bowlcut.vim

Motivation

This project was created because of a problem I had been running into at work. A service would define a function like FetchResource. We would then generate some code for clients to interact with this service, but the definitions the clients use would be something like ExecuteWorkflowFetchResource. In practice, the actual definition of ExecuteWorkflowFetchResource is essentially worthless (because it is auto-generated); I'm usually interested in seeing the implementation of FetchResource.

To get to this definition, I would copy the non-generated portion of the function name (FetchResource) and then type in a query: func \(.*\) FetchResource. Doing this many times a day became a cumbersome annoyance that this plugin aims to solve. Given a list of prefixes and suffixes produced by auto-generated code, this plugin can determine if the word under cursor should be stripped of those prefixes & suffixes, and then jump to the stripped word.

This project was built with golang in mind. Thus, the default query searches for a golang function.

I built this project to solve a problem I was facing, but if others find the concept useful, I would consider adding features so that other languages could be compatible.

Dependencies

⚠️ This plugin is written in vim9script. Make sure you have at least vim9 installed before using this.

⚠️ This plugin has a default dependency on fzf, but it can easily be disabled (see Disabling FZF dependency).

Installation

Install using your favorite package manager, or use Vim's built-in package support:

mkdir -p ~/.vim/pack/plugin/start
cd ~/.vim/pack/plugin/start
git clone https://github.com/joe-mcgovern/vim-bowlcut.git
vim -u NONE -c "helptags bowlcut/doc" -c q

Usage

This plugin provides two commands to jump to the correct definition under the cursor. They are:

BowlcutJump BowlcutJumpALE

The first removes the globally defined prefixes and suffixes, and then greps for the word under cursor. If it finds a single match, it will jump to that definition and return true. If it finds no matches, it will do nothing and return false. If it finds multiple matches, it will call the function defined in the global variable g:bowlcut_multiple_match_func, which defaults to a function that opens the results in a fzf preview window, and then return true.

The BowlcutJumpALE does the same thing as BowlcutJump except that it if not results are found, it will fallback on the ALEGoToDefinition function to jump to the ENTIRE definition under cursor (including defined prefixes and suffixes).

Only one prefix will be removed. Once a match is found, no more prefixes are considered. Suffixes are not removed if no prefix is removed (e.g. a prefix must be removed in order to remove a suffix).

Here is my configuration:

let g:bowlcut_use_ripgrep = 1
let g:bowlcut_prefixes = ["ExecuteActivity", "ExecuteWorkflow", "ExecuteChildWorkflow"]
let g:bowlcut_suffixes = ["Async"]
let g:bowlcut_include_files = ["*.go"]
let g:bowlcut_exclude_files = ["*.pb.go"]
augroup golang_jump
  autocmd!
  autocmd FileType go nnoremap <buffer> <C-]> :BowlcutJumpALE<CR>
augroup END

My dependencies for this setup are ale (my lsp manager), fzf (my fuzzy finder) and ripgrep (the flavor of fuzzy finder I like to use).

Configuration

Disabling FZF dependency

If you do not want the dependency on fzf, you can either define your own multiple match function, or set it to 0: let g:bowlcut_multiple_match_func = 0.

Using ripgrep

By default, grep will be used to do the searching. If you would like to use ripgrep, you can set let g:bowlcut_use_ripgrep = 1 in your .vimrc.

Modifying prefixes & suffixes

You can override the prefixes and suffixes that this plugin will replace when attempting to strip the word under cursor. To do this, set the following variables:

let g:bowlcut_prefixes = ['prefix1', 'prefix2']
let g:bowlcut_suffixes = ['suffix1', 'suffix2']

Providing your own matching function

If you want to use a different grep mechanism, you provide your own matching function by setting the g:bowlcut_match_func variable. This function takes in a string, which is the stripped word under cursor (meaning the prefixes and suffixes have been removed). It MUST return a list of dictionaries that contain the following keys & values: filename, line_number, and column_number. line_number and column_number MUST be numbers (which can be accomplished using the str2nr(in_string) function).

Providing your own query function

You also may override the default query function by setting the g:bowlcut_query_func variable. This function takes in a string and outputs a string. The input string is the stripped word under cursor (meaning prefixes and suffixes have been removed). The string it returns should be a regex pattern that will be provided to the grep tool.