Lua language support in Pulsar

Syntax highlighting, snippets and code folding for Lua files in Pulsar.

Ships two grammars:

• Modern tree-sitter grammar (default) — powered by tree-sitter-lua, bundled as WebAssembly. Provides accurate highlighting, indentation, folding and symbol navigation.
• TextMate grammar — automatic fallback when tree-sitter is disabled.

Targets Lua 5.5 (the global declaration keyword, table.create, integer division //, bitwise operators, <const> / <close> variable attributes, goto labels, the utf8 library, string.pack, table.move, warn, …) while keeping Lua 5.1 / LuaJIT built-ins highlighted for compatibility. LuaJIT ffi.cdef[[ ... ]] blocks are highlighted as embedded C.

Note: global declaration highlighting is currently provided by the TextMate fallback grammar only. The bundled tree-sitter parser is 5.4-era and does not yet parse the 5.5 global keyword; it will gain support once an updated .wasm parser is available.

Common snippets

Trigger	Name	Body
-[	multiline comment	--[[comment...]]
=[	nested multiline comment	--[=[ comment... ]=]
afun	anon function	functionName = function (args) -- body... end
for	for i=1,10	for i = 1, 10 do -- body... end
fori	for i,v in ipairs()	for i,v in ipairs(table_name) do -- body... end
forp	for k,v in pairs()	for k,v in pairs(table_name) do -- body... end
fun	function	function functionName (args) -- body... end
if	if conditional	if value then --body... end
ife	if else conditional	if value then --body... else --body... end
ifn	if not conditional	if not value then --body... end
ifne	if not else conditional	if not value then --body... else --body... end
lfun	local function	local function functionName (args) -- body... end
loc	local variable definition shortcut	local x = 1
local	local variable definition	local x = 1
global	global variable def (Lua 5.5)	global x = 1
gfun	global function (Lua 5.5)	global function functionName (args) -- body... end
const	local const (Lua 5.4)	local x = value
close	local close (Lua 5.4)	local handle = value
goto	goto label	goto label
label	label	:🏷️:
pcall	protected call	local ok, err = pcall(fn)
ltab	local table definition	local name = {}
print	print	print("logging")
rep	repeat loop shortcut	repeat -- body... until condition
repeat	repeat loop	repeat -- body... until condition
req	require shortcut	local name = require "module"
require	require	local name = require "module"
ret	return definition shortcut	return value
return	return definition	return value
tab	table definition	name = {}
whi	while loop shortcut	while condition do -- body... end
while	while loop	while condition do -- body... end

Table manipulation snippets

Trigger	Name	Body
tabc	table.concat	table.concat(tableName, " ", start_index, end_index)
tabf	table.foreach	table.foreach(tableName, function)
tabi	table.insert	table.insert(tableName, data)
tabs	table.sort	table.sort(tableName, sortfunction)
tabr	table.remove	table.remove(tableName, position)
tabm	table.maxn	table.maxn(tableName)

Math function snippets

Trigger	Name	Body
abs	math.abs	math.abs(x)
acos	math.acos	math.acos(x)
asin	math.asin	math.asin(x)
atan	math.atan	math.atan(x)
atan2	math.atan2	math.atan2(y, x)
ceil	math.ceil	math.ceil(x)
cos	math.cos	math.cos(x)
cosh	math.cosh	math.cosh(x)
deg	math.deg	math.deg(x)
exp	math.exp	math.exp(x)
floor	math.floor	math.floor(x)
fmod	math.fmod	math.fmod(x, y)
frexp	math.frexp	math.frexp(x)
huge	math.huge	math.huge
ldexp	math.ldexp	math.ldexp(m, e)
log	math.log	math.log(x)
log10	math.log10	math.log10(x)
max	math.max	math.max(x, ...)
min	math.min	math.min(x, ...)
pi	math.pi	math.pi
pow	math.pow	math.pow(x, y)
rad	math.rad	math.rad(x)
random	math.random	math.random(m, n)
randomseed	math.randomseed	math.randomseed(x)
sin	math.sin	math.sin(x)
sinh	math.sinh	math.sinh(x)
sqrt	math.sqrt	math.sqrt(x)
tan	math.tan	math.tan(x)
tanh	math.tanh	math.tanh(x)

Development

Specs live in spec/ (Jasmine, run inside Pulsar):

pulsar --test spec        # or: ppm test

Coverage:

• grammar-registration-spec.js — both grammars register for source.lua; file-type and shebang selection.
• textmate-grammar-spec.js — Lua 5.5 tokenization in the TextMate fallback (operators, attributes, labels, numbers, escapes, library functions).
• tree-sitter-grammar-spec.js — scope assertions for the modern grammar.
• folding-spec.js — folding of functions, blocks, tables and block comments.

About

This package began as the Atom package language-lua and is now maintained for Pulsar as language-lua-pulsar. It has been modernized around a tree-sitter grammar and updated to Lua 5.5, while keeping the legacy TextMate grammar and Lua 5.1 / LuaJIT built-ins for compatibility.

• Original author: Jorge Garrido Oval — github.com/FireZenk
• Pulsar port & Lua 5.4/5.5 modernization: Rômulo Fernandes Evangelista

Contributors

Contributions are greatly appreciated. Please fork this repository and open a pull request to add snippets, make grammar tweaks, etc.

License

language-lua-pulsar is released under the MIT license.

Originally converted from the Lua TextMate bundle.