What's the difference between Find Reference/Definition

[Pan San]

Greetings,

Is there any difference between Find Reference and Definition?

When I use these to command, Gtag always shows all the symbols which I want. (The plugin did a great job.)

I'm wondering, is there any differences between Find Reference and Definition?

[Pavel Nedev]

Hi Pan,

Yes, there is a big difference.
Find Definition takes you to where function/class/global variable is defined.
Find Reference shows you all the places where the function/global variable is used.
But you know that already, that's why you are confused :)

You are wondering because on occasions the GTags parser cannot determine if something is definition or reference and it just marks that as a symbol (unknown existing tag). And when you do search for it later (as reference or definition) it is not found under those categories and instead is looked-up as a symbol (which leads to Find Definition and Find Reference showing the same results). Those two commands translate to Find Symbol in the mentioned case.

BR