strange file named tags into home dir

mitusf · 11-19-2012, 04:15 PM

I have discovered today a strange 104 Mb file into my home directory, named "tags" with the following top content:

Quote:

!_TAG_FILE_FORMAT 2 /extended format; --format=1 will not append ;" to lines/
!_TAG_FILE_SORTED 1 /0=unsorted, 1=sorted, 2=foldcase/
!_TAG_PROGRAM_AUTHOR Darren Hiebert /dhiebert@users.sourceforge.net/
!_TAG_PROGRAM_NAME Exuberant Ctags //
!_TAG_PROGRAM_URL http://ctags.sourceforge.net /official site/
!_TAG_PROGRAM_VERSION 5.8 //

The file seems to be a ASCII file because i see normal characters in it. It seems to contain some source code concatenated together, from different locations.
Apparently was created by ctag program, as the header says, but i didn't ever install this program. It is first time i have heard about it.

Does anyone knows about this problem?

Thank you in advance.

Didier Spaier · 11-19-2012, 05:00 PM

The ctags binary is shipped in the vim package, see "man ctags" if vim is installed.

TracyTiger · 11-19-2012, 05:01 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mitusf

Apparently was created by ctag program, as the header says, but i didn't ever install this program.

Hi mitusf,

If by "this program" you're referring to the ctags program then I'll point out that /usr/bin/ctags comes with a full installation of Slackware. There is a man page explaining its purpose.

Edit: 60 seconds too late

mitusf · 11-19-2012, 05:10 PM

Thanks. But how does this file got to be created, even more with this large size - 104 Mb? More, without knowing about?

ljb643 · 11-19-2012, 07:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mitusf

Thanks. But how does this file got to be created, even more with this large size - 104 Mb? More, without knowing about?

If you run: "ctags -R" from your home directory, it will traverse your entire home tree, looking for source code files, and will make one big "tags" file in your $HOME for all of them. I'm not saying this is how it got there, but it is one way it could happen. Did you check the date/time created of "tags"? That's what I do whenever I come across a mystery file...

mitusf · 11-19-2012, 08:07 PM

Yes, i have checked and it's 11 days old. That's all i could find.

mitusf · 11-19-2012, 08:11 PM

i am thinking about the possibility, now that i know that ctags comes from the vim packet, that i accidentally triggered it from vim, with some key combinations. Of course there are others possibilities like being ran by some program that i installed recently, that does some background tasks, without asking