Vim and Ctags tips and tricks

Question

I have just installed Ctags  to help with C   development  with my Vim  or rather gVim   and would like to find out your favorite commands  macros  shortcuts  tips that go along with it     Share your best arsenal  What other Vim add-ons you would recommend for C   on Vim development   EDIT What other add-on you would use in conjunction with Ctags   EDIT2 What version of gVim you use with tags  Does it make a difference    EDIT3 How do you enhance your programming experience for both big and small projects

User · Answer

I ve been adapting my vim plugins for two years to support big enough c   project  You can take a look at them   They use ctags and cscsope   http   www vim org scripts script php script id 1638 http   www vim org scripts script php script id 2507

User · Answer

Ctrl   - go to definition Ctrl T - Jump back from the definition  Ctrl W Ctrl   - Open the definition in a horizontal split    Add these lines in vimrc     map  lt C-  gt   tab split lt CR gt  exec  tag   expand   lt cword gt     lt CR gt      map  lt A-  gt   vsp  lt CR gt  exec  tag   expand   lt cword gt     lt CR gt     Ctrl   - Open the definition in a new tab Alt   - Open the definition in a vertical split  After the tags are generated  You can use the following keys to tag into and tag out of functions   Ctrl Left MouseClick - Go to definition Ctrl Right MouseClick - Jump back from definition

User · Answer

One line that always goes in my  vimrc   set tags   tags     This will look in the current directory for  tags   and work up the tree towards root until one is found   IOW  you can be anywhere in your source tree instead of just the root of it

User · Answer

I use vim in macos  and the original ctags doesn t work well  so I download newest and configure make make install it  I install ctgas in  usr local bin ctags to keep original one    taglist let Tlist Ctags Cmd     usr local bin ctags  let Tlist WinWidth   50 map  lt leader gt ta  TlistToggle lt cr gt  map  lt leader gt bta    usr local bin ctags -R   lt CR gt  set tags tags   map  lt M-j gt   lt C-  gt  map  lt M-k gt   lt C-T gt

User · Answer

I adapted the SetTags   search function above  which should be replaced by the equivalent set tags    tags    to work for cscope  Seems to work    cscope file-searching alternative function SetCscope       let curdir   getcwd        while  filereadable  cscope out    amp  amp  getcwd                      cd                    endwhile      if filereadable  cscope out               execute  cs add     getcwd       cscope out                  endif      execute  cd     curdir     endfunction  call SetCscope

User · Answer

You can add directories to your ctags lookup   For example  I have a ctags index built for Qt4  and have this in my  vimrc   set tags   usr local share ctags qt4

User · Answer

Another iteration on the SetCscope   function above  That sets cscope pre-path to get matches without being on the dir where  cscope out  is   function s FindFile file      let curdir   getcwd       let found   curdir     while  filereadable a file   amp  amp  found                cd            let found   getcwd       endwhile     execute  cd     curdir     return found endfunction  if has  cscope           let  CSCOPE DIR s FindFile  cscope out       let  CSCOPE DB  CSCOPE DIR   cscope out      if filereadable  CSCOPE DB          cscope add  CSCOPE DB  CSCOPE DIR     endif      command -nargs 0 Cscope  cscope -ub -R  amp  endif

User · Answer

Several definitions of the same name   lt C-w gt g lt C-  gt  open the definition in a split  but also do  tjump which either goes to the definition or  if there are several definitions  presents you with a list of definitions to choose from

User · Answer

Another useful plugin for C development is cscope Just as Ctags lets you jump to definitions  Cscope jumps to the calling functions   If you have cscope in your   bin  directory  add the following to your  vimrc and use g   to go to the calling function  see  help cscope    if has  cscope       set csprg   bin cscope     set csto 0     set cst     set nocsverb       add any database in current directory     if filereadable  cscope out           cs add cscope out           else add database pointed to by environment     elseif  CSCOPE DB               cs add  CSCOPE DB     endif endif   Almost forgot    Just as ctags - you have to generate  and periodically update  the database  I use the following script  select files  gt  cscope files ctags -L cscope files ctags -e -L cscope files cscope -ub -i cscope files   Where  select files  is another script that extracts the list of C and header files from the Makefile  This way I index only the files actually used by the project

User · Answer

I ve found the taglist plug-in a must-have  It lists all tags that it knows about  files that you have opened  in a seperate window and makes it very easy to navigate larger files   I use it mostly for Python development  but it can only be better for C C

User · Answer

I put the following in my  gvimrc file  which searches up the tree from any point for a tags file when gvim starts   function SetTags       let curdir   getcwd        while  filereadable  tags    amp  amp  getcwd                  cd        endwhile      if filereadable  tags           execute  set tags     getcwd       tags      endif      execute  cd     curdir endfunction  call SetTags     I then periodically regenerate a tags file at the top of my source tree with a script that looks like      bin bash  find   -regex        c  h  hpp  cc  cpp    -print   ctags --totals --recurse --extra   qf  --fields   i  -L -

User · Answer

All of the above and     code complete   function parameter complete  code snippets  and much more     http   www vim org scripts script php script id 1764   taglist vim   Source code browser  supports C C    java  perl  python  tcl  sql  php  etc     http   www vim org scripts script php script id 273

User · Answer

I use ALT-left and ALT-right to pop push from to the tag stack     Alt-right left to navigate forward backward in the tags stack map  lt M-Left gt   lt C-T gt  map  lt M-Right gt   lt C-  gt    If you use hjkl for movement you can map  lt M-h gt  and  lt M-l gt  instead

User · Answer

The command I am using most is C-  which jumps to the definition of the function under the cursor  You can use it more often to follow more calls  After that  C-o will bring you back one level  C-i goes deeper again

User · Answer

I ve encapsulated tags manipulation in an experimental plugin of mine   Regarding C   development in vim  I ve already answered there  I use my own suite  and a few other plugins

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