very fast, very high capacity indexer for C/C++ source code `mkid' creates an index covering a virtually unlimited number of files. (The number is only limited by available virtual address space. I have built ID files covering 500,000+ source files) Huge capacity makes idutils ideal for indexing an entire Linux source distribution--kernel, libraries, utilities, applications. With a global distribution source index, it is possible globally audit or change system interfaces. `mkid' is very fast--on modern systems, its speed is limited by I/O bandwidth. `lid' queries the index, allowing you to find in an instant what files contain a particular identifier or numeric literal. Queries can be for literal or regexp, word or substring, case sensitive or insensitive. `gid' (really an alias for `lid --grep') will show you all lines where an identifier occurs. It's an optimized grep that works instantly because the index guides it to search only those files where there will be a hit. Files that don't contain the identifier are ignored. Hits are printed in the same format as `grep -n', so they are digestible by compile mode in emacs. The package includes idutils.el which contains a small amount of elisp to allow convenient use of `gid' in conjunction with compile mode. I bind this function to M-* (Meta Splat), and think of it as an expanded M-. (Meta Dot), which shows all occurrences of an identifier rather than just the definition.