1 .\" See section COPYING for copyright and redistribution information.
2 .TH etags 1 "23nov2001" "GNU Tools" "GNU Tools"
10 etags, ctags \- generate tag file for Emacs, vi
14 \fBetags\fP [\|\-aCDGIQRVh\|] [\|\-i \fIfile\fP\|] [\|\-l \fIlanguage\fP\|]
16 [\|\-o \fItagfile\fP\|] [\|\-r \fIregexp\fP\|]
17 [\|\-\-parse\-stdin=\fIfile\fP\|]
19 [\|\-\-append\|] [\|\-\-no\-defines\|] [\|\-\-globals\|]
20 [\|\-\-no\-globals\|] [\|\-\-include=\fIfile\fP\|]
21 [\|\-\-ignore\-indentation\|] [\|\-\-language=\fIlanguage\fP\|]
22 [\|\-\-members\|] [\|\-\-no\-members\|] [\|\-\-output=\fItagfile\fP\|]
23 [\|\-\-class\-qualify\|]
24 [\|\-\-regex=\fIregexp\fP\|] [\|\-\-no\-regex\|]
25 [\|\-\-help\|] [\|\-\-version\|]
28 \fBctags\fP [\|\-aCdgIQRVh\|] [\|\-BtTuvwx\|] [\|\-l \fIlanguage\fP\|]
30 [\|\-o \fItagfile\fP\|] [\|\-r \fIregexp\fP\|]
31 [\|\-\-parse\-stdin=\fIfile\fP\|]
33 [\|\-\-append\|] [\|\-\-backward\-search\|]
34 [\|\-\-cxref\|] [\|\-\-no\-defines\|]
35 [\|\-\-globals\|] [\|\-\-no\-globals\|] [\|\-\-ignore\-indentation\|]
36 [\|\-\-language=\fIlanguage\fP\|] [\|\-\-members\|] [\|\-\-no\-members\|]
37 [\|\-\-class\-qualify\|]
38 [\|\-\-output=\fItagfile\fP\|] [\|\-\-regex=\fIregexp\fP\|]
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,
53 Forth, HTML, LaTeX, Emacs Lisp/Common Lisp, Lua, Makefile, Pascal, Perl,
54 Ruby, 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, bzip2, and xz.
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.
93 In Lisp, create tags for (defvar foo) declarations.
95 .B \-D, \-\-no\-defines
96 Do not create tag entries for C preprocessor constant definitions
98 This may make the tags file much smaller if many header files are tagged.
101 Create tag entries for global variables in Perl and Makefile. This is
102 the default in C and derived languages.
105 Do not tag global variables in C and derived languages. Typically this
106 reduces the file size by one fourth.
108 \fB\-i\fP \fIfile\fP, \fB\-\-include=\fIfile\fP
109 Include a note in the tag file indicating that, when searching for a
110 tag, one should also consult the tags file \fIfile\fP after checking the
111 current file. Only \fBetags\fP accepts this option.
113 .B \-I, \-\-ignore\-indentation
114 Don't rely on indentation as much as we normally do. Currently, this
115 means not to assume that a closing brace in the first column is the
116 final brace of a function or structure definition in C and C++.
118 \fB\-l\fP \fIlanguage\fP, \fB\-\-language=\fIlanguage\fP
119 Parse the following files according to the given language. More than
120 one such options may be intermixed with filenames. Use \fB\-\-help\fP
121 to get a list of the available languages and their default filename
122 extensions. The "auto" language can be used to restore automatic
123 detection of language based on the file name. The "none"
124 language may be used to disable language parsing altogether; only
125 regexp matching is done in this case (see the \fB\-\-regex\fP option).
128 Create tag entries for variables that are members of structure-like
129 constructs in PHP. This is the default for C and derived languages.
132 Do not tag member variables.
134 .B \-\-packages\-only
135 Only tag packages in Ada files.
137 \fB\-\-parse\-stdin=\fIfile\fP
138 May be used (only once) in place of a file name on the command line.
139 \fBetags\fP will read from standard input and mark the produced tags
140 as belonging to the file \fBFILE\fP.
142 \fB\-\-class\-qualify\fP
143 Qualify tag names with their class name in C++, ObjC, and Java.
144 This produces tag names of the form \fIclass\fP\fB::\fP\fImember\fP
146 \fIclass\fP\fB(\fP\fIcategory\fP\fB)\fP for Objective C, and \fIclass\fP\fB.\fP\fImember\fP for Java.
147 For Objective C, this also produces class methods qualified with
148 their arguments, as in \fIfoo\fP\fB:\fP\fIbar\fP\fB:\fP\fIbaz\fP\fB:\fP\fImore\fP.
150 \fB\-o\fP \fItagfile\fP, \fB\-\-output=\fItagfile\fP
151 Explicit name of file for tag table; for \fBetags\fP only, a file name
152 of \- means standard output; overrides default \fBTAGS\fP or \fBtags\fP.
153 (But ignored with \fB\-v\fP or \fB\-x\fP.)
