Interacting with the OS

This is where Lite XL's Lua code interact with its underlying C engine.

Using the System API

There are many functions that belong to this API; not all are necessary for plugin development. As such, we'll ignore them here and only document the useful ones.

Clipboard

system.set_clipboard() sets the clipboard content, while system.get_clipboard() retrieves the clipboard content.

The functions do not support rich content such as images and files.

function system.set_clipboard(text: string): () end
function system.get_clipboard(text: string): string end

Examples:

system.set_clipboard("wow magic")
-- prints:
-- wow magic
print(system.get_clipboard("wow magic"))

File / Directory operations

These functions deal with files, directories and paths.

-- Returns a list of files and directories in a directory.
function system.list_dir(path: string): {string}, string end
-- Creates a new directory.
function system.mkdir(path: string): boolean, string end
-- Removes a directory.
function system.rmdir(path: string): boolean string end
-- Changes the current working directory (equivalent to the `cd` command)
function system.chdir(path: string): () end
-- Resolves the input path (removing all '.' and '..') into an absolute path.
function system.absolute_path(path: string): () end

-- Types of paths
local enum FileType
  "file"
  "dir"
end

-- The information for a path
local record FileInfo
  modified: number
  size: number
  type: FileType
  symlink: boolean
end

-- Returns information for a file or a directory.
function system.get_file_info(path: string): FileInfo, string end

system.get_file_info() returns a table with the following properties:

modified: Modification time in seconds (UNIX timestamp).
size: Size of the file in bytes.
type: Type of the path (Can be file or dir).
symlink: The directory is a symlink (Only set on Linux and on directories).

All the functions listed above except system.chdir() will return nil followed by an error message when an error occurred. system.chdir() will throw an error if an error occurred.

Examples:

-- DO NOT RUN THIS CODE!
-- the code and its outputs are purely for demonstration only,
-- and will not reflect your actual usage.
local dir = "../lite-xl"
local dir_resolved = system.absolute_path(dir)
-- prints:
-- /home/user/gh/lite-xl
print(dir_resolved)

-- prints:
-- .git => dir
-- docs => dir
-- .editorconfig => file
-- LICENSE => file
-- ...
-- lite-xl => file
for i, d in ipairs(system.list_dir(dir_resolved)) do
  local info = system.get_file_info(dir_resolved .. "/" .. d)
  print(d .. " => " .. info.type)
end

-- create some directories
-- this will not work because system.mkdir() doesn't create directories
-- recursively, just like `mkdir` command without the `-p` option.
-- prints:
-- false   No such file or directory
print(system.mkdir(dir_resolved .. "/1/2"))

-- these will work
-- prints:
-- true
print(system.mkdir(dir_resolved .. "/1"))
-- prints:
-- true
print(system.mkdir(dir_resolved .. "/1/2"))

-- system.rmdir() does not support removing non-empty dirs, so
-- this will not work and print an error
-- prints:
-- false   Directory not empty
print(system.rmdir(dir_resolved .. "/1"))

-- instead, you should try to remove them recursively, making sure that each
-- directory is empty
-- prints:
-- true
print(system.rmdir(dir_resolved .. "/1/2"))
-- prints:
-- true
print(system.rmdir(dir_resolved .. "/1"))

Timing

system.get_time() returns time in seconds since Lite XL started. It is a high-precision alternative to os.time().

function system.get_time(): number end

Examples:

-- prints:
-- 30148.079763237
print(system.get_time())

Window manipulation

These functions deal with Lite XL window.

-- Sets the window opacity from 0 to 1.
function system.set_window_opacity(opacity: number): boolean end
-- Sets the window title.
function system.set_window_title(title: string): () end

local enum WindowMode
  "normal"
  "maximized"
  "minimized"
  "fullscreen"
end

-- Sets the window mode.
function system.set_window_mode(mode: WindowMode): () end

-- Enables/disables window borders (decoration).
function system.set_window_bordered(enable: boolean): () end
-- Sets the window hit test region.
function system.set_window_hit_test(height?: number,
                                    control_width?: number,
                                    resize_border?: number): ()
end
-- Gets the window dimension and position.
function system.get_window_size(): {number, number, number, number} end
-- Sets the window dimension and position.
function system.set_window_size(width:  number,
                                height: number,
                                x:      number,
                                y:      number): ()
end
-- Checks whether windows has input focus.
function system.window_has_focus(): boolean end
-- Shows a message box with an error message.
function system.show_fatal_error(title: string, msg: string): () end

The height parameter in system.set_window_hit_test() refers to the height of the top decoration. Users can drag this part of the window to move it. control_width specifies the width of various window controls (minimize, maximize and close) buttons in the top right corner of the window. resize_border specifies the width of a "border region" where users can drag the window to resize it. This value does not overlap with the height parameter.

system.get_window_size() returns the width, height, x-coordinate and y-coordinate of the window respectively.

system.set_window_opacity() will return false if the operation failed. Otherwise, it returns true.

Miscellaneous

system.exec() runs a command in the background. It is useful if you just want to run a program and doesn't care about its output and exit code. If you want more features, consider using the Process API.

system.fuzzy_match() generates a score for sorting text based on relevance.

function system.exec(command: string): () end
function system.fuzzy_match(haystack: string,
                            needle:   string,
                            file:     boolean): number
end

system.exec() accepts a string containing a command to run. This command will be run as system("<command> &") on POSIX platforms and cmd /c "<command>" on Windows, so make sure that the command is escaped properly.

system.fuzzy_match() takes in a haystack (a possible match) and a needle (the string to search) to generate a similarity score. If the score is 1, both strings are identical. When the third argument is true, the matching will be done backwards as this is more suitable for matching paths.