ctags Internal API

Input text stream

Function prototypes for handling input text stream are declared in main/read.h. The file exists in Exuberant Ctags, too. However, the names functions are changed when overhauling --line-directive option. (In addition macros were converted to functions for making data structures for the input text stream opaque.)

Ctags has 3 groups of functions for handling input: input, bypass, and raw. Parser developers should use input group. The rest of two are for ctags main part.

inputFile type and the functions of input group

Note

The original version of this section was written before inputFile type and File variable are made private.

inputFile is the type for representing the input file and stream for a parser. It was declared in main/read.h but now it is defined in main/read.c.

Ctags uses a file static variable File having type inputFile for maintaining the input file and stream. File is also defined in main/read.c as inputFile is.

fp and line are the essential fields of File. fp having type well known MIO declared in main/mio.h. By calling functions of input group (getcFromInputFile and readLineFromInputFile), a parser gets input text from fp.

The functions of input group updates fields input and source of File variable. These two fields has type inputFileInfo. These two fields are for mainly tracking the name of file and the current line number. Usually ctags uses only input field. source field is used only when #line directive is found in the current input text stream.

A case when a tool generates the input file from another file, a tool can record the original source file to the generated file with using the #line directive. source field is used for tracking/recording the information appeared on #line directives.

Regex pattern matching are also done behind calling the functions of this group.

The functions of bypass group

The functions of bypass group (readLineFromBypass and readLineFromBypassSlow) are used for reading text from fp field of File static variable without updating input and source fields of File variable.

Parsers may not need the functions of this group. The functions are used in ctags main part. The functions are used to make pattern fields of tags file, for example.

The functions of raw group

The functions of this group (readLineRaw and readLineRawWithNoSeek) take a parameter having type MIO; and don’t touch File static variable.

Parsers may not need the functions of this group. The functions are used in ctags main part. The functions are used to load option files, for example.

promise API

Note

Currently the tagging via promise API is disabled by default. Use --extras=+g option for enabling it.

Background and Idea

More than one programming languages can be used in one input text stream. promise API allows a host parser running a guest parser in the specified area of input text stream.

e.g. Code written in c language (C code) is embedded in code written in Yacc language (Yacc code). Let’s think about this input stream.

/* foo.y */
 %token
         END_OF_FILE 0
         ERROR               255
         BELL                1

 %{
 /* C language */
 int counter;
 %}
 %right      EQUALS
 %left       PLUS MINUS
 ...
 %%
 CfgFile             :       CfgEntryList
                         { InterpretConfigs($1); }
                 ;

 ...
 %%
 int
 yyerror(char *s)
 {
     (void)fprintf(stderr,"%s: line %d of %s\n",s,lineNum,
                                         (scanFile?scanFile:"(unknown)"));
     if (scanStr)
         (void)fprintf(stderr,"last scanned symbol is: %s\n",scanStr);
     return 1;
 }

In the input the area started from %{ to %} and the area started from the second %% to the end of file are written in C. Yacc can be called host language, and C can be called guest language.

Ctags may choose the Yacc parser for the input. However, the parser doesn’t know about C syntax. Implementing C parser in the Yacc parser is one of approach. However, ctags has already C parser. The Yacc parser should utilize the existing C parser. The promise API allows this.

More examples are in “Applying a parser to specified areas of input file”.

Usage

See a commit titled with “Yacc: run C parser in the areas where code is written in C”. I applied promise API to the Yacc parser.

The parser for host language must track and record the start and the end of a guest language. Pairs of line number and byte offset represents the start and end. When the start and end are fixed, call makePromise with (1) the guest parser name, (2) start, and (3) end. (This description is a bit simplified the real usage.)

Let’s see the actual code from parsers/yacc.c.

struct cStart {
        unsigned long input;
        unsigned long source;
};

Both fields are for recording start. input field is for recording the value returned from getInputLineNumber. source is for getSourceLineNumber. See “inputFile” for the difference of the two.

enter_c_prologue shown in the next is a function called when %{ is found in the current input text stream. Remember, in yacc syntax, %{ is a marker of C code area.

static void enter_c_prologue (const char *line CTAGS_ATTR_UNUSED,
                             const regexMatch *matches CTAGS_ATTR_UNUSED,
                             unsigned int count CTAGS_ATTR_UNUSED,
                             void *data)
{
       struct cStart *cstart = data;


       readLineFromInputFile ();
       cstart->input  = getInputLineNumber ();
       cstart->source = getSourceLineNumber ();
}

The function just records the start line. It calls readLineFromInputFile because the C code may start the next line of the line where the marker is.

leave_c_prologue shown in the next is a function called when %}, the end marker of C code area, is found in the current input text stream.

static void leave_c_prologue (const char *line CTAGS_ATTR_UNUSED,
                             const regexMatch *matches CTAGS_ATTR_UNUSED,
                             unsigned int count CTAGS_ATTR_UNUSED,
                             void *data)
{
       struct cStart *cstart = data;
       unsigned long c_end;

       c_end = getInputLineNumber ();
       makePromise ("C", cstart->input, 0, c_end, 0, cstart->source);
}

After recording the line number of the end of the C code area, leave_c_prologue calls makePromise.

Of course "C" stands for C language, the name of guest parser. Available parser names can be listed by running ctags with --list-languages option. In this example two 0 characters are provided as the 3rd and 5th argument. They are byte offsets of the start and the end of the C language area from the beginning of the line which is 0 in this case. In general, the guest language’s section does not have to start at the beginning of the line in which case the two offsets have to be provided. Compilers reading the input character by character can obtain the current offset by calling getInputLineOffset().

