1 .\" Copyright (c) 1992, 2001 Free Software Foundation
2 .\" See section COPYING for conditions for redistribution
3 .TH etags 1 "23nov2001" "GNU Tools" "GNU Tools"
11 etags, ctags \- generate tag file for Emacs, vi
15 \fBetags\fP [\|\-aCDGImRVh\|] [\|\-i \fIfile\fP\|] [\|\-l \fIlanguage\fP\|]
17 [\|\-o \fItagfile\fP\|] [\|\-r \fIregexp\fP\|]
18 [\|\-\-parse\-stdin=\fIfile\fP\|]
20 [\|\-\-append\|] [\|\-\-no\-defines\|]
21 [\|\-\-no\-globals\|] [\|\-\-include=\fIfile\fP\|]
22 [\|\-\-ignore\-indentation\|] [\|\-\-language=\fIlanguage\fP\|]
23 [\|\-\-members\|] [\|\-\-output=\fItagfile\fP\|]
24 [\|\-\-regex=\fIregexp\fP\|] [\|\-\-no\-regex\|]
25 [\|\-\-help\|] [\|\-\-version\|]
28 \fBctags\fP [\|\-aCdgImRVh\|] [\|\-BtTuvwx\|] [\|\-l \fIlanguage\fP\|]
30 [\|\-o \fItagfile\fP\|] [\|\-r \fIregexp\fP\|]
31 [\|\-\-parse\-stdin=\fIfile\fP\|]
33 [\|\-\-append\|] [\|\-\-backward\-search\|]
34 [\|\-\-cxref\|] [\|\-\-defines\|] [\|\-\-forward\-search\|]
35 [\|\-\-globals\|] [\|\-\-ignore\-indentation\|]
36 [\|\-\-language=\fIlanguage\fP\|] [\|\-\-members\|]
37 [\|\-\-output=\fItagfile\fP\|] [\|\-\-regex=\fIregexp\fP\|]
38 [\|\-\-typedefs\|] [\|\-\-typedefs\-and\-c++\|]
39 [\|\-\-update\|] [\|\-\-no\-warn\|]
40 [\|\-\-help\|] [\|\-\-version\|]
45 The \|\fBetags\fP\| program is used to create a tag table file, in a format
48 \&; the \|\fBctags\fP\| program is used to create a similar table in a
51 \&. Both forms of the program understand
52 the syntax of C, Objective C, C++, Java, Fortran, Ada, Cobol, Erlang, HTML,
53 LaTeX, Emacs Lisp/Common Lisp, Lua, makefile, Pascal, Perl, PHP, Postscript,
54 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, however, the file names are made
62 relative to the working directory. Files specified with absolute file
63 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 The programs recognize the language used in an input file based on its
68 file name and contents. The \fB\-\-language\fP switch can be used to force
69 parsing of the file names following the switch according to the given
70 language, overriding guesses based on filename extensions.
72 Some options make sense only for the \fBvi\fP style tag files produced
74 \fBetags\fP does not recognize them.
75 The programs accept unambiguous abbreviations for long option names.
78 Append to existing tag file. (For \fBvi\fP-format tag files, see also
81 .B \-B, \-\-backward\-search
82 Tag files written in the format expected by \fBvi\fP contain regular
83 expression search instructions; the \fB\-B\fP option writes them using
84 the delimiter `\|\fB?\fP\|', to search \fIbackwards\fP through files.
85 The default is to use the delimiter `\|\fB/\fP\|', to search \fIforwards\fP
87 Only \fBctags\fP accepts this option.
90 In C and derived languages, create tags for function declarations,
91 and create tags for extern variables unless \-\-no\-globals is used.
94 Create tag entries for C preprocessor constant definitions
95 and enum constants, too. This is the
96 default behavior for \fBetags\fP.
98 .B \-D, \-\-no\-defines
99 Do not create tag entries for C preprocessor constant definitions
101 This may make the tags file much smaller if many header files are tagged.
102 This is the default behavior for \fBctags\fP.
105 Create tag entries for global variables in C, C++, Objective C, Java,
107 This is the default behavior for \fBetags\fP.
109 .B \-G, \-\-no\-globals
110 Do not tag global variables. Typically this reduces the file size by
111 one fourth. This is the default behavior for \fBctags\fP.
