Vim, PHP, TagList, and Ctags

I spent a good bit of time figuring out how to get vim to play nice with the spectacular TagList plugin, Ctags and PHP, so I've decided to sum up everything I did to get it working perfectly for the next person who comes along.

Installing TagList itself is simple---just follow the instructions, standard to installing any vim plugin. However, getting Exuberant Ctags, which is TagList's workhorse, to work properly with PHP is another matter. Ctags doesn't understand PHP very well. It picks up on variables (which is sorta useless in PHP, anyway) but not functions whose definitions specify access ("public", "protected", etc.), interfaces or abstract classes. How useless!

Creating a useful Ctags file for PHP is not difficult, thanks to the info at these two resources. Just use these flags:


ctags -R --exclude=.svn --tag-relative=yes --PHP-kinds=+cf-v --regex-PHP='/abstract\s+class\s+([^ ]+)/\1/c/' --regex-PHP='/interface\s+([^ ]+)/\1/c/' --regex-PHP='/(public\s+|static\s+|abstract\s+|protected\s+|private\s+)function\s+\&?\s*([^ (]+)/\2/f/' lib/


Notice that I exclude variables via the --PHP-kinds option. This isn't C, tyvm.

What I didn't understand, at first, is that TagList calls Ctags every single time it's opened so that it generates an up-to-date temporary tags file. This makes perfect sense, but when Ctags is called by TagList, it doesn't have all of our required command-line options. Enter the Ctags config file. Put the following in your ~/.ctags file:


-R
--exclude=.svn
--tag-relative=yes
--PHP-kinds=+cf-v
--regex-PHP=/abstract\s+class\s+([^ ]+)/\1/c/
--regex-PHP=/interface\s+([^ ]+)/\1/c/
--regex-PHP=/(public\s+|static\s+|abstract\s+|protected\s+|private\s+)function\s+\&?\s*([^ (]+)/\2/f/


And, amazingly, TagList becomes useful for PHP development. The last step is to tweak TagList to work in a way that's most convenient for you. Personally, I like these options:


" set the names of flags
let tlist_php_settings = 'php;c:class;f:function;d:constant'
" close all folds except for current file
let Tlist_File_Fold_Auto_Close = 1
" make tlist pane active when opened
let Tlist_GainFocus_On_ToggleOpen = 1
" width of window
let Tlist_WinWidth = 40
" close tlist when a selection is made
let Tlist_Close_On_Select = 1


TagList has a ton of options, so check them out. You may also be interested in my most up-to-date .ctags and .vimrc.

Vim Tip: Debug Path

I work for a company whose code is in thousands of files in hundreds of directories. We have multiple VCS repositories. Function libraries, class files, HTML, XSL--a convoluted maze to navigate, especially when trying to debug something.

Whenever I'm debugging, I may follow the rabbit hole from function to function, through various libraries and classes, only to find that I'd taken a wrong turn somewhere and come to a dead end. I then either have to sift through the multiple tabs I've opened to find where I should pick up the search again, or, if I've been closing files along the way, I have to start the search from the beginning. This is annoying and time-consuming.

I decided to write a simple vim script to save my cursor's current line, along with the file name and line number, to a file in my home directory. I can then continually save lines as I follow a path through the code. If, at any time, I hit a dead end, I simply go through this "trace" file and find where to pick up the search again. Combined with vim's "gf" command, this file is very useful!

Here's the code you can add to your own .vimrc file:

nmap <F8> <ESC>:call WriteTrace()<CR>

function WriteTrace()
  let lineNum = line('.')
  let lineFile = bufname('%')
  let lineVal = getline(lineNum)
                        
  let allLines = readfile("$HOME/trace.txt")
  let allLines = add(allLines,lineFile.":".lineNum)
  let allLines = add(allLines,lineVal)
  let allLines = add(allLines,"")
                        
  call writefile(allLines,"$HOME/trace.txt")
endfunction             

In the code above, F8 will save the line under the cursor, but the nmap can be changed to map to any key, of course.