Home ›

etags

Issue 31

From Issue #31
November 1996

Nov 01, 1996  By Dave Thomas
 in
Have you gotten used to hypertext? Want the same mobility in your source code and other documentation? etags may be your answer.
Keeping up to Date

Surprisingly, the TAGS and tags index files remain valid even if you insert and delete lines in the files they reference. You really need to run etags/ctags only when you add or remove functions or files. I find it convenient to have a tags: target in my Makefiles for this:

tags:
       etags $(SRC)

If you have files in many directories, you could generate a single tags file covering them all by specifying directory names on the command line. This works fine in vi and Emacs, but you'll need to set up either the tags-file-name variable or tag-table-alist if you're an XEmacs user. I personally find this pretty clumsy, and tend to stick to a TAGS file per directory.

More Information

man etags and man ctags are the obvious starting places. You'll also find good information in the Emacs info pages, and using the Emacs ?H-a command.

ctags and etags are both included in Emacs and XEmacs distributions. You can also get various other tags programs from the Internet—archie -c ctags will find a site near you.

Dave Thomas (davet@gte.net) is an independent consultant specializing in complex Unix, OS/2 and Windows developments. He's forever grateful for all the work that's gone into Linux and XFree—it lets him work from home in Dallas on client systems in Florida, New Hampshire, Atlanta, Toronto... The phone company is happy too.

______________________

Webcast
More Resources
How to Build an Optimal Hadoop Cluster to Store and Maintain Unlimited Amounts of Data Using Microservers

Realizing the promise of Apache® Hadoop® requires the effective deployment of compute, memory, storage and networking to achieve optimal results. With its flexibility and multitude of options, it is easy to over or under provision the server infrastructure, resulting in poor performance and high TCO. Join us for an in depth, technical discussion with industry experts from leading Hadoop and server companies who will provide insights into the key considerations for designing and deploying an optimal Hadoop cluster.

Learn More

Sponsored by AMD

White Paper
More Resources
Red Hat White Paper: Using an Open Source Framework to Catch the Bad Guy

Built-in forensics, incident response, and security with Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6

Every security policy provides guidance and requirements for ensuring adequate protection of information and data, as well as high-level technical and administrative security requirements for a system in a given environment. Traditionally, providing security for a system focuses on the confidentiality of the information on it. However, protecting the data integrity and system and data availability is just as important. For example, when processing United States intelligence information, there are three attributes that require protection: confidentiality, integrity, and availability.

Learn more about catching the bad guy in this free white paper.

Learn More

Sponsored by DLT Solutions