1 .\" Copyright (C) 1992, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004,
2 .\" 2005 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
3 .\" See section COPYING for conditions for redistribution
4 .TH etags 1 "23nov2001" "GNU Tools" "GNU Tools"
12 etags, ctags \- generate tag file for Emacs, vi
16 \fBetags\fP [\|\-aCDGImRVh\|] [\|\-i \fIfile\fP\|] [\|\-l \fIlanguage\fP\|]
18 [\|\-o \fItagfile\fP\|] [\|\-r \fIregexp\fP\|]
19 [\|\-\-parse\-stdin=\fIfile\fP\|]
21 [\|\-\-append\|] [\|\-\-no\-defines\|]
22 [\|\-\-no\-globals\|] [\|\-\-include=\fIfile\fP\|]
23 [\|\-\-ignore\-indentation\|] [\|\-\-language=\fIlanguage\fP\|]
24 [\|\-\-members\|] [\|\-\-output=\fItagfile\fP\|]
25 [\|\-\-regex=\fIregexp\fP\|] [\|\-\-no\-regex\|]
26 [\|\-\-help\|] [\|\-\-version\|]
29 \fBctags\fP [\|\-aCdgImRVh\|] [\|\-BtTuvwx\|] [\|\-l \fIlanguage\fP\|]
31 [\|\-o \fItagfile\fP\|] [\|\-r \fIregexp\fP\|]
32 [\|\-\-parse\-stdin=\fIfile\fP\|]
34 [\|\-\-append\|] [\|\-\-backward\-search\|]
35 [\|\-\-cxref\|] [\|\-\-defines\|] [\|\-\-forward\-search\|]
36 [\|\-\-globals\|] [\|\-\-ignore\-indentation\|]
37 [\|\-\-language=\fIlanguage\fP\|] [\|\-\-members\|]
38 [\|\-\-output=\fItagfile\fP\|] [\|\-\-regex=\fIregexp\fP\|]
39 [\|\-\-typedefs\|] [\|\-\-typedefs\-and\-c++\|]
40 [\|\-\-update\|] [\|\-\-no\-warn\|]
41 [\|\-\-help\|] [\|\-\-version\|]
46 The \|\fBetags\fP\| program is used to create a tag table file, in a format
49 \&; the \|\fBctags\fP\| program is used to create a similar table in a
52 \&. Both forms of the program understand
53 the syntax of C, Objective C, C++, Java, Fortran, Ada, Cobol, Erlang, HTML,
54 LaTeX, Emacs Lisp/Common Lisp, Lua, makefile, Pascal, Perl, PHP, Postscript,
55 Python, Prolog, Scheme and
56 most assembler\-like syntaxes.
57 Both forms read the files specified on the command line, and write a tag
58 table (defaults: \fBTAGS\fP for \fBetags\fP, \fBtags\fP for
59 \fBctags\fP) in the current working directory.
60 Files specified with relative file names will be recorded in the tag
61 table with file names relative to the directory where the tag table
62 resides. If the tag table is in /dev, however, the file names are made
63 relative to the working directory. Files specified with absolute file
64 names will be recorded
65 with absolute file names. Files generated from a source file\-\-like
66 a C file generated from a source Cweb file\-\-will be recorded with
67 the name of the source file.
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.
73 Some options make sense only for the \fBvi\fP style tag files produced
75 \fBetags\fP does not recognize them.
76 The programs accept unambiguous abbreviations for long option names.
79 Append to existing tag file. (For \fBvi\fP-format tag files, see also
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
88 Only \fBctags\fP accepts this option.
91 In C and derived languages, create tags for function declarations,
92 and create tags for extern variables unless \-\-no\-globals is used.
95 Create tag entries for C preprocessor constant definitions
96 and enum constants, too. This is the
97 default behavior for \fBetags\fP.
99 .B \-D, \-\-no\-defines
100 Do not create tag entries for C preprocessor constant definitions
102 This may make the tags file much smaller if many header files are tagged.
103 This is the default behavior for \fBctags\fP.
106 Create tag entries for global variables in C, C++, Objective C, Java,
108 This is the default behavior for \fBetags\fP.
110 .B \-G, \-\-no\-globals
111 Do not tag global variables. Typically this reduces the file size by
112 one fourth. This is the default behavior for \fBctags\fP.
