discovered a few days ago makedepend lists the files included, and so
provides usefull output for ctags input.
Regards
Owen
PS I included some stuff from ctags web site.
<quote ref="http://ctags.sourceforge.net/whatis.html">
What is ctags?
Ctags generates an index (or tag) file of C language objects found in C source
and header files that allows these items to be quickly and easily
located by a text editor or other utility. A tag signifies a C language object
for which an index entry is available (or, alternatively, the index
entry created for that object).
Alternatively, ctags can generate a cross reference file which lists, in
human-readable form, information about the various objects found in a
set of C language files.
Tag index files are supported by the vi editor and its derivatives (such as
vim, elvis, stevie, xvi) through the use of the ":ta" command, and
by the emacs editor through the use of the "Meta-." command, both of which
locate the object associated with a name. There are other a
number of other editors which support tag files.
</quote>
<quote ref="http://ctags.sourceforge.net/tools.html">
Editors which support CTAGS generated tag files
Vi-style editors
Vim, the official editor of Exuberant Ctags 
    Vile 
    Lemmy, a vi clone [Windows 95/NT]. 
    Other vi clones
Other editors
CRiSP [Unix, Windows 95/NT] 
    Emacs 
    FTE (Folding Text Editor) [Unix, Windows 95/NT, MSDOS, OS/2] 
    JED [Unix, VMS, MSDOS, OS/2, BeOS, QNX, Win 9X/NT] 
    NEdit (Nirvana Edit), a GUI editor [Unix with Motif] 
    TSE (The SemWare Editor) [Windows 95/NT] 
    X2 [Unix, Windows 95] 
    Zeus for Windows
Tools using CTAGS
Code Crusader 
    CShow (greps C functions out of source code) 
    FLTags [Unix] 
    hypersrc [Unix] 
    IDEntify [Unix] 
    Workspace Whiz! [Win32] 
    VIDE (V Integrated Development Environment [Unix and Windows 9x/NT] 
</quote>
I hope you find this interesting
Owen
On 21-Sep-01 Ashley T. Howes Ph.D. wrote:
...
on 19/9/01 7:43 pm, oms101@freeuk.com at oms101@freeuk.com wrote:
...
I was about to write a program today to go through my source code and find
all
the files included. I did a search on the internet and only found a windows
program, the reason being that the linux program was something so standard I
had missed it. Its called makedepend and ran as such
makedepend main.cpp -f-
produces output as such
main.c.o: /usr/include/_G_config.h /usr/include/alloca.h
/usr/include/assert.h
main.c.o: /usr/include/bits/confname.h /usr/include/bits/endian.h
main.c.o: /usr/include/bits/environments.h /usr/include/bits/huge_val.h
main.c.o: /usr/include/bits/local_lim.h /usr/include/bits/mathcalls.h
but produces a few more lines.
I then process the output into ctags and can find the definition of any bit
of
code I want.
What's a ctag?
Ashley
Date: 21-Sep-01 Time: 13:58:17