*ale.txt* For Vim version 8.0. Last change: 2016 October 10 *ale* ALE - Asynchronous Lint Engine =============================================================================== CONTENTS *ale-contents* 1. Introduction...............................|ale-introduction| 2. Supported Languages & Tools................|ale-support| 3. Global Options.............................|ale-options| 4. Linter Specific Options....................|ale-linter-options| 4.1. eslint................................|ale-linter-options-eslint| 4.2. jshint................................|ale-linter-options-jshint| 4.3. phpcs.................................|ale-linter-options-phpcs| 4.4. html-tidy.............................|ale-linter-options-html-tidy| 4.5. c-gcc.................................|ale-linter-options-c-gcc| 4.6. cpp-gcc...............................|ale-linter-options-cpp-gcc| 4.7. fortran-gcc...........................|ale-linter-options-fortran-gcc| 4.8. shell.................................|ale-linter-options-shell| 4.9. shellcheck............................|ale-linter-options-shellcheck| 4.10. vint..................................|ale-linter-options-vint| 4.11. luacheck..............................|ale-linter-options-luacheck| 4.12. c-cppcheck............................|ale-linter-options-c-cppcheck| 4.13. cpp-cppcheck..........................|ale-linter-options-cpp-cppcheck| 5. API........................................|ale-api| 6. Special Thanks.............................|ale-special-thanks| 7. Contact....................................|ale-contact| =============================================================================== 1. Introduction *ale-introduction* ALE provides the means to run linters asynchronously in Vim in a variety of languages and tools. ALE sends the contents of buffers to linter programs using the |job-control| features available in Vim 8 and NeoVim. For Vim 8, Vim must be compiled with the |job| and |channel| and |timer| features as a minimum. ALE supports the following key features: 1. Running linters when text is changed. 2. Running linters when files are opened. 3. Running linters when files are saved. (When a global flag is set.) 4. Populating the |loclist| with warning and errors. 5. Setting |signs| with warnings and errors for error markers. 6. Using |echo| to show error messages when the cursor moves. =============================================================================== 2. Supported Languages & Tools *ale-support* The following languages and tools are supported. * Ansible: 'ansible-lint' * Bash: 'shell' (-n flag), 'shellcheck' * Bourne Shell: 'shell' (-n flag), 'shellcheck' * C: 'cppcheck', 'gcc' * C++ (filetype cpp): 'cppcheck', 'gcc' * CoffeeScript: 'coffee', 'coffelint' * CSS: 'csslint' * Cython (pyrex filetype): 'cython' * D: 'dmd' * Elixir: 'credo' * Fortran: 'gcc' * Go: 'gofmt -e', 'go vet', 'golint' * Haskell: 'ghc', 'hlint' * HTML: 'HTMLHint', 'tidy' * JavaScript: 'eslint', 'jscs', 'jshint' * JSON: 'jsonlint' * Lua: 'luacheck' * Perl: 'perl' (-c flag), 'perlcritic' * PHP: 'php' (-l flag), 'phpcs' * Pug: 'pug-lint' * Python: 'flake8' * Ruby: 'rubocop' * SASS: 'sasslint' * SCSS: 'sasslint', 'scsslint' * Scala: 'scalac' * TypeScript: 'tslint' * Verilog: 'iverilog', 'verilator' * Vim: 'vint' * YAML: 'yamllint' =============================================================================== 3. Global Options *ale-options* g:ale_linters *g:ale_linters* Type: |Dictionary| Default: `{}` The |g:ale_linters| option sets a |Dictionary| mapping a filetype to a |List| of linter programs to be run when checking particular filetypes. Only the filetypes specified in the dictionary will be limited in terms of which linters will be run. This |Dictionary| will be merged with a default dictionary containing the following values: > { \ 'zsh': ['shell'], \ 'csh': ['shell'], \} < This option can be used to enable only a particular set of linters for a file. For example, you can enable only 'eslint' for JavaScript files: > let g:ale_linters = {'javascript': ['eslint']} < If you want to disable all linters for a particular filetype, you can pass an empty list of linters as the value: > let g:ale_linters = {'javascript': []} < All linters available for a given filetype can be enabled by using the string `'all'`: > let g:ale_linters = {'c': 'all'} < g:ale_linter_aliases *g:ale_linter_aliases* Type: |Dictionary| Default: `{}` The |g:ale_linter_aliases| option can be used to set aliases from one filetype to another. A given filetype can be mapped to use the linters run for another given filetype. This |Dictionary| will be merged with a default dictionary containing the following values: > { \ 'zsh': 'sh', \ 'csh': 'sh', \} < For example, if you wish to map a new filetype `'foobar'` to run the `'php'` linters, you could set the following: > let g:ale_linter_aliases = {'foobar': 'php'} < When combined with the |g:ale_linters| option, the original filetype (`'foobar'`) will be used for determining which linters to run, not the aliased type (`'php'`). This allows an aliased type to run a different set of linters from the type it is being mapped to. g:ale_buffer_loclist_map *g:ale_buffer_loclist_map* Type: |Dictionary| Default: `{}` This variable is used internally by ALE for tracking the warnings and errors for a particular buffer. The dictionary maps a buffer number to a |List| of |Dictionary| items in the format accepted by |setqflist()|, with a minor addition of a `linter_name` for each object which describes the linter which reported the warnings and errors. (A buffer may run multiple linters in combination on the same filetype.) NOTE: This variable should not be modified outside of the plugin itself, but can be read in other plugins whenever information about the current errors and warnings ALE is reporting is needed. g:ale_lint_on_text_changed *g:ale_lint_on_text_changed* Type: |Number| Default: `1` By default, ALE will check files with the various supported programs when text is changed by using the |TextChanged| event. If this behaviour is not desired, then this option can be disabled by setting it to 0. The |g:ale_lint_delay| variable will be used to set a |timer_start()| on a delay, and each change to a file will continue to call |timer_stop()| and |timer_start()| repeatedly until the timer ticks by, and the linters will be run. The checking of files will run in the background, so it should not inhibit editing files. g:ale_lint_delay *g:ale_lint_delay* Type: |Number| Default: `200` This variable controls the milliseconds delay after which the linters will be run after text is changed. This option is only meaningful with the |g:ale_lint_on_text_changed| variable set to `1`. g:ale_lint_on_enter *g:ale_lint_on_enter* Type: |Number| Default: `1` When this option is set to `1`, the |BufEnter| and |BufRead| events will be used to apply linters when buffers are first opened. If this is not desired, this variable can be set to `0` in your vimrc file to disable this behaviour. g:ale_lint_on_save *g:ale_lint_on_save* Type: |Number| Default: `0` This option will make ALE run the linters whenever a file is saved when it it set to `1` in your vimrc file. This option can be used in combination with the |g:ale_lint_on_enter| and |g:ale_lint_on_text_changed| options to make ALE only check files after that have been saved, if that is what is desired. g:ale_set_loclist *g:ale_set_loclist* Type: |Number| Default: `1` When this option is set to `1`, the |loclist| will be populate with any warnings and errors which are found by ALE. This feature can be used to implement jumping between errors through typical use of |lnext| and |lprev|. g:ale_set_signs *g:ale_set_signs* Type: |Number| Default: `has('signs')` When this option is set to `1`, the |sign| column will be populated with signs marking where errors and warnings appear in the file. The `ALEErrorSign` and `ALEWarningSign` highlight groups will be used to provide highlighting for the signs. The text used for signs can be customised with the |g:ale_sign_error| and |g:ale_sign_warning| options. g:ale_sign_column_always *g:ale_sign_column_always* Type: |Number| Default: `0` By default, the sign gutter will disappear when all warnings and errors have been fixed for a file. When this option is set to `1`, the sign column will remain open. This can be preferable if you don't want the text in your file to move around as you edit a file. g:ale_sign_error *g:ale_sign_error* Type: |String| Default: `'>>'` This string can be changed to change the characters used for the sign gutter for lines which at least one error on them. Lines with both errors and warnings on them will show the error marker, as errors take