[4872] in Athena Bugs
Re: vax 6.4R: etags: no man page
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (kkkken@ATHENA.MIT.EDU)
Sat May 5 16:43:02 1990
From: kkkken@ATHENA.MIT.EDU
Date: Sat, 5 May 90 16:42:49 -0400
To: drmorris@ATHENA.MIT.EDU
Cc: bugs@ATHENA.MIT.EDU
Etags is described in the gnu-emacs user manual... type:
c-H i
m emacs [return]
m tags [return]
m create [return]
And you'll get this:
The `etags' program is used to create a tag table file. It knows
the syntax of C, Fortran, LaTeX, Scheme and Emacs Lisp/Common Lisp. To
use `etags', type
etags INPUTFILES...
as a shell command. It reads the specified files and writes a tag table
named `TAGS' in the current working directory. `etags'
recognizes the language used in an input file based on its file name and
contents; there are no switches for specifying the language. The `-t'
switch tells `etags' to record typedefs in C code as tags.
If the tag table data become outdated due to changes in the files
described in the table, the way to update the tag table is the same way it
was made in the first place. It is not necessary to do this often.
If the tag table fails to record a tag, or records it for the wrong file,
then Emacs cannot possibly find its definition. However, if the position
recorded in the tag table becomes a little bit wrong (due to some editing
in the file that the tag definition is in), the only consequence is to slow
down finding the tag slightly. Even if the stored position is very wrong,
Emacs will still find the tag, but it must search the entire file for it.
So you should update a tag table when you define new tags that you want
to have listed, or when you move tag definitions from one file to another,
or when changes become substantial. Normally there is no need to update
the tag table after each edit, or even every day.
-Ken
