mfussenegger / nlua

Neovim as Lua interpreter

nlua

Lua script that let's you use Neovim as a Lua interpreter.

Neovim embeds a Lua interpreter, but it doesn't expose the same command line interface as plain lua.

The plain interface looks like this:

usage: lua [options] [script [args]]
Available options are:
  -e stat   execute string 'stat'
  -i        enter interactive mode after executing 'script'
  -l mod    require library 'mod' into global 'mod'
  -l g=mod  require library 'mod' into global 'g'
  -v        show version information
  -E        ignore environment variables
  -W        turn warnings on
  --        stop handling options
  -         stop handling options and execute stdin

nlua is a script which emulates that interface, Using Neovim's -l option under the hood.

Currently supported:

• -e
• -v
• --
• [script [args]]
• stdin handling

Motivation

• It let's you use Neovim as Lua interpreter for luarocks. This in turn allows you to run tools like busted to test Neovim plugins.

• It allows tools like local-lua-debugger-vscode to use the Neovim Lua. Enabling debugging of busted test cases for Neovim plugins.

See:

• Using Neovim as Lua interpreter with Luarocks
• Debugging Lua in Neovim

Requirements

• env executable supporting the -S option. Run env --help in a shell to verify.
• Neovim 0.9+ with LuaJIT

Installation

Using luarocks

This package is available on luarocks.

luarocks install --local nlua

Manually

For luarocks support, copy or symlink nlua to /usr/bin/ If you don't need luarocks support, copy it into any folder in your $PATH.

Luarocks setup

• Install luarocks using a package manager. For example pacman -S luarocks
• Create a configuration file under ~/.luarocks/config-nlua.lua with the following content:

lua_interpreter = "nlua"
lua_version = "5.1"
variables = {
   LUA_INCDIR = "/usr/include/luajit-2.1",
   LUA_BINDIR = "$HOME/.luarocks/bin", -- path to where nlua is installed
}

• Create a wrapper script somewhere in $PATH - e.g. in ~/.local/bin/nluarocks - with the following content:

#!/usr/bin/env bash

LUAROCKS_CONFIG=$HOME/.luarocks/config-nlua.lua luarocks --local "$@"

Now you should be able to install packages from luarocks using the Neovim interpreter. For example:

nluarocks install busted