path: root/doc/easytags.txt

*easytags.txt*  Automated tag generation and syntax highlighting in Vim

Vim has long been my favorite text editor and combined with Exuberant Ctags
[1] it has the potential to provide most of what I expect from an integrated
development environment [2]. Exuberant Ctags is the latest incarnation of a
family of computer programs [3] that scan source code files to create an index
of identifiers (tags) and where they are defined. Vim uses this index (a
so-called tags file) to enable you to jump to the definition of any identifier
using the Control-] (see |CTRL-]|) mapping.

When you're familiar with integrated development environments you may
recognize this feature as "Go-to definition". One advantage of the combination
of Vim and Exuberant Ctags over integrated development environments is that
Vim supports syntax highlighting for over 500 file types [4] (!) and Exuberant
Ctags can generate tags for over 40 file types [5] as well...

There's just one problem: You have to manually keep your tags files up-to-date
and this turns out to be a royal pain in the ass! So I set out to write a Vim
plug-in that would do this boring work for me. When I finished the plug-in's
basic functionality (one automatic command and a call to |system()| later) I
became interested in dynamic syntax highlighting, so I added that as well to
see if it would work -- surprisingly well I'm happy to report!

===============================================================================
                                                        *easytags-install-usage*
Install & usage ~

Unzip the most recent ZIP archive [6] file inside your Vim profile directory
(usually this is '~/.vim' on UNIX and '%USERPROFILE%\vimfiles' on Windows),
restart Vim and execute the command ':helptags ~/.vim/doc' (use ':helptags
~\vimfiles\doc' instead on Windows). Now try it out: Edit any file type
supported by Exuberant Ctags and within ten seconds the plug-in should
create/update your tags file ('~/.vimtags' on UNIX, '~/_vimtags' on Windows)
with the tags defined in the file you just edited! This means that whatever
file you're editing in Vim (as long as it's on the local file system), tags
will always be available by the time you need them!

Additionally if the file you just opened is a C, C++, Objective-C, Java, Lua,
Python, PHP, Ruby or Vim source file you should also notice that the function
and type names defined in the file have been syntax highlighted.

The 'easytags.vim' plug-in is intended to work automatically once it's
installed, but if you want to change how it works there are several options
you can change and commands you can execute from your own mappings and/or
automatic commands. These are all documented below.

Note that if the plug-in warns you 'ctags' isn't installed you'll have to
download it from its homepage [1], or if you're running Debian/Ubuntu you can
install it by executing the following shell command:
>
    $ sudo apt-get install exuberant-ctags

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                              *easytags-if-you-re-using-windows*
If you're using Windows ~

On Windows the |system()| function used by 'easytags.vim' causes a command
prompt window to pop up while Exuberant Ctags is executing. If this bothers
you then you can install my shell.vim [7] plug-in which includes a DLL [8]
that works around this issue. Once you've installed both plug-ins it should
work out of the box! Please let me know if this doesn't work for you.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The *:UpdateTags* command

This command executes Exuberant Ctags [1] from inside Vim to update the global
tags file defined by |g:easytags_file|. When no arguments are given the tags
for the current file are updated, otherwise the arguments are passed on to
'ctags'. For example when you execute the Vim command ':UpdateTags -R ~/.vim'
(or ':UpdateTags -R ~\vimfiles' on Windows) the plug-in will execute 'ctags -R
~/.vim' for you (with some additional arguments, see the troubleshooting
section "|:HighlightTags| only works for the tags file created by
|:UpdateTags|" for more information).

When you execute this command like ':UpdateTags!' (including the bang!) then
all tags whose files are missing will be filtered from the global tags file.

Note that this command will be executed automatically every once in a while,
assuming you haven't changed |g:easytags_on_cursorhold|.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The *:HighlightTags* command

When you execute this command while editing one of the supported file types
(see above) the relevant tags in the current file are highlighted. The tags to
highlight are gathered from all tags files known to Vim (through the |'tags'|
option).

