Merging-patches-from-upstream-Vim

See Quickstart to get started immediately. Also note the section on Not Applicable patches.

Neovim was forked from Vim 7.4.160; it is kept up-to-date with relevant Vim patches in order to avoid duplicate work. Run vim-patch.sh to see the status of Vim patches: 

./scripts/vim-patch.sh -l

Everyone is welcome to send pull requests for relevant Vim patches, but some types of patches are not applicable.

Quickstart

  1. Pull down the Neovim source: 
    git clone https://github.com/neovim/neovim.git
  2. Run ./scripts/vim-patch.sh -l to see the list of missing Vim patches.
  3. Choose a patch from the list (usually the oldest one), e.g. 8.0.0123.
  4. Check for open vim-patch PRs.
  5. Run ./scripts/vim-patch.sh -p 8.0.0123
  6. Follow the instructions given by the script.

Notes

  • It's strongly recommended to work on the oldest missing patch, because later patches might depend on the changes.
  • Use git log -G to search the Nvim/Vim source history (even deleted code). E.g. to find reset_option_was_set: 
    git log -p -G reset_option_was_set

Pull requests

Note: vim-patch.sh automates these steps for you. Use it!

Reviewers: hint for reviewing runtime/ patches

NA ("Not Applicable") patches

Many Vim patches are not applicable to Neovim. If you find NA patches, visit the "version.c: update" pull request and mention the NA patches in a comment (please edit/update one comment, rather than adding a new comment for each patch).

If you are working on a series of patches, you may notice some "Not Applicable" patches. In that case you may want to mark the NA patches a commit message, using this format exactly (each patch on a separate line):

vim-patch:<version-or-commit>
vim-patch:<version-or-commit>
...

where <version-or-commit> is a valid Vim version (like 8.0.0123) or commit-id (SHA).

Types of "Not Applicable" Vim patches:

  • Updates to testdir/Makefile are usually NA because the Makefile implicitly finds all test_*.vim files.
  • Compiler warning fixes: Neovim strives to have no warnings at all, and has a very different build system from Vim.
    • Note: Coverity fixes in Vim are relevant to Neovim.
  • #ifdef tweaking: For example, Vim decided to enable FEAT_VISUAL for all platforms — but Neovim already does that. Adding new FEAT_ guards also isn't relevant to Neovim.
  • Legacy system support: Fixes for legacy systems such as Amiga, OS/2 Xenix, Mac OS 9, Windows older than XP SP2, are not needed because they are not supported by Neovim.
  • if_*.c changes: if_python.c et. al. were removed.
  • term.c changes: the Neovim TUI uses libtermkey to read terminal sequences; Vim's term.c was removed.
  • :terminal patches
  • defaults.vim patches
  • Most GUI-related changes: Neovim GUIs are implemented external to the core C codebase.
  • Anything else might be relevant; err on the side of caution, and post an issue if you aren't sure.

version.c

The list of Vim patches in src/nvim/version.c is automatically updated based on the presence of vim-patch:xxx tokens in the Neovim git log.

  • Don't update src/nvim/version.c yourself.
  • scripts/vim-patch.sh -p intentionally omits version.c to avoid merge conflicts and save time when porting a patch.
  • The automation script (scripts/vimpatch.lua) only recognizes tokens like vim-patch:8.0.1206, not vim-patch:<hash>.

Code differences

The following functions have been removed or deprecated in favor of newer alternatives. See the memory.c Doxygen page for more information.

Deprecated or removed Replacement
vim_free xfree
VIM_CLEAR(&foo) XFREE_CLEAR(foo)
malloc alloc lalloc lalloc_id xmalloc
calloc lalloc_clear xcalloc
realloc vim_realloc xrealloc
mch_memmove memmove
vim_memset copy_chars copy_spaces memset
vim_strncpy strncpy xstrlcpy
vim_strcat strncat xstrlcat
vim_islower vim_isupper mb_islower mb_isupper
vim_tolower vim_toupper mb_tolower mb_toupper
mb_ptr2len utfc_ptr2len
mb_ptr2len_len utfc_ptr2len_len
mb_char2len utf_char2len
mb_char2bytes utf_char2bytes
mb_ptr2cells utf_ptr2cells
mb_ptr2cells_len utf_ptr2cells_len
mb_char2cells utf_char2cells
mb_off2cells utf_off2cells
mb_ptr2char utf_ptr2char
mb_head_off utf_head_off
mb_lefthalve grid_lefthalve
mb_fix_col grid_fix_col
utf_off2cells grid_off2cells
screen_char ui_line
screen_line grid_put_linebuf
screen_* (most functions) grid_*
update_prepare, update_finish #9484 removed; use update_screen only

Make sure to note the difference between utf_ and utfc_ when replacing mb_ functions. Also indirect call syntax (*mb_ptr2len)(...) should be replaced with an ordinary function call utfc_ptr2len(...).

Data type Format (Vim source) Portable format (Nvim source)
long long "%lld" "%" PRId64
size_t "%ld" "%zu"
  • See also: https://github.com/neovim/neovim/pull/1729#discussion_r22423779
  • Vim's ga_init2 was renamed to ga_init and the original ga_init is gone.
  • "Old style" Vim tests (src/testdir/*.in) should be converted to Lua tests (see #1286 and #1328). See Checklist for migrating legacy tests.
    • However, please do not convert "new style" Vim tests (src/testdir/*.vim) to Lua. The "new style" Vim tests are faster than the old ones, and converting them takes time and effort better spent elsewhere. Just copy them to src/nvim/testdir/*.vim and update src/nvim/testdir/Makefile.
  • Conditions that check enc_utf8 or has_mbyte are obsolete (only the "true" case is applicable).
  • List management has changed in Neovim, see this wiki page.

Documentation differences

The following should be removed from all imported documentation, and not be used in new documentation:

  • {not in Vi} : we don't care about compatibility with Vi (see 818f7ae).
  • {Only when compiled with ...} - the vast majority of features have been made non-optional (see Introduction)