114 \fB\-i\fP \fIfile\fP, \fB\-\-include=\fIfile\fP
115 Include a note in the tag file indicating that, when searching for a
116 tag, one should also consult the tags file \fIfile\fP after checking the
117 current file. This options is only accepted by \fBetags\fP.
119 .B \-I, \-\-ignore\-indentation
120 Don't rely on indentation as much as we normally do. Currently, this
121 means not to assume that a closing brace in the first column is the
122 final brace of a function or structure definition in C and C++.
124 \fB\-l\fP \fIlanguage\fP, \fB\-\-language=\fIlanguage\fP
125 Parse the following files according to the given language. More than
126 one such options may be intermixed with filenames. Use \fB\-\-help\fP
127 to get a list of the available languages and their default filename
128 extensions. The `auto' language can be used to restore automatic
129 detection of language based on the file name. The `none'
130 language may be used to disable language parsing altogether; only
131 regexp matching is done in this case (see the \fB\-\-regex\fP option).
134 Create tag entries for variables that are members of structure-like
135 constructs in C++, Objective C, Java.
137 .B \-M, \-\-no\-members
138 Do not tag member variables. This is the default behavior.
140 .B \-\-packages\-only
141 Only tag packages in Ada files.
143 \fB\-\-parse\-stdin=\fIfile\fP
144 May be used (only once) in place of a file name on the command line.
145 \fBetags\fP will read from standard input and mark the produced tags
146 as belonging to the file \fBFILE\fP.
148 \fB\-o\fP \fItagfile\fP, \fB\-\-output=\fItagfile\fP
149 Explicit name of file for tag table; overrides default \fBTAGS\fP or
150 \fBtags\fP. (But ignored with \fB\-v\fP or \fB\-x\fP.)
152 \fB\-r\fP \fIregexp\fP, \fB\-\-regex=\fIregexp\fP
154 Make tags based on regexp matching for the files following this option,
155 in addition to the tags made with the standard parsing based on
156 language. May be freely intermixed with filenames and the \fB\-R\fP
157 option. The regexps are cumulative, i.e. each such option will add to
158 the previous ones. The regexps are of one of the forms:
160 [\fB{\fP\fIlanguage\fP\fB}\fP]\fB/\fP\fItagregexp/\fP[\fInameregexp\fP\fB/\fP]\fImodifiers\fP
162 \fB@\fP\fIregexfile\fP
165 where \fItagregexp\fP is used to match the tag. It should not match
166 useless characters. If the match is such that more characters than
167 needed are unavoidably matched by \fItagregexp\fP, it may be useful to
168 add a \fInameregexp\fP, to narrow down the tag scope. \fBctags\fP
169 ignores regexps without a \fInameregexp\fP. The syntax of regexps is
170 the same as in emacs. The following character escape sequences are
171 supported: \\a, \\b, \\d, \\e, \\f, \\n, \\r, \\t, \\v, which
172 respectively stand for the ASCII characters BEL, BS, DEL, ESC, FF, NL,
175 The \fImodifiers\fP are a sequence of 0 or more characters among
176 \fIi\fP, which means to ignore case when matching; \fIm\fP, which means
177 that the \fItagregexp\fP will be matched against the whole file contents
178 at once, rather than line by line, and the matching sequence can match
179 multiple lines; and \fIs\fP, which implies \fIm\fP and means that the
180 dot character in \fItagregexp\fP matches the newline char as well.
182 The separator, which is \fB/\fP in the examples, can be any character
183 different from space, tab, braces and \fB@\fP. If the separator
184 character is needed inside the regular expression, it must be quoted
185 by preceding it with \fB\\\fP.
187 The optional \fB{\fP\fIlanguage\fP\fB}\fP prefix means that the tag
189 created only for files of language \fIlanguage\fP, and ignored
190 otherwise. This is particularly useful when storing many predefined
193 In its second form, \fIregexfile\fP is the name of a file that contains
194 a number of arguments to the \fI\-\-regex\=\fP option,
195 one per line. Lines beginning with a space or tab are assumed
196 to be comments, and ignored.