Note that this command will be executed automatically every once in a while,
assuming you haven't changed |g:easytags_on_cursorhold|.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The *g:easytags_cmd* option

The plug-in will try to determine the location where Exuberant Ctags is
installed on its own but this might not always work because any given
executable named 'ctags' in your '$PATH' might not in fact be Exuberant Ctags
but some older, more primitive 'ctags' implementation which doesn't support
the same command line options and thus breaks the 'easytags.vim' plug-in. If
this is the case you can set the global variable |g:easytags_cmd| to the
location where you've installed Exuberant Ctags, e.g.:
>
    :let g:easytags_cmd = '/usr/local/bin/ctags'

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The *g:easytags_file* option

As mentioned above the plug-in will store your tags in '~/.vimtags' on UNIX
and '~/_vimtags' on Windows. To change the location of this file, set the
global variable |g:easytags_file|, e.g.:
>
    :let g:easytags_file = '~/.vim/tags'

A leading '~' in the |g:easytags_file| variable is expanded to your current
home directory ('$HOME' on UNIX, '%USERPROFILE%' on Windows).

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The *g:easytags_dynamic_files* option

By default |:UpdateTags| only writes to the global tags file. If you use the
following setting to enable project specific tags files:
>
    :set tags=./tags;

You can enable this option so that the project specific tags files are written
instead of the global tags file:
>
    :let g:easytags_dynamic_files = 1

When you enable this option, the easytags plug-in will use the first filename
returned by |tagfiles()| as the tags file to write. Note that 'tagfiles()' is
reevaluated every time the plug-in runs.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The *g:easytags_always_enabled* option

By default the plug-in automatically generates and highlights tags when you
stop typing for a few seconds (this works using the |CursorHold| automatic
command). This means that when you edit a file, the dynamic highlighting won't
appear until you pause for a moment. If you don't like this you can configure
the plug-in to always enable dynamic highlighting:
>
    :let g:easytags_always_enabled = 1

Be warned that after setting this option you'll probably notice why it's
disabled by default: Every time you edit a file in Vim, the plug-in will first
run Exuberant Ctags and then highlight the tags, and this slows Vim down quite
a lot. I have some ideas on how to improve this latency by running Exuberant
Ctags in the background so stay tuned!

Note: If you change this option it won't apply until you restart Vim, so
you'll have to set this option in your |vimrc| script.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The *g:easytags_on_cursorhold* option

As I explained above the plug-in by default doesn't update or highlight your
tags until you stop typing for a moment. The plug-in tries hard to do the
least amount of work possible in this break but it might still interrupt your
workflow. If it does you can disable the periodic update:
>
    :let g:easytags_on_cursorhold = 0

Note: Like the |g:easytags_always_enabled| option, if you change this option
it won't apply until you restart Vim, so you'll have to set this option in
your |vimrc| script.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The *g:easytags_autorecurse* option

When the |:UpdateTags| command is executed automatically or without arguments,
it defaults to updating just the tags for the current file. If you'd rather
have it recursively scan everything below the directory of the current file
then set this option to true (1):
>
    :let g:easytags_autorecurse = 1

You have to explicitly enable this option because it should only be used while
navigating around small directory trees. Imagine always having this option
enabled and then having to edit a file in e.g. the root of your home
directory: The 'easytags.vim' plug-in would freeze Vim for a long time while
you'd have to wait for Exuberant Cags to scan thousands of files...

