Syntactic Symbols (CC Mode Manual)

10.2 Syntactic Symbols

This section is a complete list of the syntactic symbols which appear in the c-offsets-alist style variable, along with brief descriptions. The previous section (see Syntactic Analysis) states what syntactic symbols are and how the indentation engine uses them.

More detailed descriptions of these symbols, together with snippets of source code to which they apply, appear in the examples in the subsections below. Note that, in the interests of brevity, the anchor position associated with most syntactic symbols is not specified. In cases of doubt, type C-c C-s on a pertinent line—this highlights the anchor position.

The syntactic symbols which indicate brace constructs follow a general naming convention. When a line begins with an open or close brace, its syntactic symbol will contain the suffix -open or -close respectively. The first line within the brace block construct will contain the suffix -block-intro.

In constructs which can span several lines, a distinction is usually made between the first line that introduces the construct and the lines that continue it. The syntactic symbols that indicate these lines will contain the suffixes -intro or -cont respectively.

The best way to understand how all this works is by looking at some examples. Remember that you can see the syntax of any source code line by using C-c C-s.

string: Inside a multiline string. Comment String Label and Macro Symbols.
c: Inside a multiline C style block comment. Comment String Label and Macro Symbols.
defun-open: Brace that opens a top-level function definition. Function Symbols.
defun-close: Brace that closes a top-level function definition. Function Symbols.
defun-block-intro: The first line in a top-level defun. Function Symbols.
class-open: Brace that opens a class definition. Class related Symbols.
class-close: Brace that closes a class definition. Class related Symbols.
inline-open: Brace that opens an in-class inline method. Class related Symbols.
inline-close: Brace that closes an in-class inline method. Class related Symbols.
func-decl-cont: The region between a function definition’s argument list and the function opening brace (excluding K&R argument declarations). In C, you cannot put anything but whitespace and comments in this region, however in C++ and Java, throws declarations and other things can appear here. Comment String Label and Macro Symbols.
knr-argdecl-intro: First line of a K&R C argument declaration. K&R Symbols.
knr-argdecl: Subsequent lines in a K&R C argument declaration. K&R Symbols.
topmost-intro: The first line in a “topmost” definition. Function Symbols.
topmost-intro-cont: Topmost definition continuation lines. This is only used in the parts that aren’t covered by other symbols such as func-decl-cont and knr-argdecl. Function Symbols.
annotation-top-cont: Topmost definition continuation lines where all previous items are annotations. Java Symbols.
member-init-intro: First line in a member initialization list. Class related Symbols.
member-init-cont: Subsequent member initialization list lines. Class related Symbols.
inher-intro: First line of a multiple inheritance list. Class related Symbols.
inher-cont: Subsequent multiple inheritance lines. Class related Symbols.
block-open: Statement block open brace. Comment String Label and Macro Symbols.
block-close: Statement block close brace. Conditional Construct Symbols.
brace-list-open: Open brace of an enum or static array list. Brace List Symbols.
brace-list-close: Close brace of an enum or static array list. Brace List Symbols.
brace-list-intro: First line after the opening ‘{’ in an enum or static array list. Brace List Symbols.
brace-list-entry: Subsequent lines in an enum or static array list. Brace List Symbols.
brace-entry-open: Subsequent lines in an enum or static array list where the line begins with an open brace. Brace List Symbols.
statement: A statement. Function Symbols.
statement-cont: A continuation of a statement. Function Symbols.
annotation-var-cont: A continuation of a statement where all previous items are annotations. Java Symbols.
statement-block-intro: The first line in a new statement block. Conditional Construct Symbols.
statement-case-intro: The first line in a case block. Switch Statement Symbols.
statement-case-open: The first line in a case block that starts with a brace. Switch Statement Symbols.
substatement: The first line after a conditional or loop construct. Conditional Construct Symbols.
substatement-open: The brace that opens a substatement block. Conditional Construct Symbols.
substatement-label: The first line after a conditional or loop construct if it’s a label. Conditional Construct Symbols.
case-label: A label in a switch block. Switch Statement Symbols.
access-label: C++ access control label. Class related Symbols.
label: Any other label. Comment String Label and Macro Symbols.
do-while-closure: The while line that ends a do-while construct. Conditional Construct Symbols.
else-clause: The else line of an if-else construct. Conditional Construct Symbols.
catch-clause: The catch or finally (in Java) line of a try-catch construct. Conditional Construct Symbols.
comment-intro: A line containing only a comment introduction. Comment String Label and Macro Symbols.
arglist-intro: The first line in an argument list. Parenthesis (Argument) List Symbols.
arglist-cont: Subsequent argument list lines when no arguments follow on the same line as the arglist opening paren. Parenthesis (Argument) List Symbols.
arglist-cont-nonempty: Subsequent argument list lines when at least one argument follows on the same line as the arglist opening paren. Parenthesis (Argument) List Symbols.
arglist-close: The solo close paren of an argument list. Parenthesis (Argument) List Symbols.
stream-op: Lines continuing a stream operator (C++ only). Comment String Label and Macro Symbols.
inclass: The line is nested inside a class definition. Class related Symbols.
cpp-macro: The start of a preprocessor macro definition. Comment String Label and Macro Symbols.
cpp-define-intro: The first line inside a multiline preprocessor macro if c-syntactic-indentation-in-macros is set. Multiline Macro Symbols.
cpp-macro-cont: All lines inside multiline preprocessor macros if c-syntactic-indentation-in-macros is nil. Multiline Macro Symbols.
friend: A C++ friend declaration. Class related Symbols.
objc-method-intro: The first line of an Objective-C method definition. Objective-C Method Symbols.
objc-method-args-cont: Lines continuing an Objective-C method definition. Objective-C Method Symbols.
objc-method-call-cont: Lines continuing an Objective-C method call. Objective-C Method Symbols.
extern-lang-open: Brace that opens an extern block (e.g., extern "C" {...}). External Scope Symbols.
extern-lang-close: Brace that closes an extern block. External Scope Symbols.
inextern-lang: Analogous to inclass syntactic symbol, but used inside extern blocks. External Scope Symbols.
namespace-open
namespace-close
innamespace: These are analogous to the three extern-lang symbols above, but are returned for C++ namespace blocks. External Scope Symbols.
module-open
module-close
inmodule: Analogous to the above, but for CORBA IDL module blocks. External Scope Symbols.
composition-open
composition-close
incomposition: Analogous to the above, but for CORBA CIDL composition blocks. External Scope Symbols.
template-args-cont: C++ template argument list continuations. Class related Symbols.
inlambda: Analogous to inclass syntactic symbol, but used inside lambda (i.e., anonymous) functions. Used in C++ and Pike modes. Statement Block Symbols.
lambda-intro-cont: Lines continuing the header of a lambda function, i.e., between the lambda keyword and the function body. Only used in Pike mode. Statement Block Symbols.
inexpr-statement: A statement block inside an expression. The gcc C and C++ extension for this is recognized. It’s also used for the special functions that take a statement block as an argument in Pike. Statement Block Symbols.
inexpr-class: A class definition inside an expression. This is used for anonymous classes in Java. It’s also used for anonymous array initializers in Java. Java Symbols.