Zig Language Server, or zls
, is a language server for Zig. The Zig wiki states that "The Zig community is decentralized" and "There is no concept of 'official' or 'unofficial'", so instead of calling zls
unofficial, and I'm going to call it a cool option, one of many.
Table Of Contents
Installation
Installation starts with downloading an official release from the Releases page.
Up to date builds from master branch are also available in the latest successful CI run, contained in the builds
artifact.
See Downloading and Building ZLS on the Wiki, or the page about using ZLS with Visual Studio Code for a guide to help get zls
running in your editor.
Installing binaries
MacOS
You can install the latest release into $HOME/zls
using e.g.:
brew install xz
mkdir $HOME/zls && cd $HOME/zls && curl -L https://github.com/zigtools/zls/releases/download/0.1.0/x86_64-macos.tar.xz | tar -xJ --strip-components=1 -C .
Linux
You can install the latest release into $HOME/zls
using e.g.:
sudo apt install xz-utils
mkdir $HOME/zls && cd $HOME/zls && curl -L https://github.com/zigtools/zls/releases/download/0.1.0/x86_64-linux.tar.xz | tar -xJ --strip-components=1 -C .
From Source
Building zls
is very easy. You will need a build of Zig master to build zls.
git clone --recurse-submodules https://github.com/zigtools/zls
cd zls
zig build -Drelease-safe
./zig-out/bin/zls config # Configure ZLS
For detailed building instructions, see the Wiki page about Cloning With Git.
Build Options
Option | Type | Default Value | What it Does |
---|---|---|---|
-Ddata_version |
string (master, 0.7.0 or 0.7.1) |
master | The data file version. This selects the files in the src/data folder that correspond to the Zig version being served. |
Updating Data Files
There is a generate-data.py
in the src/data
folder, run this file to update data files.
It writes to stdout and you can redirect output to a zig file like master.zig
. By default it generates data file for master
, but can be configured to generate for a different version by modifying the zig_version
variable. Files generated by this tool contains formatting information.
There is also a generate-data.js
in the src/data
folder, you'll need to run this inside a Chrome DevTools console and copy the output. Files generated by this tool does not contain formatting information.
Configuration Options
You can configure zls by running zls config
or manually creating your own zls.json
configuration file.
zls will look for a zls.json configuration file in multiple locations with the following priority:
- In the local configuration folder of your OS (as provided by known-folders)
- In the global configuration folder of your OS (as provided by known-folders)
The following options are currently available.
Option | Type | Default value | What it Does |
---|---|---|---|
enable_snippets |
bool |
false |
Enables snippet completions when the client also supports them. |
zig_lib_path |
?[]const u8 |
null |
zig library path, e.g. /path/to/zig/lib/zig , used to analyze std library imports. |
zig_exe_path |
?[]const u8 |
null |
zig executable path, e.g. /path/to/zig/zig , used to run the custom build runner. If null , zig is looked up in PATH . Will be used to infer the zig standard library path if none is provided. |
warn_style |
bool |
false |
Enables warnings for style guideline mismatches |
build_runner_path |
?[]const u8 |
null |
Path to the build_runner.zig file provided by zls. null is equivalent to ${executable_directory}/build_runner.zig |
build_runner_cache_path |
?[]const u8 |
null |
Path to a directroy that will be used as zig's cache when running zig run build_runner.zig ... . null is equivalent to ${KnownFloders.Cache}/zls |
enable_semantic_tokens |
bool |
true |
Enables semantic token support when the client also supports it. |
operator_completions |
bool |
true |
Enables * and ? operators in completion lists. |
skip_std_references |
bool |
false |
When true, skips searching for references in std. Improves lookup speed for functions in user's code. Renaming and go-to-definition will continue to work as is. |
Features
zls
supports most language features, including simple type function support, usingnamespace, payload capture type resolution, custom packages and others.
Notable language features that are not currently implemented include @cImport
as well as most forms of compile time evaluation.
The following LSP features are supported:
- Completions
- Hover
- Goto definition/declaration
- Document symbols
- Find references
- Rename symbol
- Formatting using
zig fmt
- Semantic token highlighting (LSP 3.16 proposed feature, implemented by a few clients including VSCode, kak and emacs lsp-mode)
You can install zls
using the instuctions for your text editor below:
VSCode
Install the zls-vscode
extension from here and provide a path to the build zls
executable.
