Question

I need to make an editor with Symbol Browser and I said I would toy with ctags. Well I read ctags format and Tried to Google and search here at SO. All I found were questions about ctags and vim and I’m zero at vim . So I decided I will play around by myself.
So I took a tag file and I was totally confused!

Here I have put the PHP File and its corresponding tag and I need your help on how do I know if the line represents class attribute or method? Also how can I know return value of PHP function/method?

I have not found any good tutorial on dealing with PHP (or any other language) tags in ctags other than vi/vim connected!
Thanks

PHP File

<?php

$teachers = array("standard one"=>"Celina Stephen", "Standard Two"=>"Emanyor Dickson");

function set_teachers($teacher_array){
    $teachers = $teacher_array;
    return $teacher_array;
}

class School{
    $teachers;
    $students;

    public function __construct(){

    }

    public function get_all(){
        return array($this->teachers,$this->students);
    }
}

class ManySchools extends School{
    public __construct(){
        parent::construct();
    }

    private do_selection($teacher, $student=null){
        return false;
    }

}

tags 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  /[e-mail]/
!_TAG_PROGRAM_NAME  Exuberant Ctags //
!_TAG_PROGRAM_URL   http://ctags.sourceforge.net    /official site/
!_TAG_PROGRAM_VERSION   5.9~svn20110310 //
ManySchools test.php    /^class ManySchools extends School{$/;" c
School  test.php    /^class School{$/;" c
__construct test.php    /^    public function __construct(){$/;"    f
get_all test.php    /^    public function get_all(){$/;"    f
set_teachers    test.php    /^function set_teachers($teacher_array){$/;"    f
teachers    test.php    /^    $teachers = $teacher_array;$/;"   v
teachers    test.php    /^$teachers = array("standard one"=>"Celina Stephen", "Standard Two"=>"Emanyor Dickson");$/;"   v

Answer 1

The first item after the ;" in each line describes the kind of the tag, that is whether it is a class, function etc. In your example c stands for class, f for function and so on. You can get the complete list with ctags --list-kinds=php.

Return types are (unfortunately) not reported by ctags.

You should definitely have a look at the ctags manpage, everything is explained quite well there, for example what other information it can report in addition to the information it reports by default.