Re: I want to search my project source code

[Perry Smith <pedz(at)easesoftware(dot)com>]

On Oct 28, 2007, at 12:59 AM, Guy Rouillier wrote:

> Matthew Wilson wrote:
> > I have a lot of code -- millions of lines at this point, written
> > over the last 5 years.  Everything is in a bunch of nested folders.
> > At least once a week, I want to find some code that uses a few  
> > modules,
> > so I have to launch a find + grep at the top of the tree and then  
> > wait
> > for it to finish.
> > I wonder if I could store our source code in a postgresql table and
> > then use full text searching to index.  Then I hope I could run a  
> > query
> > where I ask for all files that use modules X, Y, and Z.
>
> DBMSs are great tools for the right job, but IMO this is not the  
> right job.  I can't see how a database engine, with all it's  
> transactional overhead and many other layers, will ever beat a  
> simple grep performance-wise.  I've used Eclipse for refactoring,  
> but having done it once, I'm sticking with grep.

This is exactly what cscope is good for.

http://cscope.sourceforge.net/

I've used it since the early 90's.  I do level 3 support for really  
big companies.  If you are an emacs fan, its hooked in to it as well.

You want to use the -q option.  If it is a million lines of code, its  
going to take a while.  It pseudo-parses the code (some tricky  
constructs will confuse it) and builds a very simple database file.   
I think it uses Berkeley's DB file.  After that, finding all the  
occurrences of foo is a few seconds.

If you want to find just definitions (like where is foo defined),  
then use ctags or etags.  There is exuberant ctags here:

http://ctags.sourceforge.net/

Perry Smith ( pedz(at)easesoftware(dot)com )
Ease Software, Inc. ( http://www.easesoftware.com )

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