1# Universal Ctags 2 3[](https://scan.coverity.com/projects/4355) 4[](https://coveralls.io/github/universal-ctags/ctags?branch=master) 5[](https://ci.appveyor.com/project/universalctags/ctags/branch/master) 6[](https://docs.ctags.io) 7[](https://circleci.com/gh/universal-ctags) 8 9 10[Universal Ctags](https://ctags.io/) (abbreviated as u-ctags) is a *maintained* 11implementation of `ctags`. 12`ctags` generates an index (or tag) file of language objects found in source 13files for programming languages. 14This index makes it easy for text editors and other tools to locate the indexed 15items. 16 17[Exuberant Ctags](http://ctags.sourceforge.net/) (e-ctags) maintained by Darren 18Hiebert, the ancestor of Universal Ctags, improved traditional `ctags` with 19multi-language support, the ability for the user to define new languages 20searched by regular expressions (called optlib in Universal Ctags), and the 21ability to generate emacs-style TAGS files. 22But the activity of the project unfortunately stalled. 23 24Universal Ctags has the objective of continuing the development of Exuberant 25Ctags. 26Reza Jelveh <reza.jelveh@gmail.com> initially created a personal fork of 27Exuberant Ctags on GitHub. 28As interest and participation grew, it was decided to move development to a 29dedicated project as Universal Ctags. 30The goal of this project is to maintain a common/unified working space where 31people interested in making ctags better can work together. 32 33Some of the major features of Universal Ctags are: 34 35* more numbers of improved language support 36 * new extended C/C++ language parser, etc. 37* fully extended optlib (a feature to define a new language parser from a 38 command line) 39* interactive mode (experimental) 40 41## The latest build and package ## 42 43If you want to try the latest Universal Ctags without building it yourself... 44 45### Windows 46Daily builds are available at the [ctags-win32](https://github.com/universal-ctags/ctags-win32) project. 47Go to the [releases](https://github.com/universal-ctags/ctags-win32/releases) page to download zip packages. 48 49### Mac 50See [Homebrew Tap for Universal Ctags](https://github.com/universal-ctags/homebrew-universal-ctags) 51 52### Snap 53Go to [ctags-snap](https://github.com/universal-ctags/ctags-snap) and 54clone the `ctags-snap` repo. Then, follow instructions to build the 55snap package of Universal Ctags. Snapcraft will automatically fetch the source 56code from GitHub. 57 58## How to build and install ## 59 60To build with Autotools (Autoconf and Automake) on GNU/Linux, OSX, or Windows 10 WSL, 61``` 62 $ git clone https://github.com/universal-ctags/ctags.git 63 $ cd ctags 64 $ ./autogen.sh 65 $ ./configure --prefix=/where/you/want # defaults to /usr/local 66 $ make 67 $ make install # may require extra privileges depending on where to install 68``` 69 70GNU make is assumed as the `make` command. 71 72See 73[`docs/autotools.rst`](https://github.com/universal-ctags/ctags/blob/master/docs/autotools.rst) 74for more information. 75 76To build on Windows, see 77[`docs/windows.rst`](https://github.com/universal-ctags/ctags/blob/master/docs/windows.rst) 78for more information. 79 80To build on OSX, see 81[`docs/osx.rst`](https://github.com/universal-ctags/ctags/blob/master/docs/osx.rst) 82for more information. 83 84## Manual ## 85The primary documents of Universal Ctags are man pages. 86Users should first consult the 87[ctags(1)](https://docs.ctags.io/en/latest/man/ctags.1.html), and [other man 88pages](https://docs.ctags.io/en/latest/man-pages.html) if necessary. 89 90[Universal Ctags Hacking Guide](https://docs.ctags.io), which also includes the 91man pages, is primarily for developers and provides additional information to 92the man pages, including experimental features. 93 94See also `*/README.md` on this repository. 95 96## Differences from exuberant-ctags ## 97 98You may be interested in how Universal Ctags is different from Exuberant Ctags. 99See 100[ctags-incompatibilities(7)](https://docs.ctags.io/en/latest/man/ctags-incompatibilities.7.html) 101and [Introduced changes](https://docs.ctags.io/en/latest/news.html) for details. 102 103The most significant incompatible changes: 104 105* Universal Ctags doesn't load `~/.ctags` and `./.ctags` at starting up time. 106 Instead, it loads `~/.ctags.d/*.ctags` and `./.ctags.d/*.ctags`. 107 108* Universal Ctags is more strict about characters that can be 109 used in kind letters and kind names than Exuberant-ctags. 110 111 - The letter must be an alphabetical character (`[a-zA-EG-Z]`). 112 `F` is reserved for `file` kind. 113 114 - The first character of the name must be alphabetic, and 115 the rest characters must be alphanumeric (`[a-zA-Z][a-zA-Z0-9]*`). 116 117 The detailed background is explained in 118 [#1737](https://github.com/universal-ctags/ctags/pull/1737). 119 120 If you want to reuse your `.ctags` written for Exuberant-ctags, 121 you must review kind letters and names defined with `--regex-<LANG>=...` 122 options. When updating the definitions, using `--kinddef-<LANG>=...` option 123 is appreciated. 124 125Pull-requests are welcome! 126
){kind=link}
){kind=link}
){kind=link}
){kind=link}