vim can't process tags

Question

I generated tags files and I'm using the following command in my .vimrc:

:set tags=./tags;

When I press Ctrl] I get the following error:

E433: No tags file
E426: tag not found: poll_wait

I'm not sure that the tag file is actually loaded.

:verbose set tags?
  tags=./tags;
        Last set from ~/.vimrc

How can I debug it further ?

Answer 1

Your 'tags' setting should search for tags named tags in the current directory:

When a file name starts with "./", the '.' is replaced with the path of the current file. But only when the 'd' flag is not included in 'cpoptions'.

You could check the compatibility options that they don't include d with :set cpo?.

Also, files named tags would be found in parent directories (according to :help file-searching):

The stop-directories are appended to the path (for the 'path' option) or to the filename (for the 'tags' option) with a ';'. If you want no stop-directory ("search upward till the root directory) just use ';'.

So, all is looking fine (assuming a tags file actually is there). :help 'tags' also provides a great troubleshooting tip:

The tagfiles() function can be used to get a list of the file names actually used.

You can use that one with :echo. Good luck!