*gutentags.txt*  Automatic ctags management for VIM
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                GUTENTAGS REFERENCE MANUAL
                    by Ludovic Chabant

                                                *gutentags*

1. Introduction             |gutentags-intro|
2. Commands                 |gutentags-commands|
3. Status Line              |gutentags-status-line|
4. Global Settings          |gutentags-settings|
5. Project Settings         |gutentags-project-settings|

=============================================================================
1. Introduction                                 *gutentags-intro*

Gutentags is a plugin that takes care of the much needed management of tags
files in Vim. It will (re)generate tag files as you work while staying
completely out of your way. It will even do its best to keep those tag files
out of your way too. It has no dependencies and just works.

In order to generate tag files, Gutentags will have to figure out what's in
your project. To do this, it will locate well-known project root markers like
SCM folders (.git, .hg, etc.), any custom tags you define (with
|gutentags_project_root|), and even things you may have defined already with
other plugins, like CtrlP.

If the current file you're editing is found to be in such a project, Gutentags
will make sure the tag file for that project is up to date. Then, as you work
in files in that project, it will partially re-generate the tag file. Every
time you save, it will silently, in the background, update the tags for that
file.

Usually, ctags can only append tags to an existing tag file, so Gutentags
removes the tags for the current file first, to make sure the tag file is
always consistent with the source code.

Also, Gutentags is clever enough to not stumble upon itself by triggering
multiple ctags processes if you save files to fast, or your project is really
big.

There are some similar Vim plugins out there ("vim-tags", "vim-autotag",
"vim-automatic-ctags", etc.). They all fail on one or more of the requirements
I set for myself with Gutentags:

* No other dependency than running Vim: no Python, Ruby, or whatever.
* Cross-platform: should work on at least Mac and Windows.
* Incremental tags generation: don't re-generate the whole project all the
  time. This may be fine for small projects, but it doesn't scale.
* External process management: if the ctags process is taking a long time,
  don't run another one because I saved the file again.
* Keep the tag file consistent: don't just append the current file's tags to
  the tag file, otherwise you will still "see" tags for deleted or renamed
  classes and functions.
* Automatically create the tag file: you open something from a freshly forked
  project, it should start indexing it automatically, just in Sublime Text or
  Visual Studio or any other IDE.


=============================================================================
2. Commands                                     *gutentags-commands*

                                                *gutentags-global-commands*
The following commands are always available, whatever buffer you currently
have open:

                                                *:GutentagsGenerate*
:GutentagsGenerate {tagsfile}
                        Generates a tag file named {tagsfile}. Tags will be
                        generated for all the files in the same directory as
                        {tagsfile} and below (i.e. recursive from {tagsfile}'s
                        own directory).


                                                *gutentags-project-commands*
The following commands are only available in buffers that have been found to
belong to a project that should be managed by Gutentags. See
|gutentags_project_root| for how Gutentags figures out the project a file
belongs to. When not project is found (i.e. the file is not under any of the
known project markers), Gutentags is disabled for that buffer, and the
following commands and remarks don't apply.

If you want to force-disable Gutentags for a given project even though it does
match one of the items in |gutentags_project_root|, create a file named
"`.notags`" at the root of the project.

The tag file that Gutentags creates and manages will be named after
|gutentags_tagfile|, relative to the project's root directory. When Gutentags
finds a valid project root, it will prepend the tag file's path to 'tags',
unless |gutentags_auto_set_tags| is set to 0. This is to make sure Vim will use
that file first.

If a file managed by Gutentags is opened and no tag file already exists,
Gutentags will start generating it right away in the background, unless 
|gutentags_generate_on_missing| is set to 0. If you have a large project, you
may want to know when Gutentags is generating tags: see
|gutentags-status-line| to display an indicator in your status line.

When a file managed by Gutentags is saved, the tag file will be incrementally
updated, i.e. references to the recently saved file are removed, and that file
is re-parsed for tags, with the result being merged into the tag file. This
makes the tag file 100% consistent with the latest changes. This doesn't
happen however if |gutentags_generate_on_write| is set to 0, in which case you
have to run |GutentagsUpdate| manually.


