Working towards making the build.zig build actually useful for
users..
For building a full runtime distribution in /usr or /opt/nvim or
whatever, use
sudo zig build install -p /usr
by default "zig build" will now work like "make" e.g. just build the binary
and the generated parts of the runtime. This will work for development,
but you need to use both parts of the runtime, just like with
an "uninstalled" cmake build:
zig build
VIM=. ./zig-out/bin/nvim --clean --cmd "set rtp+=./zig-out/runtime"
As a wrapper, `zig build run_dev` can be used
Problem:
`clint.py` is the last python in our codebase, and beyond that it needs
some cleanup. And it lacks tests, so modifying it can be painful.
Also, we need a way to add ad-hoc lint rules for *Lua*, so it will help
to have our ad-hoc rules for C in the same language (the scripts may
share functions/techniques): https://github.com/neovim/neovim/issues/28372
Solution:
- convert to `clint.lua` (mostly AI-generated, but it now has test
coverage, unlike `clint.py`)
- drop rules that are no longer needed:
- "readability/multiline_string"
- technially still relevant, but very uncommon so doesn't really matter.
- "--line-length"
- Not used in the old clint.py, nor the new clint.lua.
- "comment whitespace" check
- It is enforced by uncrustify.
- "TODO" check
- The `-google-readability-function-size` clang-tidy rule enforces
"TODO(user)" format. (It was already enabled long ago.)
Problem:
Sed thinks the argument starting with `1i` (and triple backticks) is the
suffix for the backup file because it comes right after the `-i` flag.
See for example
https://github.com/neovim/neovim/actions/runs/19774967693/job/56665991723.
Solution:
Explicitly mark it as command using the `-e` flag.
Problem:
No way to detect at runtime if the build includes unibilium (or whatever
terminfo layer we swap it with later).
Solution:
Support `has('terminfo')`.
Problem:
On macOS Tahoe, `make unittest` started failing with the following error.
````
test/unit/testutil.lua:784: test/unit/testutil.lua:768: (string) '
test/unit/testutil.lua:295: declaration specifier expected near 'ipc_info_object_type_t' at line 2297'
exit code: 256
stack traceback:
test/unit/testutil.lua:784: in function 'itp_parent'
test/unit/testutil.lua:822: in function <test/unit/testutil.lua:812>
````
Solution:
Update filter_complex_blocks.
Problem:
scripts/check_urls.vim manually matches urls in the help pages and then
synchronously checks them via curl/wget/powershell. This is extremely
slow (~5 minutes for Nvims runtime on my machine) and prone to errors in
how the urls are matched.
Solution:
- Use Tree-sitter to find the urls in the help pages and `vim.net.request` to
check the responses.
- Add a `lintdocurls` build task and check it in CI (every Friday).
- Reopens a dedicated issue if it finds unreachable URLs.
- Drop the old check_urls.vim script.
> The macOS 13 runner image will be retired by December 4th, 2025.
Update to the macos-15-intel runner.
It seems that runners ending with "large" require an enterprise plan, so
macos-15-intel is the only other available macOS Intel runner.
- Bump zig version to 0.15.1 and workaround zig fetch hang (ziglang/zig#24916)
- add mac os zig build (currently without luajit, linker failure)
- Add windows zig build, currently with very limited testing
Problem: The wasmtime version compatible with tree-sitter 0.25.x fails
current Rust lint.
Solution: Disable wasmtime build.
Rationale:
1. As the only Rust dependency, these force us into a fast-moving update cycle (new warnings for everyone!);
2. wasmtime has a monthly release cycle, but we're locked into whatever tree-sitter supports, and there's no clear compatibility matrix (and I no longer care enough to spend the time and effort keeping this synced between tree-sitter and neovim);
3. we only test building with wasmtime but not actually using wasm parsers (this was actually broken for a while without being caught);
4. we're probably not going to go with wasmtime as our default wasm engine anyway.
Problem:
Neovim binaries are not provided for Windows ARM64.
GitHub Actions now offer native CI runners for Windows on ARM devices
(windows-11-arm), enabling automated builds and testing.
Solution:
- Modified CMake packaging to include packaging windows on arm binaries.
- Modified env script to install and initialize vs setup for arm64 arch.
Co-authored-by: Justin M. Keyes <justinkz@gmail.com>
This is matters for cross-compiling where we might not
be able to run the "nvim" binary on the host.
Instead reimplement the helptags extractor as a small
lua script, which we can run on the host using the nlua0
helper already used for other generator scripts.
Tested using cross-compiling from linux:
zig build -Dcross=true -Dtarget=x86_64-windows nvim_bin
Note: not fully functional without a runtime, which still has to be
fuddled with manually
Macos and windows builds require a recent zig 0.15+dev version
As this zig master branch is currently too much in flux, we can't make
our CI depend on zig master.
Revisit CI after zig 0.15 release or at least feature freeze.
Problem:
We temporarily disabled linux arm ci because of stability issues with
the runner. #32339 Since then, the hardware was changed, so we can try
re-enabling ARM linux CI. https://github.com/actions/partner-runner-images/issues/47#issuecomment-2678170225
Solution:
- re-enable arm linux ci. reverts 8e4b77134a
- also use arm image for these jobs, where arm seems to run much faster:
- `lint` (step: `clang-tidy`)
- master: 1m5s
- this pr (linux ARM): 37s
- `clang-analyzer` (step: `cmake --build ...`)
- master: 10m
- this pr (linux ARM) 5m 55s
- `with-external-deps` (step: `Build`)
- master: 26s
- this pr (linux ARM): 21s
NEW BUILD SYSTEM!
This is a MVP implementation which supports building the "nvim" binary,
including cross-compilation for some targets.
As an example, you can build a aarch64-macos binary from
an x86-64-linux-gnu host, or vice versa
Add CI target for build.zig currently for functionaltests on linux
x86_64 only
Follow up items:
- praxis for version and dependency bumping
- windows 💀
- full integration of libintl and gettext (or a desicion not to)
- update help and API metadata files
- installation into a $PREFIX
- more tests and linters
Enable translations in the GCC release job, as it's the fastest.
Although there aren't many tests for translation behavior, this still
allows ensuring that Nvim isn't broken when translations are enabled.
This automatically downloads and uses the correct luals binary for the
currently used system. `make luals` will run luals on all lua files in
`runtime`.
We download lua-language-server manually instead of relying on
contributors downloading it on their own (like with stylua) as
lua-language-server is updated frequently which may cause unnecessary
friction. Therefore, we download a pinned version of luals which we then
can manually bump when needed. This can be re-evaluated if luals becomes
more stable in the future.
Currently this is not run when using `make lint` since cmake style "file
caching" doesn't seem possible at the moment. This is because checking a
single file doesn't seem to work.
Work on https://github.com/neovim/neovim/issues/24563.
