Source code navigation in emacs

Source code navigation in emacs

[n179911]

Hi,

Can someone please recommend what is the way to setup code navigation in emacs?
I have setup xcope.el with cscope run in emacs.

But I read here, it said some thing about gnu global with emacs?
http://emacs-fu.blogspot.com/2009/01/navigating-through-source-code-using.html

I would like to know what is the better way?

Thank you.

Re: Source code navigation in emacs

[Anselm Helbig]

At Sun, 5 Jul 2009 22:31:59 -0700,
n179911 <n179911@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Hi,
> 
> Can someone please recommend what is the way to setup code navigation in emacs?
> I have setup xcope.el with cscope run in emacs.
> 
> But I read here, it said some thing about gnu global with emacs?
> http://emacs-fu.blogspot.com/2009/01/navigating-through-source-code-using.html
> 
> I would like to know what is the better way?

The most generic way is to just use a tags table, see the manual:

  (info "(emacs) Tags")

(C-x C-e after the closing paren in emacs)

etags supports more languages than gnu global, and there is an
etags program coming with exuberant-ctags that supports even
more. There are alternative, more capable solutions for specific
programming languages. What are you working with?

HTH, 

Anselm



-- 
Anselm Helbig 
mailto:anselm.helbig+news2009@googlemail.com

Re: Source code navigation in emacs

[n179911]

On Tue, Jul 7, 2009 at 1:52 AM, Anselm
Helbig<anselm.helbig+news2009@googlemail.com> wrote:
> At Sun, 5 Jul 2009 22:31:59 -0700,
> n179911 <n179911@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> Hi,
>>
>> Can someone please recommend what is the way to setup code navigation in emacs?
>> I have setup xcope.el with cscope run in emacs.
>>
>> But I read here, it said some thing about gnu global with emacs?
>> http://emacs-fu.blogspot.com/2009/01/navigating-through-source-code-using.html
>>
>> I would like to know what is the better way?
>
> The most generic way is to just use a tags table, see the manual:
>
>  (info "(emacs) Tags")
>
> (C-x C-e after the closing paren in emacs)
>
> etags supports more languages than gnu global, and there is an
> etags program coming with exuberant-ctags that supports even
> more. There are alternative, more capable solutions for specific
> programming languages. What are you working with?
>

If I build etags, do I still need to use cscope ? with xcope.el in emacs?
I am using c++ and Java.

Thank you.


> HTH,
>
> Anselm
>
>
>
> --
> Anselm Helbig
> mailto:anselm.helbig+news2009@googlemail.com
>

Re: Source code navigation in emacs

[Dirk-Jan C. Binnema]

Hi,

>>>>> "n179911" == n179911  <n179911@gmail.com> writes:

 
    >>> Can someone please recommend what is the way to setup code navigation
    >>> in emacs?  I have setup xcope.el with cscope run in emacs.
    >>> 
    >>> But I read here, it said some thing about gnu global with emacs?
    >>> http://emacs-fu.blogspot.com/2009/01/navigating-through-source-code-using.html
   
 
    >> The most generic way is to just use a tags table, see the manual:

    >> etags supports more languages than gnu global, and there is an
    >> etags program coming with exuberant-ctags that supports even
    >> more. There are alternative, more capable solutions for specific
    >> programming languages. What are you working with?

Anselm, is there any reason to prefer etags over GNU-Global for C/C++? I am
quite happy with GNU-Global (I actually wrote the above blogpost) -- in what
way would etags be better? 

Best wishes,
Dirk.

-- 
Dirk-Jan C. Binnema                  Helsinki, Finland
e:djcb@djcbsoftware.nl           w:www.djcbsoftware.nl
pgp: D09C E664 897D 7D39 5047 A178 E96A C7A1 017D DA3C

Re: Source code navigation in emacs

[n179911]

On Tue, Jul 7, 2009 at 2:29 PM, Dirk-Jan C. Binnema<djcb.bulk@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Hi,
>
>>>>>> "n179911" == n179911  <n179911@gmail.com> writes:
>
>
>    >>> Can someone please recommend what is the way to setup code navigation
>    >>> in emacs?  I have setup xcope.el with cscope run in emacs.
>    >>>
>    >>> But I read here, it said some thing about gnu global with emacs?
>    >>> http://emacs-fu.blogspot.com/2009/01/navigating-through-source-code-using.html
>
>
>    >> The most generic way is to just use a tags table, see the manual:
>
>    >> etags supports more languages than gnu global, and there is an
>    >> etags program coming with exuberant-ctags that supports even
>    >> more. There are alternative, more capable solutions for specific
>    >> programming languages. What are you working with?
>
> Anselm, is there any reason to prefer etags over GNU-Global for C/C++? I am
> quite happy with GNU-Global (I actually wrote the above blogpost) -- in what
> way would etags be better?
>

And can you please help me understand why GNU-Global is better than
xcope.el + cscope for emacs?

