[BUG] getting elin to connect on windows/neovim

[BorisVSchmid]

Describe the bug
I'm trying to get elin to work on windows/neovim. I have elin working on a mac/neovim.

To Reproduce
Go to a clojure project (defined by deps.edn), open the source file from a windows powershell (nvim src/spikey/core2.clj). See a message pop up of Elin trying to connect (attached screenshot)

Expected behavior
Some way to connect Elin to nrepl, either automatically, or after starting a repl in the terminal

Environment (please complete the following information):

• Editor: Neovim
• Editor version: 0.10.4
• Babashka version: 1.12.197

Configuration file (if you have):
User configuration ($XDG_CONFIG_HOME/elin/config.edn or$HOME/.config/elin/config.edn)

{} ;; I think. Not sure what directory that would be on windows. Don't have a .config.

Project local configuration (YOUR_PROJECT/.elin/config.edn)

{} ;; none.

Additional context
This is my edn file:

{:description "A spiking neural network approach for Numer.ai Signals data"

 :paths ["src"]

 ;:mvn/local-repo "C:/.m2" ;; uncomment if you don't want .m2 to be locate in the root of C:/. Putting .m2 there helps avoid otherwise overly long classpaths in Java.

 ;; We need this for pinned openblas snapshot! If you're just using MKL (recommended on Linux and Windows) you don't need this.
 :mvn/repos {"snapshots" {:url "https://oss.sonatype.org/content/repositories/snapshots"}}

 :deps {org.clojure/clojure {:mvn/version "1.11.3"}
        ;
        ;; neanderthal
        ;; on mac: no need for this. org.bytedeco/mkl-platform-redist {:mvn/version "2024.0-1.5.10"}
        uncomplicate/neanderthal {:mvn/version "0.53.0"}
        uncomplicate/fluokitten {:mvn/version "0.10.0"}
        ;; on mac: we need this:
        org.bytedeco/openblas {:mvn/version "0.3.28-1.5.12-20250223.142442-74"}
        ;
        ;; reading files
        com.techascent/tmd-parquet {:mvn/version "1.001"}
        org.clojure/data.csv {:mvn/version "1.1.0"}
        com.taoensso/nippy {:mvn/version "3.2.0"} ;; 3.4.2 doesn't work with stick anymore.
        ;neanderthal-stick/neanderthal-stick {:mvn/version "0.4.0"}
        ;
        ;; multithreading
        org.clj-commons/claypoole {:mvn/version "1.2.2"}
        ;
        ;; debug
        org.clojars.abhinav/snitch {:mvn/version "0.1.15"}
        ;
        ;; time and http
        tick/tick {:mvn/version "0.7.5"}
        ;
        ;; visualization. This library is getting stale, but there is no replacement yet.
        metasoarous/oz {:mvn/version "2.0.0-alpha5"}}

;start with clj -M:repl
:aliases {:repl {:extra-deps {nrepl/nrepl {:mvn/version "1.3.1"}
cider/cider-nrepl {:mvn/version "0.53.0"}}
:main-opts ["-m" "nrepl.cmdline" "--interactive"]
:exec-args {:middleware ["cider.nrepl/cider-middleware"]}
:jvm-opts ["-Dclojure.compiler.direct-linking=true"
"-XX:+UseG1GC"
"-XX:MaxDirectMemorySize=64g"
"--add-opens=java.base/jdk.internal.ref=ALL-UNNAMED"
"--add-opens=java.base/sun.nio.ch=ALL-UNNAMED"]}}}

This is the error message when running ElinConnect

[liquidz]

@BorisVSchmid Sorry for late response 🙇

I don't have a Windows environment, so I can't reproduce the issue on my end, but I believe the elin server is probably not starting correctly.
Could you try running the following command in the directory where the elin code was cloned?

bb -m elin.core '{"env": {"cwd": "/path/to/your/project/root"}, "server": {"host": "nvim", "port": 12345}}'

If an error occurs, please let me know the details.
If no error occurs, try defining the following variable on the Neovim side. That way, it will attempt to connect to the manually started elin server, and you can check if it works.

let g:elin_server_port = 12345

[BorisVSchmid]

No worries about the slow response. Same here.

PS C:\Users\mail\AppData\Local\nvim-data\lazy\elin> bb -m elin.core '{"env": {"cwd": "C:/Users/mail/BVS/numerai/development/spikey"}, "server": {"host": "nvim", "port": 12345}}'
----- Error --------------------------------------------------------------------
Type:     com.fasterxml.jackson.core.JsonParseException
Message:  Unexpected character ('e' (code 101)): was expecting double-quote to start field name
 at [Source: REDACTED (`StreamReadFeature.INCLUDE_SOURCE_IN_LOCATION` disabled); line: 1, column: 2]
Location: /C:/Users/mail/AppData/Local/nvim-data/lazy/elin/src/elin/core.clj:11:34

----- Context ------------------------------------------------------------------
 7:    [taoensso.timbre :as timbre]))
 8:
 9: (defn -main
10:   [json-config]
11:   (let [{:as config :keys [env]} (json/parse-string json-config keyword)
                                     ^--- Unexpected character ('e' (code 101)): was expecting double-quote to start field name
 at [Source: REDACTED (`StreamReadFeature.INCLUDE_SOURCE_IN_LOCATION` disabled); line: 1, column: 2]
12:         config (e.config/load-config (:cwd env) config)
13:         sys-map (e.system/new-system config)]
14:
15:     (when-let [log-config (:log config)]
16:       (timbre/merge-config! log-config))

