chapters/53.markdown @ 15358291fd7a

Autoloading
===========

We've written a fair amount of functionality for our Potion plugin, and that's
all we're going to do in this book.  Before we finish we'll talk about a few
more important ways to polish it up and really make it shine.

First on the list is making our plugin more efficient with autoloading.

How Autoload Works
------------------

Currently when a user loads our plugin (by opening a Potion file) *all* of its
functionality is loaded.  Our plugin is still small so this probably isn't a big
deal, but for larger plugins loading all of their code can take a noticeable
amount of time.

Vim's solution to this is something called "autoload".  Autoload lets you delay
loading code until it's actually needed.  You'll take a slight performance hit
overall, but if your users don't always use every single bit of code in your
plugin autoloading can be a huge speedup.

Here's how it works.  Look at the following command:

    :::vim
    :call somefile#Hello()

When you run this command, Vim will behave a bit differently than a normal
function call.

If this function has already been loaded, Vim will simply call it normally.

Otherwise Vim will look for a file called `autoload/somefile.vim` in your
`~/.vim` directory (and any Pathogen bundles).

If this file exists, Vim will load/source the file.  It will then try to call
the function normally.

Inside this file, the function should be defined like this:

    :::vim
    function somefile#Hello()
        " ...
    endfunction

You can use multiple `#` characters in the function name to represent
subdirectories.  For example:

    :::vim
    :call myplugin#somefile#Hello()

This will look for the autoloaded file at `autoload/myplugin/somefile.vim`.  The
function inside it needs to be defined with the full autoload path:

    :::vim
    function myplugin#somefile#Hello()
        " ...
    endfunction

Experimenting
-------------

To get a feel for how this works, let's give it a try.  Create
a `~/.vim/autoload/example.vim` file and add the following to it:

    :::vim
    echom "Loading..."

    function! example#Hello()
        echom "Hello, world!"
    endfunction

    echom "Done loading."

Save the file and run `:call example#Hello()`.  Vim will output the following:

    :::text
    Loading...
    Done loading.
    Hello, world!

This little demonstration proves a few things:

1. Vim really does load the `example.vim` file on the fly.  It didn't even exist
   when we opened Vim, so it couldn't have been loaded on startup!
2. When Vim finds the file it needs to autoload, it loads the entire file before
   actually calling the function.

**Without closing Vim**, change the definition of the function to look like
this:

    :::vim
    echom "Loading..."

    function! example#Hello()
        echom "Hello AGAIN, world!"
    endfunction

    echom "Done loading."

Save the file and **without closing Vim** run `:call example#Hello()`.  Vim will
simply output:

    :::text
    Hello, world!

Vim already has a definition for `example#Hello`, so it doesn't need to reload
the file, which means:

1. The code outside the function wasn't run again.
2. It didn't pick up the changes to the function.

Now run `:call example#BadFunction()`.  You'll see the loading messages again,
as well as an error about a nonexistent function.  But now try running `:call
example#Hello()` again.  This time you'll see the updated message!

By now you should have a pretty clear grip on what happens when Vim encounters
a call to a function with an autoload-style name:

1. It checks to see if it has a function by that name defined already.  If so,
   just call it.
2. Otherwise, find the appropriate file (based on the name) and source it.
3. Then attempt to call the function.  If it works, great. If it fails, just
   print an error.

If that's not completely solid in your mind yet, go back and work through this
demonstration again and try to see where each rule takes effect.

What to Autoload
----------------

Autoloading isn't free.  There's some (small) overhead involved with setting it
up, not to mention the ugly function names you need to sprinkle through your
code.

With that said, if you're creating a plugin that won't be used *every* time
a user opens a Vim session it's probably a good idea to move as much
functionality into autoloaded files as possible.  This will reduce the impact
your plugin has on your users' startup times, which is important as people
install more and more Vim plugins.

