Hello James, thanks for your time!
> > When the file "tags" (or also "TAGS") was created with the 'etags' command, > > e.g. > > > > $ etags file.c > > Which etags is this? There are various packages that provide the etags > name. “update-alternatives --query etags” will tell you. It says: Name: etags Link: /usr/bin/etags Slaves: etags.1.gz /usr/share/man/man1/etags.1.gz Status: auto Best: /usr/bin/ctags-exuberant Value: /usr/bin/ctags-exuberant Alternative: /usr/bin/ctags-exuberant Priority: 10 Slaves: etags.1.gz /usr/share/man/man1/ctags-exuberant.1.gz It generates the same format as described in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ctags#Etags_2 with a header <\x0c> {src_file},{size_of_tag_definition_data_in_bytes} and lines formatted as {tag_definition_text}<\x7f>{tagname}<\x01>{line_number},{byte_offset} A typical file is then <\x0c> test.c,21 #define CCC(<\x7f>CCC<\x01>1,0 In fact, my own use case is not the 'etags' command, but the 'tags' files contained in (and generated at runtime by) the 'picolisp' package. This also uses the above format, and the PicoLisp 'vi' command calls 'vim', and broke in the described way. Therefore I tested also with the 'etags' command. It makes the problem easier to reproduce. 'vim' still claims to be compiled with '+emacs_tags'. In Debian Jessie (and before) it worked without problems. Best regards, - Alex