1Exuberant Ctags
2===============
3Author: Darren Hiebert <dhiebert at users.sourceforge.net>
4 http://ctags.sourceforge.net
5 Instant Messaging:
6 Yahoo! ID : dbhiebert
7 AIM ScreenName: darrenhiebert
8
9Exuberant Ctags is a multilanguage reimplementation of the much-underused
10ctags(1) program and is intended to be the mother of all ctags programs. It
11generates indexes of source code definitions which are used by a number of
12editors and tools. The motivation which drove the development of Exuberant
13Ctags was the need for a ctags program which supported generation of tags
14for all possible C language constructs (which no other ctags offers), and
15because most were easily fooled by a number of preprocessor contructs.
16
17
18Exuberant Ctags offers the following features:
19
201. It supports the following languages: Assembler, AWK, ASP, BETA,
21 Bourne/Korn/Z Shell, C, C++, C#, COBOL, Eiffel, Erlang, Fortran, Java, Lisp,
22 Lua, Makefile, Objective-C, Pascal, Perl, PHP, PL/SQL, Python, REXX, Ruby,
23 Scheme, S-Lang, SML (Standard ML), Tcl, Vera, Verilog, VHDL, Vim,
24 and YACC.
25
262. It is capable of generating tags for virtually all C language constructs.
27
283. It is very robust in parsing code. In particular, the C/C++ parser is
29 far less easily fooled by code containing #if preprocessor conditional
30 constructs, using a conditional path selection algorithm to resolve
31 complicated situations, and a fall-back algorithm when this one fails.
32
334. Supports output of Emacs-style TAGS files (i.e. "etags").
34
355. User-defined languages, using Posix regular expressions.
36
376. Supports UNIX, MSDOS, Windows 95/98/NT/2000/XP, OS/2, QNX, Amiga, QDOS,
38 RISC OS, VMS, Macintosh, and Cray. Some pre-compiled binaries are
39 available on the web site.
40
41
42Visit the Exuberant Ctags web site:
43
44 http://ctags.sourceforge.net
45
46
47Which brings us to the most obvious question:
48
49 Q: Why is it called "Exuberant" ctags?
50 A: Because one of the meanings of the word is:
51
52 exuberant : produced in extreme abundance : PLENTIFUL syn see PROFUSE
53
54Compare the tag file produced by Exuberant Ctags with that produced by any
55other ctags and you will see how appropriate the name is.
56
57
58This source code is distributed according to the terms of the GNU General
59Public License. It is provided on an as-is basis and no responsibility is
60accepted for its failure to perform as expected. It is worth at least as
61much as you paid for it!
62
63Exuberant Ctags was originally derived from and inspired by the ctags
64program by Steve Kirkendall (kirkenda@cs.pdx.edu) that comes with the Elvis
65vi clone (though almost none of the original code remains). This, too, is
66freely available.
67
68Please report any problems you find. The two problems I expect to be most
69likely are either a tag which you expected but is missing, or a tag created
70in error (shouldn't really be a tag). Please include a sample of code (the
71definition) for the object which misbehaves.
72
73--
74vim:tw=76:sw=4:et:
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