So what kind of things can be safely autoloaded?  The answer is basically
anything that's not directly called by your users.  Mappings and custom commands
can't be autoloaded (because they wouldn't be available for the users to call),
but many other things can be.

Let's look at our Potion plugin and see what we can autoload.

Adding Autoloading to the Potion Plugin
---------------------------------------

We'll start with the compile and run functionality.  Remember that our
`ftplugin/potion/running.vim` file looked like this at the end of the previous
chapter:

    :::vim
    if !exists("g:potion_command")
        let g:potion_command = "/Users/sjl/src/potion/potion"
    endif

    function! PotionCompileAndRunFile()
        silent !clear
        execute "!" . g:potion_command . " " . bufname("%")
    endfunction

    function! PotionShowBytecode()
        " Get the bytecode.
        let bytecode = system(g:potion_command . " -c -V " . bufname("%"))

        " Open a new split and set it up.
        vsplit __Potion_Bytecode__
        normal! ggdG
        setlocal filetype=potionbytecode
        setlocal buftype=nofile

        " Insert the bytecode.
        call append(0, split(bytecode, '\v\n'))
    endfunction

    nnoremap <buffer> <localleader>r :call PotionCompileAndRunFile()<cr>
    nnoremap <buffer> <localleader>b :call PotionShowBytecode()<cr>

This file is already only called when a Potion file is loaded, so it doesn't add
to the overhead of Vim's startup in general.  But there may be some users who
simply don't need this functionality, so if we can autoload some of it we'll
save them a few milliseconds every time they open a Potion file.

Yes, in this case the savings won't be huge.  But I'm sure you can imagine
a plugin with many thousands of lines of functions where the time required to
load them would be more significant.

Let's get started.  Create an `autoload/potion/running.vim` file in your plugin
repo.  Then move the two functions into it and adjust their names, so they look
like this:

    :::vim
    echom "Autoloading..."

    function! potion#running#PotionCompileAndRunFile()
        silent !clear
        execute "!" . g:potion_command . " " . bufname("%")
    endfunction

    function! potion#running#PotionShowBytecode()
        " Get the bytecode.
        let bytecode = system(g:potion_command . " -c -V " . bufname("%"))

        " Open a new split and set it up.
        vsplit __Potion_Bytecode__
        normal! ggdG
        setlocal filetype=potionbytecode
        setlocal buftype=nofile

        " Insert the bytecode.
        call append(0, split(bytecode, '\v\n'))
    endfunction

Notice how the `potion#running` portion of the function names matches the
directory and file name where they live.  Now change the
`ftplugin/potion/running.vim` file to look like this:

    :::vim
    if !exists("g:potion_command")
        let g:potion_command = "/Users/sjl/src/potion/potion"
    endif

    nnoremap <buffer> <localleader>r
                \ :call potion#running#PotionCompileAndRunFile()<cr>

    nnoremap <buffer> <localleader>b
                \ :call potion#running#PotionShowBytecode()<cr>

Save the files, close Vim, and open up your `factorial.pn` file.  Try using the
mappings to make sure they still work properly.

Make sure that you see the diagnostic `Autoloading...` message only the first
time you run one of the mappings (you may need to use `:messages` to see it).
Once you confirm that autoloading is working properly you can remove that
message.

As you can see, we've left the `nnoremap` calls that map the keys.  We can't
autoload these because the user would have no way to initiate the autoloading if
we did!

This is a common pattern you'll see in Vim plugins: most of their functionality
will be held in autoloaded functions, with just `nnoremap` and `command`
commands in the files that Vim loads every time.  Keep it in mind whenever
you're writing a non-trivial Vim plugin.

Exercises
---------

Read `:help autoload`.

Experiment a bit and find out how autoloading variables behaves.

Suppose you wanted to programatically force a reload of an autoload file Vim has
already loaded, without bothering the user.  How might you do this?  You may
want to read `:help silent!`.  Please don't ever do this in real life.