How can I get Eclipse to index an entire C/C++ source tree that contains multiple "make projects"?

Question

I'm having trouble getting Eclipse to index my source code. I'm using Eclipse Helios on Windows XP at the moment.

I have a directory called src. Within it, I have a bunch of dirs, something like this:

  src    -include (common headers)    -lib      -libIO (source code for this library)      -libGUI  (source code for this library)    -pgms      -pgm1  (source code and headers for this pgm)      -pgm2  (source code and headers for this pgm) 

Each leaf has its own Makefile. There is no top-level Makefile in src. pgm1 can and does include files from include and lib/libIO and lib/libGUI.

Basically, I want Eclipse to index my entire src directory, without having to set up a C/C++ project for every leaf in my tree. I can't seem to find a way to make this happen.

Here's my symptoms; what I'm trying to solve for:

When editing source in the pgm1 dir, it references functions that are declared in my include dir header files and defined in source files found in lib/libIO.

However, when I press F3 to get to the declaration of a function, Eclipse says "Could not find symbol 'X' in index". I can't seem to get Eclipse to find either the header declaration or the source definition for the method under my cursor (like the Java module does perfectly). Is this possible?

Answer 1

I had exactly same issue as OP but for some reason the menus in Eclipse I was using (Helios Service Release 2) were not "Go to Properties -> C/C++ General -> Paths and Symbols -> Source Location.".

The way I fixed the issue was :

• in C/C++ view, right-click on top project name;
• in the menu, select New->C++ Project;
• in the window that appears, select Convert to and then select C++ project;
• click OK to close the window.

Eclipse will start indexing right away. Depending on the size of source tree it may take a while but you will have the indexing working finally after that.