view etc/ETAGS.EBNF @ 54086:86e93d3ccc6e

Undo 2004-02-16 and 2004-02-17 changes. The following changes are relative to the 2004-01-21 revision. (NREAD_INPUT_EVENTS): Define as max number of input events to read in one call to read_socket_hook. Value is 8. (read_avail_input): Separate and rework handling of read_socket_hook and non-read_socket_hook cases. Use smaller input_event buffer in read_socket_hook case, and repeat if full buffer is read. Use new local variable 'discard' to skip input after C-g. In non-read_socket_hook case, just use a single input_event, and call kbd_buffer_store_event on the fly for each character.

-*- indented-text -*-

This file contains two sections:

1) An EBNF (Extended Backus Normal Form) description of the format of
    the tags file created by etags.c and interpreted by etags.el;
2) A discussion of tag names and implicit tag names.

====================== 1) EBNF tag file description =====================

Productions created from current behaviour to aid extensions
Francesco Potorti` <[e-mail]> 2002
----------------

FF ::= #x0c				   /* tag section starter */

LF ::= #x0a				   /* line terminator */

DEL ::= #x7f				   /* pattern terminator */

SOH ::= #x01				   /* name terminator */

regchar ::= [^#x0a#x0c#x7f]		   /* regular character */

regstring ::= { regchar }		   /* regular string */

unsint ::= [0-9] { [0-9] }		   /* non-negative integer */



tagfile ::= { tagsection }		   /* a tags file */

tagsection ::= FF LF ( includesec | regularsec ) LF

includesec ::= filename ",include" [ LF fileprop ]

regularsec ::= filename "," [ unsint ] [ LF fileprop ] { LF tag }

filename ::= regchar regstring		   /* a file name */

fileprop ::= "(" regstring ")"		   /* an elisp alist */

tag ::= directtag | patterntag

directtag ::= DEL realposition		   /* no pattern */

patterntag ::= pattern DEL [ tagname SOH ] position

pattern ::= regstring			   /* a tag pattern */

tagname ::= regchar regstring		   /* a tag name */

position ::= realposition | "," 	   /* charpos,linepos */

realposition ::= "," unsint | unsint "," | unsint "," unsint

==================== end of EBNF tag file description ====================



======================= 2) discussion of tag names =======================

- WHAT ARE TAG NAMES
Tag lines in a tags file are usually made from the above defined pattern
and by an optional tag name.  The pattern is a string that is searched
in the source file to find the tagged line.

- WHY TAG NAMES ARE GOOD
When a user looks for a tag, Emacs first compares the tag with the tag
names contained in the tags file.  If no match is found, Emacs compares
the tag with the patterns.  The tag name is then the preferred way to
look for tags in the tags file, because when the tag name is present
Emacs can find a tag faster and more accurately.  These tag names are
part of tag lines in the tags file, so we call them "explicit".

- WHY IMPLICIT TAG NAMES ARE EVEN BETTER
When a tag line has no name, but a name can be deduced from the pattern,
we say that the tag line has an implicit tag name.  Often tag names are
redundant; this happens when the name of a tag is an easily guessable
substring of the tag pattern.  We define a set of rules to decide
whether it is possible to deduce the tag name from the pattern, and make
an unnamed tag in those cases.  The name deduced from the pattern of an
unnamed tag is the implicit name of that tag.
  When the user looks for a tag, and Emacs founds no explicit tag names
that match it, Emacs then looks for an tag whose implicit tag name
matches the request.  etags.c uses implicit tag names when possible, in
order to reduce the size of the tags file.
  An implicit tag name is deduced from the pattern by discarding the
last character if it is one of ` \f\t\n\r()=,;', then taking all the
rightmost consecutive characters in the pattern which are not one of
those.

===================== end of discussion of tag names =====================