Setup Neovim for Lua Development

Lua Development in Neovim

Even if you don't plan on doing any Lua development in Neovim it is probably a good idea to enable lua support.

One reason for this is that pretty much all of Neovim's future development/configuration will be done in lua.

This article will show you how to turn Neovim into a lua IDE.

Installation Instructions

1. Install ninja

   • Arch: sudo pacman -S ninja
   • Ubuntu: sudo apt install ninja-build
   • Mac: brew install ninja

2. Clone Lua Language Server Repo

   cd .config/nvim git clone https://github.com/sumneko/lua-language-server cd lua-language-server git submodule update --init --recursive

3. Build language Lua Server

   • Linux:

     cd 3rd/luamake ninja -f ninja/linux.ninja cd ../.. ./3rd/luamake/luamake rebuild

   • Mac:

     cd 3rd/luamake ninja -f ninja/macos.ninja cd ../.. ./3rd/luamake/luamake rebuild

Configure Language Server

Now create file to hold the config and source it somewhere:

Make sure that the root path and binary paths are pointing to the correct installation location or nothing will work

-- https://github.com/sumneko/lua-language-server/wiki/Build-and-Run-(Standalone) USER = vim.fn.expand('$USER') local sumneko_root_path = "" local sumneko_binary = "" if vim.fn.has("mac") == 1 then sumneko_root_path = "/Users/" .. USER .. "/.config/nvim/lua-language-server" sumneko_binary = "/Users/" .. USER .. "/.config/nvim/lua-language-server/bin/macOS/lua-language-server" elseif vim.fn.has("unix") == 1 then sumneko_root_path = "/home/" .. USER .. "/.config/nvim/lua-language-server" sumneko_binary = "/home/" .. USER .. "/.config/nvim/lua-language-server/bin/Linux/lua-language-server" else print("Unsupported system for sumneko") end require'lspconfig'.sumneko_lua.setup { cmd = {sumneko_binary, "-E", sumneko_root_path .. "/main.lua"}, settings = { Lua = { runtime = { -- Tell the language server which version of Lua you're using (most likely LuaJIT in the case of Neovim) version = 'LuaJIT', -- Setup your lua path path = vim.split(package.path, ';') }, diagnostics = { -- Get the language server to recognize the `vim` global globals = {'vim'} }, workspace = { -- Make the server aware of Neovim runtime files library = {[vim.fn.expand('$VIMRUNTIME/lua')] = true, [vim.fn.expand('$VIMRUNTIME/lua/vim/lsp')] = true} } } } }

(Optional) Formatting and Auto-Format

The sumneko language server doesn't support format out of the box

We can install a formatter and use the efm-language-server server to support it

The efm-language-server is a general purpose language-server

Install Lua Formatter

First install LuaRocks

Then run:

luarocks install --server=https://luarocks.org/dev luaformatter

Install efm-language-server

• Linux (you will need to have go installed, also you will need to put the go/bin dir in your PATH)

  go get github.com/mattn/efm-langserver

• Mac:

  brew install efm-langserver

Configure Formatting

require"lspconfig".efm.setup { init_options = {documentFormatting = true}, filetypes = {"lua"}, settings = { rootMarkers = {".git/"}, languages = { lua = { { formatCommand = "lua-format -i --no-keep-simple-function-one-line --no-break-after-operator --column-limit=150 --break-after-table-lb", formatStdin = true } } } } }

Now you can call: lua vim.lsp.buf.formatting()

And for auto-format add this to a .vim file and source it:

autocmd BufWritePre *.lua lua vim.lsp.buf.formatting_sync(nil, 100)

Links and references

Install language server

LuaRocks

LuaFormatter