CScope How To

For a more in-depth explanation of how to use Cscope, man cscope or Google it.

Cscope is a tool for working with code (primarily C code). It functions by compiling a database of C symbols that it parses out of a group of files (in this case, you'd run it on the entire source you're working with) and then performing searches on that database. With Cscope you can do things like find where a function is defined, or where it is called, or where a variable was initialized. It's one step up from grepping through your code, because it can look for specific ways a symbol is used and it can quickly search across multiple directories.

To construct a Cscope database, run cscope -bR in the top-level source directory that you want to index. This will recursively index all C source files in that directory and any subdirectories (-R), and will finish after building the index file (cscope.out by default). The cscope website recommends running with -k as well (for kernel mode), which ignores all header files in your /usr/include. Then you can invoke Cscope using cscope -ffilename where filename is the cscope.out file that was generated when you ran cscope -bR. Or, you can run cscope -d in the same directory if you didn't name the file anything besides cscope.out.

Using Cscope to search for things is pretty easy: just use the arrow keys to move into the appropriate field and then type the string you want to search for. Several editors can support CScope, including Emacs and Vim—see the Cscope Home Page for details.

Use tab to move between the search and results area.