doc/man/etags.1

   1 .\" Copyright (C) 1992, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004,
   2 .\"   2005, 2006, 2007, 2008  Free Software Foundation, Inc.
   3 .\" See section COPYING for conditions for redistribution
   4 .TH etags 1 "23nov2001" "GNU Tools" "GNU Tools"
   5 .de BP
   6 .sp
   7 .ti -.2i
   8 \(**
   9 ..
  10
  11 .SH NAME
  12 etags, ctags \- generate tag file for Emacs, vi
  13 .SH SYNOPSIS
  14 .hy 0
  15 .na
  16 \fBetags\fP [\|\-aCDGIRVh\|] [\|\-i \fIfile\fP\|] [\|\-l \fIlanguage\fP\|]
  17 .if n .br
  18 [\|\-o \fItagfile\fP\|] [\|\-r \fIregexp\fP\|]
  19 [\|\-\-parse\-stdin=\fIfile\fP\|]
  20 .br
  21 [\|\-\-append\|] [\|\-\-no\-defines\|] [\|\-\-globals\|]
  22 [\|\-\-no\-globals\|] [\|\-\-include=\fIfile\fP\|]
  23 [\|\-\-ignore\-indentation\|] [\|\-\-language=\fIlanguage\fP\|]
  24 [\|\-\-members\|] [\|\-\-no\-members\|] [\|\-\-output=\fItagfile\fP\|]
  25 [\|\-\-regex=\fIregexp\fP\|] [\|\-\-no\-regex\|]
  26 [\|\-\-help\|] [\|\-\-version\|]
  27 \fIfile\fP .\|.\|.
  28
  29 \fBctags\fP [\|\-aCdgIRVh\|] [\|\-BtTuvwx\|] [\|\-l \fIlanguage\fP\|]
  30 .if n .br
  31 [\|\-o \fItagfile\fP\|] [\|\-r \fIregexp\fP\|]
  32 [\|\-\-parse\-stdin=\fIfile\fP\|]
  33 .br
  34 [\|\-\-append\|] [\|\-\-backward\-search\|]
  35 [\|\-\-cxref\|] [\|\-\-no\-defines\|]
  36 [\|\-\-globals\|] [\|\-\-no\-globals\|] [\|\-\-ignore\-indentation\|]
  37 [\|\-\-language=\fIlanguage\fP\|] [\|\-\-members\|] [\|\-\-no\-members\|]
  38 [\|\-\-output=\fItagfile\fP\|] [\|\-\-regex=\fIregexp\fP\|]
  39 [\|\-\-update\|]
  40 [\|\-\-help\|] [\|\-\-version\|]
  41 \fIfile\fP .\|.\|.
  42 .ad b
  43 .hy 1
  44 .SH DESCRIPTION
  45 The \|\fBetags\fP\| program is used to create a tag table file, in a format
  46 understood by
  47 .BR emacs ( 1 )\c
  48 \&; the \|\fBctags\fP\| program is used to create a similar table in a
  49 format understood by
  50 .BR vi ( 1 )\c
  51 \&.  Both forms of the program understand
  52 the syntax of C, Objective C, C++, Java, Fortran, Ada, Cobol, Erlang,
  53 Forth, HTML, LaTeX, Emacs Lisp/Common Lisp, Lua, Makefile, Pascal, Perl,
  54 PHP, Postscript, Python, Prolog, Scheme and
  55 most assembler\-like syntaxes.
  56 Both forms read the files specified on the command line, and write a tag
  57 table (defaults: \fBTAGS\fP for \fBetags\fP, \fBtags\fP for
  58 \fBctags\fP) in the current working directory.
  59 Files specified with relative file names will be recorded in the tag
  60 table with file names relative to the directory where the tag table
  61 resides.  If the tag table is in /dev or is the standard output,
  62 however, the file names are made relative to the working directory.
  63 Files specified with absolute file names will be recorded
  64 with absolute file names.  Files generated from a source file\-\-like
  65 a C file generated from a source Cweb file\-\-will be recorded with
  66 the name of the source file.
  67 Compressed files are supported using gzip and bzip2.
  68 The programs recognize the language used in an input file based on its
  69 file name and contents.  The \fB\-\-language\fP switch can be used to force
  70 parsing of the file names following the switch according to the given
  71 language, overriding guesses based on filename extensions.
  72 .SH OPTIONS
  73 Some options make sense only for the \fBvi\fP style tag files produced
  74 by ctags;
  75 \fBetags\fP does not recognize them.
  76 The programs accept unambiguous abbreviations for long option names.
  77 .TP
  78 .B \-a, \-\-append
  79 Append to existing tag file.  (For \fBvi\fP-format tag files, see also
  80 \fB\-\-update\fP.)
  81 .TP
  82 .B \-B, \-\-backward\-search
  83 Tag files written in the format expected by \fBvi\fP contain regular
  84 expression search instructions; the \fB\-B\fP option writes them using
  85 the delimiter `\|\fB?\fP\|', to search \fIbackwards\fP through files.
  86 The default is to use the delimiter `\|\fB/\fP\|', to search \fIforwards\fP
  87 through files.
