cscope(1)cscope(1)NAMEcscope - interactively examine a C program
SYNOPSIScscope [options] files...
DESCRIPTIONcscope is an interactive screen-oriented tool that allows the user to
browse through C source files for specified elements of code.
By default, cscope examines the C (.c and .h), lex (.l), and yacc (.y)
source files in the current directory. cscope may also be invoked for
source files named on the command line. In either case, cscope
searches the standard directories for #include files that it does not
find in the current directory. cscope uses a symbol cross-reference,
cscope.out by default, to locate functions, function calls, macros,
variables, and preprocessor symbols in the files.
cscope builds the symbol cross-reference the first time it is used on
the source files for the program being browsed. On a subsequent invo‐
cation, cscope rebuilds the cross-reference only if a source file has
changed or the list of source files is different. When the cross-ref‐
erence is rebuilt, the data for the unchanged files are copied from the
old cross-reference, which makes rebuilding faster than the initial
build.
The following options can appear in any combination:
-b Build the cross-reference only.
-C Ignore letter case when searching.
-c Use only ASCII characters in the cross-reference file,
that is, do not compress the data.
-d Do not update the cross-reference.
-e Suppress the ^e command prompt between files.
-f reffile Use reffile as the cross-reference file name instead of
the default cscope.out.
-I incdir Look in incdir (before looking in the standard place for
header files, normally /usr/include) for any #include
files whose names do not begin with / and that are not
specified on the command line or in namefile below.
(The #include files may be specified with either double
quotes or angle brackets.) The incdir directory is
searched in addition to the current directory (which is
searched first) and the standard list (which is searched
last). If more than one occurrence of -I appears, the
directories are searched in the order they appear on the
command line.
-i namefile Browse through all source files whose names are listed
in namefile (file names separated by spaces, tabs, or
new-lines) instead of the default (cscope.files). If
this option is specified, cscope ignores any files
appearing on the command line.
-L Do a single search with line-oriented output when used
with the -num pattern option.
-l Line-oriented interface (see ``Line-Oriented Interface''
below).
-num pattern Go to input field num (counting from 0) and find pat‐
tern.
-P path Prepend path to relative file names in a pre-built
cross-reference file so you do not have to change to the
directory where the cross-reference file was built.
This option is only valid with the -d option.
-p n Display the last n file path components instead of the
default (1). Use 0 to not display the file name at all.
-s dir Look in dir for additional source files. This option is
ignored if source files are given on the command line.
-T Use only the first eight characters to match against C
symbols. A regular expression containing special char‐
acters other than a period (.) will not match any symbol
if its minimum length is greater than eight characters.
-U Do not check file time stamps (assume that no files have
changed).
-u Unconditionally build the cross-reference file (assume
that all files have changed).
-V Print on the first line of screen the version number of
cscope.
The -I, -p, and -T options can also be in the cscope.files file.
Requesting the Initial Search
After the cross-reference is ready, cscope will display this menu:
Find this C symbol:
Find this global definition:
Find functions called by this function:
Find functions calling this function:
Find this text string:
Change this text string:
Find this egrep pattern:
Find this file:
Find files #including this file:
Press the TAB key repeatedly to move to the desired input field, type
the text to search for, and then press the RETURN key.
Issuing Subsequent Requests
If the search is successful, any of these single-character commands can
be used:
1-9 Edit the file referenced by the given line number.
SPACE Display next set of matching lines.
+ Display next set of matching lines.
− Display previous set of matching lines.
^e Edit displayed files in order.
> Append the displayed list of lines to a file.
| Pipe all lines to a shell command.
At any time these single-character commands can also be used:
TAB Move to next input field.
RETURN Move to next input field.
^n Move to next input field.
^p Move to previous input field.
^y Search with the last text typed.
^b Move to previous input field and search pattern.
^f Move to next input field and search pattern.
^c Toggle ignore/use letter case when searching. (When ignor‐
ing letter case, search for FILE will match File and file.)
^r Rebuild the cross-reference.
! Start an interactive shell (type ^d to return to cscope).
^l Redraw the screen.
? Give help information about cscope commands.
^d Exit cscope.
Note: If the first character of the text to be searched for matches
one of the above commands, escape it by typing a \ (backslash) first.
Substituting New Text for Old Text
After the text to be changed has been typed, cscope will prompt for the
new text, and then it will display the lines containing the old text.
Select the lines to be changed with these single-character commands:
1-9 Mark or unmark the line to be changed.
∗ Mark or unmark all displayed lines to be changed.
