changeset 103078:ffe7eb45a537

(Tags): Clarify the text some more.
author Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org>
date Sun, 26 Apr 2009 18:07:29 +0000
parents 71fd1fed0dfd
children 479179722385
files doc/emacs/maintaining.texi
diffstat 1 files changed, 24 insertions(+), 24 deletions(-) [+]
line wrap: on
line diff
--- a/doc/emacs/maintaining.texi	Sun Apr 26 02:35:48 2009 +0000
+++ b/doc/emacs/maintaining.texi	Sun Apr 26 18:07:29 2009 +0000
@@ -1480,34 +1480,34 @@
 @section Tags Tables
 @cindex tags and tag tables
 
-  A @dfn{tag} is a named subunit of a program or of a document.  In
-program source code, tags are syntactic elements of the program:
-functions, subroutines, data types, macros, etc.  In a document, tags
-are chapters, sections, appendices, etc.
+  A @dfn{tag} is a reference to a subunit in a program or in a
+document.  In program source code, tags reference syntactic elements
+of the program: functions, subroutines, data types, macros, etc.  In a
+document, tags reference chapters, sections, appendices, etc.  Each
+tag specifies the file name on which the corresponding subunit is
+defined, and the position of the subunit's definition in that file.
 
-  A @dfn{tags table} records the names of the tags extracted from the
-source code of a certain program or from a certain document.  Each tag
-is listed together with the file name on which it is defined, and the
-position of the tag in that file.  Tags extracted from generated files
-reference the original file from which they were generated, rather
-than the file from which these tags were extracted.  Examples of
-generated files include C files generated from Cweb source files, from
-a Yacc parser, or from Lex scanner definitions; @file{.i} preprocessed
-C files; and Fortran files produced by preprocessing @file{.fpp}
-source files.
+  A @dfn{tags table} records the tags extracted by scanning the source
+code of a certain program or a certain document.  Tags extracted from
+generated files reference subunits in the original files, rather than
+the generated files that were scanned during tag extraction.  Examples
+of generated files include C files generated from Cweb source files,
+from a Yacc parser, or from Lex scanner definitions; @file{.i}
+preprocessed C files; and Fortran files produced by preprocessing
+@file{.fpp} source files.
 
-  Tags tables are produced by scanning a document or the source code
-of a program with a special program called @samp{etags}, and stored in
-files called @dfn{tags table files}.  The conventional name for a tags
-table file is @file{TAGS}.
+  To produce tags tables, you use the @samp{etags} command, submitting
+it a document or the source code of a program.  @samp{etags} writes
+the tags to files called @dfn{tags table files}, or @dfn{tags file} in
+short.  The conventional name for a tags file is @file{TAGS}.
 
   Emacs uses the information recorded in tags tables in commands that
-search or replace through multiple files: these commands use the names
-of the source files recorded in the tags table to know which files to
-search.  Other commands, such as @kbd{M-.}, which finds the definition
-of a function, use the recorded information about the function names
-and positions to find the source file and the position within that
-file where the function is defined.
+search or replace through multiple source files: these commands use
+the names of the source files recorded in the tags table to know which
+files to search.  Other commands, such as @kbd{M-.}, which finds the
+definition of a function, use the recorded information about the
+function names and positions to find the source file and the position
+within that file where the function is defined.
 
 @cindex C++ class browser, tags
 @cindex tags, C++