Make gen_helptags.lua call help.lua instead of keeping its own tag
parser. Builds and :helptags now use the same code.
Allow the shared code to run without Neovim, and fail the build when tag
generation reports an error.
AI-assisted
Problem: Watcher failures are reported inconsistently, and callers
cannot detect when a watcher is no longer usable.
Solution: Route startup and event failures and unexpected inotifywait
exits through an optional on_error callback. Log to nvim-watch.log by
default. Ignore disappearing child directories and exits caused by
cancellation. Let LSP log failures and notify once per message, using
INFO for missing roots and ERROR otherwise, without interrupting
registration.
AI-assisted
Problem: Nvim has many Lua APIs that start callback-driven work: timers,
jobs, libuv handles, and other event-loop tasks. Callers that need to
sequence or cancel that work have to build their own coroutine wrappers,
task bookkeeping, and cleanup rules. This makes async control flow hard
to share, test, and document.
Solution: Add `vim.async`, a structured-concurrency module vendored from
async.nvim. It provides task handles, await/pawait helpers,
sleep/timeout helpers, completion-order iteration, and semaphores on top
of Nvim's event loop.
The API follows the same broad model as Trio: async work has an owner,
tasks are awaited explicitly, and cancellation is cooperative. Include
generated vimdoc with an introductory overview and examples, a news
entry, and functional tests for the new module.
AI-assisted
Problem: there should be exactly one cell of padding between sections,
and exactly one cell of minimum padding between the left and the right.
- Spaces between sections waste space when a section is empty.
According to a comment in #33036, this was the reason to avoid `%k`
and implement the keymap section with a vim expression, but other
sections still have this problem.
- The diagnostics section wastes space because it is not entirely empty
when there are diagnostics in another buffer.
- The terminal exit code section can touch the right side, e.g. the
ruler, even though it belongs to the left side.
Solution:
- Use auto-hiding item groups (`%(` without width fields) to get rid of
unneeded spaces when a section shows no information.
This simplifies the 'showcmd' and 'keymap' sections in particular.
- As a slight simplification, `term_exitcode` is moved into the flags
section since it is formatted with square brackets like a flag.
- Count the diagnostics for the current buffer specifically.
- Ensure at least one cell of padding between the left and the right
side by adding a space next to the separator `%=`.
Problem: some sections are implemented with `%{%`, even though
reevaluation of the expression result is not needed.
This leads to otherwise needless %-escaping in `progress_status`.
Solution: use `%{` instead.
Problem: `%{` and `%{%` (without items) replace spaces with fillchars.
This looks out-of-place inside the terminal exit code section, and in
contrast to all other sections, the 'busy' section is surrounded by
fillchars, which looks inconsistent, and with some terminal-font
combinations, ◐ overlaps the fillchar, e.g. Alacritty & JetBrains Mono.
Solution: use non-breaking spaces U+202F to avoid fillchar substitution.
Problem: sections that appear/disappear frequently can make otherwise
more stable sections jump around a lot.
Solution: sort the sections on the right roughly by volatility:
'showcmd' in first place, 'keymap' next to the ruler.
Problem:
Cannot assign Lua functions/closures to "func" ('completefunc',
'tagfun', …) or "expr" ('foldexpr', 'indentexpr', …) options.
Solution:
- Store "func"/"expr" options as `Callback` instead of string.
- Delete oceans of copy-pasted code.
- BREAKING: LuaRef returned via RPC/Vimscript is now represented as
`"<Lua N: file:line>"` (like what `:map` shows) instead of `nil`.
- Note: `man.vim` still uses `v:lua` string, bc it's a vimscript ftplugin.
Helped-by: Lewis Russell <lewis6991@gmail.com>
Problem:
The bundled `zip` plugin is implemented in Vimscript, making it harder to
maintain and build on with Nvim's Lua runtime infrastructure.
Solution:
Add an opt-out `zip.lua` browser backed by `nvim.dir`, and disable the legacy
Vimscript implementation by moving it to `pack/dist/opt/zip/`. Load it with
`:packadd zip`.
Problem:
POSIX-compatible Ex-mode requires special-cases all over the codebase to
match various quirks that don't actually matter to users.
- The main utility of *interactive* Ex-mode is its REPL behavior, and
that can be achieved with `cmdwin`, which also gains extra UX
benefits.
- The main utility of *non-interactive* `nvim -es` is for shell
scripting, where Ex-mode quirks are mostly unhelpful (e.g. the
"Entering Ex mode" message).
Solution:
- Reimplement *interactive* Ex-mode as a "persistent, insert-mode
cmdwin" in Lua.
- "nvim -e/-E" is simply an alias to "gQ".
- Reframe *non-interactive* Ex-mode (`nvim -es`) as "script mode".
- Drop POSIX Ex-mode quirks.
Improvements:
- "nvim -V1 -es" output ends with a final newline!
