Generally Vim is used in conjunction with other powerful tools like ctags and gdb. ctags is for very rapid navigation through millions of lines of "C/C++" code and gdb is for debugging the "C/C++" code. A brief introduction of these two indispensable commands will be given in this chapter.
ctags is the most powerful command available for coding C, C++, Java, Perl, Korn/Bourne shell scripts or Fortran. Developers very extensively use ctags to navigate through thousands of functions within C/C++ programs. See 'man ctags' on Unix. It is very important that you learn how to use ctags to develop programs in C or C++, Java, etc.. Navigation is the single most important task while doing development of C or C++ code. Using ctags you can very quickly read the code by jumping from a calling line to the called function, drill down deeper into nested function calls, and unwind back all the way up to the top. You can go back and forth from function to function very quickly.
Without NAVIGATION you will be completely lost! ctags is like the magnetic COMPASS needle for the programmers.
Usage of ctags :
ctags *.cpp
gvim -t foo_function
gvim -t main
Inside the Vim editor, you can jump to a function by typing : (colon) tag < function name >as below -
:tag sample_function
If you want to jump into the function from a line in file which contains the function name, place the cursor just before the function name and press CTRL+] (press control key and left-square-bracket key simultaneously).
// example code
switch(id_number) {
Case 1:
if ( foo_function( 22, "abcef") == 3 )
^
|
|
|
Place the cursor here (just before foo_function) and press CTRL+]
This takes you to the function named "foo_function".
To come back to this line press CTRL+t
Since ctags does not directly support the Embedded SQL/C (ESQL) language, the following shell script can be used to create tags for esql. ESQL/C is database SQL commands embedded inside the "C" programs. Oracle's ESQL/C is called Pro*C and Sybase, Informix have ESQL/C and PostgreSQL has product "ecpg".
Save this file as "sqltags.sh" and do chmod a+rx tags_gen.sh.
#!/bin/sh
# Program to create ctags for ESQL, C++ and C files
ESQL_EXTN=pc
tag_file1=tags_file.1
tag_file2=tags_file.2
which_tag=ctags
rm -f $tag_file1 $tag_file2 tags
aa=`ls *.$ESQL_EXTN`
#echo $aa
for ii in $aa
do
#echo $ii
jj=`echo $ii | cut -d'.' -f1`
#echo $jj
if [ ! -f $jj.cpp ]; then
echo " "
echo " "
echo "***********************************************"
echo "ESQL *.cpp files does not exist.. "
echo "You must generate the *.cpp from *.pc file"
echo "using the Oracle Pro*C pre-compiler or Sybase"
echo "or Informix esql/c pre-compiler."
echo "And then re-run this command"
echo "***********************************************"
echo " "
exit
fi
rm -f tags
$which_tag $jj.cpp
kk=s/$jj\.cpp/$jj\.pc/g
#echo $kk > sed.tmp
#sed -f sed.tmp tags >> $tag_file1
#sed -e's/sample\.cpp/sample\.pc/g' tags >> $tag_file1
sed -e $kk tags >> $tag_file1
done
# Now handle all the C++/C files - exclude the ESQL *.cpp files
rm -f tags $tag_file2
bb=`ls *.cpp *.c`
aa=`ls *.$ESQL_EXTN`
for mm in $bb
do
ee=`echo $mm | cut -d'.' -f1`
file_type="NOT_ESQL"
# Exclude the ESQL *.cpp and *.c files
for nn in $aa
do
dd=`echo $nn | cut -d'.' -f1`
if [ "$dd" = "$ee" ]; then
file_type="ESQL"
break
fi
done
if [ "$file_type" = "ESQL" ]; then
continue
fi
rm -f tags
$which_tag $mm
cat tags >> $tag_file2
done
mv -f $tag_file2 tags
cat $tag_file1 >> tags
rm -f $tag_file1
# Must sort tags file for it work properly ....
sort tags > $tag_file1
mv $tag_file1 tags
The shell script given below can be used to generate tags for a very large variety of programs written in JavaScript, PHP/FI scripts, Korn shell, C shell, Bourne shell and many others. This is a very generic module.
Save this file as tags_gen.sh and do chmod a+rx tags_gen.sh.
#!/bin/sh
tmp_tag=tags_file
tmp_tag2=tags_file2
echo " "
echo " "
echo " "
echo " "
echo " "
echo "Generate tags for ...."
while :
do
echo " Enter file extension for which you want to generate tags."
echo -n " File-extension should be like sh, js, ksh, etc... : "
read ans
if [ "$ans" == "" ]; then
echo " "
echo "Wrong entry. Try again!"
else
break
fi
done
\rm -f $tmp_tag
aa=`ls *.$ans`
for ii in $aa
do
jj=`echo $ii | cut -d'.' -f1`
#echo $jj
cp $ii $jj.c
ctags $jj.c
echo "s/$jj.c/$ii/g" > $tmp_tag2
sed -f $tmp_tag2 tags >> $tmp_tag
\rm -f tags $jj.c
done
sort $tmp_tag > tags
\rm -f $tmp_tag $tmp_tag2
You would be using gdb extensively along with Vi. Debugging is the most important aspect of programming as the major cost of software projects goes into debugging and testing.
To debug C++/C programs use 'gdb' tool. See 'man gdb'. You must compile your programs with -g3 option like
gcc -g3 foo.c foo_another.c sample.c
To set up easy aliases do -
Setup an alias in your ~/.bash_profile
alias gdb='gdb -directory=/home/src -directory=/usr/myname/src '
Give -
gdb foo.cpp
gdb> dir /hom2/another_src
This will add to file search path
gdb> break 'some_class::func<TAB><TAB>
This will complete the function name saving you typing time... and will output like -
gdb> break 'some_class::function_foo_some_where(int aa, float bb)'
Pressing TAB key twice is the command line completion, which will save you lots of typing time. This is one of the most important technique of using gdb.
To get online help do -
gdb> help
Gives online help
gdb> help breakpoints
Gives more details about breakpoints.
To set breakpoints and do debugging
unixprompt> gdb exe_filename
gdb> b main
This will put breakpoint in main() function
gdb> b 123
This will put breakpoint in line 123 of the current file
gdb> help breakpoints
Gives more details about breakpoints.
To analyze the core dumps do
unixprompt> gdb exe_filename core
gdb> bt
Gives backtrace of functions and line numbers where the program failed
gdb> help backtrace
Gives more details about backtrace.
You can also use GUI version of gdb called xxgdb.
Memory leak tools -