Exuberant Ctags on Mac

Question

I'm currently using vim for my PHP development. A few weeks ago I bought myself a mac, and wanted to re-generate my tags for a new Zend Framework version.

I used the following script in the past (linux machine) to generate the tags:

#!/bin/bash
cd ~/www/ZF/     
ctags-exuberant -f ~/.vim/tags/zend \
-h ".php" -R \
--exclude="\.svn" \
--totals=yes \
--tag-relative=yes \
--PHP-kinds=+cf \
--regex-PHP='/abstract class ([^ ]*)/\1/c/' \
--regex-PHP='/interface ([^ ]*)/\1/c/' \
--regex-PHP='/(public |static |abstract |protected |private )+function ([^ (]*)/\2/f/'

You can see I used the "ctags-exuberant" command. The problem is that this isn't found on my system (mac). I only have the ctags command. I tried installing the newest version of the ctags library (http://ctags.sourceforge.net/) but didn't gave me that command.

The ctags command does not have the same parameters as the ctags-exuberant. So 2 questions:

• What's the difference between the 2 commands?
• How can I install ctags-exuberant or use the normal ctags command for PHP?

Thanks! Ward

Counterpoison

Answer 1

Install MacPorts, then do:

port install ctags

Encyst

Mac OS X's default ctags is the basic ctags, Exuberant ctags is an improvement over ctags. – Encyst

people, we are supposed to downvote innaccurate or misleading answers, not perfectly valid answers that happen to not use our prefered tool. – Encyst

it's not about preferred tool @romaini . the question was asking about exuberant ctags, not ctags. they are different things. – Compose

@masukomi, the "ctags" you get via MacPorts is "exuberant ctags". – Encyst

doh! my apologies @romaini – Compose

Answer 2

Install Homebrew, then do:

brew install ctags

Megathere

Sorry, Daniel, but we don't moderate for technical accuracy. How about I give you an upvote instead? – Weightless

Looks like it is just ctags now. For Mac Os 10.8 (Mountain Lion) beware because GNU ctags is already on the path (this might have come out of the box or with XCode). You will have to make sure your brew path has a higher precedence then /usr/bin. – Contend

@JamesMcMahon How should one go about doing that? (I'm a recent convert from Linux to MacOS, so I'm still figuring out things like Homebrew) – Boehmenist

@Boehmenist echo "/usr/local/bin/\n$(cat /etc/paths)" | sudo tee -a /etc/paths – Aurita

or just edit /etc/paths as superuser and specify the correct order. brew also warns you about this when you run 'brew doctor' – Symbolist

This will install plain catas, now exuberant-ctags – Colloquium

As @JamesMcMahon Mac OS users should be aware of the installation path. One can fix the path by these simple steps: gist.github.com/nazgob/1570678 – Mammillary

Answer 3

For a more friendly way to do this instead of using mac-ports or homebrew and running the risk of causing errors download ctags from here and compile with xcode (starting with version 4.3 command line tools are not installed by default but rather through Preferences -> Downloads) then simply move the compiled ctags to /usr/bin/ctags-exuberant to preserve the original.

Commands Used:

Change Directory to Downloads and ctags directory:

$cd
$cd Down<tab>ctags<tab>

Configure:

$./configure

Make:

$make

Move to /usr/bin:

$sudo mv ctags /usr/bin/ctags-exuberant

NOTE: <tab> is equal to pressing the tab key.
NOTE: XCode can now be downloaded from the Apple App Store!

Very useful for getting Tagbar for vim to work! Tagbar is available here.

Babin

Since I already have my Mac configured with xcode, and I don't have macports or homebrew installed, this was the best solution for me. – Matterhorn

Make sure to download the ctags tar.gz file, NOT the .zip file. Sourceforge may give you the '.zip' file, which does not contain the ./configure file you need for this. You may have to dig around a bit on the Sourceforge site to find the tar.gz file. – Huppert

Thank you for the solution! The brew and macports solutions are starting to get annoying. Some people do not want to install viruses for doing something simple. – Osmen