#764 feature request: auto import

[skyjur]

Please let me know what should be improved or if you have ideas how to do things better, and I will try to implement it.

https://github.com/DonJayamanne/pythonVSCode/issues/764

[skyjur]

I think I will update to make use of isort -a (https://github.com/timothycrosley/isort#adding-an-import-to-multiple-files)

[skyjur]

I've tried to make use of existing importSortProvider.ts, and refactored it to support addImport().

Also, I have found the comment saying that --diff doesn't work together with passing code as stdin on isort, but in my testing it worked just fine. So I've updated to use stdin. I think it makes some things simpler as well as it should be more efficient than creating a temporary file.

As this is my first contribution I've tried to leave things as closely as they are.

Some tests were failing because the last line now is handled slightly differently and now in some
cases it doesn't produce a TextEdit for the last line where it used to. I've refactored out very long lines while working on fixing them.

[DonJayamanne]

Please could you revert the changes to PythonImportSortProvider that changes its behaviour. Lets leave this PR specific to just the auto import feature.
Please create a separate PR that makes changes to PythonImportSortProvider to improve it with the changes to the arguments, etc.
its easier to focus on one change at a time in each PR, easier for testing too.

[DonJayamanne]

Oh yes, thanks for the great work.

[skyjur]

I've removed the changes I did for the import-sort part and added a few tests.

I have tried using auto-import implementation done with isort -a for a while, and I found that, at least for me it was very inconvenient to have isort running everytime on auto-import. Because sometimes isort would just mess up my imports and I had no way out of it. Having auto-import added on first line, and manually moving it to correct position felt more acceptable to me.

[skyjur]

Anything else I can do to improve this?

[DonJayamanne]

damn, forgot about this. Will look into this tomorrow and release this soon.
Unfortunately I released a new version a moment ago. Sorry, thanks again for your great effort. I've been wanting to work on an auto import. Please hang in there, i'll release this soon.

And thanks for the unit tests

[DonJayamanne]

Unfortunately this doesn't always work.
I've tested this. It works only when the editor is able to resolve references, and I don't believe that'll work majority of the time.
I should have informed you about this earlier, but I will be reverting the change.

[skyjur]

It works only when the editor is able to resolve references

Yes, but what could possibly be done if reference cannot be resolved?

[DonJayamanne]

Yes, but would could be done if reference cannot be resolved?

Sorry, didn't follow you here.

[DonJayamanne]

Check whether the following gives you what you need: https://github.com/markbaas/python-iresolve

[skyjur]

I think it is best to use workspace-symbol-lookup to implement this feature.

If symbol lookup as currently is implemented does not find symbols in majority of cases, then I think it's better to improve on symbol lookup, instead of using alternative symbol-resolver just for auto-import capability.

[skyjur]

I will have a look however, into iresolve in following few days to see if it can work better than ctags.

[DonJayamanne]

Symbol lookup cannot work the way you suggest. First the code needs to tell the ide what it is using before the ide can figure it out for itself. It can't think for the user.

What if your are using a method that exists on two separate modules? Which one do you want to use?

[DonJayamanne]

Also the symbol lookup is provided by the python library Jedi

[skyjur]

What if your are using a method that exists on two separate modules? Which one do you want to use?

It shows a quick-pick menu with all modules (this scenario is in the gif that I've attached).

Also the symbol lookup is provided by the python library Jedi

Just to clarify, I think for auto-import suitable lookup is workspace-symbol-lookup
Jedi is used for active editor symbol-lookup. However this is limited to only symbols that already had been imported and can be resolved to single definition in a file.
Workspace symbol lookup (Ctrl+p followed by #) is using ctags from what I've seen (https://github.com/DonJayamanne/pythonVSCode/blob/master/src/client/workspaceSymbols/provider.ts/)

So my idea was to run workspace-symbol-lookup, filter out results a bit, and display choices to user in a quick-pick menu. Instead of workspace-symbol-lookup it is sure possible to use different library, but I believe this functionality could be reused.

[skyjur]

I realised something just now, which I didn't know before, Workspace-Symbol-Lookup is not limited to python files. Looking for symbol might also display javascript (or other) files. So I will need to fix this in one of the ways:

1. add filtering by file type
2. call WorkspaceSymbolProvider directly
3. use iresolve (If i find that it works) instead of WorkspaceSymbolProvider

However, I still think that WorkspaceSymbolProvider and auto-import should use same underlying library.

[skyjur]

Sorry if I am misleading with the terminology that I used.

I am not sure if I correctly use these terms:

"symbol-lookup", for to the jedi powered lookup of symbol in currently open file, under the cursor

"workspace-symbol-lookup" symbol search across all workspace files which is available through Ctrl+P followed by #

[dhensen]

I'm on 0.7.0 now, but I dont see this option when I open the Command Pallette and type autoimport... How does this work? Do I need to enable something?

[DonJayamanne]

Unfortunately this feature is not available in the extension.

[ghost]

Perhaps it would be much easier to use a python library for autoimports, importmagic does exactly that:
https://github.com/alecthomas/importmagic

[blueboxH]

How do I use this feature? When I try to use it , this error occurs.
Running the contributed command:'python.autoImportAtCursor' failed.

What should I do? Thank you very much

[skyjur]

@bluehezihhh could you provide more information, in what setup/when you run it, and if there was any stack-trace of the error?

[blueboxH]

I do it on windows10,and this is my path.

I can run "python" and "ctags" command in cmd. And I set as this

But when I select impotr like this,I can not find it

finally I press "alt+enter" when Cursor at "sys" like this

but I can't find any information about the warning. what should I do? Thank you very much!

[skyjur]

I'm afraid this will not work on 'sys', because symbols are looked up only in ctags file currently. So it won't work with modules import x and only works with from x import y.

It looks like https://github.com/alecthomas/importmagic that was mentioned here could do much better job than the current implementation with ctags. Woud be happy to give a go but at the moment I'm quite busy so unfortunately can't contribute much.

[blueboxH]

Thanks a lot

[ferdynice]

If I'm correct this feature is currently present in vscode 0.7 but not enabled/working. I also get "Running the command failed" error when I map the command to a shortcut.

I believe this feature missing is one of the last things that will stop people from switching from fully-fledged IDEs like PyCharm. It just saves a ton of time compared to manually lookup and type imports. Also most required parts for this functionality is already present, like project symbols.