# Description
This breaks `nu-plugin` up into four crates:
- `nu-plugin-protocol`: just the type definitions for the protocol, no
I/O. If someone wanted to wire up something more bare metal, maybe for
async I/O, they could use this.
- `nu-plugin-core`: the shared stuff between engine/plugin. Less stable
interface.
- `nu-plugin-engine`: everything required for the engine to talk to
plugins. Less stable interface.
- `nu-plugin`: everything required for the plugin to talk to the engine,
what plugin developers use. Should be the most stable interface.
No changes are made to the interface exposed by `nu-plugin` - it should
all still be there. Re-exports from `nu-plugin-protocol` or
`nu-plugin-core` are used as required. Plugins shouldn't ever have to
use those crates directly.
This should be somewhat faster to compile as `nu-plugin-engine` and
`nu-plugin` can compile in parallel, and the engine doesn't need
`nu-plugin` and plugins don't need `nu-plugin-engine` (except for test
support), so that should reduce what needs to be compiled too.
The only significant change here other than splitting stuff up was to
break the `source` out of `PluginCustomValue` and create a new
`PluginCustomValueWithSource` type that contains that instead. One bonus
of that is we get rid of the option and it's now more type-safe, but it
also means that the logic for that stuff (actually running the plugin
for custom value ops) can live entirely within the `nu-plugin-engine`
crate.
# User-Facing Changes
- New crates.
- Added `local-socket` feature for `nu` to try to make it possible to
compile without that support if needed.
# Tests + Formatting
- 🟢 `toolkit fmt`
- 🟢 `toolkit clippy`
- 🟢 `toolkit test`
- 🟢 `toolkit test stdlib`
# Description
Adds support for running plugins using local socket communication
instead of stdio. This will be an optional thing that not all plugins
have to support.
This frees up stdio for use to make plugins that use stdio to create
terminal UIs, cc @amtoine, @fdncred.
This uses the [`interprocess`](https://crates.io/crates/interprocess)
crate (298 stars, MIT license, actively maintained), which seems to be
the best option for cross-platform local socket support in Rust. On
Windows, a local socket name is provided. On Unixes, it's a path. The
socket name is kept to a relatively small size because some operating
systems have pretty strict limits on the whole path (~100 chars), so on
macOS for example we prefer `/tmp/nu.{pid}.{hash64}.sock` where the hash
includes the plugin filename and timestamp to be unique enough.
This also adds an API for moving plugins in and out of the foreground
group, which is relevant for Unixes where direct terminal control
depends on that.
TODO:
- [x] Generate local socket path according to OS conventions
- [x] Add support for passing `--local-socket` to the plugin executable
instead of `--stdio`, and communicating over that instead
- [x] Test plugins that were broken, including
[amtoine/nu_plugin_explore](https://github.com/amtoine/nu_plugin_explore)
- [x] Automatically upgrade to using local sockets when supported,
falling back if it doesn't work, transparently to the user without any
visible error messages
- Added protocol feature: `LocalSocket`
- [x] Reset preferred mode to `None` on `register`
- [x] Allow plugins to detect whether they're running on a local socket
and can use stdio freely, so that TUI plugins can just produce an error
message otherwise
- Implemented via `EngineInterface::is_using_stdio()`
- [x] Clean up foreground state when plugin command exits on the engine
side too, not just whole plugin
- [x] Make sure tests for failure cases work as intended
- `nu_plugin_stress_internals` added
# User-Facing Changes
- TUI plugins work
- Non-Rust plugins could optionally choose to use this
- This might behave differently, so will need to test it carefully
across different operating systems
# Tests + Formatting
- 🟢 `toolkit fmt`
- 🟢 `toolkit clippy`
- 🟢 `toolkit test`
- 🟢 `toolkit test stdlib`
# After Submitting
- [ ] Document local socket option in plugin contrib docs
- [ ] Document how to do a terminal UI plugin in plugin contrib docs
- [ ] Document: `EnterForeground` engine call
- [ ] Document: `LeaveForeground` engine call
- [ ] Document: `LocalSocket` protocol feature