113 \fB\-i\fP \fIfile\fP, \fB\-\-include=\fIfile\fP
114 Include a note in the tag file indicating that, when searching for a
115 tag, one should also consult the tags file \fIfile\fP after checking the
116 current file. This options is only accepted by \fBetags\fP.
118 .B \-I, \-\-ignore\-indentation
119 Don't rely on indentation as much as we normally do. Currently, this
120 means not to assume that a closing brace in the first column is the
121 final brace of a function or structure definition in C and C++.
123 \fB\-l\fP \fIlanguage\fP, \fB\-\-language=\fIlanguage\fP
124 Parse the following files according to the given language. More than
125 one such options may be intermixed with filenames. Use \fB\-\-help\fP
126 to get a list of the available languages and their default filename
127 extensions. The `auto' language can be used to restore automatic
128 detection of language based on the file name. The `none'
129 language may be used to disable language parsing altogether; only
130 regexp matching is done in this case (see the \fB\-\-regex\fP option).
133 Create tag entries for variables that are members of structure-like
134 constructs in C++, Objective C, Java.
136 .B \-M, \-\-no\-members
137 Do not tag member variables. This is the default behavior.
139 .B \-\-packages\-only
140 Only tag packages in Ada files.
142 \fB\-\-parse\-stdin=\fIfile\fP
143 May be used (only once) in place of a file name on the command line.
144 \fBetags\fP will read from standard input and mark the produced tags
145 as belonging to the file \fBFILE\fP.
147 \fB\-o\fP \fItagfile\fP, \fB\-\-output=\fItagfile\fP
148 Explicit name of file for tag table; overrides default \fBTAGS\fP or
149 \fBtags\fP. (But ignored with \fB\-v\fP or \fB\-x\fP.)
151 \fB\-r\fP \fIregexp\fP, \fB\-\-regex=\fIregexp\fP
153 Make tags based on regexp matching for the files following this option,
154 in addition to the tags made with the standard parsing based on
155 language. May be freely intermixed with filenames and the \fB\-R\fP
156 option. The regexps are cumulative, i.e. each such option will add to
157 the previous ones. The regexps are of one of the forms:
159 [\fB{\fP\fIlanguage\fP\fB}\fP]\fB/\fP\fItagregexp/\fP[\fInameregexp\fP\fB/\fP]\fImodifiers\fP
161 \fB@\fP\fIregexfile\fP
164 where \fItagregexp\fP is used to match the tag. It should not match
165 useless characters. If the match is such that more characters than
166 needed are unavoidably matched by \fItagregexp\fP, it may be useful to
167 add a \fInameregexp\fP, to narrow down the tag scope. \fBctags\fP
168 ignores regexps without a \fInameregexp\fP. The syntax of regexps is
169 the same as in emacs. The following character escape sequences are
170 supported: \\a, \\b, \\d, \\e, \\f, \\n, \\r, \\t, \\v, which
171 respectively stand for the ASCII characters BEL, BS, DEL, ESC, FF, NL,
174 The \fImodifiers\fP are a sequence of 0 or more characters among
175 \fIi\fP, which means to ignore case when matching; \fIm\fP, which means
176 that the \fItagregexp\fP will be matched against the whole file contents
177 at once, rather than line by line, and the matching sequence can match
178 multiple lines; and \fIs\fP, which implies \fIm\fP and means that the
179 dot character in \fItagregexp\fP matches the newline char as well.
181 The separator, which is \fB/\fP in the examples, can be any character
182 different from space, tab, braces and \fB@\fP. If the separator
183 character is needed inside the regular expression, it must be quoted
184 by preceding it with \fB\\\fP.
186 The optional \fB{\fP\fIlanguage\fP\fB}\fP prefix means that the tag
188 created only for files of language \fIlanguage\fP, and ignored
189 otherwise. This is particularly useful when storing many predefined
192 In its second form, \fIregexfile\fP is the name of a file that contains
193 a number of arguments to the \fI\-\-regex\=\fP option,
194 one per line. Lines beginning with a space or tab are assumed
195 to be comments, and ignored.
