Subject: bug#23400: Emacs 25.0.92.1: etags fails to handle file format generated by Exuberant Ctags 5.8 in etags emulation mode

From: Dmitry Gutov <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 1 May 2016 23:23:17 +0300

On 05/01/2016 06:47 PM, Robert Weiner wrote:

> The main Exhuberant CTags site is: http://ctags.sourceforge.net/ which
> shows a last released version of 5.8.

That doesn't mean it's the last version of the code produced by that 
project: https://sourceforge.net/p/ctags/code/816/log/?path=/trunk lists 
newer commits that continue up to the year 2014.

It was my assumption that Ubuntu's version either used one of the later 
snapshots (like "~svn" in the version indicates), or included only 
minimal changes made by Ubuntu's maintainers.

> The popular `brew' package
> manager for OS X installs version 5.8 as the latest.

Have you tried discussing that the Brew maintainers?

> There is universal-ctags (version 0, based on V5.8) which fixes the
> problem I listed and has a separate web page: http://ctags.io.

Indeed, this project seems to be THE way forward for ctags.

Any reason to believe that it isn't based on any of the subsequent 
version of code posted to the original project's SVN?

> The patch to fix the problem is simple but whether you want to apply it
> given all of this is left for you far more knowledgeable maintainers to
> decide.

I'm inclined toward "no", because:

- The problem seems limited to `M-x list-tags', which is not really 
essential functionality.
- ctags 5.8 clearly violates the established format.
- The only generator of TAGS files that we officially support is our 
'etags' program.
- Adding a workaround for an old version of ctags in counterproductive 
in other ways: the sooner the user notices problems with the ctags they 
installed, the sooner they might go looking for a newer version. Which 
contains other improvements and bugfixes as well.