precedence. g:ale_sign_warning *g:ale_sign_warning* Type: |String| Default: `'--'` This string can be changed to change the characters used for the sign gutter for lines which at least one warning on them. g:ale_sign_offset *g:ale_sign_offset* Type: |Number| Default: `1000000` This variable controls offset from which numeric IDs will be generated for new signs. Signs cannot share the same ID values, so when two Vim plugins set signs at the same time, the IDs have to be configured such that they do not conflict with one another. If the IDs used by ALE are found to conflict with some other plugin, this offset value can be changed, and hopefully both plugins will work together. See |sign-place| for more information on how signs are set. g:ale_echo_cursor *g:ale_echo_cursor* Type: |Number| Default: `1` When this option is set to `1`, a truncated message will be echoed when a cursor is near a warning or error. ALE will attempt to find the warning or error at a column nearest to the cursor when the cursor is resting on a line which contains a warning or error. This option can be set to `0` to disable this behaviour. The format of the message can be customizable in |g:ale_echo_msg_format|. g:ale_echo_msg_format *g:ale_echo_msg_format* Type: |String| Default: `%s` This variable defines the format of the echoed message. The `%s` is the error message itself, and it can contain the following handlers: - `%linter%` for linter's name - `%severity%` for the type of severity Note |`g:ale_echo_cursor`| should be setted to 1 g:ale_echo_msg_error_str *g:ale_echo_msg_error_str* Type: |String| Default: `Error` The string used for error severity in the echoed message. Note |`g:ale_echo_cursor`| should be set to 1 Note |`g:ale_echo_msg_format`| should contain the `%severity%` handler g:ale_echo_msg_warning_str *g:ale_echo_msg_warning_str* Type: |String| Default: `Warning` The string used for warning severity in the echoed message. Note |`g:ale_echo_cursor`| should be set to 1 Note |`g:ale_echo_msg_format`| should contain the `%severity%` handler g:ale_warn_about_trailing_whitespace *g:ale_warn_about_trailing_whitespace* Type: |Number| Default: `1` When this option is set to `1`, warnings relating to trailing whitespace on lines will be shown in signs, the loclist, and echo messages, etc. If these errors are found to be too irritating while edits are being made, and you have configured Vim to automatically remove trailing whitespace, then you can disable these warnings for some linters by setting this option to `0`. Not all linters may respect this option. If a linter does not, please file a bug report, and it may be possible to add such support. g:ale_statusline_format *g:ale_statusline_format* Type: |List| Default: `['%d error(s)', '%d warning(s)', 'OK']` This variable defines the format of |`ale#statusline#status()`| output. - The 1st element is for errors - The 2nd element is for warnings - The 3rd element is for when no errors are detected g:airline#extensions#ale#enabled *g:airline#extensions#ale#enabled* Type: |Number| Default: `1` Enables or disables the |airline|'s native extension for ale, which displays warnings and errors in the status line, prefixed by |airline#extensions#ale#error_symbol| and |airline#extensions#ale#warning_symbol|. =============================================================================== 4. Linter Specific Options *ale-linter-options* Some linters have specific options which can be configured for each of them, for customising their behaviour. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4.1. eslint *ale-linter-options-eslint* g:ale_javascript_eslint_executable *g:ale_javascript_eslint_executable* Type: |String| Default: `'eslint'` This variable can be changed to change the path to eslint. If you have eslint_d installed, you can set this option to use eslint_d instead. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4.2. jshint *ale-linter-options-jshint* g:ale_javascript_jshint_executable *g:ale_javascript_jshint_executable* Type: |String| Default: `'jshint'` This variable can be changed to change the path to jshint. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4.3. phpcs *ale-linter-options-phpcs* g:ale_php_phpcs_standard *g:ale_php_phpcs_standard* Type: |String| Default: `''` This variable can be set to specify the coding standard used by phpcs. If no coding standard is specified, phpcs will default to checking against the PEAR coding standard, or the standard you have set as the default. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4.4. html-tidy *ale-linter-options-html-tidy* g:ale_html_tidy_executable *g:ale_html_tidy_executable* Type: |String| Default: `'tidy'` This variable can be changed to change the path to tidy. g:ale_html_tidy_args *g:ale_html_tidy_args* Type: |String| Default: `'-q -e -language en'` This variable can be changed to change the arguments provided to the executable. ALE will attempt to automatically detect the appropriate file encoding to provide to html-tidy, and fall back to UTF-8 when encoding detection fails. The recognized file encodings are as follows: ascii, big5, cp1252 (win1252), cp850 (ibm858), cp932 (shiftjis), iso-2022-jp (iso-2022), latin1, macroman (mac), sjis (shiftjis), utf-16le, utf-16, utf-8 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4.5. c-gcc *ale-linter-options-c-gcc* g:ale_c_gcc_options *g:ale_c_gcc_options* Type: |String| Default: `'-std=c11 -Wall'` This variable can be change to modify flags given to gcc. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4.6. cpp-gcc *ale-linter-options-cpp-gcc* g:ale_cpp_gcc_options *g:ale_cpp_gcc_options* Type: |String| Default: `'-std=c++14 -Wall'` This variable can be changed to modify flags given to gcc. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4.7. fortran-gcc *ale-linter-options-fortran-gcc* g:ale_fortran_gcc_options *g:ale_fortran_gcc_options* Type: |String| Default: `'-Wall'` This variable can be changed to modify flags given to gcc. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4.8. shell *ale-linter-options-shell* g:ale_linters_sh_shell_default_shell *g:ale_linters_sh_shell_default_shell* Type: |String| Default: The current shell (`$SHELL`) or `'bash'` if that cannot be read. When ALE runs the linter for shells with the `-n` flag, it will attempt to read the shell from the shebang (`#!`) line from the shell script to determine the shell program to run. When this detection fails, this variable will be used instead. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4.9. shellcheck *ale-linter-options-shellcheck* g:ale_linters_sh_shellckeck_exclusions *g:ale_linters_sh_shellckeck_exclusions* Type: |String| Default: `''` Set this variable to exclude test(s) for shellcheck (-e/--exclude option). ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4.10. vint *ale-linter-options-vint* g:ale_vim_vint_show_style_issues *g:ale_vim_vint_show_style_issues* Type: |Number| Default: `1` This variable will enable/disable style issues for Vint. When this option is disabled, only warnings and errors which are not purely style issues will be reported. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4.11. luacheck *ale-linter-options-luacheck* g:ale_lua_luacheck_executable *g:ale_lua_luacheck_executable* Type: |String| Default: `'luacheck'` This variable can be changed to change the path to luacheck. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4.12. c-cppcheck *ale-linter-options-c-cppcheck* g:ale_c_cppcheck_options *g:ale_c_cppcheck_options* Type: |String| Default: `'--enable=style'` This variable can be changed to modify flags given to cppcheck. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4.13. cpp-cppcheck *ale-linter-options-cpp-cppcheck* g:ale_cpp_cppcheck_options *g:ale_cpp_cppcheck_options* Type: |String| Default: `'--enable=style'` This variable can be changed to modify flags given to cppcheck. =============================================================================== 5. API *ale-api* ale#Queue(delay) *ale#Queue()* Run linters for the current buffer, based on the filetype of the buffer, with a given `delay`. A `delay` of `0` will run the linters immediately. The linters will always be run in the background. Calling this function again from the same buffer ale#linter#Define(filetype, linter) *ale#linter#Define()* Given a |String| for a filetype and a |Dictionary| Describing a linter configuration, add a linter for the given filetype. The dictionaries each offer the following options: `name` The name of the linter. These names will be used by |g:ale_linters| option for enabling/disabling particular linters. This argument is required. `callback` A |String| or |Funcref| for a callback function accepting two