Note that when you enable this option the 'easytags.vim' plug-in might ignore
other options like |g:easytags_resolve_links|. This is an implementation
detail which I intend to fix.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The *g:easytags_include_members* option

Exuberant Ctags knows how to generate tags for struct/class members in C++ and
Java source code but doesn't do so by default because it can more than double
the size of your tags files, thus taking much longer to read/write the tags
file. When you enable the |g:easytags_include_members| option from your |vimrc|
script (before the 'easytags.vim' plug-in is loaded):
>
    :let g:easytags_include_members = 1

Exuberant Ctags will be instructed to include struct/class members using the
'--extra=+q' command line argument and the 'easytags.vim' plug-in will
highlight them using the 'cMember' highlighting group. Because most color
schemes don't distinguish the Identifier and Type (see |group-name|)
highlighting groups all members will now probably look like type definitions.
You can change that by executing either of the following Vim commands (from
your vimrc script, a file type plug-in, etc.):
>
    " If you like one of the existing styles you can link them:
    highlight link cMember Special
    
    " You can also define your own style if you want:
    highlight cMember gui=italic

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The *g:easytags_resolve_links* option

UNIX has symbolic links [9] and hard links [10], both of which conflict with
the concept of having one unique location for every identifier. With regards
to hard links there's not much anyone can do, but because I use symbolic links
quite a lot I've added this option. It's disabled by default since it has a
small performance impact and might not do what unknowing users expect it to:
When you enable this option the plug-in will resolve symbolic links in
pathnames, which means your tags file will only contain entries with canonical
pathnames [11]. To enable this option (which I strongly suggest doing when you
run UNIX and use symbolic links) execute the following Vim command:
>
    :let g:easytags_resolve_links = 1

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The *g:easytags_suppress_ctags_warning* option

If this is set and not false, it will suppress the warning on startup if ctags
is not found or not recent enough.
>
    :let g:easytags_suppress_ctags_warning = 1

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
How to customize the highlighting colors? ~

The easytags plug-in defines new highlighting groups for dynamically
highlighted tags. These groups are linked to Vim's default groups so that
they're colored out of the box, but if you want you can change the styles. To
do so use a 'highlight' command such as the ones given a few paragraphs back.
Of course you'll need to change the group name. Here are the group names used
by the easytags plug-in:

 - Lua: 'luaFuncTag'

 - C: 'cTypeTag', 'cEnumTag', 'cPreProcTag', 'cFunctionTag', 'cMemberTag'

 - PHP: 'phpFunctionsTag', 'phpClassesTag'

 - Vim: 'vimAutoGroupTag', 'vimCommandTag', 'vimFuncNameTag',
   'vimScriptFuncNameTag'

 - Python: 'pythonFunctionTag', 'pythonMethodTag', 'pythonClassTag'

 - Java: 'javaClassTag', 'javaMethodTag'

 - C#: 'csClassOrStructTag', 'csMethodTag'

 - Ruby: 'rubyModuleNameTag', 'rubyClassNameTag', 'rubyMethodNameTag'

As you can see each of these names ends in 'Tag' to avoid conflicts with the
syntax modes shipped with Vim. And about the singular/plural confusion: I've
tried to match the existing highlighting groups defined by popular syntax
modes (except of course for the 'Tag' suffix).

===============================================================================
                                                      *easytags-troubleshooting*
Troubleshooting ~

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                                *:HighlightTags*
|:HighlightTags| only works for the tags file created by |:UpdateTags| ~

If you want to create tags files and have their tags highlighted by the
'easytags.vim' plug-in then you'll have to create the tags file with certain
arguments to Exuberant Ctags:
>
    $ ctags --fields=+l --c-kinds=+p --c++-kinds=+p ...

The '--fields=+l' argument makes sure that Exuberant Ctags includes a
'language:...' property with each entry in the tags file. This is required by
the |:HighlightTags| command so it can filter tags by their file type. The
other two arguments make sure Exuberant Ctags generates tags for function
prototypes in C/C++ source code.