> Best wishes,
> Dirk.
>
> --
> Dirk-Jan C. Binnema                  Helsinki, Finland
> e:djcb@djcbsoftware.nl           w:www.djcbsoftware.nl
> pgp: D09C E664 897D 7D39 5047 A178 E96A C7A1 017D DA3C
>

Re: Source code navigation in emacs

[Anselm Helbig]

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At Tue, 7 Jul 2009 16:53:31 -0700,
n179911 <n179911@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> On Tue, Jul 7, 2009 at 2:29 PM, Dirk-Jan C. Binnema<djcb.bulk@gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > Hi,
> >
> >>>>>> "n179911" == n179911  <n179911@gmail.com> writes:
> >
> >
> >    >>> Can someone please recommend what is the way to setup code navigation
> >    >>> in emacs?  I have setup xcope.el with cscope run in emacs.
> >    >>>
> >    >>> But I read here, it said some thing about gnu global with emacs?
> >    >>> http://emacs-fu.blogspot.com/2009/01/navigating-through-source-code-using.html
> >
> >
> >    >> The most generic way is to just use a tags table, see the manual:
> >
> >    >> etags supports more languages than gnu global, and there is an
> >    >> etags program coming with exuberant-ctags that supports even
> >    >> more. There are alternative, more capable solutions for specific
> >    >> programming languages. What are you working with?
> >
> > Anselm, is there any reason to prefer etags over GNU-Global for C/C++? I am
> > quite happy with GNU-Global (I actually wrote the above blogpost) -- in what
> > way would etags be better?
> >
> 
> And can you please help me understand why GNU-Global is better than
> xcope.el + cscope for emacs?

As I said, using tags tables is the most generic approach. Support for
it has been in emacs for a long time. Any installation of emacs should
also come with the etags program, which supports many different
languages, compare:

  cscope 
    C, C++

  global
    C, C++, Yacc, Java and PHP4
    
  etags (emacs 23)
    C, Objective C, C++, Java, Fortran, Ada, Cobol, Erlang, Forth, HTML,
    LaTeX, Emacs Lisp/Common Lisp, Lua, Makefile, Pascal, Perl, PHP,
    Postscript,  Python, Prolog, Scheme and most assembler-like syntaxes

  etags (exuberant)
    Asm, Asp, Awk, Basic, BETA, C, C++, C#, Cobol, Eiffel, Erlang,
    Fortran, HTML, Java, JavaScript, Lisp, Lua, Make, Pascal, Perl, PHP,
    Python, REXX, Ruby, Scheme, Sh, SLang, SML, SQL, Tcl, Vera, Verilog,
    Vim, YACC

It doesn't do fancy stuff, e.g. keeping an index of function
references. That's the kind of thing gnu global and cscope can do for
you, if you're working with a language that they support.

I'm using ruby and javascript at the moment, so I don't have a real
alternative. I should look at CEDET again, though. 8-)

HTH, 

Anselm


-- 
Anselm Helbig 
mailto:anselm.helbig+news2009@googlemail.com

Re: Source code navigation in emacs

[Dirk-Jan C. Binnema]

Hi Anselm,

    >>    >>> But I read here, it said some thing about gnu global with emacs?
    >>    >>> http://emacs-fu.blogspot.com/2009/01/navigating-through-source-code-using.html

    >>    >> The most generic way is to just use a tags table, see the manual:
    >> 
    >>    >> etags supports more languages than gnu global, and there is an
    >>    >> etags program coming with exuberant-ctags that supports even
    >>    >> more. There are alternative, more capable solutions for specific
    >>    >> programming languages. What are you working with?
    >> 
    >> Anselm, is there any reason to prefer etags over GNU-Global for C/C++? I am
    >> quite happy with GNU-Global (I actually wrote the above blogpost) -- in what
    >> way would etags be better?
    >> 

    > And can you please help me understand why GNU-Global is better than
    > xcope.el + cscope for emacs?

I don't know if it's better or not -- I just happened to start with GNU-Global
and it worked nice for me. Some of the things that I liked and may (or may not) be
available in some of the other tools:

 - create a tagfile for a whole subtree (recursively)
 - incremental updates
 - can be used outside emacs 

However, GNU-Global only supports C, C++, Yacc, Java en PHP.

Best wishes,
Dirk.

-- 
Dirk-Jan C. Binnema                  Helsinki, Finland
e:djcb@djcbsoftware.nl           w:www.djcbsoftware.nl
pgp: D09C E664 897D 7D39 5047 A178 E96A C7A1 017D DA3C

Re: Source code navigation in emacs

[Anselm Helbig]

Hello Dirk!

>     > And can you please help me understand why GNU-Global is better than
>     > xcope.el + cscope for emacs?
> 
> I don't know if it's better or not -- I just happened to start with GNU-Global
> and it worked nice for me. Some of the things that I liked and may (or may not) be
> available in some of the other tools:
> 
>  - create a tagfile for a whole subtree (recursively)
>  - incremental updates
>  - can be used outside emacs 
> 
> However, GNU-Global only supports C, C++, Yacc, Java en PHP.

Well, GNU global definitely has more features, but if it doesn't
support the language I'm using, it doesn't do any good for me. It
seems to be quite similar to the tags system, just a bit more
powerful. It is simpler and more lightweight than i.e. CEDET's
Semantic. It is also quite old: etags.c seems to be part of GNU emacs
since around its inception, the copyright, er, -left, notices start
with 1984. It had to be lightweight to run on 1980's hardware. 8-)

Happy hacking!

Anselm


-- 
Anselm Helbig 
mailto:anselm.helbig+news2009@googlemail.com

Re: Source code navigation in emacs

[Sébastien Vauban]

Hello,

>>> And can you please help me understand why GNU-Global is better than
>>> xcope.el + cscope for emacs?
>>
>> I don't know if it's better or not -- I just happened to start with
>> GNU-Global and it worked nice for me. Some of the things that I liked and
>> may (or may not) be available in some of the other tools:
>>
>>  - create a tagfile for a whole subtree (recursively)
>>  - incremental updates
>>  - can be used outside emacs
>>
>> However, GNU-Global only supports C, C++, Yacc, Java en PHP.
>
> Well, GNU global definitely has more features, but if it doesn't
> support the language I'm using, it doesn't do any good for me.

By the way, do know anything that could allow easier code navigation of
(La)TeX files?

Thanks,
  Seb

-- 
Sébastien Vauban