universal-ctags installed by snap not compatible with vim-gutentags

[mellery451]

This is more of a warning to other users since i discovered the hard-way that universal-ctags installed by snap is NOT compatible with gutentags. For me it manifested as permission errors reading the ctags_recursive.options file, but I could imagine different file perm errors depending on your config. The fs limitations are mentioned at https://snapcraft.io/universal-ctags and in universal-ctags/ctags-snap#26. I don't think there is anything for gutentags to do except maybe include a warning in the doc about snap installed ctags.

Feel free to close this issue, but I just wanted to document the problem before I forget about it.

[thallada]

Anyone have a workaround for this? The snap seems like the only way to install universal-ctags on linux without compiling it yourself.

I tried defining a .gutctags file in my projects with the same contents as ~/.vim/bundle/vim-gutentags/res/ctags_recursive.options. It appears that the snap ctags executable might be able to read that, but now it is failing with:

gutentags: [job stdout]: ['Locking tags file...', 'Running ctags on whole project', 'ctags -f "tags.temp" "--options=/home/thallada/workspace/project/.gutctags"  --exclude=@/tmp/nvimkiWApE/1 --exclude=node_modules --exclude=ENV --exclude=venv --exclude=build --exclude=.swp --exclude=.ico --exclude=.git --exclude=.svn
 --exclude=*.egg --exclude=Session.vim --exclude=coverage "."', '']
gutentags: [job stderr]: ['ctags: cannot open "/tmp/nvimkiWApE/1" : No such file or directory', '']

That file appears to be a gitignore, not sure where the origin of it is and why it is in /tmp but I know snaps that aren't in the classic mode aren't able to access /tmp.

My workaround right now is to just compile universal-ctags myself. I was hesitant at first but it compiled without issues. I just need to remember to update it once in a while now.

[spazm]

• They have a ticket and have asked to be turned back into a "classic" snap app which would have access to /tmp/ : Permission denied when accessing hidden files and folders universal-ctags/ctags-snap#4

• setting the gutentag temp directory to be under $HOME also works to generate the tags file, but it also means the tags file is not copied back to the local/project dir. I set mine to ~/tmp/:

    let g:gutentags_cache_dir = '~/tmp/'
  

[Gengchen-Wei]

I've got the same error. Instead of using snap, sudo apt install universal-ctags solved the issue. @thallada