6/11/2014

Ctags Tutorial

Ctags Tutorial
Ctags is a tool that makes it easy to navigate large source code projects. It provides some of the features that
you may be used to using in Eclipse or other IDEs, such as the ability to jump from the current source file to
definitions of functions and structures in other files. Ctags will make it much easier to find the Linux kernel files
that you have to modify for your CSE 451 projects. Ctags also supports many languages besides C, so you may
find it useful for future projects.
Ctags should already be installed on CSE instructional servers such as forkbomband attu. Ctags is first run on
its own to generate a "tags" file, then it is invoked from within another Linux text editor such as Emacs or Vim.
These steps assume you want to use Ctags on the Linux kernel, but should generalize to other projects.

Important
If you are not on forkbombor attu, make sure that the system you are using has "Exuberant
Ctags" installed, rather than the original "Ctags," by running ctags --version.

Tip
Like all Linux programs, Ctags has a man page (man 1 ctags). All of the information in this
tutorial, and lots more advanced information, can be found there.

Ctags with Emacs

Tip
If you are unfamiliar with Emacs, you should go through the Emacs tutorial. Run emacs, then
press C-h t(Ctrl+h, then t) to begin the interactive tutorial. It shouldn't take too long, and it's
worth your time. You can also check out the online tour. If you get stuck, press C-gto cancel
pending commands, and exit Emacs by pressing C-x C-c.

Disclaimer
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Ctags Tutorial

The author of this tutorial is not an Emacs expert; if you notice potential flaws or improvements,
please contact him.

1. cdto the root directory of your Linux kernel code:

cd /cse451/user/project1/linux-2.6.13.2/

2. Run Etags (Ctags for Emacs) over the kernel to generate the TAGSfile. etagswill overflow its stack if
called recursively over the entire kernel, so we use the findcommand to find all of the .c, .h, and .S
(assembly) files in the kernel, then tell etagsto append the tags in those files to the TAGSfile. For Linux
2.6.13, this should only take a minute or so:
find . -type f -iname "*.[chS]" | xargs etags -a

Note
You may see messages like "Warning: cannot open source file '...' : Permission denied"
while etags is building the tags file. These warnings can be ignored.

3. Open any Linux source file in Emacs and use the following basic commands:
Keyboard command

Action

M-. <RET>

Jump to the tag underneath the cursor

M-. <tag> <RET>

Search for a particular tag

C-u M-.

Find the next definition for the last tag

M-*

Pop back to where you previously invoked "M-."

Important
The first time you run an Etags command within Emacs, you may have to specify the
location of your TAGSfile (i.e. /cse451/.../linux-2.6.13.2/TAGS). Say yes when
prompted to load the really big tags file.

The first command is probably the one you will use most often: it jumps to the definition of the tag
(function name, structure name, variable name, or pretty much anything). The second command can be
used to search for any tag in the TAGSfile, regardless of the file you are currently viewing. Sometimes
Etags will find multiple definitions for a given tag; when this is the case, use the third command to jump
through the possible definitions until you find the one that you want. Finally, use the fourth command to
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jump back up in the tag "stack."

You'll probably find that for some tags (common structures, for example), Etags finds hundreds or
thousands of uses in the code, and jumping through them (with the third command above) to try to find the
original definition is useless. In this case, you can run the following two commands to list all of the uses of a
given <tag>:
M-x tags-apropos <RET>
Tags apropos (regexp): <tag> <RET>

This will display a list of the tag definitions in another buffer. Switch to the new buffer (C-x o), scroll
through the list of definitions to the one that you want, then press Enter to open the file. When you're done,
instead of jumping back up in the tag stack, close the new buffer (C-x k). To switch back to your original
buffer and expand it, use C-x oto switch to it, then C-x 1to expand.

Note
Even the list of all definitions given by tags-aproposmay be too large to find the
definition that you're looking for. This is mostly a problem for structs (struct inode,
for instance) that are used frequently in the kernel. You should still find Etags useful for
jumping to function definitions and less-commonly-used structs. Ctags for Vim appears
to do a better job of separating "definitions" from "uses" in its tags file, so this is less of a
problem for Vim; for Emacs, there may be other ways to mitigate this problem (see this
page, for example). Alternatively, you may wish to use cscope to find function and
structure definitions, or just use the third step of the Vim instructions below.

Ctags with Vim

Note
These commands were tested with Vim (7.2), but will likely work with Vi or other Vi emulators
as well.

1. cdto the root directory of your Linux kernel code:

cd /cse451/user/project1/linux-2.6.13.2/

2. Run Ctags recursively over the entire kernel to generate the tagsfile. For Linux 2.6.13, this should only
take a minute or so:
ctags -R *
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Note
You may see messages like "Warning: cannot open source file '...' : Permission denied"
while ctagsis building the tags file. These warnings can be ignored.

3. To search for a specific tag and open Vim to its definition, run the following command in your shell:
vim -t <tag>

4. Or, open any Linux source file in Vim and use the following basic commands:
Keyboard command

Action

Ctrl-]

Jump to the tag underneath the cursor

:ts <tag> <RET>

Search for a particular tag

:tn

Go to the next definition for the last tag

:tp

Go to the previous definition for the last tag

:ts

List all of the definitions of the last tag

Ctrl-t

Jump back up in the tag stack

The first command is probably the one you will use most often: it jumps to the definition of the tag
(function name, structure name, variable name, or pretty much anything) under the cursor. The second
command can be used to search for any tag, regardless of the file that is currently opened. If there are
multiple definitions/uses for a particular tag, the tnand tpcommands can be used to scroll through them,
and the tscommand can be used to "search" a list for the definition you want (useful when there are
dozens or hundreds of definitions for some commonly-used struct). Finally, the last command is used to
jump back up in the tag stack to the location you initiated the previous tag search from.
Author: Peter Hornyack (pjh@cs)

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