CTAGS(1) | General Commands Manual | CTAGS(1) |
ctags
— create a
tags file
ctags |
[-BFTaduwvx ] [-f
tagsfile] file ... |
The ctags
utility makes a
tags file for ex(1)
from the specified C, Pascal, Fortran,
yacc(1),
lex(1), and Lisp sources. A tags file
gives the locations of specified objects in a group of files. Each line of
the tags file contains the object name, the file in which it is defined, and
a search pattern for the object definition, separated by white-space. Using
the tags file,
ex(1) can quickly locate these object
definitions. Depending upon the options provided to
ctags
, objects will consist of subroutines,
typedefs, defines, structs, enums and unions.
The following options are available:
-B
?...?
).-F
/.../
) (the
default).-T
-a
-d
#defines
that do not take
arguments; #defines
that take arguments are tagged
automatically.-f
-u
-f
- was used to write to
standard output).
Beware: this option is implemented in a way which is rather slow; it is usually faster to simply rebuild the tags file.
-v
ctags -v files | sort -f > index vgrind -x index
-w
-x
ctags
produces a list of object names, the line
number and file name on which each is defined, as well as the text of that
line and prints this on the standard output. This is a simple index which
can be printed out as an off-line readable function index.Files whose names end in .c or
.h are assumed to be C source files and are searched
for C style routine and macro definitions. Files whose names end in
.y are assumed to be
yacc(1) source files. Files whose names
end in .l are assumed to be Lisp files if their
first non-blank character is ‘;
’,
‘(
’, or
‘[
’, otherwise, they are treated as
lex(1) files. Other files are first
examined to see if they contain any Pascal or Fortran routine definitions,
and, if not, are searched for C style definitions.
The tag “main
” is treated
specially in C programs. The tag formed is created by prepending
‘M
’ to the name of the file, with the
trailing .c and any leading pathname components
removed. This makes use of ctags
practical in
directories with more than one program.
The yacc(1) and
lex(1) files each have a special tag.
“yyparse
” is the start of the second
section of the yacc(1) file, and
“yylex
” is the start of the second
section of the lex(1) file.
The ctags
utility exits with a value of 1
if an error occurred, 0 otherwise. Duplicate objects are not considered
errors.
The -t
option is a no-op for compatibility
with previous versions of ctags
that did not create
tags for typedefs, enums, structs and unions by default.
The ctags
utility conforms to
IEEE Std 1003.1-2001 (“POSIX.1”).
The ctags
utility appeared in
3.0BSD.
Recognition of functions, subroutines and procedures for Fortran
and Pascal is done in a very simpleminded way. No attempt is made to deal
with block structure; if you have two Pascal procedures in different blocks
with the same name you lose. The ctags
utility does
not understand about Pascal types.
The method of deciding whether to look for C, Pascal or Fortran functions is a hack.
The ctags
utility relies on the input
being well formed, and any syntactical errors will completely confuse it. It
also finds some legal syntax confusing; for example, since it does not
understand #ifdef
's (incidentally, that is a
feature, not a bug), any code with unbalanced braces inside
#ifdef
's will cause it to become somewhat
disoriented. In a similar fashion, multiple line changes within a definition
will cause it to enter the last line of the object, rather than the first,
as the searching pattern. The last line of multiple line
typedef
's will similarly be noted.
May 23, 2023 | macOS 14.6 |