feat(#3292): add nvim_tree.config.filesystem_watchers.whitelist_dirs - strongly recommended for windows

[alex-courtis]

Adds a watcher whitelist.

@andriysavin I'd be most grateful if you thoroughly tested the fix branch

cd /path/to/nvim-tree.lua
git pull
git checkout fix/3292

When you're finished testing:

git checkout master

[andriysavin]

Thanks, I'm looking. Have a silly question: are white-listed directories (as well as ignored directories) supposed to be plain paths or patterns? I'm asking because matching doesn't seem to work (everything is ignored regardless of whitelist). I see you're using vim.fn.match(p, dir), and I believe it expects regex as second parameter. For instance, :lua=vim.fn.match("E:\\Code", "E:\\Code") returns -1, and this is exactly how whitelisted directories are matched.

[alex-courtis]

Thanks, I'm looking. Have a silly question: are white-listed directories (as well as ignored directories) supposed to be plain paths or patterns? I'm asking because matching doesn't seem to work (everything is ignored regardless of whitelist). I see you're using vim.fn.match(p, dir), and I believe it expects regex as second parameter. For instance, :lua=vim.fn.match("E:\\Code", "E:\\Code") returns -1, and this is exactly how whitelisted directories are matched.

They're patterns, as are {ignore_dirs}. I wasn't really clear in the help, I'll polish that a bit.

We need double escapes for backslashes: #3178 (comment)

This case is a problem:

local expr = 'E:\\Code';

local pat = 'E:\\\\Code';

local ret = vim.fn.match(expr, pat)

print(expr .. " " .. pat .. " match ret=" .. ret)

local pat2 = 'E:\\Code';

local ret2 = vim.fn.match(expr, pat2)

print(expr .. " " .. pat2 .. " NO match ret2=" .. ret2)

E:\Code E:\\Code match ret=0
E:\Code E:\Code NO match ret2=-1

[alex-courtis]

I've rewritten the help: please review for clarity: https://github.com/nvim-tree/nvim-tree.lua/pull/3298/changes#diff-b5b2d1abcb86ead5a2319f7e065a7545b834a407cc9f420590d7acebb285fca9

[andriysavin]

Thanks, with double escaping the path works well.

I've been using the whitelist throughout the day and it does the job! I don't see any unusual memory allocation when browsing non-whitelisted locations. This doesn't fix watcher digging whitelisted dirs, but at least in those dirs not that many events happen to cause memory growth.

And updated docs look great, thanks again!

[alex-courtis]

Thanks, with double escaping the path works well.

I've been using the whitelist throughout the day and it does the job! I don't see any unusual memory allocation when browsing non-whitelisted locations. This doesn't fix watcher digging whitelisted dirs, but at least in those dirs not that many events happen to cause memory growth.

And updated docs look great, thanks again!

Thanks for the thorough testing, merging.

You can add more {ignore_dirs} that will be still obeyed inside whitelisted. I've had to add a few over the years.

[andriysavin]

Great, thanks for your work!