Using vims tagbar plugin for latex files

Question

I am currently trying to make vim's tagbar plugin to work with latex files on Mac OS X.

This is my ~/.ctags file:

--langdef=latex
--langmap=latex:.tex
--regex-latex=/^\\tableofcontents/TABLE OF CONTENTS/s,toc/
--regex-latex=/^\\frontmatter/FRONTMATTER/s,frontmatter/
--regex-latex=/^\\mainmatter/MAINMATTER/s,mainmatter/
--regex-latex=/^\\backmatter/BACKMATTER/s,backmatter/
--regex-latex=/^\\bibliography\{/BIBLIOGRAPHY/s,bibliography/
--regex-latex=/^\\part[[:space:]]*(\[[^]]*\])?[[:space:]]*\{([^}]+)\}/PART \2/s,part/
--regex-latex=/^\\part[[:space:]]*\*[[:space:]]*\{([^}]+)\}/PART \1/s,part/
--regex-latex=/^\\chapter[[:space:]]*(\[[^]]*\])?[[:space:]]*\{([^}]+)\}/CHAP \2/s,chapter/
--regex-latex=/^\\chapter[[:space:]]*\*[[:space:]]*\{([^}]+)\}/CHAP \1/s,chapter/
--regex-latex=/^\\section[[:space:]]*(\[[^]]*\])?[[:space:]]*\{([^}]+)\}/\. \2/s,section/
--regex-latex=/^\\section[[:space:]]*\*[[:space:]]*\{([^}]+)\}/\. \1/s,section/
--regex-latex=/^\\subsection[[:space:]]*(\[[^]]*\])?[[:space:]]*\{([^}]+)\}/\.\. \2/s,subsection/
--regex-latex=/^\\subsection[[:space:]]*\*[[:space:]]*\{([^}]+)\}/\.\. \1/s,subsection/
--regex-latex=/^\\subsubsection[[:space:]]*(\[[^]]*\])?[[:space:]]*\{([^}]+)\}/\.\.\. \2/s,subsubsection/
--regex-latex=/^\\subsubsection[[:space:]]*\*[[:space:]]*\{([^}]+)\}/\.\.\. \1/s,subsubsection/
--regex-latex=/^\\includegraphics[[:space:]]*(\[[^]]*\])?[[:space:]]*(\[[^]]*\])?[[:space:]]*\{([^}]+)\}/\3/g,graphic+listing/
--regex-latex=/^\\lstinputlisting[[:space:]]*(\[[^]]*\])?[[:space:]]*(\[[^]]*\])?[[:space:]]*\{([^}]+)\}/\3/g,graphic+listing/
--regex-latex=/\\label[[:space:]]*\{([^}]+)\}/\1/l,label/
--regex-latex=/\\ref[[:space:]]*\{([^}]+)\}/\1/r,ref/
--regex-latex=/\\pageref[[:space:]]*\{([^}]+)\}/\1/p,pageref/

and this is the corresponding part in my ~/.vimrc:

let g:tagbar_type_tex = {
    \ 'ctagstype' : 'latex',
    \ 'kinds'     : [
        \ 's:sections',
        \ 'g:graphics:0:0',
        \ 'l:labels',
        \ 'r:refs:1:0',
        \ 'p:pagerefs:1:0'
    \ ],
    \ 'sort'    : 0,
\ }

I basically got all this from this link: https://github.com/vim-scripts/Tagbar/blob/master/doc/tagbar.txt

Unfortunately, when I start the tagbar, nothing happens and when I execute :UpdateTags I get the following error:

easytags.vim 3.7: Exuberant Ctags doesn't support the 'plaintex' file type! (at function xolox#easytags#update..<SNR>20_check_cfile, line 22)

ctags --version results in:

Exuberant Ctags 5.8, Copyright (C) 1996-2009 Darren Hiebert
  Compiled: Oct  1 2014, 16:18:15
  Addresses: <dhiebert@users.sourceforge.net>, http://ctags.sourceforge.net
  Optional compiled features: +wildcards, +regex

and "which ctags" in:

/usr/local/bin/ctags

When I execute ctags --verbose abstract.tex it finds the ~/.ctags file and generates this tag file:

!_TAG_FILE_FORMAT       2       /extended format; --format=1 will not append ;" to lines/
!_TAG_FILE_SORTED       1       /0=unsorted, 1=sorted, 2=foldcase/
!_TAG_PROGRAM_AUTHOR    Darren Hiebert  /dhiebert@users.sourceforge.net/
!_TAG_PROGRAM_NAME      Exuberant Ctags //
!_TAG_PROGRAM_URL       http://ctags.sourceforge.net    /official site/
!_TAG_PROGRAM_VERSION   5.8     //
. Abstract      abstract.tex    /^\\section*{Abstract}$/;"      s

The file itself looks like this:

\section*{Abstract}

Let's see what we can do here...

What am I missing? :(

Kind regards and thanks for your help :)

score 5 · Accepted Answer · answered Oct 01 '14 at 16:52

The EasyTags problem

EasyTags uses the filetype of the current buffer to determine what arguments it should pass to ctags.
The filetype of your file is set to plaintex by Vim, the default for *.tex files. So… you get that error because plaintex is not recognized by ctags.

The Tagbar problem

As per the documentation, you are supposed to use the filetype in your custom configuration:
```
g:tagbar_type_{vim filetype}
```
Since your *.tex file is recognized as plaintex, your g:tagbar_type_tex will never be used.

A liberal solution

Add these lines to your ~/.vimrc to force Vim to recognize *.tex files as latex:

augroup latex
    autocmd!
    autocmd BufRead,BufNewFile *.tex set filetype=latex
augroup END

Change your custom Tagbar config from:
```
g:tagbar_type_tex
```
to:
```
g:tagbar_type_latex
```

This solution will work only if Vim is configured to work well with the latex filetype (ftplugin, syntax, indent…), which is dubious at best.

A conservative solution

Use plaintex instead of latex in your ~/.ctags configuration:

--langdef=plaintex
--langmap=plaintex:.tex
--regex-plaintex=/^\\tableofcontents/TABLE OF CONTENTS/s,toc/
...

Change your custom Tagbar config from:

let g:tagbar_type_tex = {
    \ 'ctagstype' : 'latex',
    ...

to:

let g:tagbar_type_plaintex = {
    \ 'ctagstype' : 'plaintex',
    ...

Using vims tagbar plugin for latex files

1 Answers1

The EasyTags problem

The Tagbar problem

A liberal solution

A conservative solution