Are absolute paths possible in workspace.ignoreDir?

[sewbacca]

Is there a way to specify absolute paths in "workspace.ignoreDir"? I tried a lot and cant quite figure it out.

I have two use cases. First: When developing a LuaRocks module I get always duplicate symbols after installing my module locally and developing it at the same time.

What I currently do is this:

{
    "workspace.library": [ "/usr/share/lua" ],
    "runtime.path": [ "5.4/?.lua", "5.4/?/init.lua" ],
    "workspace.ignoreDir": [ "5.4/<mymodule>", "5.1/<mymodule>" ]
}

This works fine, however it would be nicer to not load all lua versions and instead load "/usr/share/lua/5.4" directly, while ignoring only the directory "/usr/share/lua/5.4/<mymodule>".

For my other use-case I have some scripts lying around where there are many sub directories. Maybe I have a root file called scan.lua or something like that, and I just want to get modules from the LuaRocks tree, but not from any the sub-directories. The following config does not work as intended.

{
    "workspace.library": [ "/usr/share/lua" ],
    "runtime.path": [ "5.4/?.lua", "5.4/?/init.lua" ],
    "workspace.ignoreDir": [ "*", "!5.4", "!scan.lua" ]
}

This doesn't work as my require path never finds the modules from the luarocks tree. If I remove the "*" from "workspace.ignoreDir" then it does find the require paths, but it will also search all the sub-directories.

So is there a way to specify an absolute path in "workspace.ignoreDir"? Or do you have another workaround I haven't thought of?

Thanks in advance =)

[tomlau10]

From the codebase, workspace.ignoreDir is using gitignore pattern, which is then applied to each of the library paths and the current workspace root path.

• workspace files matcher
  

  lua-language-server/script/workspace/workspace.lua

  Lines 137 to 202 in 32fec3c

  	function m.getNativeMatcher(scp)
  	if scp:get 'nativeMatcher' then
  	return scp:get 'nativeMatcher'
  	end
  	local pattern = {}
  	for path, ignore in pairs(config.get(scp.uri, 'files.exclude')) do
  	if ignore then
  	log.debug('Ignore by exclude:', path)
  	pattern[#pattern+1] = path
  	end
  	end
  	if scp.uri and config.get(scp.uri, 'Lua.workspace.useGitIgnore') then
  	local buf = util.loadFile(furi.decode(scp.uri) .. '/.gitignore')
  	if buf then
  	for line in buf:gmatch '[^\r\n]+' do
  	if line:sub(1, 1) ~= '#' then
  	log.debug('Ignore by .gitignore:', line)
  	pattern[#pattern+1] = line
  	end
  	end
  	end
  	buf = util.loadFile(furi.decode(scp.uri).. '/.git/info/exclude')
  	if buf then
  	for line in buf:gmatch '[^\r\n]+' do
  	if line:sub(1, 1) ~= '#' then
  	log.debug('Ignore by .git/info/exclude:', line)
  	pattern[#pattern+1] = line
  	end
  	end
  	end
  	end
  	if scp.uri and config.get(scp.uri, 'Lua.workspace.ignoreSubmodules') then
  	local buf = util.loadFile(furi.decode(scp.uri) .. '/.gitmodules')
  	if buf then
  	for path in buf:gmatch('path = ([^\r\n]+)') do
  	log.debug('Ignore by .gitmodules:', path)
  	pattern[#pattern+1] = path
  	end
  	end
  	end
  	for _, path in ipairs(config.get(scp.uri, 'Lua.workspace.library')) do
  	if not addonRepositoryPathUpdated then
  	addonRepositoryPathUpdated = true
  	local addonRepositoryPath = config.get(scp.uri, 'Lua.addonRepositoryPath')
  	files.updateAddonsPath(addonRepositoryPath)
  	end
  	path = m.getAbsolutePath(scp.uri, path)
  	if path then
  	log.debug('Ignore by library:', path)
  	debug[#pattern+1] = path
  	end
  	end
  	for _, path in ipairs(config.get(scp.uri, 'Lua.workspace.ignoreDir')) do
  	log.debug('Ignore directory:', path)
  	pattern[#pattern+1] = path
  	end
  	local matcher = glob.gitignore(pattern, {
  	root = scp.uri and furi.decode(scp.uri),
  	ignoreCase = platform.os == 'windows',
  	}, globInteferFace)
  	scp:set('nativeMatcher', matcher)
  	return matcher
  	end

