srclib

README

srclib

Note: srclib is alpha. Post an issue if you have any questions or difficulties running and hacking on it. We'll have a full docs site up soon.

srclib is a source code analysis library. It provides standardized tools, interfaces and data formats for generating, representing and querying information about source code in software projects.

Why? Right now, most people write code in editors that don't give them as much programming assistance as is possible. That's because creating an editor plugin and language analyzer for your favorite language and editor combo is a lot of work. And when you're done, your plugin only supports a single language and editor, and maybe only half the features you wanted (such as doc lookups and "find usages"). Because there are no standard cross-language and cross-editor APIs and formats, it is difficult to reuse your plugin for other languages or editors.

We call this the M-by-N-by-O problem: given M editors, N languages, and O features, we need to write (on the order of) M×N×O plugins to get good tooling in every case. That number gets large quickly, and it's why we suffer from poor developer tools.

srclib solves this problem in 2 ways by:

• Publishing standard formats and APIs for source analyzers and editor plugins to use. This means that improvements in a srclib language analyzer benefit users in any editor, and improvements in a srclib editor plugin benefit everyone who uses that editor on any language.

• Providing high-quality language analyzers and editor plugins that implement this standard. These were open-sourced from the code that powers Sourcegraph.com.

Currently, srclib supports:

• Languages: Go and JavaScript (coming very soon: Python and Ruby)

• Integrations: Sourcegraph.com and emacs-sourcegraph-mode

• Features: jump-to-definition, find usages, type inference, documentation generation, and dependency resolution

Want to extend srclib to support more languages, features, or editors? During this alpha period, we will work closely with you to help you. Post an issue to let us know what you're building to get started.

Usage

srclib requires Go 1.2+, Git, and Mercurial.

Install and run src, the command-line frontend to srclib, with:

go get -v sourcegraph.com/sourcegraph/srclib/cmd/src

Next, install toolchains for the languages you want to use. See instructions at:

• srclib-go for Go
• srclib-javascript for JavaScript (Node.js)

Finally, install an editor plugin powered by srclib:

• emacs-sourcegraph-mode for Emacs

Don't see your language or editor of choice? Create or +1 an issue to vote for it, or start adding support for it yourself!

Misc.

• bash completion for src: run source contrib/completion/src-completion.bash or copy that file to /etc/bash_completion.d/srclib_src (path may be different on your system)

Documentation

Index

• Variables

Variables

var (
	// Path is SRCLIBPATH, a colon-separated list of directories that lists
	// places to look for srclib toolchains and cache build data. It is
	// initialized from the SRCLIBPATH environment variable; if empty, it
	// defaults to $HOME/.srclib.
	Path = os.Getenv("SRCLIBPATH")

	// CacheDir stores cached build results. It is initialized from the
	// SRCLIBCACHE environment variable; if empty, it defaults to DIR/.cache,
	// where DIR is the first entry in Path (SRCLIBPATH).
	CacheDir = os.Getenv("SRCLIBCACHE")
)