GNU GLOBAL source code tag system

GNU GLOBAL is a source code tagging system that works the same wayacross diverse environments (emacs, vi, less, bash, web browser, etc).You can locate objects in source files and move there easily.It is useful for hacking a large project containing many subdirectories,many #ifdef and many main() functions.It is similar to ctags or etags but is different from them at the point ofindependence of any editor.It runs on a UNIX(POSIX) compatible operating system like GNU and BSD.

GNU GLOBAL is part of the GNU project,and is free software.You can freely copy, modify and redistribute this program underGNU GPL.

GNU GLOBAL is also commercial (for-profit) software based onBOKIN model.

GNU GLOBAL has following features:

• support C, C++, Yacc, Java and PHP4.
• work the same way across diverse environments. Currently, the following environments are supported:
  • Generic shell command line
  • Bash shell
  • Vi clone editor (nvi, elvis, vim)
  • Emacs editor
  • Less viewer
  • Web browser(See UNIX kernel source tour!.)
  • Doxygen documentation system
• find locations of the specified object quickly.
• locate not only object definitions but also object references.
• allow duplicate objects.
• locate paths which matches to the specified pattern.
• treat a source tree containing subdirectories as a project.
• search not only in a project but also in library paths.
• understand POSIX 1003.2 regular expressions.
• external search engine (grep and idutils) is available.
• generate a hypertext of source code (XHTML ready).
• tag files are independent of machine architecture.
• plugged-in parser is available to treat new language.
• compact format to save disk space.
• incremental updating of tag files.
• customizing with a configuration file (gtags.conf).
• generate completion list for completing input method.

Please also see "Comparison with Similar Tools"in the OpenGrok project site for comparison with other tools.

If you have a plan to make a yet another editor with tag facility,you can use GLOBAL as the tag system.