vim-gutentags VS ctags

https://github.com/ludovicchabant/vim-gutentags/issues/139 has some background.

Hi everyone. I'm looking to have a better setup for Rust in neovim. I do have rust-analyzer installed for useful lsp things but I was hoping to get tags working for it as well. I was using vim-gutentags (https://github.com/ludovicchabant/vim-gutentags) for navigating useful functions and stuff but couldn't quite get it to work for rust. Is there a simple way to do it or do I need rusty-tags and some aucommand to get it to work?

use tags, I like https://github.com/ludovicchabant/vim-gutentags for this. I might use my local .vimrc to tweak the config (exclude compiled source files and other uninteresting things)

guttentag: https://github.com/ludovicchabant/vim-gutentags

Without more information, it's hard to point you in the right direction. The tags file could be out-of-date, in which case you can try to re-generate it (vim-gutentags for tags auto-generation). You could have 2 function declarations with the same name, in which case you can try :tag to cycle through tags (supports partials, like :tag F which will suggest FOO, FAR, FAB ...etc) or :tag to see a list of possible options (supports partials, like :tag F which will list FOO, FAR, FAB, ...etc) for various matching tags you can jump to (fzf.vim provides a tags fuzzy finder via :Tags). Maybe you're experiencing :h tag-priority?

ludovicchabant/vim-gutentags - Tags

You can then use :cnext and :cprev (or focusing the window and selecting an entry) to navigate between them.

As others have stated, you can also use ctags (plugins like https://github.com/ludovicchabant/vim-gutentags are useful for refreshing tags in a project), but for some languages you may need to add a tag definition (e.g. for something like rust or zig). For older languages like C you should be fine.

Not sure if it will help in this case, but I also depend on ctags for when the lsp fails (e.g. code it doesn't compile for some reason). Here you let a program create a tags file, e.g. I use https://github.com/universal-ctags/ctags (it seems it can parse json files, though I'm not sure what kind of tags are generated from this and if they will be useful to you) with https://github.com/ludovicchabant/vim-gutentags to update the tags file. The tags file just contains symbol names with locations where they are defined, and vim has builtin functionality to use these tags files :h tag and they (can) work filetype independent. For example if I mention a C type in a markdown document I can just use ctrl-[ to jump to its definition in the C source file. Possibly you can generate tags files yourself from the json files to help with this, the tags file format is not very complicated. Tags also are not very intelligent and depend on unique names for them to work well, there is the :h g_CTRL-] that can help, but for symbols that are very common (e.g. init or something that potentially has like 20+ definitions) it doesn't really work.

I also recommend you https://github.com/preservim/tagbar with https://ctags.io/ installed , it will map definitions (functions, enum, struct etc..) to tags and tagbar plugin allows you to open a split window with the mapped list and navigate through your file, it also enabled more advanced features for quick navigation .

grep, Ctags, Cscope, LSP

Vim has the tag feature built-in, which allows it to jump to the tags that were found by a tool like universal ctags using :h CTRL-]. See :help tags for more information on this. Fun fact: this is the approach that Vim uses when you use :help!

Requirements: You need to have a CTags implementation like universal-ctags installed on your system (on every system where you use vim).

Install https://github.com/universal-ctags/ctags

If you are heavy Vim user, you do not need anything else. For just quick browsing, simply use ctags, make sure to use universal ctags (https://ctags.io) not exuberant ctags which are no longer well maintained. Go works out of box.

Other (built-in) tools for file navigation in Vim include: :h :ls and :h :buffer to navigate in your buffer list (i.e. the files you have loaded); everything listed in [https://vimways.org/2018/death-by-a-thousand-files/](romainl's "Death by a Thousand Files" articles in vimways); using tags by installing universal-ctags to generate the tags then using any of the commands in :h tag to navigate them; setting global marks to files you use often with m[UPPERCASE LETTER] and jumping to them with `[UPPERCASE LETTER]; :h :vimgrep…

I have good news for you. Universal Ctags, an Exuberant Ctags fork and essentially its replacement, has fixed this already:

Vim has built-in functionality that works pretty similar to what you want. If you have a tags file (for example, using universal ctags), you can hit Ctrl-] (:h Ctrl-]) to jump to the declaration of any function under your cursor. Or, if you don't have a tags file, you can use gd (:h gd) to jump to a local declaration within the open file.