                                                *:GutentagsUpdate*
:GutentagsUpdate
                        Forces an update of the current tag file with the
                        current buffer. If tags are already being generated,
                        you will be notified and the command will abort.

:GutentagsUpdate!
                        Like |GutentagsUpdate|, but updates the current tags
                        file with the whole project instead of just the
                        current buffer.


Some debugging/troubleshooting commands are also available if the
|gutentags_define_advanced_commands| global setting is set to 1.

                                                *:GutentagsToggleEnabled*
:GutentagsToggleEnabled
                        Disables and re-enables Gutentags.
                        When Gutentags is disabled, it won't update your tag
                        file when you save a buffer. It will however still
                        look for project markers as you open new buffers so
                        that they can start working again when you re-enable
                        Gutentags.

                                                *GutentagsToggleTrace*
:GutentagsToggleTrace
                        If you want to keep an eye on what Gutentags is doing,
                        you can enable tracing. This will show messages every
                        time Gutentags does something. It can get annoying
                        quickly, since it will require you to press a key to
                        dismiss those messages, but it can be useful to
                        troubleshoot a problem.
                        In addition to messages in Vim, it will also make
                        Gutentags redirect the output of the tag generation
                        script to a `.log` file in the project root.

                                                *:GutentagsUnlock*
:GutentagsUnlock
                        Gutentags uses a `.lock` file to know when tag
                        generation is running. If something goes wrong with
                        that process, that lock file could be left behind. You
                        could just remove it manually from the root of your
                        project, but you can also run |:GutentagsUnlock| so
                        that Vim does it for you.
                        If you find that you need to use this more than a
                        couple times ever, there's probably a bug with
                        Gutentags, or something otherwise wrong or unexpected
                        with your system. Please file a bug.


=============================================================================
3.  Status Line                                 *gutentags-status-line*

Tag file generation can take a while if you're working on a project big
enough. In that case, you may want to know when `ctags` is running, so you
have a heads up if some of the tags aren't recognized yet.

                                                *gutentags#statusline()*
You can display and indicator of tag generation progress in your |status-line|
with the following function: >
        :set statusline+=%{gutentags#statusline()}

This won't print anything unless Gutentags figures that `ctags` is running in
the background. This is done by checking a `.lock` file next to the tag file,
but there's also some optimization before that to not slow down Vim. Note that
the `.lock` file can sometimes be left around incorrectly by the background
process, and you may need to clean it up. See |:GutentagsUnlock|.

When Gutentags thinks `ctags` is still running, it will print the string
"TAGS" by default. You can customize it: >
        :set statusline+=%{gutentags#statusline('[Generating...]')}

This will print the string "[Generating...]" when tags are being generated.


=============================================================================
4. Global Settings                              *gutentags-settings*

The following settings can be defined in your |vimrc| to change the default
behaviour of Gutentags.

                                                *gutentags_enabled*
g:gutentags_enabled
                        Defines whether Gutentags should be enabled. When
                        disabled, Gutentags will still scan for project root
                        markers when opening buffers. This is so that when you
                        re-enable Gutentags, you won't have some buffers
                        mysteriously working while others (those open last)
                        don't.
                        Defaults to 1.

                                                *gutentags_ctags_executable*
g:gutentags_ctags_executable
                        Specifies the ctags executable to launch.
                        Defaults to `ctags`.

                                                *gutentags_tagfile*
g:gutentags_tagfile
                        Specifies the name of the tag file to create. This
                        will be appended to the project's root. See
                        |gutentags_project_root| for how Gutentags locates the
                        project.
                        Defaults to `tags`.

