Spacemacs as c++ IDE

Aim

• This post talk about how to set up Spacemacs on ubuntu as a c++ IDE

Prerequisite

• Ubuntu 16.04.3 LTS
• emacs 25.1
• ycmd
• GNU Global
• cscope

Steps

• Install emacs from source

$ sudo apt install build-essential checkinstall
$ sudo apt-get build-dep emacs24
# Download the source code, extract it
$ tar zxvf emacs-25.1.tar.xz
$ cd emacs-25.1
$ ./configure --prefix=/usr/local/emacs/25.1
$ make -j 4
$ sudo mkdir -p /usr/local/emacs/25.1
$ sudo make install

• Add emacs to PATH

$ vim ~/.bashrc
# insert the following line
$ export PATH=/usr/local/emacs/25.1/bin:$PATH

• Install spacemacs

$ cd ~
$ mv .emacs.d .emacs.d.bak
$ git clone https://github.com/syl20bnr/spacemacs ~/.emacs.d
$ emacs --insecure

• Install GNU Global from source

$ tar zxvf globalxxx.tar.xz
$ cd global
$ ./configure --prefix=/usr/local/global/xx.xx
$ make -j 4
$ sudo mkdir -p /usr/local/global/xx.xx
$ sudo make install

• Add Global to PATH

$ vim ~/.bashrc
# insert the following line
$ export PATH=/usr/local/global/xx.xx/bin:$PATH

• Install cscope from source

$ tar zxvf cscopexxx.tar.xz
$ cd cscope
$ ./configure --prefix=/usr/local/cscope/xx.xx
$ make -j 4
$ sudo mkdir -p /usr/local/cscope/xx.xx
$ sudo make install

• Add cscope to PATH

$ vim ~/.bashrc
# insert the following line
$ export PATH=/usr/local/cscope/xx.xx/bin:$PATH

• Install YCMD

$ cd ~/Downloads/SoftwareInstall
$ git clone https://github.com/Valloric/ycmd.git
$ sudo apt-get install build-essential cmake python-dev
$ cd ycmd
$ git submodule update --init --recursive
$ ./build.py --clang-completer

• Fix a bug for spacemacs

$ vim ~/.emacs.d/layers/+tags/cscope/packages.el
# change the command prefix from g to c

• Update .spacemacs
• Download file spacemacs from here
• compare the downloaded file with ~/.spacemacs, you will found that you have to upgrade some layers, ycmd location and c++ indent information.
• DONE

How to use

• View gtags layer for information about how to use gtags
• View cscope layer for information about how to use cscope
• Download from here:
• prepareClang.sh
• prepareEmacsTag.sh
• Put them to /usr/bin
• Go to your c++ project root
• ./prepareEmacsTag.sh
• use spacemacs to view source code under the project root
• DONE

What you have now

• You can do code navigation by gtags and cscope
• You can have auto-complete and syntax checking accomplished by ycmd backend for c++