Any recommendations for multi file plugins?

[ChillerDragon]

Looks like only plugin.lua from the root is copied. Is there a recommended approach on how to package plugins that consist of multiple lua files? Also wondering about the correct way to require then.

[carsakiller]

I have never used the language server's plugin feature for more than a simple few-liner. Does the language server support require-ing files in a plugin? As far as I know, it was never really supported to have more than just plugin.lua, but I see how this could be useful.

It would require some thinking regarding packaging though and how to copy needed dependencies alongside the entry file. This is really a concern of how addons are packaged/formatted more than something the builder is doing wrong.

Perhaps just adding a plugin/ directory:

my-addon
├── library
│   └── meta.lua
└── plugin/
    ├── plugin.lua (requires ./helpers.lua)
    └── helpers.lua

Then when it is installed, plugin/ is just flattened:

installPath/my-addon
├── library
│   └── meta.lua
├── plugin.lua (requires ./helpers.lua)
└── helpers.lua

Thoughts, @goldenstein64?

[goldenstein64]

Bundling the plugin is not a bad idea. I would probably depend on another library to implement it.

My pl-definitions repo uses multiple plugin files, and it has a structure like this.

pl-definitions
├── library/pl/
│   └── ...
├── plugin.lua
└── plugin/
    ├── SearchPLRequires.lua
    ├── SearchRequires.lua
    ├── importCompatDiff.lua
    └── importDiff.lua

At the current moment, it doesn't get bundled together or anything... that sounds like a bug!

Plugins are able to require files relative to the plugin file's parent directory, so I could require plugin/importDiff.lua by calling require("plugin.importDiff"). They also have access to LuaLS's scripts/ folder, which contains all of the code required to run the server. That includes parsing utilities, creating a new AST, etc.

[goldenstein64]

I should clarify, those are the capabilities that the language server grants to plugins, which luarocks-build-addon restricts because it only uploads plugin.lua.

[ChillerDragon]

Ah okay I used a src/ directory and copy command in the rockspec to make it work. I do like the plugin/ directory better than src/ makes it more obvious what kind of src it is. I might refactor it to that thanks :)

[ChillerDragon]

Never really used discussions. Whats the process here? Is someone waiting for me to close this? Do you still want to discuss something? I had a simple question if there are any recommendations about how to structure things in the filesystem and how to make the require work and if there is an example because I could not find one. All of these questions have been answered including the example. So if this was an issue I would just close it now :D but idk what your guys mission is.

[goldenstein64]

I think there's a way to mark a certain comment as a solution, which kind of signals "closing" the discussion, but it kind of just stays open. I don't think you have to worry about it.