lua-xmlreader module fails to install and is deprecated

[zorankucekovic]

Is there a chance to replace lua-xmlreader with some other xml reader since this one won't install with lua 5.1 - 5.4. Consequently, we can't load phpunit coverage results.

This is the error trace:
`-> % luarocks install lua-xmlreader --local

Installing https://luarocks.org/lua-xmlreader-0.1-2.src.rock

lua-xmlreader 0.1-2 depends on lua >= 5.1 (5.4-1 provided by VM: success)
gcc -O2 -fPIC -I/usr/include -c xmlreader.c -o xmlreader.o -I/usr/include/libxml2
xmlreader.c: In function ‘xmlreader_get_attribute’:
xmlreader.c:670:13: error: implicit declaration of function ‘luaL_checkint’; did you mean ‘luaL_checkany’? [-Wimplicit-function-declaration]
670 | int n = luaL_checkint(L, 2);
| ^~~~~~~~~~~~~
| luaL_checkany
xmlreader.c: In function ‘get_parser_option’:
xmlreader.c:1064:13: error: implicit declaration of function ‘lua_objlen’; did you mean ‘lua_len’? [-Wimplicit-function-declaration]
1064 | int len = lua_objlen(L, -1);
| ^~~~~~~~~~
| lua_len
xmlreader.c: In function ‘xmlreader_pusherror’:
xmlreader.c:1179:17: warning: initialization discards ‘const’ qualifier from pointer target type [-Wdiscarded-qualifiers]
1179 | xmlError *e = xmlGetLastError();
| ^~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
xmlreader.c: In function ‘luaopen_xmlreader’:
xmlreader.c:1275:3: error: implicit declaration of function ‘luaL_register’; did you mean ‘lua_register’? [-Wimplicit-function-declaration]
1275 | luaL_register(L, NULL, xmlreader_m);
| ^~~~~~~~~~~~~
| lua_register

Error: Build error: Failed compiling object xmlreader.o`

[nd1312]

any solution to this yet?

[zorankucekovic]

any solution to this yet?

You can try a workaround along these lines:

1. Install hererocks (if not already installed)
   pipx install hererocks || python3 -m pip install --user hererocks --break-system-packages

2. Create fresh Lua 5.1 + LuaRocks environment
   rm -rf ~/lua51_env
   ~/.local/bin/hererocks ~/lua51_env -l 5.1 -r latest

3. Activate the environment
   source ~/lua51_env/bin/activate

4. Unpack and patch lua-xmlreader
   luarocks unpack lua-xmlreader
   cd lua-xmlreader-0.1-2

5. Patch missing include in error.c
   sed -i '1i#include <libxml/tree.h>' error.c

6. Build and install it (for Lua 5.1)
   luarocks make

7. Make it available to Neovim by extending the module search path
   Add this to your init.lua (or equivalent):
   package.cpath = package.cpath .. ";/home/username/lua51_env/lib/lua/5.1/?.so"
   ... or export this in your .zshrc/.bashrc/... to make it global
   echo 'export LUA_CPATH="$HOME/lua51_env/lib/lua/5.1/?.so;;"' >> ~/.zshrc
   source ~/.zshrc

You should now be able to require("xmlreader") in Neovim Lua plugins

Hope this helps!