idutils ☆

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Description:
ID database and query tools

Type: Formula | Latest Version: 4.6@0 | Tracked Since: Nov 26, 2025

Links: Homepage | formulae.brew.sh

Category: Developer tools

Tags: code-search developer-tools indexing source-code gnu

Install: brew install idutils

About:
idutils builds and maintains a fast, compact identifier database (ID) for source code repositories. It provides the mkid command to index files and the lid/gid/fid utilities to query identifiers with context. This offers superior speed and precision for code navigation compared to generic text search tools.

Key Features:

Fast database construction with mkid
Multiple query tools (lid, gid, fid) for different search modes
Supports numerous programming and markup languages
Highly configurable via ID file and environment variables

Use Cases:

Quickly finding function, class, or variable definitions in large codebases
Refactoring code by locating all references to a specific identifier
Indexing project documentation or configuration files for rapid lookup

Alternatives:

cscope – cscope is better for deep C code analysis (call graphs), while idutils is faster for general identifier lookup across many languages.
GNU Global – Global provides tighter editor integration and cross-referencing, whereas idutils focuses on raw speed and simplicity of indexing.
grep -r – grep is universally available but slower and less precise, as it matches text rather than semantic code identifiers.

Version History

Detected	Rev	Change	Commit
Nov 26, 2025 11:03pm	1	VERSION_BUMP	798e87ed
Sep 12, 2025 10:25am	1	VERSION_BUMP	2080e310
Sep 14, 2024 6:00am	1	VERSION_BUMP	6283d201
Dec 1, 2022 9:08am	1	VERSION_BUMP	506cf2e5