Pascal Language Server

An LSP server implementation for Pascal variants that are supported by Free Pascal, including Object Pascal. It uses CodeTools from Lazarus as backend.

Features

To see the full list of implemented server capabilities in the current version use the command:

pasls -h

Extra commands to be executed with executeCommand:

• pasls.completeCode Complete code at cursor. Takes DocumentUri and Position as options.
• pasls.formatCode Format current file. Takes documentUri and Config file URI as options. The configuration file is the Jedi Code Formatter configuration file. You can find an example in the Lazarus settings directory ~/.lazarus/jcfsettings.cfg. An extra example is included in this repository in Sample-Formatting.cfg

Initialization Options

Editors can supply initialization options to the server, however each client handles this differently so please refer to your editors LSP plugin for more information.

To see the available list of options in the current version use the command:

pasls -h

Clients should include these in their configuration files but you can verify they're up to date using -h.

Macros are supported in initialization options. The following macros will be expanded:

• $(tmpdir) - Path to your systems temporary directory.
• $(root) - Path to the rootURI as specified by the clients initialize request.

The following macro formats are valid:

• $macro
• $MACRO
• $(macro)
• $(MACRO)

Clients

Emacs

To use the server from lsp-mode in Emacs, install the separate lsp-pascal module.

Sublime Text

Install the package and configure the settings accordingly. Requires the LSP package.

Visual Studio Code

Install the extension and configure the settings accordingly. You must have the actual language installed before the extension will work.

Building

Requires Free Pascal Compiler version 3.2.0 and Lazarus trunk sources.

To build using Lazarus, you need to follow the following steps:

• Update or download the sources from gitlab: https://gitlab.com/freepascal.org/lazarus/lazarus

• Open the jcfbase package in the lazarus IDE. It is located in the components/jcf2 directory. You can compile this package in the IDE.

  You need to do this only once, so Lazarus knows about the jcfbase package. (unless you wish to update the Jedi Code Formatter)

• open the lspprotocol.lpk package in Lazarus. It is located in the src/protocol directory. You can compile this package in the IDE, but this is not needed: The Lazarus IDE and Lazbuild simply need to know where itis.

• open the src/standard/pasls.lpi project file in Lazarus, and compile the program. or use the lazbuid commandline:

lazbuild src/standard/pasls.lpi

The lspprotocol.lpk package and pasls.lpi are both in the pascallanguageserver.lpgproject group; if you have project group support enabled, then you can use this to compile this package and the executable.

Debugging the LSP server

The problem

VS Code and other editors that use the LSP server start the LSP server and send messages in JSON-RPC style to standard input, and read replies through standard output. This makes the LSP server process hard to debug.

The solution

To solve this, 2 extra projects have been added:

• paslssock: a LSP server that reads messages from a TCP/IP or Unix socket and sends replies back through the socket.

• paslsproxy: This is a drop-in replacement for pasls: It is a LSP server that acts as a proxy: it reads messages from standard input (just as pasls), but sends them to a TCP/IP or Unix socket. It reads the replies from the socket and writes them to standard output.

Both programs have a -h or --help commandline option which will display all configuration options.

Configuration

paslssock

The paslssock server can read an initialization file with 2 sections, Server and CodeTools. These can be used to set another port on which to listen, and to specify values for the environment variables that are normally sent by the client.

[Server]
Port=10090

[CodeTools]
Compiler=/usr/local/bin/ppcx64-3.2.2
FPCDir=/home/michael/FPC/build/svn/tag_3_2_2/fpcsrc
LazarusDir=/home/michael/projects/lazarus
TargetOS=linux
TargetCPU=x86_64

The default location for this configuration file is /etc/paslssock.cfg on unix, and next to the executable on Windows.

paslsproxy

The proxy can also be configured with an initialization file with 1 section: Server. This can be used to set the port on which the server is listening.

[Server]
Port=10090

The default location for this configuration file is /etc/paslsproxy.cfg on unix, and next to the executable on Windows.

Usage

1. Configure the socket process and proxy process. Both can be configured through a command-line option or a configuration file.

   By default the server listens on port 9898 and the proxy connects through this port.

   For both processes you can specify a log file which will log all communication to that logfile.

2. Start the socket server process (in the IDE or debugger of your choice) before you start the editor that uses the language server.

3. Configure VS Code (or any other edit) to use the proxy process instead of the standard pasls executable. Simply replace the full path to pasls to the full path to paslsproxy:

4. Happy debugging !