Elixir: "W18: Invalid character in group name"

[millnitzluan]

Describe the bug

When opening elixir files like .ex/.exs I'm getting this error.

To Reproduce

Steps to reproduce the behavior:

1. Go to elixir files
2. See the error. W18: Invalid character in group name

Expected behavior

This error shows every time when using nvim + telescope with file preview. You can easily check it while previewing the files. Disabling elixir syntax stops the error.

Output of :checkhealth nvim_treesitter

health#nvim_treesitter#check ======================================================================== ## Installation - OK: `tree-sitter` found 0.19.5 (parser generator, only needed for :TSInstallFromGrammar) - OK: `node` found v12.20.1 (only needed for :TSInstallFromGrammar) - OK: `git` executable found. - OK: `cc` executable found. Selected from { vim.NIL, "cc", "gcc", "clang", "cl" } - OK: Neovim was compiled with tree-sitter runtime ABI version 13 (required >=13). Parsers must be compatible with runtime ABI.

Parser/Features H L F I

• bash ‚úì ‚úì ‚úì . ‚úì
• ruby ‚úì ‚úì ‚úì ‚úì ‚úì
• python ‚úì ‚úì ‚úì ‚úì ‚úì
• lua ‚úì ‚úì ‚úì ‚úì ‚úì
• elixir ‚úì ‚úì . ‚úì ‚úì
• html ‚úì ‚úì ‚úì ‚úì ‚úì
• json ‚úì ‚úì ‚úì ‚úì .
• javascript ‚úì ‚úì ‚úì ‚úì ‚úì
• css ‚úì . ‚úì ‚úì ‚úì
• typescript ‚úì ‚úì ‚úì ‚úì ‚úì

Legend: H[ighlight], L[ocals], F[olds], I[ndents]
+) multiple parsers found, only one will be used
x) errors found in the query, try to run :TSUpdate {lang}


Output of nvim --version

nvim --version NVIM v0.5.0-dev+1385-g93f15db5d Build type: Release LuaJIT 2.1.0-beta3 Compilation: clang -U_FORTIFY_SOURCE -D_FORTIFY_SOURCE=1 -O2 -DNDEBUG -Wall -Wextra -pedantic -Wno-unused-parameter -Wstrict-prototypes -std=gnu99 -Wshadow -Wconversion -Wmissing-prototypes -Wimplicit-fallthrough -Wvla -fstack-protector-strong -fno-common -fdiagnostics-color=auto -DINCLUDE_GENERATED_DECLARATIONS -D_GNU_SOURCE -DNVIM_MSGPACK_HAS_FLOAT32 -DNVIM_UNIBI_HAS_VAR_FROM -DMIN_LOG_LEVEL=3 -I/tmp/neovim-20210607-11245-s88s7u/build/config -I/tmp/neovim-20210607-11245-s88s7u/src -I/opt/homebrew/include -I/Library/Developer/CommandLineTools/SDKs/MacOSX.sdk/usr/include -I/opt/homebrew/opt/gettext/include -I/tmp/neovim-20210607-11245-s88s7u/build/src/nvim/auto -I/tmp/neovim-20210607-11245-s88s7u/build/include Compiled by luanmillnitz@marvin.local

Features: +acl +iconv +tui
See ":help feature-compile"

system vimrc file: "$VIM/sysinit.vim"
fall-back for $VIM: "/opt/homebrew/Cellar/neovim/HEAD-93f15db_2/share/nvim"

Run :checkhealth for more info


Additional context

I'm using iterm2.

[theHamsta]

Could this be related to neovim/neovim#14767 ?

[millnitzluan]

IDK if it's related, built neovim with your modifications and the error is still happening.

[matiaslb]

Same thing happens to me, I believe that the issue happens when the following plugin is loaded: vim-editors/vim-elixir

[cigrainger]

Same thing happens to me, including after I removed vim-editors/vim-elixir.

[stsewd]

This error shows every time when using nvim + telescope with file preview. You can easily check it while previewing the files. Disabling elixir syntax stops the error.

Does this happen when not using telescope? I think you should report this issue there, then.

[millnitzluan]

This error shows every time when using nvim + telescope with file preview. You can easily check it while previewing the files. Disabling elixir syntax stops the error.

Does this happen when not using telescope? I think you should report this issue there, then.

I don't that the errors happen in telescope, due that it's easy to get the error using telescope + preview. I think that the same happens without telescope.

[stsewd]

@millnitzluan can you provide a file to replicate this? Also, are you able to replicate this without telescope?

[thedelchop]

FWIW, the issue is triggered when an .exs file contain a HEREDOC string. This example, without telescope installed and syntax set to off, always produces the error:

defmodule Test do
  def foo do
    """
      This is a string I am going to return that
      includes some new lines and what not.
    """
  end
end

while this never does:

defmodule Test do
  def foo do
    "This is a string I am going to return that includes some new lines and what not."
  end
end

I can also confirm that this error only appeared after I had installed elixir-vim and persists even after removing elixir-vim and re-installing nvim-treesitter. I can't seem to grasp how that plugin could have an effect on tree-sitter but 🤷‍♂️

This is using NeoVim 0.5.0

[stsewd]

@thedelchop thanks for providing the file to test this, but I wasn't able to replicate this even installing vim-elixir. Can you try replicating this with a minimal init.vim?

[thedelchop]

@stsewd I still see the error, using that file, with this minimal init.lua file:

require('packer').startup(function()
  use 'wbthomason/packer.nvim'

  use { 'nvim-treesitter/nvim-treesitter',                -- The goal of nvim-treesitter is both to provide a simple and easy way to use the interface for tree-sitter in Neovim
    run = ':TSUpdate',
    config = function()
      require("nvim-treesitter.configs").setup {
        ensure_installed = {
          'elixir'
        },
        highlight = {
          enable = true
        },
        indent = {
          enable = true
        }
      }
    end
  }
end)

vim.g.mapleader = ";"
vim.api.nvim_set_keymap('i', 'jk', '<Esc>', {noremap = true})

And I also wiped out my ~/.local/share/nvim and ~/.local/.cache/nvim directories and reinstalled neovim. I also, just to be super sure, killed tmux and started neovim from Terminal.app instead of iTerm2.

[thedelchop]

@stsewd just to be sure, did you update your elixir parser for TS?

[stsewd]

I was able to replicate this with that minimal init.vim. Actually, I'm able to replicate with my init.vim, but the message was being hidden. I thought this was being shown as a lua error, but it's shown as a message :messages

[stsewd]

there is an invalid capture group in elixir highlights' queries, not sure how the CI passed...

[stsewd]

#1551 should fix this, also, I think that what you actually want for these queries is a new group like string.delimiter

[stsewd]

BTW, the highlight queries make use of _ instead of (_) and they give a syntax error in the playground, I asked more information about the difference in tree-sitter/tree-sitter#1253

[thedelchop]

@stsewd Awesome, thank you so much. I am trying to learn more about tree sitter as it seems pretty cool, but I'm still kind of a newbie. I'll try to setup the playground and see what I can find.

[theHamsta]

@stsewd the CI does not test parsers that require npm

[jameschensmith]

Just ran into this same error message in Nix files. The string.special fix will most likely address it, as the comments in #1551 note. When I get a chance to validate the fix, I'll post an update here 👍

Edit: Oh, wow. After less than a minute of posting this, I was able to pull down the changes and validate. Yep, fixed. Thank you so much for this amazing library, Maintainers!