cTags tag file format

[Acid]

I have been looking around and i can't find any good tag file generator for javascript. So i deccided to write my own language defention for javascript. With this nifty program called Exuberant Ctags.

I am though unclear about something. On this page I read there is support for:

* Protected Functions
* Private Functions
* Protected Variables
* Private Variables

Yet after reading the source of Exuberant Ctags and the output and everything google could find about it im still pretty unclear about how the tags for these entrys are generated.

For example a normal function would be:

Code: Select all

<classview entry> <tab> <file> <tab> <RegExp || line number>;" <tab> f


The f standing for Function and so on for variable, macro, class, struct. And what not. Yet i have not encounterd an character for the four listed above. And have not found any documentation about it either. Here or at google.

[steve]

I think you made the mistake that I did thinking the classviewer displays the ctags output. It does not. If you want a custom language to fill the classviewer, you will have to request it of IDM and if enough of us do, they may add that feature.

[Acid]

ehm no, I'm just wondering what the format of cTags tags file is... Because i want(ed) to make a parser for javascript (wich is supporeted a lang) and if the class viewer doesn't get it's infor from cTags where is it soming from then. I doubt IDM would write something that already is freely available on the net and does the job quite good.

[steve]

The ctags format is detailed here: http://ctags.sourceforge.net/FORMAT

You will notice that the info on whether a function/variable is private or not is not included in the ctags info. In fact if you look at what is available in the classviewer and what is available in ctags, you will see that the classviewer has alot more detail. This detail cannot come from ctags.

I configured ctags for another language and got it working, then found my frustration that the classviewer remained blank. An email to IDM confirmed that the classviewer is not filled from the ctags file. The ctags is really just a fancy search utility.

[Acid]

Then why would they bother supplying cTags then in the first place as a search utility? They have there own underwater parser wich parses the files then and does basically the same as cTags but dump the output in the class viewer and not in /dev/null.

[steve]

Just legacy support for UltraEdit users I guess.