Is this a bug? mini.align inserts space at beginning of line when aligning pipes with "ga|"

[openjck]

Contributing guidelines

• I have read CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md

Module(s)

mini.align

Question

I noticed this behavior while using mini.align. If I use ga| to align pipes in visual mode, an extra space is added at the beginning of each line that was selected with visual mode. Does this appear to be a bug? Maybe I'm misunderstanding something or forgetting to use some option. If it's a bug, I can file it as one.

Please see the following video demonstration:

2025-03-16-mini-align-bug-demo.mp4

Here's the init.lua file that I was using in the video:

-- This is the init.lua that is running right now.

-- Put this at the top of 'init.lua'
local path_package = vim.fn.stdpath('data') .. '/site'
local mini_path = path_package .. '/pack/deps/start/mini.nvim'
if not vim.loop.fs_stat(mini_path) then
  vim.cmd('echo "Installing `mini.nvim`" | redraw')
  local clone_cmd = {
    'git', 'clone', '--filter=blob:none',
    -- Uncomment next line to use 'stable' branch
    -- '--branch', 'stable',
    'https://github.com/echasnovski/mini.nvim', mini_path
  }
  vim.fn.system(clone_cmd)
  vim.cmd('packadd mini.nvim | helptags ALL')
end

require('mini.align').setup()

--[[
  Before aligning, the first pipe was directly below the letter "B".
  | example | example | example | example | example |
| example| example    | example          | example | example
]]

[echasnovski]

This is somewhat expected because | is built-in modifier with the following behavior. What happens here is:

• Both lines are split by |. The whitespace text before the first | in first line is treated as a text part.
• All parts are then trimmed from left and right whitespace but in a way to preserve indentation (which is the leading whitespace in the first line).
• All parts are justified appropriately, which makes second line the same indentation as the first.
• All parts are merged with separator padded with a single space from left and right. This adds the single space to the left.

I'll take a look if there is a reasonable workaround for not adding merge space to the left (to more strongly preserve indentation), but no promises.

[echasnovski]

This should now be resolved on latest main. I indeed opted for adjusting for this special case as preserving indentation is already a case with trim() step. Thanks again for noticing this!

[openjck]

Thanks for the fix!