ctags doesn't understand -e option (no exuberant tags option)

Question

When I type ctags -e it returns an error saying it doesn't know that command line option. I thought it should know about exuberant tags because etags works on cli.

Also, I recieve the following error: ctags: unrecognized option --langdef=arc and I have the following in my ~/.ctags file:

--langdef=arc
--langmap=arc:.arc
--regex-arc=/^\(def ([a-zA-Z1-9_*\/<>-]+)/\1/
--regex-arc=/^\(= ([a-zA-Z1-9_*\/<>-]+)/\1/
--regex-scheme=/^\(xdef ([a-zA-Z1-9_*\/<>-]+)/\1/

Luciennelucier

The string "unrecognized" doesn't appear anywhere in exuberant-ctags, so I'm curious how you're getting that error. Are you sure you're actually running /usr/bin/ctags? – Cchaddie

Answer 1

etags is short for "Emacs tags", not "exuberant ctags". It sounds like you have Emacs' etags command installed, not exuberant-ctags'.

Cchaddie

Thank you for the clarification! many things start making more sense :) – Luciennelucier

Answer 2

It turns out that my system has basic ctags installed, but not exuberant-ctags. so even though some etags command existed, exuberant-ctags is still different in some way or another.

sudo apt-get install ctags fixed the problem

Luciennelucier

Answer 3

sudo apt-get install exuberant-ctags 

solved the problem for me. I was running Debian Jessie on an ARM development board, cubietruck.

Sensorium

Answer 4

On windows, Emacs comes with etags and a similar executable file called ctags. In the emacs distribution, etags.exe = ctags.exe in the bin directory. You should download Exuberant Ctags from http://ctags.sourceforge.net/ Only exuberant ctags recognize -e option.

Endocardium

Answer 5

I had the same issue, but my error occurred because I had installed emacs with flatpak which came bundled with its own version of ctags, distinct from the one I installed with my linux package manager.

In such case the solution is to either specify the ctags path in the emacs config or use the normal non flatpak version.

Langue