helpers: toLuaObject fails to escape strings containing '

[rummik]

Plugin affected: many
Nixpkgs channel: 22.05
Home-manager version: 22.05

Description

It looks like the issue is toLuaObject is using escapeShellArg, which doesn't properly handle escaping strings in this situation.

https://github.com/pta2002/nixvim/blob/c320be04c82914933fe94f64282e646d97d342d4/plugins/helpers.nix#L23-L25

When given the string "<cmd>lua require('gitsigns').blame_line{full=true}<cr>"
it outputs '<cmd>lua require('\''gitsigns'\'').blame_line{full=true}<cr>'

This results in the following error when starting Neovim:

Error detected while processing /nix/store/77xmlnk9bfjw7xd811rf8yipw0jkc2kv-home-manager-files/.config/nvim/init.lua:
E5112: Error while creating lua chunk: ...1rf8yipw0jkc2kv-home-manager-files/.config/nvim/init.lua:92: '}' expected near '\'

Config

{
  programs.nixvim.maps.normal."<leader>hb" = "<cmd>lua require('gitsigns').blame_line{full=true}<cr>";
}

[rummik]

A workaround seems to be using double quotes instead of single quotes within the passed string

[pta2002]

Ah, seems to be an issue with using escapeShellArg. Guess it's about time I implement my own escaping function (it escapes ' to ''\''', which works in shell due to implicit concatenation but not in lua!)

[rummik]

@pta2002 I actually have some progress towards this if you'd like me to submit a PR

[rummik]

For now I'd suggest using builtins.toJSON specifically for string conversion, since it should be compatible in most cases

[rummik]

I'm a bit confused about this part of toLuaObject

https://github.com/pta2002/nixvim/blob/a601a75d0cae8229f1416506bd172e4e4aef3ce7/plugins/helpers.nix#L17-L20

Specifically I'm not sure I understand what the special case for filtering out nil and empty tables is for, and I don't know what the significance of @ prefixed keys are in Lua 😅

[rummik]

As far as I can tell, the condition on line 17 is never reached in the current codebase

[pta2002]

I'm a bit confused about this part of toLuaObject

https://github.com/pta2002/nixvim/blob/a601a75d0cae8229f1416506bd172e4e4aef3ce7/plugins/helpers.nix#L17-L20

Specifically I'm not sure I understand what the special case for filtering out nil and empty tables is for, and I don't know what the significance of @ prefixed keys are in Lua sweat_smile

Honeslty I genuinely do not remember why I put that there... I'm filtering out nil so code does not end up with a bunch of x = nil, because that'll be by far the most common value and I don't want to bloat up the vimrc

[rummik]

For now it's just a simple fix. I don't really feel comfortable changing much in helpers without some kind of tests to make sure I don't break everything 😅