                                                *gutentags_project_root*
g:gutentags_project_root
                        When a buffer is loaded, Gutentags will figure out if
                        it's part of a project that should have tags managed
                        automatically. To do this, it looks for "root markers"
                        in the current file's directory and its parent
                        directories. If it finds any of those markers,
                        Gutentags will be enabled for the project, and a tags
                        file named after |gutentags_tagfile| will be created at
                        the project root.
                        Defaults to `[]` (an empty |List|).
                        A list of default markers will always be appended to
                        the user-defined ones: ['.git', '.hg', '.bzr',
                        '_darcs'].

                                                *gutentags_exclude*
g:gutentags_exclude
                        A list of file patterns to pass to the
                        |gutentags_ctags_executable| so that they will be
                        excluded from parsing for the tags generation.
                        Defaults to `[]` (an empty |List|).  Patterns defined
                        in 'wildignore' will also be given as exclude patterns
                        to the `ctags` executable.

                                                *gutentags_auto_set_tags*
g:gutentags_auto_set_tags
                        If set to 1, Gutentags will automatically prepend
                        'tags' with the exact path to the tag file for the
                        current project. See |gutentags_project_root| for how
                        Gutentags locates the project.
                        When set to 0, Gutentags doesn't change 'tags', and
                        this means that whatever tag file it generates may
                        not be picked up by Vim. See |tagfiles()| to know what
                        tag files Vim knows about.
                        Defaults to 1.

                                                *gutentags_generate_on_missing*
g:gutentags_generate_on_missing
                        If set to 1, Gutentags will start generating an initial
                        tag file if a file is open in a project where no tags
                        file is found. See |gutentags_project_root| for how
                        Gutentags locates the project.
                        When set to 0, Gutentags will only generate the first
                        time the file is saved (if
                        |gutentags_generate_on_write| is set to 1), or when
                        |GutentagsUpdate| or |GutentagsGenerate| is run.
                        Defaults to 1.

                                                *gutentags_generate_on_new*
g:gutentags_generate_on_new
                        If set to 1, Gutentags will start generating the tag
                        file when a new project is open. A new project is
                        considered open when a buffer is created for a file
                        whose corresponding tag file has not been "seen" yet
                        in the current Vim session -- which pretty much means
                        when you open the first file in a given source control
                        repository.
                        When set to 0, Gutentags won't do anything special.
                        See also |gutentags_generate_on_missing| and
                        |gutentags_generate_on_write|.
                        Defaults to 1.

                                                *gutentags_generate_on_write*
g:gutentags_generate_on_write
                        If set to 1, Gutentags will update the current
                        project's tag file when a file inside that project is
                        saved. See |gutentags_project_root| for how Gutentags
                        locates the project.
                        When set to 0, Gutentags won't do anything on save.
                        This means that the project's tag file won't reflect
                        the latest changes, and you will have to run
                        |GutentagsUpdate| manually.
                        Defaults to 1.

                                                *gutentags_background_update*
g:gutentags_background_update
                        Specifies whether the process that updates the tags
                        file should be run in the background or in the
                        foreground. If run in the foreground, Vim will block
                        until the process is complete.
                        Defaults to 1.

                                                *gutentags_cache_dir*
g:gutentags_cache_dir
                        Specifies a directory in which to create all the tags
                        files, instead of writing them at the root of each
                        project. This is handy to keep tags files from
                        polluting many directories all across your computer.

                                            *gutentags_define_advanced_commands*
g:gutentags_define_advanced_commands
                        Defines some advanced commands like
                        |GutentagsToggleEnabled| and |GutentagsUnlock|.


=============================================================================
5. Project Settings                             *gutentags-project-settings*

Gutentags can be customized to some extent on a per-project basis with the
following files present in the project root directory:

                                                *gutentags-.ctags*
`.ctags`: if this file exists, Ctags will be told to load additional
command-line parameters by reading it line by line (see the Ctags
documentation for more information).

Note that for complex reasons, Gutentags can't always run `ctags` from the
project root, so if the `.ctags` file exists, its path will actually be passed
through the `--options=` parameter.

                                                *gutentags-.notags*
`.notags`: if this file exists, Gutentags will be disabled completely for that
project.


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