Here is the overview section of the id.texinfo document:

Overview
********

   An ID database is simply a file containing a list of file names, a
list of identifiers, and a binary relation (stored as a bit matrix)
indicating which of the identifiers appear in each file.  With this
database and some tools to manipulate the data, a host of tasks
become simpler and faster. You can `grep' through hundreds of files
for a name, skipping the files that don't contain the name.  You can
search for all the memos containing references to a project.  You can
edit every file that calls some function, adding a new required
argument. Anyone with a large software project to maintain, or a
large set of text files to organize can benefit from the ID database
and the tools that manipulate it.

   There are several programs in the ID family.  The `mkid' program
scans the files, finds the identifiers and builds the ID database. 
The `lid' and `aid' tools are used to generate lists of file names
containing an identifier (perhaps to recompile every file that
references a macro which just changed). The `eid' program will invoke
an editor on each of the files containing an identifier and the `gid'
program will `grep' for an identifier in the subset of files known to
contain it.  The `pid' tool is used to query the path names of the
files in the database (rather than the contents).  Finally, the `iid'
tool is an interactive program supporting complex queries to
intersect and join sets of file names.

That ends the overview.


To build and install mkid, look through the Makefile - all the various
configuration options are (more or less :-) documented there. Change them
around to work for your system, and type "make" to build the programs.

To make the texinfo online documentation type "make id-info".

To make the printed manual construct the .dvi file with "make id.dvi".  You
will have to figure out how printing .dvi files works on your system (talk
to a local TeX guru -- if you don't have TeX, you won't be able to print the
manual, sorry).
