[comp.emacs] advice on creating a large TAGS file

pierson@encore.com (Dan L. Pierson) (06/27/90)

In article <BOB.90Jun26164950@volitans.MorningStar.Com> bob@MorningStar.Com (Bob Sutterfield) writes:

> Since I have no problems making separate TAGS files for each
> subdirectory, are there any tools for merging multiple Emacs TAGS
> files? 

cat works fine

>  vi tags files were single-line entries, so they could be
> merged with sort(1) and friends.  I suppose I could go learn perl...

Do you really want the tags sorted?  If so, cat clearly won't do it
all.  On the other hand, I generally work with a 1.7 meg TAGS file
with multiple definitions of many tags (sort of OO code).  Sorting
isn't useful, but ordering the sub TAGS files so that the definitions
I'm most likely to be interested in come first is.
--

                                            dan

In real life: Dan Pierson, Encore Computer Corporation, Research
UUCP: {talcott,linus,necis,decvax}!encore!pierson
Internet: pierson@encore.com

bob@MorningStar.Com (Bob Sutterfield) (06/28/90)

In article <PIERSON.90Jun27101940@xenna.encore.com> pierson@encore.com (Dan L. Pierson) writes:
   In article <BOB.90Jun26164950@volitans.MorningStar.Com> bob@MorningStar.Com (Bob Sutterfield) writes:
      ...are there any tools for merging multiple Emacs TAGS files?

   cat works fine

Indeed so.  Sigh.  It was too simple.

      vi tags files were single-line entries, so they could be merged
      with sort(1) and friends.

   Do you really want the tags sorted?

Hmmm... upon further reflection, I guess I don't.  That was the
preconception that obscured my thinking.  Thanks!

jbw@zeb.uswest.com (Joe Wells) (06/30/90)

In article <BOB.90Jun26164950@volitans.MorningStar.Com> bob@MorningStar.Com (Bob Sutterfield) writes:

   Since I have no problems making separate TAGS files for each
   subdirectory, are there any tools for merging multiple Emacs TAGS
   files?  vi tags files were single-line entries, so they could be
   merged with sort(1) and friends.  I suppose I could go learn perl...

(GNU Emacs 18.55)

Yes, I'm posting a huge rewrite of lisp/tags.el that handles any number of
separate tags files at the same time.  You can specify in an arbitrary
manner which tags files are to be used for each buffer, and in which order
for looking up tags.  You can share tags files any way you want.

It also has numerous other extensions: tag name completion (in the buffer
too), stack of places visited for backtracking (and backtracking the
backtracking), regexp matching, matching on *symbol* boundaries (not word
boundaries), etc.  Many of the ideas which I am assembling together came
from articles posted to the net in the last couple of years.

I'm posting it in gnu.emacs.bug.  After I feel assured that it is
relatively bug-free, and after I have finished documenting it properly (!),
I'll post it in gnu.emacs and comp.emacs. 

If you don't get gnu.emacs.bug, I can mail it to you.

-- 
Joe Wells <jbw@uswest.com>