  88 Only \fBctags\fP accepts this option.
  89 .TP
  90 .B \-\-declarations
  91 In C and derived languages, create tags for function declarations,
  92 and create tags for extern variables unless \-\-no\-globals is used.
  93 .TP
  94 .B \-D, \-\-no\-defines
  95 Do not create tag entries for C preprocessor constant definitions
  96 and enum constants.
  97 This may make the tags file much smaller if many header files are tagged.
  98 .TP
  99 .B \-\-globals
 100 Create tag entries for global variables in Perl and Makefile.  This is
 101 the default in C and derived languages.
 102 .TP
 103 .B \-\-no\-globals
 104 Do not tag global variables in C and derived languages.  Typically this
 105 reduces the file size by one fourth.
 106 .TP
 107 \fB\-i\fP \fIfile\fP, \fB\-\-include=\fIfile\fP
 108 Include a note in the tag file indicating that, when searching for a
 109 tag, one should also consult the tags file \fIfile\fP after checking the
 110 current file.  Only \fBetags\fP accepts this option.
 111 .TP
 112 .B \-I, \-\-ignore\-indentation
 113 Don't rely on indentation as much as we normally do.  Currently, this
 114 means not to assume that a closing brace in the first column is the
 115 final brace of a function or structure definition in C and C++.
 116 .TP
 117 \fB\-l\fP \fIlanguage\fP, \fB\-\-language=\fIlanguage\fP
 118 Parse the following files according to the given language.  More than
 119 one such options may be intermixed with filenames.  Use \fB\-\-help\fP
 120 to get a list of the available languages and their default filename
 121 extensions.  The `auto' language can be used to restore automatic
 122 detection of language based on the file name.  The `none'
 123 language may be used to disable language parsing altogether; only
 124 regexp matching is done in this case (see the \fB\-\-regex\fP option).
 125 .TP
 126 .B \-\-members
 127 Create tag entries for variables that are members of structure-like
 128 constructs in PHP.  This is the default for C and derived languages.
 129 .TP
 130 .B \-\-no\-members
 131 Do not tag member variables.
 132 .TP
 133 .B \-\-packages\-only
 134 Only tag packages in Ada files.
 135 .TP
 136 \fB\-\-parse\-stdin=\fIfile\fP
 137 May be used (only once) in place of a file name on the command line.
 138 \fBetags\fP will read from standard input and mark the produced tags
 139 as belonging to the file \fBFILE\fP.
 140 .TP
 141 \fB\-o\fP \fItagfile\fP, \fB\-\-output=\fItagfile\fP
 142 Explicit name of file for tag table; for \fBetags\fP only, a file name
 143 of \- means standard output; overrides default \fBTAGS\fP or \fBtags\fP.
 144 (But ignored with \fB\-v\fP or \fB\-x\fP.)
 145 .TP
 146 \fB\-r\fP \fIregexp\fP, \fB\-\-regex=\fIregexp\fP
 147
 148 Make tags based on regexp matching for the files following this option,
 149 in addition to the tags made with the standard parsing based on
 150 language. May be freely intermixed with filenames and the \fB\-R\fP
 151 option.  The regexps are cumulative, i.e. each such option will add to
 152 the previous ones.  The regexps are of one of the forms:
 153 .br
 154         [\fB{\fP\fIlanguage\fP\fB}\fP]\fB/\fP\fItagregexp/\fP[\fInameregexp\fP\fB/\fP]\fImodifiers\fP
 155 .br
 156         \fB@\fP\fIregexfile\fP
 157 .br
 158
 159 where \fItagregexp\fP is used to match the tag.  It should not match
 160 useless characters.  If the match is such that more characters than
 161 needed are unavoidably matched by \fItagregexp\fP, it may be useful to
 162 add a \fInameregexp\fP, to narrow down the tag scope.  \fBctags\fP
 163 ignores regexps without a \fInameregexp\fP.  The syntax of regexps is
 164 the same as in emacs.  The following character escape sequences are
 165 supported: \\a, \\b, \\d, \\e, \\f, \\n, \\r, \\t, \\v, which
 166 respectively stand for the ASCII characters BEL, BS, DEL, ESC, FF, NL,
 167 CR, TAB, VT.
 168 .br
 169 The \fImodifiers\fP are a sequence of 0 or more characters among
 170 \fIi\fP, which means to ignore case when matching; \fIm\fP, which means
 171 that the \fItagregexp\fP will be matched against the whole file contents
 172 at once, rather than line by line, and the matching sequence can match
 173 multiple lines; and \fIs\fP, which implies \fIm\fP and means that the
 174 dot character in \fItagregexp\fP matches the newline char as well.
 175 .br
 176 The separator, which is \fB/\fP in the examples, can be any character
 177 different from space, tab, braces and \fB@\fP.  If the separator
 178 character is needed inside the regular expression, it must be quoted
 179 by preceding it with \fB\\\fP.
 180 .br
 181 The optional \fB{\fP\fIlanguage\fP\fB}\fP prefix means that the tag
 182 should be
 183 created only for files of language \fIlanguage\fP, and ignored
 184 otherwise.  This is particularly useful when storing many predefined
 185 regexps in a file.