- "nvim -V1 -es" no longer shows the "Entering Ex mode" msg. (This was
pointless noise, unwanted for scripting purposes.)
- stdin is no longer typeahead. Scripts (":lua io.read()") can read
stdin as data.
- Empty line is a no-op: a stray blank line no longer moves the cursor
(deviates from POSIX ex "+1"), no longer exits 1 at EOF (E501).
Preserved behavior:
- cursor starts at "$"
- mode()=="cv" (for non-interactive)
- multiline commands (:append/:function/heredoc pull continuation lines)
- bare-range print
- :print=>stdout
- -V1=>stderr
- CRLF input
- continue-after-error and exit codes
Dropped (regressed) POSIX behavior (non-interactive):
- Event loop only ticks while/between commands, not while blocked
waiting for a stdin line.
- ":g/pat/visual...Q"
- input()/getchar()/":s/x/y/c" no longer consume stdin lines as
answers: Nvim stops at end-of-input, skipping the rest of the script,
exit 0. Use ":lua io.read()" instead.
- If users care about this they should use interactive Ex-mode (`gQ`).
- ":@r" stops at end of the register instead of continuing to read
cmdline input from stdin.
Problem:
`nvim_create_autocmd` is too verbose and its `callback` requires extra
"nesting".
Solution:
Introduce `nvim_on`. Start using it internally. Then we can get a feel
for how it should look before making it public.
Define `:packupdate` and `:packdel` as separate commands instead of a
unified `:pack {subcommand}` because the semantics between the two
commands vary differently enough that it doesn't make sense to combine
them. Additionally, `:pack! update/del` looks bad.
Problem:
Error when querying document symbols using python-lsp-server:
lsp/util.lua:1955: attempt to concatenate field 'containerName' (a userdata value)
Solution:
Check for `vim.NIL`.
Problem: There are many Git forges each with a different way of
constructing permanent links to like commits and tags.
Solution: Add a private utility function that computes these special
links on the best effort basis.
Problem:
Too much boilerplate needed to use Lua to impl an excmd or f_xx
function.
Solution:
- Add `nlua_call_vimfn` which takes the args typval, executes
Lua, and returns a typval.
- refactor(excmd): lua impl for :log, :lsp
Problem:
When a terminal process exits, "[Process Exited]" text is added
to the buffer contents.
Solution:
- Return `exitcode` field from `nvim_get_chan_info`.
- Show it in the default 'statusline'.
- Show exitcode as virtual text in the terminal buffer.
Problem:
Can't use `:source` to run a Lua codeblock (treesitter injection) in
a help (vimdoc) file.
Solution:
Use treesitter to parse the range and treat it as Lua if detected as
such.
Problem:
We want to encourage implementing core features in Lua instead of C, but
it's clumsy because:
- Core Lua code (built into `nvim` so it is available even if VIMRUNTIME
is missing/invalid) requires manually updating CMakeLists.txt, or
stuffing it into `_editor.lua`.
- Core Lua modules are not organized similar to C modules, `_editor.lua`
is getting too big.
Solution:
- Introduce `_core/` where core Lua code can live. All Lua modules added
there will automatically be included as bytecode in the `nvim` binary.
- Move these core modules into `_core/*`:
```
_defaults.lua
_editor.lua
_options.lua
_system.lua
shared.lua
```
TODO:
- Move `_extui/ => _core/ui2/`
Fixes issue on mac where it was constantly reloading buffers as paths
were not being normalized and resolved correctly (in relation to buffer
name).
Quickfix entry:
/var/folders/pt/2s7dzyw12v36tsslrghfgpkr0000gn/T/git-difftool.m95lj8/right/app.vue
Buffer name:
/private/var/folders/pt/2s7dzyw12v36tsslrghfgpkr0000gn/T/git-difftool.m95lj8/right/app.vue
/var was synlinked to /private/var and this was not being properly
handled.
Also added lazy redraw to avoid too many redraws when this happens in
future and added test for symlink handling.
Signed-off-by: Tomas Slusny <slusnucky@gmail.com>
Problem:
Built-in diff mode (nvim -d) does not support directory diffing
as required by git difftool -d. This makes it difficult to compare
entire directories, detect renames, and navigate changes efficiently.
Solution:
Add a DiffTool plugin and command that enables side-by-side diffing of
files and directories in Neovim. The plugin supports rename detection,
highlights changes in the quickfix list, and provides a user command for
easy invocation. This allows proper integration with git difftool -d for
directory comparison.
Example git config:
```ini
[diff]
tool = nvim_difftool
[difftool "nvim_difftool"]
cmd = nvim -c "packadd nvim.difftool" -c "DiffTool $LOCAL $REMOTE"
```
Signed-off-by: Tomas Slusny <slusnucky@gmail.com>
Co-authored-by: Phạm Bình An <111893501+brianhuster@users.noreply.github.com>
Co-authored-by: Justin M. Keyes <justinkz@gmail.com>
Lewis Russell