155 \fB\-r\fP \fIregexp\fP, \fB\-\-regex=\fIregexp\fP
157 Make tags based on regexp matching for the files following this option,
158 in addition to the tags made with the standard parsing based on
159 language. May be freely intermixed with filenames and the \fB\-R\fP
160 option. The regexps are cumulative, i.e., each such option will add to
161 the previous ones. The regexps are of one of the forms:
163 [\fB{\fP\fIlanguage\fP\fB}\fP]\fB/\fP\fItagregexp/\fP[\fInameregexp\fP\fB/\fP]\fImodifiers\fP
165 \fB@\fP\fIregexfile\fP
168 where \fItagregexp\fP is used to match the tag. It should not match
169 useless characters. If the match is such that more characters than
170 needed are unavoidably matched by \fItagregexp\fP, it may be useful to
171 add a \fInameregexp\fP, to narrow down the tag scope. \fBctags\fP
172 ignores regexps without a \fInameregexp\fP. The syntax of regexps is
173 the same as in emacs. The following character escape sequences are
174 supported: \\a, \\b, \\d, \\e, \\f, \\n, \\r, \\t, \\v, which
175 respectively stand for the ASCII characters BEL, BS, DEL, ESC, FF, NL,
178 The \fImodifiers\fP are a sequence of 0 or more characters among
179 \fIi\fP, which means to ignore case when matching; \fIm\fP, which means
180 that the \fItagregexp\fP will be matched against the whole file contents
181 at once, rather than line by line, and the matching sequence can match
182 multiple lines; and \fIs\fP, which implies \fIm\fP and means that the
183 dot character in \fItagregexp\fP matches the newline char as well.
185 The separator, which is \fB/\fP in the examples, can be any character
186 different from space, tab, braces and \fB@\fP. If the separator
187 character is needed inside the regular expression, it must be quoted
188 by preceding it with \fB\\\fP.
190 The optional \fB{\fP\fIlanguage\fP\fB}\fP prefix means that the tag
192 created only for files of language \fIlanguage\fP, and ignored
193 otherwise. This is particularly useful when storing many predefined
196 In its second form, \fIregexfile\fP is the name of a file that contains
197 a number of arguments to the \fI\-\-regex\=\fP option,
198 one per line. Lines beginning with a space or tab are assumed
199 to be comments, and ignored.
202 Here are some examples. All the regexps are quoted to protect them
203 from shell interpretation.
206 Tag the DEFVAR macros in the emacs source files:
208 \fI\-\-regex\='/[ \\t]*DEFVAR_[A-Z_ \\t(]+"\\([^"]+\\)"/'\fP
209 .\"" This comment is to avoid confusion to Emacs syntax highlighting
212 Tag VHDL files (this example is a single long line, broken here for
215 \fI\-\-language\=none\ \-\-regex='/[\ \\t]*\\(ARCHITECTURE\\|\\
216 CONFIGURATION\\)\ +[^\ ]*\ +OF/'\ \-\-regex\='/[\ \\t]*\\
217 \\(ATTRIBUTE\\|ENTITY\\|FUNCTION\\|PACKAGE\\(\ BODY\\)?\\
218 \\|PROCEDURE\\|PROCESS\\|TYPE\\)[\ \\t]+\\([^\ \\t(]+\\)/\\3/'\fP
221 Tag TCL files (this last example shows the usage of a \fItagregexp\fP):
223 \fI\-\-lang\=none \-\-regex\='/proc[\ \\t]+\\([^\ \\t]+\\)/\\1/'\fP
226 A regexp can be preceded by {\fIlang\fP}, thus restricting it to match
227 lines of files of the specified language. Use \fBetags \-\-help\fP to obtain
228 a list of the recognized languages. This feature is particularly useful inside
229 \fBregex files\fP. A regex file contains one regex per line. Empty lines,
230 and those lines beginning with space or tab are ignored. Lines beginning
231 with @ are references to regex files whose name follows the @ sign. Other
232 lines are considered regular expressions like those following \fB\-\-regex\fP.
234 For example, the command
236 \fIetags \-\-regex=@regex.file *.c\fP
238 reads the regexes contained in the file regex.file.
240 .B \-R, \-\-no\-regex
241 Don't do any more regexp matching on the following files. May be
242 freely intermixed with filenames and the \fB\-\-regex\fP option.
245 Update tag entries for \fIfiles\fP specified on command line, leaving
246 tag entries for other files in place. Currently, this is implemented
247 by deleting the existing entries for the given files and then
248 rewriting the new entries at the end of the tags file. It is often
249 faster to simply rebuild the entire tag file than to use this.
250 Only \fBctags\fP accepts this option.
253 Instead of generating a tag file, write index (in \fBvgrind\fP format)
254 to standard output. Only \fBctags\fP accepts this option.
257 Instead of generating a tag file, write a cross reference (in
258 \fBcxref\fP format) to standard output. Only \fBctags\fP accepts this option.
260 .B \-h, \-H, \-\-help
261 Print usage information. Followed by one or more \-\-language=LANG
262 prints detailed information about how tags are created for LANG.
265 Print the current version of the program (same as the version of the
266 emacs \fBetags\fP is shipped with).
269 "\|\fBemacs\fP\|" entry in \fBinfo\fP; \fIGNU Emacs Manual\fP, Richard
281 1992, 1999, 2001-2015 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
283 Permission is granted to make and distribute verbatim copies of this
284 document provided the copyright notice and this permission notice are
285 preserved on all copies.
287 Permission is granted to copy and distribute modified versions of
288 this document under the conditions for verbatim copying, provided that
289 the entire resulting derived work is distributed under the terms of
290 a permission notice identical to this one.
292 Permission is granted to copy and distribute translations of this
293 document into another language, under the above conditions for
294 modified versions, except that this permission notice may be stated
295 in a translation approved by the Free Software Foundation.