----- Stack trace --------------------------------------------------------------
cheshire.parse/parse*      - <built-in>
cheshire.parse/parse       - <built-in>
cheshire.core/parse-string - <built-in>
elin.core                  - /C:/Users/mail/AppData/Local/nvim-data/lazy/elin/src/elin/core.clj:11:34
clojure.core/apply         - <built-in>
user                       - <expr>:1:34

PS C:\Users\mail\AppData\Local\nvim-data\lazy\elin>

PS C:\Users\mail\AppData\Local\nvim-data\lazy\elin> ls


    Directory: C:\Users\mail\AppData\Local\nvim-data\lazy\elin


Mode                 LastWriteTime         Length Name
----                 -------------         ------ ----
d-----         3/30/2025   3:40 PM                .clj-kondo
d-----         3/30/2025   4:56 PM                .config
d-----         3/30/2025   3:40 PM                .elin
d-----         3/30/2025   3:40 PM                .github
d-----         3/30/2025   3:40 PM                autoload
d-----         3/30/2025   3:40 PM                bin
d-----         3/30/2025   3:40 PM                dev
d-----         3/30/2025   3:41 PM                doc
d-----         3/30/2025   3:40 PM                example-plugin
d-----         3/30/2025   3:40 PM                lua
d-----         3/30/2025   3:40 PM                plugin
d-----         3/30/2025   3:40 PM                resources
d-----         3/30/2025   3:40 PM                src
d-----         3/30/2025   3:40 PM                test
-a----         3/30/2025   3:40 PM            185 .gitignore
-a----         3/30/2025   3:40 PM           1956 ARCHITECTURE.adoc
-a----         3/30/2025   3:40 PM           5187 bb.edn
-a----         3/30/2025   3:40 PM           7212 CHANGELOG.adoc
-a----         3/30/2025   3:40 PM           2802 cliff.toml
-a----         3/30/2025   3:40 PM           1986 deps.edn
-a----         3/30/2025   3:40 PM            757 DEVELOPMENT.adoc
-a----         3/30/2025   3:40 PM           1081 LICENSE
-a----         3/30/2025   3:40 PM           1689 README.adoc


PS C:\Users\mail\AppData\Local\nvim-data\lazy\elin>

I have earlier had path escaping issues with clojure packages not developed on windows (clojure sublimed from Tonsky.). He tracked it down to a path escaping issue. Not sure if that helps, but see the diff here:

tonsky/Clojure-Sublimed@3.7.2...3.7.3

[liquidz]

@BorisVSchmid Thank you for your confirmation!

bb -m elin.core '{"env": {"cwd": "C:/Users/mail/BVS/numerai/development/spikey"}, "server": {"host": "nvim", "port": 12345}}'
Unexpected character ('e' (code 101)): was expecting double-quote to start field name

Is this e from "env"?
It should be enclosed in double quotes, but could it be that PowerShell is somehow transforming it?

At least, the error is due to the startup JSON not being passed correctly, so it depends on how to properly pass the JSON on PowerShell...

What happens if you try escaping the double quotes (\") as a test?

[BorisVSchmid]

Escaping the " seems to work.

                                                    bb -m elin.core '{\"env\": {\"cwd\": \"C:/Users/mail/BVS/numerai/development/spikey\"}, \"server\": {\"host\": \"nvim\", \"port\": 12345}}'
2025-05-03T07:24:55.788Z snowcrash INFO [elin.component.lazy-host:44] - LazyHost component: Started
2025-05-03T07:24:55.799Z snowcrash INFO [elin.component.clj-kondo:68] - CljKondo component: Started
2025-05-03T07:24:55.838Z snowcrash INFO [elin.component.plugin:81] - Plugin component: Started
2025-05-03T07:24:55.838Z snowcrash INFO [elin.component.session-storage:20] - SessionStorage component: Started
2025-05-03T07:24:55.915Z snowcrash INFO [elin.component.nrepl:36] - Nrepl component: Started
2025-05-03T07:24:55.945Z snowcrash INFO [elin.component.handler:152] - Handler component: Started
2025-05-03T07:24:55.949Z snowcrash INFO [elin.component.server:68] - Server component: Starting nvim 12345
2025-05-03T07:24:55.949Z snowcrash INFO [elin.component.server:81] - Server component: Started nvim 12345

[BorisVSchmid]

I got a decent part of the problem solved - with a lot of back and forth with chatgpt. There is still a problem with what chatgpt thinks is the clojure formatter when writing a file, but elin autoconnects, accepts a jackin, and can evaluate forms(1).

main...BorisVSchmid:elin:escape-windows-backslashes-revert

(1) I had a separate issue when nvim picked up a mingw32 compiler and my treesitter for clojure was never compiled into a dll, but that was fixable by pointing to a correct path

The error that is left follows after writing a file:

Not really getting further in fixing that one right now.

[BorisVSchmid]

@liquidz the branch doesn't work completely yet on windows - connecting seems to work on second try (restart neovide, set the project directory as root, open .clj file), but not first try. So some work in progress still :-).