script to find function names

[samantha grace]

hi,
i am a newbie and have to write a rather complicated script. Assume that i have a variable called x and a C source code file say file1.c (this are the inputs of the script) and i need to find the names of all the functions in the C file containing x.Take the following code as an example:

1.int main(void);
   2.void foo(void);
   3.void bar(void);
   4.
   5.int main(void)
   6.{
   7.int x;
   8.return 0;
   9.}
  10.
  11.void foo(void)
  12.{
  13.int x;
  14.}
  15.
  16.void bar(void)
  17.{
  18.int x;
  19.}

so i guess the output should be:

in 5. main(void) x occurs in line 7 as int x;

in 11.foo(void) x occurs in line 13 as int x

and in 16.bar(void) x occurs in line 18 as int x

Something similar to but not exactly as above. To print the name of the functions containing x is crucial.

i can find line number using grep -n and probably use sed -n '/{/,/}/p' file1.c to select blocks of code delimited by { and } but I'm not sure how to refine this further.

any help would be welcome.

thanks,
Sam

[Salem]

Sounds just like ctags
http://ctags.sourceforge.net/

[samantha grace]

hi,
thanks for the reply..no i don't think i can use an external tool because they have a lot of other features that are not required...i just need a way to solve this problem using sed or awk.

thanks,
Sam

[samantha grace]

hi,

i was looking at ctags program and i still couldn't figure out how to derive the information i need from a tag file. Can you kindly explain how can i exactly use ctags and the ID utilities to find the function name for a given variable.

thanks,
Sam

[Ancient Dragon]

double posted here

[Salem]

> and i need to find the names of all the functions in the C file containing x.
Is this the only thing you need?

C is hard to parse 1-line at a time using sed/awk/grep.
Eg.

int
foo ( void ) {
  int x;
}

int foo ( void )
{
  int x;
}

int foo (
   void
) {
  /* int x; */
  int a,
      x;
}

Unless you have a particular style in mind, which is followed in all the code, I don't see you being able to just regex your way through any bit of code.

[samantha grace]

ok...but so i guess regular expressions in sed/awk is not the answer. But i do need a solution.How do i use the ctags program to solve my problem?

thanks,
sam

[Salem]

a) download it
b) write a simple C program and tag it
c) read http://ctags.sourceforge.net/FORMAT

[samantha grace]

nope..i still did not get the result that i want..by using ctags i could print the all function names for a file ..but there was nothing to determine the function name for a given variable.

[Salem]

You figured that out in 25 minutes?

Allowing for reading time between my post and your initial reading, then time to download and install it, and set up an example.

I think you tried the first obvious thing without really trying to understand it before bouncing the problem back at us with more "it doesn't work".

[samantha grace]

oh dear..no i had no idea about ctags or ID database before your post..and then when i did "which ctags" i was quiet surprised to find it already installed in usr/bin.

So,i did not have to install it again..and because there were no shortage of C source code files...all had to do was run ctags.

It did give me the list of functions with their line numbers.But again, how do i determine if a variable belongs to one of those functions listed in the tag file.

thanks,
Sam