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https://github.com/noib3/nvim-oxi

:link: Rust bindings to all things Neovim
https://github.com/noib3/nvim-oxi

neovim rust rust-bindings

Last synced: 13 days ago
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:link: Rust bindings to all things Neovim

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# 🔗 nvim-oxi



[![Latest version]](https://crates.io/crates/nvim-oxi)

[![CI]](https://github.com/noib3/nvim-oxi/actions)

[![Docs]](https://docs.rs/nvim-oxi)



[Latest version]: https://img.shields.io/crates/v/nvim-oxi.svg

[CI]: https://github.com/noib3/nvim-oxi/actions/workflows/ci.yml/badge.svg

[Docs]: https://docs.rs/nvim-oxi/badge.svg



nvim-oxi provides safe and idiomatic Rust bindings to the rich API exposed by

the [Neovim](https://neovim.io) text editor.



The project is mostly intended for plugin authors, although nothing's

stopping end users from writing their Neovim configs in Rust.



## How



The traditional way to write Neovim plugins in languages other than the

"builtin" ones, i.e. Vimscript or Lua, is via [RPC

channels](https://neovim.io/doc/user/api.html#RPC). This approach comes with a

few limitations mostly due to having to (de)serialize everything to

MessagePack-encoded messages, prohibiting things like attaching callbacks to

keymaps or scheduling functions.



nvim-oxi takes a different approach. It leverages Rust's foreign function

interface (FFI) support to hook straight into the Neovim C code, allowing

feature parity with "in process" plugins while also avoiding the need for an

extra IO layer.



[This

thread](https://neovim.discourse.group/t/calling-neovim-internal-functions-with-luajit-ffi-and-rust)

on the Neovim discourse goes into a bit more detail for anyone who's

interested.



## Why



Why bother when Neovim already has Lua as a first-class citizen? Mainly two

reasons:



- access to the Rust ecosystem: Lua is a great, minimal scripting language but

  can also be limiting when writing more complex plugins. In contrast Rust is

  a fully-fledged, statically typed language with a huge ecosystem of crates

  for (de)serialization, networking, IO, green threads, etc;



- nvim-oxi provides a fully typed API: everything from optional function

  fields to callback arguments is checked at compile-time. This allows plugin

  authors to spend less time reading through the help docs and more time

  iterating via `cargo check`s.



## Examples



The [examples](https://github.com/noib3/nvim-oxi/tree/main/examples)

directory contains several examples of how to use nvim-oxi. It also contains

instructions on how to setup your Rust crate, where to place the compiled

artifacts and how to load the final plugin from Neovim.



If you're still not sure about something feel free to open a new issue and I

might add a new example documenting your use case (if it can be done).



## Testing



The `test` feature flag enables the `#[nvim_oxi::test]` proc macro. This macro

replaces the regular `#[test]` annotations and can be used to test a piece of

code from within a Neovim instance using Rust's excellent testing framework.



For example:



```rust

use nvim_oxi::{self as oxi, api};



#[oxi::test]

fn set_get_del_var() {

    api::set_var("foo", 42).unwrap();

    assert_eq!(Ok(42), api::get_var("foo"));

    assert_eq!(Ok(()), api::del_var("foo"));

}

```



Then `cargo test` will spawn a new Neovim process with an empty config, run

that code and exit. There are a couple of gotchas:



- after changing a piece of code, `cargo build` has to be run before you can

  test that with `cargo test`;



- you cannot have two test functions with the same name, even if they belong to

  different modules. For example this won't work:



```rust

mod a {

    #[nvim_oxi::test]

    fn foo() {}

}



mod b {

    #[nvim_oxi::test]

    fn foo() {}

}

```