dense-analysis/ale

Tagstack is always appended to, behaves different to native tags

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#2945 opened on Dec 28, 2019

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 (1 comment) (0 reactions) (0 assignees)Vim Script (13,990 stars) (1,487 forks)batch import
LSPenhancementhelp wanted

Description

Currently ale doesn't replicate Vim's native tag behavior when using :ALEGoToDefinition. The way that the tagstack is updated is different.

Natively, CTRL-T will go up in the tagstack, decrementing the "current index". A subsequent CTRL-] will push to the tagstack at the position of the current index, replacing everything that came after this index.

Ale, however, always appends at the end of the tagstack, ignoring the current index. This breaks CTRL-T because it will jump to the last definition that had been jumped to chronologically, rather than the one that was previously "current".

Unfortunately settagstack can only replace or append to the tagstack, so we have to manually replicate the behavior. (I've just opened https://github.com/vim/vim/issues/5405 to suggest to provide it natively.)

Contributor guide

Tech stack
None
Domain
tooling
Issue type
bug
DifficultyEstimated implementation difficulty for a new contributor, from 1 for very small changes to 5 for expert-level work.
3
Estimated timeA rough time range for an experienced contributor to investigate, implement, test, and prepare a pull request.
1-3 hours
Activity statusHow available the issue appears right now: fresh, active, stale, blocked, or waiting on maintainer input.
stale
ClarityHow clearly the issue explains the expected change, acceptance criteria, and next step.
clear
Prerequisites
understanding of Vim tagstackVim scripting basics
Newbie friendlinessA 1-100 score estimating how approachable this issue is for first-time contributors.
40
Research direction
The issue describes that ALE's tagstack always appends instead of respecting the current index like Vim's native behavior. To fix, you need to examine how `settagstack()` is used in the ALE codebase (likely in `autoload/ale/definition.vim` or similar). Implement logic to first truncate the tagstack after the current index before appending, replicating Vim's native behavior. Refer to the linked Vim issue (vim/vim#5405) for context on the limitation of `settagstack()`.