Single tags file for a source tree

Tip 804 Printable Monobook Previous Next

created October 12, 2004 · complexity intermediate · author Dubhead · version 6.0

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At the top of a source tree, create a tags file by

% ctags -R

This assumes Exuberant Ctags. The -R (or --recurse) option tells ctags to recurse into directories.

Then, set the tags option in vimrc as:

set tags=tags;

The last semicolon is the key here. When Vim tries to locate the 'tags' file, it first looks at the current directory, then the parent directory, then the parent of the parent, and so on.

This setting works nicely with 'set autochdir'. You need +path-extra feature for this tip.

References

• :help file-searching

Comments

You can also tag help/man files, and access it from Vim with commands like these in vimrc:

au FileType perl set tags^=$DOC/perl/tags
au FileType cpp set tags^=$DOC/cpp/tags

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