If you have the |g:easytags_include_members| option enabled (its off by
default) then you'll also need to add the '--extra=+q' argument so that
Exuberant Ctags generates tags for structure/class members.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The plug-in complains that Exuberant Ctags isn't installed ~

After a Mac OS X user found out the hard way that the 'ctags' executable isn't
always Exuberant Ctags and we spend a few hours debugging the problem I added
proper version detection: The plug-in executes 'ctags --version' when Vim is
started to verify that Exuberant Ctags 5.5 or newer is installed. If it isn't
Vim will show the following message on startup:
>
    easytags.vim: Plug-in not loaded because Exuberant Ctags isn't installed!
    Please download & install Exuberant Ctags from http://ctags.sf.net

If the installed Exuberant Ctags version is too old the plug-in will complain:
>
    easytags.vim: Plug-in not loaded because Exuberant Ctags 5.5
    or newer is required while you have version %s installed!

If you have the right version of Exuberant Ctags installed but the plug-in
still complains, try executing the following command from inside Vim:
>
    :!which ctags

If this doesn't print the location where you installed Exuberant Ctags it
means your system already had a 'ctags' executable but it isn't compatible
with Exuberant Ctags 5.5 and you'll need to set the |g:easytags_cmd| option
(see above) so the plug-in knows which 'ctags' to run.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Vim locks up while the plug-in is running ~

Once or twice now in several years I've experienced Exuberant Ctags getting
into an infinite loop when given garbage input. In my case this happened by
accident a few days ago :-|. Because my plug-in executes 'ctags' in the
foreground this will block Vim indefinitely! If this happens you might be able
to kill 'ctags' by pressing Control-C (see |CTRL-C|) but if that doesn't work
you can also kill it without stopping Vim using a task manager or the 'pkill'
command (available on most UNIX systems):
>
    $ pkill -KILL ctags

If Vim seems very slow and you suspect this plug-in might be the one to blame,
increase Vim's verbosity level:
>
    :set vbs=1

Every time the plug-in executes it will time how long the execution takes and
add the results to Vim's message history, which you can view by executing the
|:messages| command.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Failed to highlight tags because pattern is too big! ~

If the 'easytags.vim' plug-in fails to highlight your tags and the error
message mentions that the pattern is too big, your tags file has grown too
large for Vim to be able to highlight all tagged identifiers! I've had this
happen to me with 50 KB patterns because I added most of the headers in
'/usr/include/' to my tags file. Internally Vim raises the error |E339|: Pattern
too long and unfortunately the only way to avoid this problem once it occurs
is to reduce the number of tagged identifiers...

In my case the solution was to move most of the tags from '/usr/include/' over
to project specific tags files which are automatically loaded by Vim when I
edit files in different projects because I've set the |'tags'| option as
follows:
>
    :set tags=./.tags;,~/.vimtags

Once you've executed the above command, Vim will automatically look for a file
named '.tags' in the directory of the current file. Because of the ';' Vim
also recurses upwards so that you can nest files arbitrarily deep under your
project directories.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The plug-in doesn't seem to work in Cygwin [12] ~

If you want to use the plug-in with Vim under Cygwin, you need to have the
Cygwin version of Ctags installed instead of the Windows version (thanks to
Alex Zuroff for reporting this!).

===============================================================================
                                                              *easytags-contact*
Contact ~

If you have questions, bug reports, suggestions, etc. the author can be
contacted at peter@peterodding.com. The latest version is available at
http://peterodding.com/code/vim/easytags/ and http://github.com/xolox/vim-easytags.
If you like this plug-in please vote for it on Vim Online [13].

===============================================================================
                                                              *easytags-license*
License ~

This software is licensed under the MIT license [14]. Copyright 2010 Peter
Odding <peter@peterodding.com>.

===============================================================================
                                                           *easytags-references*
References ~

[1] http://ctags.sourceforge.net/
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integrated_development_environment
[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ctags
[4] http://ftp.vim.org/vim/runtime/syntax/
[5] http://ctags.sourceforge.net/languages.html
[6] http://peterodding.com/code/vim/downloads/easytags.zip
[7] http://peterodding.com/code/vim/shell/
[8] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamic-link_library
[9] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symbolic_link
[10] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_link
[11] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canonicalization
[12] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cygwin
[13] http://www.vim.org/scripts/script.php?script_id=3114
[14] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIT_License

vim: ft=help