[SOLVED] Software to read through source code hierarchies?

greatbear · 08-25-2013, 12:13 PM

Hi, I'm wondering what is the best way to sift through a source code hierarchy?

I have little programming experience at all, except for a little Pascal, TurboC and some scripting. I do know Vi basics and would be willing to expand my knowledge of that, but I don't know what my options are. I would like some software with the look of Midnight Commander that helps summarize and arrange the source-code on screen and that would allow me to follow definitions between source files. In my case it is for Debian GNU, but do not limit your reply based on the OS.

I am hoping for open source software, but feel free to mention commercial software as well for the sake of anyone else reading the thread. Any suggestions will be appreciated!

firstfire · 08-25-2013, 01:57 PM

Hi.

ctags should be mentioned here. It has no dedicated GUI or TUI, but some text editors support it, e.g. vim. Typical usage looks like (assuming Debian/vim/C):

Code:

$ sudo apt-get install exuberant-ctags
$ cd <source directory>
$ ctags-exuberant -R # this will create the `tags' file in current directory
$ vim -t main # jump to the file with  main(){...};

Enter `:help tags' in vim to get documentation about keybindings etc. Here is a couple of shortcuts to get started:

Code:

CTRL-]    Jump to the definition of the word under cursor.
CTRL-T   Jump back.

greatbear · 08-26-2013, 11:53 AM

Thank you, firstfire, that looks like it will be very helpful!

mariostg · 08-26-2013, 07:36 PM

You might want to look at doxygen too. It creates documentation from your source files. It can also creates dependency diagrams.

greatbear · 08-30-2013, 01:25 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mariostg

You might want to look at doxygen too. It creates documentation from your source files. It can also creates dependency diagrams.

I thought I'd get back to you on Doxygen. I installed Doxygen on Debian Wheezy (A64), and I used it to take a look at the source code for Mplayer (a huge pile of 'Self Documenting' source code). After installation of Doxygen I found 'Doxywizard' in my menu. I put in the various file paths and added some checks to check boxes in the 'Expert' section, and Doxygen did an excellent job. There was an additional package (Graphviz) I had to "apt-get install" myself to enable Doxygen to automatically create graphs. Then it made graphs and even did them in .svg format. Additionally Doxygen can create tag files, and the developers are talking about adding what they call Autogen support. I'm very impressed with it.