• library files matcher
  

  lua-language-server/script/workspace/workspace.lua

  Lines 206 to 258 in 32fec3c

  	function m.getLibraryMatchers(scp)
  	if scp:get 'libraryMatcher' then
  	return scp:get 'libraryMatcher'
  	end
  	log.debug('Build library matchers:', scp)
  	local pattern = {}
  	for path, ignore in pairs(config.get(scp.uri, 'files.exclude')) do
  	if ignore then
  	log.debug('Ignore by exclude:', path)
  	pattern[#pattern+1] = path
  	end
  	end
  	for _, path in ipairs(config.get(scp.uri, 'Lua.workspace.ignoreDir')) do
  	log.debug('Ignore directory:', path)
  	pattern[#pattern+1] = path
  	end
  	local librarys = {}
  	for _, path in ipairs(config.get(scp.uri, 'Lua.workspace.library')) do
  	path = m.getAbsolutePath(scp.uri, path)
  	if path then
  	librarys[files.normalize(path)] = true
  	end
  	end
  	local metaPaths = scp:get 'metaPaths'
  	log.debug('meta path:', inspect(metaPaths))
  	if metaPaths then
  	for _, metaPath in ipairs(metaPaths) do
  	librarys[files.normalize(metaPath)] = true
  	end
  	end
  	local matchers = {}
  	for path in pairs(librarys) do
  	if fs.exists(fs.path(path)) then
  	local nPath = fs.absolute(fs.path(path)):string()
  	local matcher = glob.gitignore(pattern, {
  	root = path,
  	ignoreCase = platform.os == 'windows',
  	}, globInteferFace)
  	matchers[#matchers+1] = {
  	uri = furi.encode(nPath),
  	matcher = matcher
  	}
  	end
  	end
  	scp:set('libraryMatcher', matchers)
  	--log.debug('library matcher:', inspect(matchers))
  	return matchers
  	end

  
  So it seems to be impossible to use absolute path ☹️

---

This works fine, however it would be nicer to not load all lua versions and instead load "/usr/share/lua/5.4" directly, while ignoring only the directory "/usr/share/lua/5.4/<mymodule>".

🤔 Can't you just write the config as the following?

{
    "workspace.library": [ "/usr/share/lua/5.4" ],
    "workspace.ignoreDir": [ "<mymodule>" ]
}

or is it because your current working directory also contains a <mymodule> folder, and you want to require from it instead of the /usr/share/lua/5.4/<mymodule> ?
In this case if you add <mymodule> to the workspace.ignoreDir, it will exclude the one in workspace root as well ... 🤦‍♂️

[tomlau10]

Just another idea

I assume you have the same named <mymodule> folder in your working directory during your development, so you cant just add <mymodule> into workspace.ignoreDir.
You may consider move this <mymodule> into another subfolder, say dev/, then include it in the runtime path as well 🤔

{
    "workspace.library": [ "/usr/share/lua/5.4" ],
    "runtime.path": [ "?.lua", "?/init.lua", "dev/?.lua" ],
    "workspace.ignoreDir": ["/<mymodule>"]
}

• the ignoreDir needs to use /<mymodule> in this case, which in gitignore syntax it means only excluding same named folder in root level, but not any folder named <mymodule>
  => such that it will not exclude a path dev/<mymodule>*
• and then in runtime.path add "dev/?.lua"
  => whenever you do a require "<mymodule>.x" in your code, it can find it in the path dev/<mymodule>/x.lua