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(emacs)Select Tags Table

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Selecting a Tags Table
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   Emacs has at any time one "selected" tags table, and all the commands
for working with tags tables use the selected one.  To select a tags
table, type `M-x visit-tags-table', which reads the tags table file
name as an argument.  The name `TAGS' in the default directory is used
as the default file name.

   All this command does is store the file name in the variable
`tags-file-name'.  Emacs does not actually read in the tags table
contents until you try to use them.  Setting this variable yourself is
just as good as using `visit-tags-table'.  The variable's initial value
is `nil'; that value tells all the commands for working with tags tables
that they must ask for a tags table file name to use.

   Using `visit-tags-table' when a tags table is already loaded gives
you a choice: you can add the new tags table to the current list of
tags tables, or start a new list.  The tags commands use all the tags
tables in the current list.  If you start a new list, the new tags table
is used _instead_ of others.  If you add the new table to the current
list, it is used _as well as_ the others.  When the tags commands scan
the list of tags tables, they don't always start at the beginning of
the list; they start with the first tags table (if any) that describes
the current file, proceed from there to the end of the list, and then
scan from the beginning of the list until they have covered all the
tables in the list.

   You can specify a precise list of tags tables by setting the variable
`tags-table-list' to a list of strings, like this:

     (setq tags-table-list
           '("~/emacs" "/usr/local/lib/emacs/src"))

This tells the tags commands to look at the `TAGS' files in your
`~/emacs' directory and in the `/usr/local/lib/emacs/src' directory.
The order depends on which file you are in and which tags table
mentions that file, as explained above.

   Do not set both `tags-file-name' and `tags-table-list'.