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- About cxref
- ===========
- Wait a minute. This is not the standard simplistic `C' source code
- cross reference tool you are probably already familiar with. Quite
- on the contrary, Andrew M. Bishop's `cxref' program is among the
- most powerful and useful tools I have ever found. Not only does it
- perform the usual cross-referencing, it also takes note of where
- each global or local variable is used, which routine calls what
- other routines and what routines and variables are not used at all.
- Very useful if you are cleaning up older code or source code you
- have taken over from someone else. Another neat feature of the
- cxref program is that you can actually embed documentation in your
- programs and have cxref extract and pretty print it, yielding
- LaTeX or even html output.
-
- Requirements
- ============
- You need Kickstart 2.04 or higher and it definitely helps to have
- lots of memory installed in your machine. Scanning and analysis of
- the source code is performed by the modified GNU `C' preprocessor.
- Its output is piped through to the cxref program, which is why you
- need to have a working pipe-handler installed. Heinz Wrobel's pipe
- handler, as found on Aminet, will do nicely.
-
- Installation
- ============
- There are three programs which you will want to install. Just copy
- them from the "bin" drawer to whereever you keep your development
- tools. Make sure that all tools are in the shell search path,
- otherwise the cxref program will have trouble launching the cxref-cpp
- program.
-
- Invocation
- ==========
- Simple. While this is described in the cxref documentation, it's still
- a good idea to mention that the cross-referencing is actually a two-step
- process. You have to build the initial database before you can create
- the index and the html files. Thus, in order to create a browsable
- cross-reference, you should enter the following:
-
- cxref -xref #?.c
- cxref -xref -index -html #?.c
-
- Later, if you make changes to the source code, just use the second
- command again:
-
- cxref -xref -index -html #?.c
-
- This will automatically update all the cross reference information.
- As you can see, the cxref Amiga port will expand all wildcard
- patterns given on the command line.
-
- About the Amiga port
- ====================
- This port is functionally almost identical to the regular 1.4a with
- a bug fixed in the scanner that collects documentation comments.
- This bug fix was sent to me by Andrew M. Bishop, so I expect that
- it will also show up in the regular release any time now.
-
- The code uses quite a number of Unix'isms, such as in the file path
- parsing or piping the output of a child process into the scanner.
- In order to allow for the program to work on the Amiga I made small
- modifications to the code and even the flex and bison source code
- generated for the preprocessor and the main program.
-
- While I hope that the resulting program works as it should, one
- can never be certain. If you find bugs or other nuisances, feel
- free to contact me:
-
- Olaf Barthel
- Brabeckstrasse 35
- D-30559 Hannover
-
- Federal Republic of Germany
-
- <olsen@sourcery.han.de>
-