SPACE Display next set of lines.
+ Display next set of lines.
− Display previous set of lines.
a Mark all lines to be changed.
^d Change the marked lines and exit.
ESCAPE Exit without changing the marked lines.
! Start an interactive shell (type ^d to return to cscope).
^l Redraw the screen.
? Give help information about cscope commands.
Special Keys
If your terminal has arrow keys that work in vi(1), you can use them to
move around the input fields. The up-arrow key is useful to move to
the previous input field instead of using the TAB key repeatedly. If
you have the CLEAR, NEXT, or PREV keys they will act as the ^l, +, and
- commands, respectively.
Line-Oriented Interface
The -l option lets you use cscope where a screen-oriented interface
would not be useful, e.g., from another screen-oriented program.
cscope will prompt with >> when it is ready for an input line starting
with the field number (counting from 0) immediately followed by the
search pattern, e.g., 1main finds the definition of the main function.
If you just want a single search, instead of the -l option use the -L
and -num pattern options, and you won't get the >> prompt.
For -l, cscope outputs the number of reference lines.
cscope: 2 lines
For each reference found, cscope outputs a line consisting of the file
name, function name, line number, and line text, separated by spaces,
e.g.,
main.c main 161 main(argc, argv)
Note that the editor is not called to display a single reference,
unlike the screen-oriented interface.
You can use the r command to rebuild the database.
cscope will quit when it detects end-of-file, or when the first charac‐
ter of an input line is ^d or q.
ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
EDITOR Preferred editor, which defaults to vi(1).
INCLUDEDIRS Colon-separated list of directories to search for
#include files.
HOME Home directory, which is automatically set at login.
SHELL Preferred shell, which defaults to sh(1).
SOURCEDIRS Colon-separated list of directories to search for addi‐
tional source files.
TERM Terminal type, which must be a screen terminal.
TERMINFO Terminal information directory full path name. If your
terminal is not in the standard terminfo directory, see
curses(3X) and terminfo(4) for how to make your own ter‐
minal description.
TMPDIR Temporary file directory, which defaults to /var/tmp.
VIEWER Preferred file display program [such as pg], which over‐
rides EDITOR (see above).
VPATH A colon-separated list of directories, each of which has
the same directory structure below it. If VPATH is set,
cscope searches for source files in the directories
specified; if it is not set, cscope searches only in the
current directory.
FILES
cscope.files Default files containing -I, -p, and -T options and the
list of source files (overridden by the -i option).
cscope.out Symbol cross-reference file, which is put in the home
directory if it cannot be created in the current direc‐
tory.
ncscope.out Temporary file containing new cross-reference before it
replaces the old cross-reference.
SEE ALSO
The C User's Guide.
NOTEScscope recognizes function definitions of the form:
fname blank ( args ) white arg_decs white {
where:
fname is the function name
blank is zero or more spaces or tabs, not including newlines
args is any string that does not contain a " or a newline
white is zero or more spaces, tabs, or newlines
arg_decs are zero or more argument declarations (arg_decs may include
comments and white space)
It is not necessary for a function declaration to start at the begin‐
ning of a line. The return type may precede the function name; cscope
will still recognize the declaration. Function definitions that devi‐
ate from this form will not be recognized by cscope.
The Function column of the search output for the menu option Find func‐
tions called by this function: input field will only display the first
function called in the line, that is, for this function
e()
{
return (f() + g());
}
the display would be
Functions called by this function: e
File Function Line
a.c f 3 return(f() + g());
Occasionally, a function definition or call may not be recognized
because of braces inside #if statements. Similarly, the use of a vari‐
able may be incorrectly recognized as a definition.
A typedef name preceding a preprocessor statement will be incorrectly
recognized as a global definition, e.g.,
LDFILE ∗
#if AR16WR
Preprocessor statements can also prevent the recognition of a global
definition, e.g.,
char flag
#ifdef ALLOCATE_STORAGE
= -1
#endif
;
A function declaration inside a function is incorrectly recognized as a
function call, e.g.,
f()
{
void g();
}
is incorrectly recognized as a call to g().
cscope recognizes C++ classes by looking for the class keyword, but
doesn't recognize that a struct is also a class, so it doesn't recog‐
nize inline member function definitions in a structure. It also
doesn't expect the class keyword in a typedef, so it incorrectly recog‐
nizes X as a definition in
typedef class X ∗ Y;
It also doesn't recognize operator function definitions
Bool Feature::operator==(const Feature & other)
{
...
}
March 1998 0a