199 Here are some examples. All the regexps are quoted to protect them
200 from shell interpretation.
203 Tag the DEFVAR macros in the emacs source files:
205 \fI\-\-regex\='/[ \\t]*DEFVAR_[A-Z_ \\t(]+"\\([^"]+\\)"\/'\fP
206 .\"" This comment is to avoid confusion to Emacs syntax highlighting
209 Tag VHDL files (this example is a single long line, broken here for
212 \fI\-\-language\=none\ \-\-regex='/[\ \\t]*\\(ARCHITECTURE\\|\\
213 CONFIGURATION\\)\ +[^\ ]*\ +OF/'\ \-\-regex\='/[\ \\t]*\\
214 \\(ATTRIBUTE\\|ENTITY\\|FUNCTION\\|PACKAGE\\(\ BODY\\)?\\
215 \\|PROCEDURE\\|PROCESS\\|TYPE\\)[\ \\t]+\\([^\ \\t(]+\\)/\\3/'\fP
218 Tag TCL files (this last example shows the usage of a \fItagregexp\fP):
220 \fI\-\-lang\=none \-\-regex\='/proc[\ \\t]+\\([^\ \\t]+\\)/\\1/'\fP
223 A regexp can be preceded by {\fIlang\fP}, thus restricting it to match
224 lines of files of the specified language. Use \fBetags --help\fP to obtain
225 a list of the recognised languages. This feature is particularly useful inside
226 \fBregex files\fP. A regex file contains one regex per line. Empty lines,
227 and those lines beginning with space or tab are ignored. Lines beginning
228 with @ are references to regex files whose name follows the @ sign. Other
229 lines are considered regular expressions like those following \fB\-\-regex\fP.
231 For example, the command
233 \fIetags \-\-regex=@regex.file *.c\fP
235 reads the regexes contained in the file regex.file.
237 .B \-R, \-\-no\-regex
238 Don't do any more regexp matching on the following files. May be
239 freely intermixed with filenames and the \fB\-\-regex\fP option.
242 Record typedefs in C code as tags. Since this is the default behavior
243 of \fBetags\fP, only \fBctags\fP accepts this option.
245 .B \-T, \-\-typedefs\-and\-c++
246 Generate tag entries for typedefs, struct, enum, and union tags, and
247 C++ member functions. Since this is the default behavior
248 of \fBetags\fP, only \fBctags\fP accepts this option.
251 Update tag entries for \fIfiles\fP specified on command line, leaving
252 tag entries for other files in place. Currently, this is implemented
253 by deleting the existing entries for the given files and then
254 rewriting the new entries at the end of the tags file. It is often
255 faster to simply rebuild the entire tag file than to use this.
256 Only \fBctags\fP accepts this option.
259 Instead of generating a tag file, write index (in \fBvgrind\fP format)
260 to standard output. Only \fBctags\fP accepts this option.
263 Suppress warning messages about duplicate entries. The \fBetags\fP
264 program does not check for duplicate entries, so this option is not
268 Instead of generating a tag file, write a cross reference (in
269 \fBcxref\fP format) to standard output. Only \fBctags\fP accepts this option.
271 .B \-h, \-H, \-\-help
272 Print usage information. Followed by one or more \-\-language=LANG
273 prints detailed information about how tags are created for LANG.
276 Print the current version of the program (same as the version of the
277 emacs \fBetags\fP is shipped with).
280 `\|\fBemacs\fP\|' entry in \fBinfo\fP; \fIGNU Emacs Manual\fP, Richard
292 1999, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
294 Permission is granted to make and distribute verbatim copies of this
295 document provided the copyright notice and this permission notice are
296 preserved on all copies.
298 Permission is granted to copy and distribute modified versions of
299 this document under the conditions for verbatim copying, provided that
300 the entire resulting derived work is distributed under the terms of
301 a permission notice identical to this one.
303 Permission is granted to copy and distribute translations of this
304 document into another language, under the above conditions for
305 modified versions, except that this permission notice may be stated
306 in a translation approved by the Free Software Foundation.
308 .\" arch-tag: 9534977f-af78-42f0-991d-1df6b6c05573