Power Programming with Tags

Source tagging is a powerful source code navigation system that rivals modern IDEs. If you're using Emacs, Vim, or TextMate, you can use ctags for fast code navigation. Here are the steps to set it up.

Step 1: Install ctags

For Mac:

$ sudo port install ctags

Step 2: Create a Tag File

Navigate to your project and generate tags:

$ cd /Users/username/Workspace/rails-project
$ ctags -e -a --Ruby-kinds=+f -o TAGS -R app/ lib/ config/

You can add this to your crontab to regenerate tags automatically (e.g., daily at 11:30am).

Step 3: Using Tags in Your Editor

Emacs

M-.     Follow a tag
M-*     Jump back to source

Vim

Add this to your ~/.vimrc:

set tags=TAGS;/

Then use these commands:

C-]         Go to definition
C-T         Jump back from definition
C-W C-]     Open definition in horizontal split

TextMate

TextMate can also use ctags files. Configure it to read the TAGS file in your project root. WordPress ID: 1024