arguments (buffer, lines), for a buffer number the output is for, and the lines of output from a linter. This callback function should return a |List| of |Dictionary| objects in the format accepted by |setqflist()|. The |List| will be sorted by line and then column order so it can be searched with a binary search by in future before being passed on to the |loclist|, etc. This argument is required. `executable` A |String| naming the executable itself which will be run. This value will be used to check if the program requested is installed or not. Either this or the `executable_callback` argument must be provided. `executable_callback ` A |String| or |Funcref| for a callback function accepting a buffer number. A |String| should be returned for the executable to check. This can be used in place of `executable` when more complicated processing is needed. `command` A |String| for an executable to run asynchronously. This command will be fed the lines from the buffer to check, and will produce the lines of output given to the `callback`. Either this or the `command_callback` argument must be provided. `command_callback` A |String| or |Funcref| for a callback function accepting a buffer number. A |String| should be returned for a command to run. This can be used in place of `command` when more complicated processing is needed. `output_stream` A |String| for the output stream the lines of output should be read from for the command which is run. The accepted values are `'stdout'`, `'stderr'`, and `'both'`. This argument defaults to `'stdout'`. This argument can be set for linter programs which output their errors and warnings to the stderr stream instead of stdout. The option `'both'` will read from both stder and stdout at the same time. Some programs for checking for errors are not capable of receiving input from stdin, as is required by ALE. To remedy this, a wrapper script is provided named in the variable |g:ale#util#stdin_wrapper|. This variable can be called with the regular arguments for any command to forward data from stdin to the program, by way of creating a temporary file. The first argument to the stdin wrapper must be a file extension to save the temporary file with, and the following arguments are the command as normal. For example: > 'command': g:ale#util#stdin_wrapper . ' .hs ghc -fno-code -v0', < ale#linter#Get(filetype) *ale#linter#Get()* Return all of linters configured for a given filetype as a |List| of |Dictionary| values in the format specified by |ale#linter#Define()|. Filetypes may be dot-seperated to invoke linters for multiple filetypes: for instance, the filetype `javascript.jsx` will return linters for both the `javascript` and `jsx` filetype. Aliases may be defined in as described in |g:ale_linter_aliases|. Aliases are applied after dot-seperated filetypes are broken up into their components. ale#statusline#Status() *ale#statusline#Status()* Return a formatted string that can be added to the statusline. The output's format is defined in |`g:ale_statusline_format`|. To enable it, the following should be present in your |statusline| settings: > %{ale#statusline#Status()} g:ale#util#stdin_wrapper *g:ale#util#stdin_wrapper* This variable names a wrapper script for sending stdin input to programs which cannot accept input via stdin. See |ale#linter#Define()| for more. ALELint *ALELint* This |User| autocommand is triggered by ALE every time it completes a lint operation. It can be used to update statuslines, send notifications, or complete any other operation that needs to be done after a lint run. It can be used simply: autocmd User ALELint echom "ALE run!" =============================================================================== 6. Special Thanks *ale-special-thanks* Special thanks to Mark Grealish (https://www.bhalash.com/) for providing ALE's snazzy looking ale glass logo. Cheers, Mark! =============================================================================== 7. Contact *ale-contact* If you like this plugin, and wish to get in touch, check out the GitHub page for issues and more at https://github.com/w0rp/ale If you wish to contact the author of this plugin directly, please feel free to send an email to devw0rp@gmail.com. Please drink responsibly, or not at all, which is ironically the preference of w0rp, who is teetotal. vim:tw=78:ts=2:sts=2:sw=2:ft=help:norl: