C/C++ GNU Global

Provide Intellisense for C/C++ using GNU Global.

This extension is forked/rewriten from C/C++ Intellisense and is still preliminary. If you encounter any problems, please go to Github Issues for issue report and feature request.

Usage

• This extension requires GNU Global (>=6.5). You can download the binary from Global website.

  For Ubuntu 18.04 (and after) user, you can install it via apt:

  sudo apt install global
  

• Add the folder of global executable to PATH enviroment variable, or specify gnuGlobal.globalExecutable and gnuGlobal.gtagsExecutable configuration. (For users of windows, WSL is recommended.)

  {
      "gnuGlobal.globalExecutable": "C:\\global\\global.exe",
      "gnuGlobal.gtagsExecutable": "C:\\global\\gtags.exe"
  }
  

• GNU Global is a tagging system. There's no language service running in the background. You need to press F1 and execute Global: Rebuild Gtags Database to generate tag files before you can use other features.

• Specify the output encoding if you're using non-UTF8 Windows. You can find the supported encoding from https://github.com/ashtuchkin/iconv-lite/wiki/Supported-Encodings .

  Ex: Big5 for Traditional Chinese on Windows

  {
      "gnuGlobal.encoding": "Big5"
  }
  

For C++ Users

• The author of GNU global deprecated the built-in C++ parser of GNU global since 6.6.5. Please refer to the release note of GNU Global. This extension is still useful for large C projects such as linux kernel source, but it seems that I need to find some other solutions for C++. Maybe plugin-parser of gtags.

Command

• Global: Rebuild Gtags Database

  • Generate tag files for global by running 'gtags'.
  • Upon saving your code, this extension will try to update tags files incrementally by running 'global -u'. If the auto update didn't do well for you, you can manully run this command to rebuild all tag files.
  • You may want to add the tag files, which are GTAGS, GRTAGS, and GPATH, to your global gitignore setting.

• Global: Show GNU Global Version

  • Show global verion by running 'global --version'.

• Go to Definition (F12)

• Find All References (Shift + F12)

• Go to Symbol in File (Ctrl + Shift + O)

Configuration

• gnuGlobal.encoding

  • Specify the encoding of the command line output.
  • Please refer to https://github.com/ashtuchkin/iconv-lite/wiki/Supported-Encodings for supported encodings.

• gnuGlobal.autoUpdate

  • Controls whether global should automatically update the tags after file saved. Can be Enabled, Disabled and Default.
  • Default: disable autoupdate if GTAGS database size is larger than 50MB. It is recommended to disable this feature if the project is too large.

• gnuGlobal.completion

  • Enable/disable auto-completion feature. Default is enabled.

• gnuGlobal.gtagsForceCpp

  • Deprecated in GNU global 6.6.6. Do not set this variable if you are using plug-in parsers.
  • If this option is enabled, each file whose suffix is ".h" is treated as a C++ source file. You need to rebuild tags if you change this configuration. Default is disabled.

• gnuGlobal.libraryPath

  • Used as the path to search for library functions. If the specified tags is not found in the project, this extension also searches in these paths.
  • Must be absolute paths.
  • 'Rebuild Gtags Database' doesn't rebuild the tag files for these libraries. You need to build tags for them individually.
  • Folder / Workspace setting will override user setting just like other configurations.

• gnuGlobal.globalExecutable

  • Specify the path to the global. Default is 'global'.

• gnuGlobal.gtagsExecutable

  • Specify the path to the gtags. Default is 'gtags'.

• gnuGlobal.objDirPrefix

  • If objDirPrefix is set and objDirPrefix directory exists, gtags creates objDirPrefix/project_dir directory and makes tag files in it. Global will also try to search tag files in that directory.
  • This option is useful if you don't wan't to create tag files in your project directory.
  • Only support UNIX style filesystem so Windows is unsupported.

• gnuGlobal.gtagSkipSymlink

  • Skip symbolic links while building tag files. It is useful if you have large project with lots of symbolic link.
  • Could be None, File, Directory or All. Default is None.
  • Requires GNU Global 6.6.3

• gnuGlobal.debugMode

  • Log more information to debug this extension. Default is Disabled.
  • If this extension doesn't do well, please try to enable this config. You can find some error logs in Developer Tools (Help > Toggle Developer Tools).

Limitations

GNU global doesn't do any AST parsing, so the auto completion doesn't understand class members and etc.

Resources

GNU Global: https://www.gnu.org/software/global/

Repository: https://github.com/barretren/vscode-gnu-global/

Enjoy!