198 Here are some examples. All the regexps are quoted to protect them
199 from shell interpretation.
202 Tag the DEFVAR macros in the emacs source files:
204 \fI\-\-regex\='/[ \\t]*DEFVAR_[A-Z_ \\t(]+"\\([^"]+\\)"\/'\fP
205 .\"" This comment is to avoid confusion to Emacs syntax highlighting
208 Tag VHDL files (this example is a single long line, broken here for
211 \fI\-\-language\=none\ \-\-regex='/[\ \\t]*\\(ARCHITECTURE\\|\\
212 CONFIGURATION\\)\ +[^\ ]*\ +OF/'\ \-\-regex\='/[\ \\t]*\\
213 \\(ATTRIBUTE\\|ENTITY\\|FUNCTION\\|PACKAGE\\(\ BODY\\)?\\
214 \\|PROCEDURE\\|PROCESS\\|TYPE\\)[\ \\t]+\\([^\ \\t(]+\\)/\\3/'\fP
217 Tag TCL files (this last example shows the usage of a \fItagregexp\fP):
219 \fI\-\-lang\=none \-\-regex\='/proc[\ \\t]+\\([^\ \\t]+\\)/\\1/'\fP
222 A regexp can be preceded by {\fIlang\fP}, thus restricting it to match
223 lines of files of the specified language. Use \fBetags --help\fP to obtain
224 a list of the recognised languages. This feature is particularly useful inside
225 \fBregex files\fP. A regex file contains one regex per line. Empty lines,
226 and those lines beginning with space or tab are ignored. Lines beginning
227 with @ are references to regex files whose name follows the @ sign. Other
228 lines are considered regular expressions like those following \fB\-\-regex\fP.
230 For example, the command
232 \fIetags \-\-regex=@regex.file *.c\fP
234 reads the regexes contained in the file regex.file.
236 .B \-R, \-\-no\-regex
237 Don't do any more regexp matching on the following files. May be
238 freely intermixed with filenames and the \fB\-\-regex\fP option.
241 Record typedefs in C code as tags. Since this is the default behavior
242 of \fBetags\fP, only \fBctags\fP accepts this option.
244 .B \-T, \-\-typedefs\-and\-c++
245 Generate tag entries for typedefs, struct, enum, and union tags, and
246 C++ member functions. Since this is the default behavior
247 of \fBetags\fP, only \fBctags\fP accepts this option.
250 Update tag entries for \fIfiles\fP specified on command line, leaving
251 tag entries for other files in place. Currently, this is implemented
252 by deleting the existing entries for the given files and then
253 rewriting the new entries at the end of the tags file. It is often
254 faster to simply rebuild the entire tag file than to use this.
255 Only \fBctags\fP accepts this option.
258 Instead of generating a tag file, write index (in \fBvgrind\fP format)
259 to standard output. Only \fBctags\fP accepts this option.
262 Suppress warning messages about duplicate entries. The \fBetags\fP
263 program does not check for duplicate entries, so this option is not
267 Instead of generating a tag file, write a cross reference (in
268 \fBcxref\fP format) to standard output. Only \fBctags\fP accepts this option.
270 .B \-h, \-H, \-\-help
271 Print usage information. Followed by one or more \-\-language=LANG
272 prints detailed information about how tags are created for LANG.
275 Print the current version of the program (same as the version of the
276 emacs \fBetags\fP is shipped with).
279 `\|\fBemacs\fP\|' entry in \fBinfo\fP; \fIGNU Emacs Manual\fP, Richard
291 1999, 2001 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
293 Permission is granted to make and distribute verbatim copies of this
294 document provided the copyright notice and this permission notice are
295 preserved on all copies.
297 Permission is granted to copy and distribute modified versions of
298 this document under the conditions for verbatim copying, provided that
299 the entire resulting derived work is distributed under the terms of
300 a permission notice identical to this one.
302 Permission is granted to copy and distribute translations of this
303 document into another language, under the above conditions for
304 modified versions, except that this permission notice may be stated
305 in a translation approved by the Free Software Foundation.
307 .\" arch-tag: 9534977f-af78-42f0-991d-1df6b6c05573