Re: etags regex for Lilypond & LY_DEFINE* tags

[David Kastrup]

David Kastrup <dak@gnu.org> writes:

> Jonas Hahnfeld via Discussions on LilyPond development
> <lilypond-devel@gnu.org> writes:
>
>> On Fri, 2022-05-06 at 20:42 -0500, John Wheeler wrote:
>>> Please forgive this second attempt to reply:
>>> 
>>> Jean,
>>> 
>>> On 4/28/22 16:14, Jean Abou Samra wrote:
>>> > Is it a large script?
>>> > If so, it needs some consideration. If not, can it fit in an @example
>>> > somewhere in the CG? That might also make it more visible.
>>> > 
>>> The 'script' consists of a shell script to gather various cross-references,
>>> two support files containing the regex needed to find LilyPond language
>>> cross-references in .ly and .cc files, and a python script to mangle c++
>>> identifiers.  Too large to fit in an example in the CG, I think.
>>> 
>>> I did create a paragraph for CG 10.4 Finding Functions to describe its use.
>>> 
>>> By consideration, were you suggesting I submit a merge request and ask
>>> for review and comment?
>>
>> I've traditionally been opposed to adding more such scripts to the
>> LilyPond tree, mostly because I spent way too much time trying to
>> understand what existing and entirely undocumented ones were doing and
>> how they were broken in a zillion ways. My take is that the LilyPond
>> repository must only contain what is needed to build and maintain
>> LilyPond. IMHO a convenience script (as far as I understand it) does
>> not fall into this category, and I would vote *not* to include it.
>
> I cannot follow the characterisation as a "convenience script" here:
> making Emacs properly cross-reference functions is IDE support.  We
> similarly have IDE support in `.dir-locals.el`.  There is no real point
> in doing this in a separate repository since the only use is in
> connection with working in the LilyPond source tree.

By the way: the convention for making this work bypasses the means of
implementation (convenience script, pattern file for etags, whatever)
and provides this functionality as

    make tags

The resulting tags file is usable for both Emacs and vi (and other tools
using the same mechanism).

-- 
David Kastrup