 186 .br
 187 In its second form, \fIregexfile\fP is the name of a file that contains
 188 a number of arguments to the \fI\-\-regex\=\fP option,
 189 one per line.  Lines beginning with a space or tab are assumed
 190 to be comments, and ignored.
 191
 192 .br
 193 Here are some examples.  All the regexps are quoted to protect them
 194 from shell interpretation.
 195 .br
 196
 197 Tag the DEFVAR macros in the emacs source files:
 198 .br
 199 \fI\-\-regex\='/[ \\t]*DEFVAR_[A-Z_ \\t(]+"\\([^"]+\\)"/'\fP
 200 .\"" This comment is to avoid confusion to Emacs syntax highlighting
 201 .br
 202
 203 Tag VHDL files (this example is a single long line, broken here for
 204 formatting reasons):
 205 .br
 206 \fI\-\-language\=none\ \-\-regex='/[\ \\t]*\\(ARCHITECTURE\\|\\
 207 CONFIGURATION\\)\ +[^\ ]*\ +OF/'\ \-\-regex\='/[\ \\t]*\\
 208 \\(ATTRIBUTE\\|ENTITY\\|FUNCTION\\|PACKAGE\\(\ BODY\\)?\\
 209 \\|PROCEDURE\\|PROCESS\\|TYPE\\)[\ \\t]+\\([^\ \\t(]+\\)/\\3/'\fP
 210 .br
 211
 212 Tag TCL files (this last example shows the usage of a \fItagregexp\fP):
 213 .br
 214 \fI\-\-lang\=none \-\-regex\='/proc[\ \\t]+\\([^\ \\t]+\\)/\\1/'\fP
 215
 216 .br
 217 A regexp can be preceded by {\fIlang\fP}, thus restricting it to match
 218 lines of files of the specified language.  Use \fBetags \-\-help\fP to obtain
 219 a list of the recognized languages.  This feature is particularly useful inside
 220 \fBregex files\fP.  A regex file contains one regex per line.  Empty lines,
 221 and those lines beginning with space or tab are ignored.  Lines beginning
 222 with @ are references to regex files whose name follows the @ sign.  Other
 223 lines are considered regular expressions like those following \fB\-\-regex\fP.
 224 .br
 225 For example, the command
 226 .br
 227 \fIetags \-\-regex=@regex.file *.c\fP
 228 .br
 229 reads the regexes contained in the file regex.file.
 230 .TP
 231 .B \-R, \-\-no\-regex
 232 Don't do any more regexp matching on the following files.  May be
 233 freely intermixed with filenames and the \fB\-\-regex\fP option.
 234 .TP
 235 .B \-u, \-\-update
 236 Update tag entries for \fIfiles\fP specified on command line, leaving
 237 tag entries for other files in place.  Currently, this is implemented
 238 by deleting the existing entries for the given files and then
 239 rewriting the new entries at the end of the tags file.  It is often
 240 faster to simply rebuild the entire tag file than to use this.
 241 Only \fBctags\fP accepts this option.
 242 .TP
 243 .B \-v, \-\-vgrind
 244 Instead of generating a tag file, write index (in \fBvgrind\fP format)
 245 to standard output.  Only \fBctags\fP accepts this option.
 246 .TP
 247 .B \-x, \-\-cxref
 248 Instead of generating a tag file, write a cross reference (in
 249 \fBcxref\fP format) to standard output.  Only \fBctags\fP accepts this option.
 250 .TP
 251 .B \-h, \-H, \-\-help
 252 Print usage information.  Followed by one or more \-\-language=LANG
 253 prints detailed information about how tags are created for LANG.
 254 .TP
 255 .B \-V, \-\-version
 256 Print the current version of the program (same as the version of the
 257 emacs \fBetags\fP is shipped with).
 258
 259 .SH "SEE ALSO"
 260 `\|\fBemacs\fP\|' entry in \fBinfo\fP; \fIGNU Emacs Manual\fP, Richard
 261 Stallman.
 262 .br
 263 .BR cxref ( 1 ),
 264 .BR emacs ( 1 ),
 265 .BR vgrind ( 1 ),
 266 .BR vi ( 1 ).
 267
 268 .SH COPYING
 269 Copyright
 270 .if t \(co
 271 .if n (c)
 272 1999, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008  Free Software Foundation, Inc.
 273 .PP
 274 Permission is granted to make and distribute verbatim copies of this
 275 document provided the copyright notice and this permission notice are
 276 preserved on all copies.
 277 .PP
 278 Permission is granted to copy and distribute modified versions of
 279 this document under the conditions for verbatim copying, provided that
 280 the entire resulting derived work is distributed under the terms of
 281 a permission notice identical to this one.
 282 .PP
 283 Permission is granted to copy and distribute translations of this
 284 document into another language, under the above conditions for
 285 modified versions, except that this permission notice may be stated
 286 in a translation approved by the Free Software Foundation.
 287
 288 .\" arch-tag: 9534977f-af78-42f0-991d-1df6b6c05573