ctags fork question

[NicoHood]

As you already know I am packaging arduino for arch and I want to get rid of the shipped ctags binary. I tried to link to the upstream ctags, but that gave me some compile errors:

expected constructor, destructor, or type conversion before ';' token

Is this ctags a special patched version of ctags which cannot be replaced by upstream? If so, why dont you upload your fixes to upstream, so we do not need to suplicate software?

[cmaglie]

This repo started as a fork of exhuberant-ctags, but maybe it's better to rebase the changes to universal-ctags, see #2 (Rebase to universal-ctags). It may be not easy to do and it's even harder to test.

arduino-builder has a good set of tests BTW, if the test-suite passes using universal-ctags it may be a good sign that moving to universal-ctags is feasible.

As always time is a factor...

[NicoHood]

On arch it seems that we use exhuberant-ctags, but it gives me the described error. https://www.archlinux.org/packages/extra/x86_64/ctags/

So I guess your fork has some patched that are not applied upstream. Whatever upstream you use, it would be nice to patch their upstream version instead of using a fork. That'd make it easier to integrate into linux distributions and produce less binary duplication. Mostly one of the reasons why linux is better than windows.

[cmaglie]

So I guess your fork has some patched that are not applied upstream.

Yes, those are the patches: https://github.com/arduino/ctags/commits/master

Whatever upstream you use, it would be nice to patch their upstream version instead of using a fork.

As you can see from the git history this repo is originally based on the latest release of exhuberant ctags http://ctags.sourceforge.net/, the version 5.8 to be precise. Relased on 09 July 2009. This makes me think that any attempt to provide patch upstream to exhuberant-ctags is just a waste of time.

Probably the best move to do right now, is to try to rebase all the patches on top of univeral-ctags that seems the most active and maintained fork of ctags as @masatake suggested in #2

That'd make it easier to integrate into linux distributions and produce less binary duplication. Mostly one of the reasons why linux is better than windows.

Of course :-)

[masatake]

Yes, those are the patches: https://github.com/arduino/ctags/commits/master

Do you have test cases for the changes ?

[NicoHood]

The patches seem to be a bit larger, so I cannot simply use the upstream ctags. https://github.com/arduino/ctags/compare/df072805f78ee08ba135f6fb70f29b6e17166b25...master

It looks that @masatake is willing to adapt any arduino related changes which would be great.

[masatake]

@NicoHood,

For merging the efforst, test cases that show the intent of changes are needed.

See http://docs.ctags.io/en/latest/units.html

[rockstorm101]

Hi guys, I know the issue is old, but what's the status of this? Is there still a plan to "migrate" to universal ctags? Or will this repository be deprecated along with arduino-builder as soon as arduino-cli is released?

CC @cmaglie @facchinm

[facchinm]

Hi @rockstorm101 , this fork of ctags is going to stay around for a bit (arduino-cli still uses it). The big plan is to get rid of it sooner or later but surely not before the cli gets a stable release.

[massonal]

Hello @facchinm I'm currently trying to replicate the sketch build process. As you know, for now it uses this fork of ctags (arduino-cli v.0.21). However, I find the requirement of shipping/embedding this tool cumbersome for my users, especially since it can't be replaced with exuberant-ctags nor universal-ctags (e.g., because of the undocumented T field).

You mentioned you wanted to get rid of it eventually; how do you mean to replace it? Is the will for change even still there? Or is "the cli gets a stable release" too far away in the future to even consider this?

Hi @rockstorm101 , this fork of ctags is going to stay around for a bit (arduino-cli still uses it). The big plan is to get rid of it sooner or later but surely not before the cli gets a stable release.

CC @fpistm

[facchinm]

Hi @massonal , @arduino/team_tooling is now in charge of the tooling side :slightly_smiling_face: Removing 'ctags` proved to be very complicated, since all the alternatives (like https://github.com/arduino/arduino-preprocessor, based on clang) have shortcomings in one or more usecases.

[massonal]

Ok, thanks for the update! For the moment I'll make do with ctags then, and I stay tuned for updates on arduino-preprocessor 👍.