`VL wrote:
> Hello, ALL.
>
> I recently started to actively program using C and found that tools like
> ctags or cscope do not work properly for big projects. Quite ofthen they
> can't find function or symbol definition. The problem here is that they don't
> use full code parsing, but just some sort of regular expressions.
>
> I need a tool for automatic code exploration that can at least find definition
> for every symbol without problems. If you know any - please tell.
>
> Now, to gcc. It seems to me that existing and working compiler is an ideal
> place to embedd such tool - since it already knows all the things required.
>
> I have one idea: i'm almost sure that inside gcc somewhere there is a place
> (function
> i beleive) that is called each time during compilation when definition of
> something (type, variable,function...)
> found and in this place gcc has context information - source file and line
> where this definition came from.
> So if i add something like printf("DEFINITION: %s,%s,%d\n",
> info->object_type,info->src_file,info->line) into
> that place, i will get information about every thing that compiler found.
>
> What i like more about this way of getting information about symbol
> definition is that
> i get the only reference to that part of source that was actually compiled.
> I.e. if there are
> a lot of #ifdef's, it's is hard to know what part of code will be used.
>
> So, my questions is:
>
> 1) Is it possible ? Is there a single place where all information is easily
> accessible ?
> 2) If yes - where is it and where can i find details about internals of gcc?
> 3) Any good alternatives for cscope/ctags? It seemed to me that
> eclipse has some good framework, but it looks to be too much integrated with
> it...
All the information you need is in the debuginfo that is embedded in the
object files. Existing binutils can read this info -- all you have to do is
import it.
Andrew.
