I am trying to create tags using ctags and getting the error ctags: Unknown

Question

Editorial Team

Asked: June 16, 20262026-06-16T23:44:14+00:00 2026-06-16T23:44:14+00:00

I am trying to create tags using ctags and getting the error

ctags: Unknown option: -p

There is a similar question asked before. But i could not understand that solution. I’m very sorry for posting the same question again.

I am trying to generate tags for C and C++ files.

OS: ubuntu 10.04LTS

ctags version : 5.8 (Exuberant ctags)

$which ctags : /usr/bin/ctags

There is a .ctags conf file in my home directory, but it is empty.

I tried to generate the tags using the below command

ctags -append=yes -R /home/jabez/mycodedir

I am using the “-append” option because i want to append the tags generated from other directories to the same tags file.

Installation procedure i followed:

Please help me how i can fix the problem.

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Editorial Team · Answer 1 · 2026-06-16T23:44:15+00:00

Editorial Team

The problem is that you use -append with a single dash, it should be a double dash: --append.

With single dash, the argument is parsed as a series of one-letter arguments: -a -p -p -e -n -d.

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