cscope
CSCOPE(1) CSCOPE(1)
NAME
cscope - interactively examine a C program
SYNOPSIS
cscope [-bCcdehkLlqRTUuVv] [-Fsymfile] [-freffile] [-Iincdir] [-iname-
file] [-[0-9]pattern] [-pn] [-sdir] [files]
DESCRIPTION
cscope 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,
called 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 ini-
tial build.
OPTIONS
Some command line arguments can only occur as the the ony argument in
the execution of cscope. They cause the program to just print out
some output and exit immediately:
-h View the long usage help display.
-V Print on the first line of screen the version number of cscope.
--help Same as -h
--version
Same as -V
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 <Ctrl>-e command prompt between files.
-Fsymfile
Read symbol reference lines from symfile. (A symbol reference
file is created by > and >>, and can also be read using the <
command, described under ‘‘Issuing Subsequent Requests,’’
below.)
-freffile
Use reffile as the cross-reference file name instead of the
default "cscope.out".
-Iincdir
Look in incdir (before looking in $INCDIR, 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.
-inamefile
Browse through all source files whose names are listed in name-
file (file names separated by spaces, tabs, or new-lines)
instead of the default name list file, which is called
cscope.files. If this option is specified, cscope ignores any
file names appearing on the command line. The argument namefile
can be set to ‘‘-’’ to accept a list of files from the standard
input. Filenames in the namefile that contain whitespace have
to be enclosed in "double quotes". Inside such quoted file-
names, any double-quote and backslash characters have to be
escaped by backslashes.
-k ‘‘Kernel Mode’’, turns off the use of the default include dir
(usually /usr/include) when building the database, since kernel
source trees generally do not use it.
-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).
-[0-9]pattern
Go to input field num (counting from 0) and find pattern.
-Ppath Prepend path to relative file names in a pre-built cross-refer-
ence 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.
-pn Display the last n file path components instead of the default
(1). Use 0 to not display the file name at all.
-q Enable fast symbol lookup via an inverted index. This option
causes cscope to create 2 more files (default names
‘‘cscope.in.out’’ and ‘‘cscope.po.out’’) in addition to the
normal database. This allows a faster symbol search algorithm
that provides noticeably faster lookup performance for large
projects.
-R Recurse subdirectories during search for source files.
-sdir 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 characters other than a
period (.) will not match any symbol if its minimum length is
greater than eight characters.
-U Check file time stamps. This option will update the time stamp
on the database even if no files have changed.
-u Unconditionally build the cross-reference file (assume that all
files have changed).
-v Be more verbose in line-oriented mode. Output progress updates
during database building and searches.
files A list of file names to operate on.
The -I, -c, -k, -p, -q, 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 function 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 <Up> or <Down> keys 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:
0-9a-zA-Z
Edit the file referenced by the given line number.
<Space>
Display next set of matching lines.
<Tab> Alternate between the menu and the list of matching lines
<Up> Move to the previous menu item (if the cursor is in the menu)
or move to the previous matching line (if the cursor is in the
matching line list.)
<Down> Move to the next menu item (if the cursor is in the menu) or
move to the next matching line (if the cursor is in the match-
ing line list.)
+ Display next set of matching lines.
- Display previous set of matching lines.
^e Edit displayed files in order.
> Write the displayed list of lines to a file.
>> Append the displayed list of lines to a file.
< Read lines from a file that is in symbol reference format (cre-
ated by > or >>), just like the -F option.
^ Filter all lines through a shell command and display the
resulting lines, replacing the lines that were already there.
| Pipe all lines to a shell command and display them without
changing them.
At any time these single-character commands can also be used:
<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 ignoring
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 com-
mands:
0-9a-zA-Z
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 or unmark all lines to be changed.
^d Change the marked lines and exit.
<Esc> 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, 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 <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, for example, from another screen-oriented pro-
gram.
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, for example, ‘‘lmain’’ 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,
for example, 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 c command to toggle ignore/use letter case when
searching. (When ignoring letter case, search for ‘‘FILE’’ will match
‘‘File’’ and ‘‘file’’.)
You can use the r command to rebuild the database.
cscope will quit when it detects end-of-file, or when the first char-
acter of an input line is ‘‘^d’’ or ‘‘q’’.
ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
CSCOPE_EDITOR
Overrides the EDITOR and VIEWER variables. Use this if you wish
to use a different editor with cscope than that specified by
your EDITOR/VIEWER variables.
CSCOPE_LINEFLAG
Format of the line number flag for your editor. By default,
cscope invokes your editor via the equivalent of ‘‘editor +N
file’’, where ‘‘N’’ is the line number that the editor should
jump to. This format is used by both emacs and vi. If your edi-
tor needs something different, specify it in this variable,
with ‘‘%s’’ as a placeholder for the line number. Ex: if your
editor needs to be invoked as ‘‘editor -#103 file’’ to go to
line 103, set this variable to ‘‘-#%s’’.
CSCOPE_LINEFLAG_AFTER_FILE
Set this variable to ‘‘yes’’ if your editor needs to be invoked
with the line number option after the filename to be edited. To
continue the example from CSCOPE_LINEFLAG, above: if your edi-
tor needs to see ‘‘editor file -#number’’, set this environment
variable. Users of most standard editors (vi, emacs) do not
need to set this variable.
EDITOR Preferred editor, which defaults to vi.
HOME Home directory, which is automatically set at login.
INCLUDEDIRS
Colon-separated list of directories to search for #include
files.
SHELL Preferred shell, which defaults to sh.
SOURCEDIRS
Colon-separated list of directories to search for additional
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 and ter-
minfo for how to make your own terminal description.
TMPDIR Temporary file directory, which defaults to /var/tmp.
VIEWER Preferred file display program (such as less), which overrides
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, -q, and -T options and the
list of source files (overridden by the -i option).
cscope.out
Symbol cross-reference file (overridden by the -f option),
which is put in the home directory if it cannot be created in
the current directory.
cscope.in.out
cscope.po.out
Default files containing the inverted index used for quick sym-
bol searching (-q option). If you use the -f option to rename
the cross-reference file (so it’s not cscope.out), the names
for these inverted index files will be created by adding
.in and .po to the name you supply with -f. For example, if
you indicated -f xyz, then these files would be named xyz.in
and xyz.po.
INCDIR Standard directory for #include files (usually /usr/include).
Notices
cscope 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
functions 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, for example,
LDFILE *
#if AR16WR
Preprocessor statements can also prevent the recognition of a global
definition, for example,
char flag
#ifdef ALLOCATE_STORAGE
= -1
#endif
;
A function declaration inside a function is incorrectly recognized as
a function call, for example,
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 rec-
ognizes X as a definition in
typedef class X * Y;
It also doesn’t recognize operator function definitions
Bool Feature::operator==(const Feature & other)
{
...
}
Nor does it recognize function definitions with a function pointer
argument
ParseTable::Recognize(int startState, char *pattern,
int finishState, void (*FinalAction)(char *))
{
...
}
The Santa Cruz Operation August 2003 CSCOPE(1)
