bug: Lazy gives warning for Lua version even if it is greater than the minimum version

[slg95]

Did you check docs and existing issues?

• I have read all the lazy.nvim docs
• I have updated the plugin to the latest version before submitting this issue
• I have searched the existing issues of lazy.nvim
• I have searched the existing issues of plugins related to this issue

Neovim version (nvim -v)

0.11.0

Operating system/version

Fedora 40

Describe the bug

Running :checkhealth shows a warning: WARNING lua version 5.1 needed, but found Lua 5.4.6 Copyright (C)...

There shouldn't be a warning when I have a Lua version greater than the minimum.

Steps To Reproduce

Run :checkhealth

Expected Behavior

No warning when the minimum Lua version is met or exceeded

Repro

[kostabekre]

It's dependency for luarocks. See luarocks needs lua 5.1

[slg95]

@kostabekre thank you for referencing the other Issue. In the other Issue, it still isn't explained why luarocks needs Lua version 5.1 installed. Based on luarocks docs, they support 5.1, 5.2, 5.3, and 5.4. Any idea why 5.1 is specifically required for Lazy's use of luarocks?

Just curious for my understanding and others since its clearly not the first time this question has been asked :)

[dpetka2001]

Folke mentioned that Luarocks for Neovim plugins requires Lua 5.1.

I don't know if things have changed recently, but this was needed when lazy.nvim first supported luarocks.

PS: also read :h lua-compat. It seems to be more of a Neovim thing rather than lazy.nvim or luarocks.

[slg95]

Sorry I am new to Neovim in general, including lazy (and that I missed that the Issue #1570 was pinned), but I don't see where lazy is depending on the Luarocks Neovim plugin. I don't have the plugin listed in ~/.local/share/nvim/lazy or in :Lazy. Is the dependency vendored somewhere in the lazy source tree?

I have seen that all Neovim plugins have to work with Lua 5.1 for performance and stability reasons. But I am not understanding why the Luarocks plugin (which I can't find installed) would need a specific version of Lua since the Neovim Lua interpreter is built with the application

[dpetka2001]

The Neovim plugins have to work with Lua 5.1. Thus any plugins for Neovim that get distributed by luarocks and installed by lazy.nvim via luarocks have also to work with Lua 5.1 and not greater. It is mentioned in :h lua-compat. Did you read that?

That's why you see the warning if you don't have Lua 5.1 installed. If you don't intend to use luarocks, just ignore the warning. It's a Neovim thing not a lazy.nvim thing. lazy.nvim just checks for this condition, since it's a plugin manager that also supports installing Neovim plugins via luarocks.

[slg95]

The Neovim plugins have to work with Lua 5.1. Thus any plugins for Neovim that get distributed by luarocks and installed by lazy.nvim via luarocks have also to work with Lua 5.1 and not greater. It is mentioned in :h lua-compat. Did you read that?

Yeah, I read :h lua-compat, which helped me understand the importance of Lua 5.1 with Neovim. Thanks for the suggestion. What doesn't make sense though is why the version of Lua matters though. Perhaps I need to read more about Luarocks, but if I'm downloading some plugin X using Luarocks, why would it be any different if I'm using Lua 5.1 versus Lua 5.4? When the plugin X is executed (after its installed), it will be executed by the built-in Neovim interpreter, which is Lua 5.1. Unless I'm missing something, the plugin X itself shouldn't change depending on which version of Lua that Luarocks used to install it

[dpetka2001]

Because Neovim itself does not support later versions. It says so

later versions (which are essentially different, incompatible, dialects) are not supported

This is explicitly a Neovim thing, not a lazy.nvim thing. lazy.nvim only makes sure that it follows Neovim's Lua conventions and checks for this.

[slg95]

Because Neovim itself does not support later versions. It says so

later versions (which are essentially different, incompatible, dialects) are not supported

This is explicitly a Neovim thing, not a lazy.nvim thing. lazy.nvim only makes sure that it follows Neovim's Lua conventions and checks for this.

The help text is referring to the version of Lua that the plugins need to support. If a plugin X uses a feature from Lua 5.4, it won't work with Neovim and is thus a badly written plugin. I'm just not understanding what this has to do with the version of Lua I have installed since Neovim itself interprets my Neovim plugins, not my installed version of Lua.

Is this more about the dependencies of plugins? Is the idea that using Luarocks with an installed Lua version 5.1 will ensure it only download dependencies that work with Lua 5.1?

-- edit --

After playing around with LuaRocks and the options that lazy.vim uses (--lua-version=5.1), I'm not sure at all why Lua 5.1 is needed. LuaRocks seems to work just fine to install things without Lua 5.1 installed

[dpetka2001]

It will ensure that you have Lua 5.1 installed that the Neovim plugins need to be able to work. It mentions that different versions of Lua have different characteristics, maybe different methods or functions that the plugins use internally.

If you use a later version maybe the plugins won't be able to function and throw errors. Who knows? This is a question better directed at Neovim core maintainers. Not here. lazy.nvim just follows the Neovim Lua convention.

[slg95]

If you use a later version maybe the plugins won't be able to function and throw errors. Who knows? This is a question better directed at Neovim core maintainers. Not here. lazy.nvim just follows the Neovim Lua convention.

Lua, like other languages, introduces new language features in their releases. So if your plugin tries to use binary operators for instance, it will not work inside of Neovim since Lua 5.1 has no support for those operators. I edited my previous comment, but with my limited understanding of things it seems like Lua 5.1 is not necessary for LuaRocks to work properly. I was able to install packages for Lua 5.1 without having Lua 5.1 installed just by passing --lua-version=5.1 to the LuaRocks commands (which is how lazy calls LuaRocks).

Again, not a Lua or Neovim expert here, but I'm yet to see why the Lua 5.1 warning is necessary

[clason]

Neovim supports Lua 5.1 and nothing else. The problem is if plugins use luarocks to install external dependencies that need to be compiled against the Lua headers, and you (and hence luarocks) use the wrong Lua version, things will simply not work.

So this warning is indeed useful to alert you to this possibility when things do not work as expected.