Re: What is 'symbol' and its uses?

[Shigio YAMAGUCHI]

Hello,

On Wed, 30 Jan 2013 16:39:04 +0800
Leo Liu <address@hidden> wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> I am confused by the meaning of 'symbol' as found in 'man global'. In
> particular, the output from 'global -c' and 'global -cs'.
> 
> How should they differ? I am using GNU global with a java project but I
> am new to Java.

GLOBAL classifies all symbols into three, that is, definitions, references
and other symbols.

Reference (-r option) means the reference to a symbol which has definitions.
Other symbol (-s option) means the reference to a symbol which has no 
definition.
 
For example: 

+-----------------------------------------------------------------
|int func0() {           <= definition (not referred to)
|}
|int func() {            <= definition (referred to)
|        ...
|}
|
|        ...
|
|        func();         <= reference (func is defined)
|        func1();        <= other symbol (func1 is not defined)
+-----------------------------------------------------------------

Global works like follows:

$ global -c
func
func0
$ global -cr
func
$ global -cs
func1
$ global -crs
func
func1


> Also, does 'global -r TAGNAME' include definitions in the results? If so
> can I exclude them?

No, it doesn't.

The description in 'man global' seems to be bad. I'll rewrite it.

Shigio
-- 
Shigio YAMAGUCHI <address@hidden>
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