Embedded Linux Primer: A Practical Real-World Approach

13.3. cbrowser/cscope

We mention cbrowser here because support for this handy tool has found its way into the Linux kernel source tree.^[3] cbrowser is a simple source-code browsing tool that makes it easy to bounce around a large source tree following symbols.

^[3] Actually, support for the underlying engine that cbrowser uses is in the Linux build system.

The Linux kernel makefile supports building the database that cbrowser uses. Here is an example invocation from a recent Linux kernel snapshot:

$ make ARCH=ppc CROSS_COMPILE=ppc_82xx- cscope

This produces the cscope symbol database that cbrowser uses. cscope is the engine; cbrowser is the graphical user interface. You can use cscope on its own if you want. It is command line driven and very powerful, but not quite as quick or easy for navigating a large source tree in this point-and-click era. If vi is still your favorite editor, cscope might be just for you!

To invoke cbrowser, enter the directory that contains your cscope database, and simply type the cbrowser command without arguments. Figure 13-3 shows an example session. You can read more about both of these useful tools in the references listed in Section 13.7.1 at the end of this chapter.