Internal design

A host parser cannot run a guest parser directly. What the host parser can do is just asking the ctags main part scheduling of running the guest parser for specified area which defined with the start and end. These scheduling requests are called promises.

After running the host parser, before closing the input stream, the ctags main part checks the existence of promise(s). If there is, the main part makes a sub input stream and run the guest parser specified in the promise. The sub input stream is made from the original input stream by narrowing as requested in the promise. The main part iterates the above process till there is no promise.

Theoretically a guest parser can be nested; it can make a promise. The level 2 guest is also just scheduled. (However, I have never tested such a nested guest parser).

Why not running the guest parser directly from the context of the host parser? Remember many parsers have their own file static variables. If a parser is called from the parser, the variables may be crashed.

Automatic parser guessing

Managing regular expression parsers

Parser written in C

tokenInfo API

In Exuberant Ctags, a developer can write a parser anyway; only input stream and tagEntryInfo data structure is given.

However, while maintaining Universal Ctags I (Masatake YAMATO) think we should have a framework for writing parser. Of course the framework is optional; you can still write a parser without the framework.

To design a framework, I have studied how @b4n (Colomban Wendling) writes parsers. tokenInfo API is the first fruit of my study.

TBW

Output tag stream

Ctags provides makeTagEntry to parsers as an entry point for writing tag information to MIO. makeTagEntry calls writeTagEntry if the parser does not set useCork field. writeTagEntry calls writerWriteTag. writerWriteTag just calls writeEntry of writer backends. writerTable variable holds the four backends: ctagsWriter, etagsWriter, xrefWriter, and jsonWriter. One of them is chosen depending on the arguments passed to ctags.

If useCork is set, the tag information goes to a queue on memory. The queue is flushed when useCork in unset. See “cork API” for more details.

cork API

Background and Idea

cork API is introduced for recording scope information easier.

Before introducing cork API, a scope information must be recorded as strings. It is flexible but memory management is required. Following code is taken from clojure.c (with some modifications).

if (vStringLength (parent) > 0)
{
        current.extensionFields.scope[0] = ClojureKinds[K_NAMESPACE].name;
        current.extensionFields.scope[1] = vStringValue (parent);
}

makeTagEntry (&current);

parent, scope [0] and scope [1] are vStrings. The parser must manage their life cycles; the parser cannot free them till the tag referring them via its scope fields are emitted, and must free them after emitting.

cork API provides more solid way to hold scope information. cork API expects parent, which represents scope of a tag(current) currently parser dealing, is recorded to a tags file before recording the current tag via makeTagEntry function.

For passing the information about parent to makeTagEntry, tagEntryInfo object was created. It was used just for recording; and freed after recording. In cork API, it is not freed after recording; a parser can reused it as scope information.

How to use

See a commit titled with “clojure: use cork”. I applied cork API to the clojure parser.

Cork API can be enabled and disabled per parser, and is disabled by default. So there is no impact till you enables it in your parser.

useCork field is introduced in parserDefinition type:

typedef struct {
...
                unsigned int useCork;
...
} parserDefinition;

Set CORK_QUEUE to useCork like:

extern parserDefinition *ClojureParser (void)
{
        ...
        parserDefinition *def = parserNew ("Clojure");
        ...
        def->useCork = CORK_QUEUE;
        return def;
}

When ctags running a parser with useCork being CORK_QUEUE, all output requested via makeTagEntry function calling is stored to an internal queue, not to tags file. When parsing an input file is done, the tag information stored automatically to the queue are flushed to tags file in batch.

When calling makeTagEntry with a tagEntryInfo object (parent), it returns an integer. The integer can be used as handle for referring the object after calling.

static int parent = CORK_NIL;
...
parent = makeTagEntry (&e);

The handle can be used by setting to a scopeIndex field of current tag, which is in the scope of parent.

current.extensionFields.scopeIndex = parent;

When passing current to makeTagEntry, the scopeIndex is referred for emitting the scope information of current.

scopeIndex must be set to CORK_NIL if a tag is not in any scope. When using scopeIndex of current, NULL must be assigned to both current.extensionFields.scope[0] and current.extensionFields.scope[1]. initTagEntry function does this initialization internally, so you generally you don’t have to write the initialization explicitly.

Automatic full qualified tag generation

If a parser uses the cork API for recording and emitting scope information, ctags can reuse it for generating full qualified (FQ) tags. Set requestAutomaticFQTag field of parserDefinition to TRUE then the main part of ctags emits FQ tags on behalf of the parser if --extras=+q is given.

An example can be found in DTS parser:

extern parserDefinition* DTSParser (void)
{
        static const char *const extensions [] = { "dts", "dtsi", NULL };
        parserDefinition* const def = parserNew ("DTS");
        ...
        def->requestAutomaticFQTag = TRUE;
        return def;
}

Setting requestAutomaticFQTag to TRUE implies setting useCork to CORK_QUEUE.

PackCC compiler-compiler

PackCC is a compiler-compiler; it translates .peg grammar file to .c file. PackCC was originally written by Arihiro Yoshida. Its source repository is at https://github.com/arithy/packcc.

The source tree of PackCC is grafted at misc/packcc directory. Building PackCC and ctags are integrated in the build-scripts of Universal Ctags.

Refer peg/valink.peg as a sample of a parser using PackCC.