vim: taglist fails to generate tags

Question

When trying to run taglist (:TlistToggle) on a .py file I get the error:

Taglist: Failed to generate tags for /Users/...py
ctags: illegal option -- -^@usage: ctags [-BFatuwvx] [-f tagsfile] file ...^@

I've downloaded the latest taglist and ctags plugins, and ran :let Tlist_Ctags_Cmd = '"/usr/local/bin/ctags"' within vim (I'm on OS X, running vim in the terminal).

Any thoughts to why I get the above error?

Answer 1

Taglist only supports "exuberant ctags tool", not "GNU ctags or the Unix ctags", see the FAQ.

I use tagbar instead of it.

Answer 2

You need "exuberant ctags tool" and you can follow following steps to build your own and install.

1. download crags from http://ctags.sourceforge.net
2. Extract ctags to a folder ( ex e-ctags )
3. Goto that folder ( cd e-crags )
4. ./configure
5. ./make

Once you have the binary you can move it to your bin folder as:

sudo mv ctags /usr/bin/ctags-exuberant

and use ctags-exuberant instead of ctags.