feat(help): generate :helptags using Treesitter

Problem:
Tags are manually parsed in C which is not flexible and prone to errors.
Extending the help system to allow for other formats (e.g. Markdown)
would require a large rewrite in the C core, while with Treesitter it
only needs a query update.

Solution:
Use the power of treesitter to extract the tags from helpfiles.

- build: set `$VIMRUNTIME` when generating helptags, like
  `cmake/Util.cmake` already does for other generators.
- fix(help): only accept tags delimited by whitespace. The old C parser
  only accepted a `*tag*` preceded by start-of-line or whitespace and
  followed by whitespace or end-of-line. The vimdoc parser also captures
  tags followed by other text, e.g. `*$XDG_STATE_HOME*/.../logs` in
  starting.txt, which caused an E154 duplicate tag error for docs that
  were previously fine.
This commit is contained in:
Yochem van Rosmalen
2026-01-14 12:03:21 +01:00
committed by Justin M. Keyes
parent a1de07418b
commit b36b3d7f3a
5 changed files with 243 additions and 304 deletions

View File

@@ -1,5 +1,7 @@
local M = {}
local ts = vim.treesitter
local tag_exceptions = {
-- Interpret asterisk (star, '*') literal but name it 'star'
['*'] = 'star',
@@ -395,4 +397,149 @@ function M.local_additions()
end
end
local query = ts.query.parse('vimdoc', '(tag (word) @tagname)')
--- @alias Tag { [1]: string, [2]: string, [3]: string} tuple of tag, file, and search command
---Find and report duplicate tags.
---@param tags Tag[]
---@return boolean
local function find_duplicates(tags)
local prevtag, prevfn, has_duplicates = '', '', false
for _, tagline in ipairs(tags) do
local curtag, curfn, _ = unpack(tagline)
if curtag == prevtag then
has_duplicates = true
local filenames = prevfn ~= curfn and (curfn .. ' and ' .. prevfn) or curfn
local msg = ('E154: Duplicate tag "%s" in %s'):format(curtag, filenames)
vim.api.nvim_echo({ { msg } }, false, { err = true })
end
prevtag = curtag
prevfn = curfn
end
return has_duplicates
end
---Extract tags from {file} and add to list of tags. Modifies {tags}.
---@param tags Tag[]
---@param file string
local function extract_tags(tags, file)
local filename = vim.fs.basename(file)
local source = vim.fn.readblob(file)
local parser = ts.get_string_parser(source, 'vimdoc')
local tree = assert(parser:parse())
local root = tree[1]:root()
for _, match in query:iter_matches(root, source) do
for id, node in pairs(match) do
if query.captures[id] == 'tagname' then
-- Only accept a *tag* when there is white space (or nothing) before it
-- and it is followed by a white character or end-of-line.
local _, _, start_byte, _, _, end_byte = node[1]:parent():range(true)
local before = source:sub(start_byte, start_byte)
local after = source:sub(end_byte + 1, end_byte + 1)
if before:match('^[ \t\n\r]?$') and after:match('^[ \t\n\r]?$') then
local tagname = ts.get_node_text(node[1], source)
local escaped = tagname:gsub('[\\/]', '\\%0')
local searchcmd = '/*' .. escaped .. '*'
table.insert(tags, { tagname, filename, searchcmd })
end
end
end
end
end
--- Extract tags from helpfiles and combine in a single 'tags' file.
--- @param helpfiles string[] list of helpfiles
--- @param outpath string path to write the 'tags' file to.
--- @param include_helptags_tag boolean true if the 'help-tags' tag should be included
local function gen_tagsfile(helpfiles, outpath, include_helptags_tag)
---@type Tag[]
local tags = {}
-- (1) extract tags from all files
for _, file in ipairs(helpfiles) do
extract_tags(tags, file)
end
if include_helptags_tag then
table.insert(tags, { 'help-tags', 'tags', '1' })
end
if vim.tbl_isempty(tags) then
return
end
-- (2) sort alphabetically on tag name
table.sort(tags, function(a, b)
return a[1] < b[1]
end)
-- (3) check duplicates
local has_duplicates = find_duplicates(tags)
-- (4) write tags to file
local f = assert(io.open(outpath, 'w'))
for _, tag in ipairs(tags) do
f:write(table.concat(tag, '\t') .. '\n')
end
f:close()
-- tags file has to be written before we can error
if has_duplicates then
error('duplicate tags')
end
end
--- Create a "tags" file for all help files in the given directory.
---
--- The directory {dir} is generally a "doc" directory that contains "*.txt"
--- helpfiles.
---
--- @param dir string? Path to directory with help files. If `nil` (or |vim.NIL|),
--- generate tags for every `doc` directory in the runtimepath.
--- @param include_index_tag? boolean (default: false) Whether to include the "help-tags" tag.
function M.gen_tags(dir, include_index_tag)
if dir == vim.NIL then
dir = nil
end
vim.validate('dir', dir, 'string', true)
vim.validate('include_index_tag', include_index_tag, 'boolean', true)
local dirs = dir and { vim.fs.normalize(dir) } or vim.api.nvim_get_runtime_file('doc', true)
local vimruntime = vim.fs.normalize(vim.fs.joinpath(vim.env.VIMRUNTIME, 'doc'))
for _, directory in ipairs(dirs) do
local files = vim.fs.find(function(name, _)
return vim.endswith(name, '.txt')
end, { path = directory, type = 'file', limit = math.huge })
local outpath = vim.fs.joinpath(directory, 'tags')
gen_tagsfile(files, outpath, include_index_tag or directory == vimruntime)
-- handle translated help files per language
local translated = vim.fs.find(function(name, _)
-- "*.[a-z][a-z]x", see :help help-translated
return name:match('%.%l%lx', -4)
end, { path = directory, type = 'file', limit = math.huge })
-- categorize translated files per two-letter language code
---@type table<string, string[]>
local per_lang = {}
for _, file in ipairs(translated) do
-- extract language code "nl" from filename "plugin.nlx"
local lang = file:sub(-3, -2)
per_lang[lang] = per_lang[lang] or {}
table.insert(per_lang[lang], file)
end
for lang, langfiles in pairs(per_lang) do
local tagsfile = vim.fs.joinpath(directory, 'tags-' .. lang)
gen_tagsfile(langfiles, tagsfile, include_index_tag or directory == vimruntime)
end
end
end
return M