libreadtags is a library for reading tags files generated by ctags. libreadtags assumes the tags file format explained in tags(5) of Universal-ctags.

See the comments at the top of readtags.h about the license and copyright. libreadtags was derived from readtags.c of Exuberant-ctags.

NEWS.md describes note worty changes.

If you are looking for command line interface for tags files, you will like readtags command shipped as part of Universal-ctags. It uses libreadtags extensively.

You can build libreadtags with GNU Autotools and CMake.

test -e autogen.sh && ./autogen.sh
./configure
make

make check

mkdir build
cmake -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release -DLIBREADTAGS_BUILD_SHARED=ON -S . -B build
cmake --build build --target readtags

mkdir build
cmake -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release -DLIBREADTAGS_BUILD_SHARED=ON -S . -B build
cmake --build build
ctest --test-dir build

This will install the library and headers to /usr/local.

mkdir build
cmake -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release -DLIBREADTAGS_BUILD_SHARED=ON -S . -B build
sudo cmake --build build --target install

include(FetchContent)

FetchContent_Declare(
        readtags
        GIT_REPOSITORY https://github.com/universal-ctags/libreadtags.git
        GIT_TAG master
)

FetchContent_MakeAvailable(readtags)

target_link_libraries(your_target PRIVATE universal-ctags::readtags)