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This guide walks you through building EmmyLua Analyzer from source, including setting up your development environment and building specific components.

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Prerequisites

Before building EmmyLua Analyzer, ensure you have the Rust toolchain installed on your system.

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Installing Rust

If you don’t have Rust installed, use rustup to install the latest stable version: 
curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -sSf https://sh.rustup.rs | sh
After installation, verify your Rust installation: 
rustc --version
cargo --version

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Building the Project

1

Clone the repository

Clone the EmmyLua Analyzer repository from GitHub:
git clone https://github.com/EmmyLuaLs/emmylua-analyzer-rust.git
cd emmylua-analyzer-rust
2

Build all crates

Build all workspace crates in release mode for optimal performance:
cargo build --release
This will compile all crates in the workspace and place the binaries in target/release/.
3

Verify the build

After building, you can find the executables in the target/release/ directory:
ls -lh target/release/emmylua_*

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Building Specific Components

You can build individual components instead of the entire workspace:

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Language Server

Build just the language server executable: 
cargo build --release -p emmylua_ls
The binary will be available at target/release/emmylua_ls.

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Documentation Generator

Build the documentation CLI tool: 
cargo build --release -p emmylua_doc_cli

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Static Analyzer

Build the static analysis tool: 
cargo build --release -p emmylua_check

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Parser Library

Build just the parser library: 
cargo build --release -p emmylua_parser

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Development Build

For faster compilation during development, you can omit the --release flag: 
cargo build
Development builds are significantly faster but produce unoptimized binaries. Use them for testing and debugging.

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Running Tests

1

Run all tests

Execute the full test suite across all crates:
cargo test
2

Run tests for a specific crate

Test individual components:
# Test the parser
cargo test -p emmylua_parser

# Test code analysis
cargo test -p emmylua_code_analysis

# Test the language server
cargo test -p emmylua_ls
3

Run tests with coverage

For comprehensive test coverage:
cargo test --all-features --no-fail-fast

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Development Setup

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Code Formatting

EmmyLua Analyzer uses rustfmt for code formatting. Format all code before committing: 
cargo fmt --all

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Pre-commit Hooks

The project uses pre-commit to ensure code quality:
1

Install pre-commit

Install the pre-commit tool:
# Using pip
pip install pre-commit

# Or using your package manager
brew install pre-commit  # macOS
2

Run pre-commit checks

Manually run all pre-commit hooks:
pre-commit run --all
3

Install git hooks (optional)

Set up automatic pre-commit checks:
pre-commit install
This will run checks automatically before each commit.

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Linting

The project uses Clippy for linting. Run the linter: 
cargo clippy --all-targets --all-features

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Troubleshooting

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Build Failures

If you encounter build errors:
  1. Update Rust toolchain: Ensure you’re using a recent stable version 
    rustup update stable
  2. Clean build artifacts: Remove cached builds and start fresh 
    cargo clean
cargo build --release
  3. Check dependencies: Verify all system dependencies are installed

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Test Failures

If tests fail:
  1. Run with verbose output: 
    cargo test -- --nocapture
  2. Run a specific test: 
    cargo test test_name -- --exact

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Next Steps

Contributing Guide

Learn how to contribute to the project

Architecture Overview

Understand the codebase structure

Build docs developers (and LLMs) love

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