That was me. :-)
I just ran etags on the aolserver source and M-. in emacs, very cool.
The worst part of looking at source was trying to find where stuff is
defined -- but no more!
Jerry Asher wrote:
>
> >AOLserver itself is a very clean piece of code. I know it sucks to say,
> >read the code, but in this case, the code, emacs, a tag file, and the
> >various communities can get you pretty far.
>
> Earlier someone asked what a tag file is.... (I apologize, I took my
> system down to replace some components and came back up to discover my MX
> provider had changed servers without notifying me....)
>
> Basically tag tables are a typically a project specific description of the
> files and entrypoints that make up a software in the project. Generated by
> etags, tag tables are used by emacs as a source of project metadata. It
> enables the user to go directly to the source of a function, procedure, or
> method. It enables the user to search through all the files in a project
> for some specific string.
>
> It's part of the 80% solution that makes emacs into an IDE. Folks have
> used etags and some regular expression strings to support LISP, C, Tcl, Tcl
> with ACS extensions, and PL/SQL. And many other languages I am sure.
>
> Here's what emacs has to say about the subject:
>
> > A "tags table" is a description of how a multi-file program is
> >broken up into files. It lists the names of the component files and the
> >names and positions of the functions (or other named subunits) in each
> >file. Grouping the related files makes it possible to search or replace
> >through all the files with one command. Recording the function names
> >and positions makes possible the `M-.' command which finds the
> >definition of a function by looking up which of the files it is in.
> >
> > Tags tables are stored in files called "tags table files". The
> >conventional name for a tags table file is `TAGS'.
> >
> > Each entry in the tags table records the name of one tag, the name
> >of the file that the tag is defined in (implicitly), and the position
> >in that file of the tag's definition.
> >
> > Just what names from the described files are recorded in the tags
> >table depends on the programming language of the described file. They
> >normally include all functions and subroutines, and may also include
> >global variables, data types, and anything else convenient. Each name
> >recorded is called a "tag".
>
> Enjoy,
>
> Jerry
> =====================================================
> Jerry Asher [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> 1678 Shattuck Avenue Suite 161 Tel: (510) 549-2980
> Berkeley, CA 94709 Fax: (877) 311-8688