Sublime Text
- Install the
LSP
package from here or via Package Control. - Add this snippet to
LSP's
user settings:
For Sublime Text 3:
{
"clients": {
"zig": {
"command": ["zls"],
"enabled": true,
"languageId": "zig",
"scopes": ["source.zig"],
"syntaxes": ["Packages/Zig Language/Syntaxes/Zig.tmLanguage"]
}
}
}
For Sublime Text 4:
{
"clients": {
"zig": {
"command": ["zls"],
"enabled": true,
"selector": "source.zig"
}
}
}
Kate
- Enable
LSP client
plugin in Kate settings. - Add this snippet to
LSP client's
user settings (e.g. /$HOME/.config/kate/lspclient) (or paste it inLSP client's
GUI settings)
{
"servers": {
"zig": {
"command": ["zls"],
"url": "https://github.com/zigtools/zls",
"highlightingModeRegex": "^Zig$"
}
}
}
Neovim/Vim8
CoC
- Install the CoC engine from here.
- Issue
:CocConfig
from within your Vim editor, and the following snippet:
{
"languageserver": {
"zls" : {
"command": "command_or_path_to_zls",
"filetypes": ["zig"]
}
}
}
YouCompleteMe
- Install YouCompleteMeFrom here.
- Add these lines to your vimrc:
"ensure zig is a recognized filetype
autocmd BufNewFile,BufRead *.zig set filetype=zig
let g:ycm_language_server =
\ [
\{
\ 'name': 'zls',
\ 'filetypes': [ 'zig' ],
\ 'cmdline': [ '/path/to/zls_executable' ]
\ }
\ ]
nvim-lspconfig
Requires Nvim 0.5 (HEAD)!
nvim-lspconfig already ships a configuration for zls. A simple init.vim
might look like this:
call plug#begin('~/.config/nvim/plugged')
Plug 'neovim/nvim-lspconfig'
Plug 'nvim-lua/completion-nvim'
Plug 'ziglang/zig.vim'
call plug#end()
:lua << EOF
local lspconfig = require('lspconfig')
local on_attach = function(_, bufnr)
vim.api.nvim_buf_set_option(bufnr, 'omnifunc', 'v:lua.vim.lsp.omnifunc')
require('completion').on_attach()
end
local servers = {'zls'}
for _, lsp in ipairs(servers) do
lspconfig[lsp].setup {
on_attach = on_attach,
}
end
EOF
" Set completeopt to have a better completion experience
set completeopt=menuone,noinsert,noselect
" Enable completions as you type
let g:completion_enable_auto_popup = 1
LanguageClient-neovim
- Install the LanguageClient-neovim from here
- Edit your neovim configuration and add
zls
for zig filetypes:
let g:LanguageClient_serverCommands = {
\ 'zig': ['~/code/zls/zig-out/bin/zls'],
\ }
Emacs
;; Setup lsp-mode as desired.
;; See https://emacs-lsp.github.io/lsp-mode/page/installation/ for more information.
(require 'lsp-mode)
;; Either place zls in your PATH or add the following:
(setq lsp-zig-zls-executable "<path to zls>")
Doom Emacs
- Enable the
lsp
module - Install the zig-mode package (add
(package! zig-mode)
to yourpackages.el
file - Add the following to your
config.el
:
(use-package! zig-mode
:hook ((zig-mode . lsp-deferred))
:custom (zig-format-on-save nil)
:config
(after! lsp-mode
(add-to-list 'lsp-language-id-configuration '(zig-mode . "zig"))
(lsp-register-client
(make-lsp-client
:new-connection (lsp-stdio-connection "<path to zls>")
:major-modes '(zig-mode)
:server-id 'zls))))
Related Projects
sublime-zig-language
by @prime31- Supports basic language features
- Uses data provided by
src/data
to perform builtin autocompletion
zig-lsp
by @xackus- Inspiration for
zls
- Inspiration for
known-folders
by @ziglibs- Provides API to access known folders on Linux, Windows and Mac OS
License
MIT