Canonical way to resolve folder in scoped ${workspaceFolder:<folder>} variables

[OmeGak]

I was surprised to find that VSCode provides no canonical way to resolve workspace folder when substituting ${workspaceFolder:<folder>} variables. This leaves how to resolve the scoped ${workspaceFolder} variable up to extension authors, clearly leading to inconsistent behavior (microsoft/vscode-python#22452). In that case the confusion was around named folders in multi-root workspaces.

It doesn't help that the official documentation remains ambiguous as to how scoped ${workspaceFolder} variables should be resolved. For instance, here, the documentation says nothing about the name attribute in workspace folders. Here, the documentation states that the name attribute in workspace folders is for display purpose in the Explorer. However, here, the documentation implies that the canonical way to resolve variables is as it happens in Task configurations.

Then, if a workspace folder is named, this task will fail:

"echo ${workspaceFolder:<workspace-folder-path-basename>}"

While this one will work:

"echo ${workspaceFolder:<workspace-folder-name>}"

Seeing that the behavior in VSCode is far from obvious, it may be worth to:

• Provide a canonical way to resolve scoped workspace folder variables so that the behavior matches between VSCode and extensions. Could this be a resolveFolder() function in the WorkspaceFolder class?
• Clarifying here that scoped ${workspaceFolder} variables are resolved with either their explicitly set name or with their path basename.
• Clarifying here that the name attribute in workspace folder is not used only for display in Explorer but also to resolve scoped ${workspaceFolder} variables.

/cc @karrtikr, who fixed microsoft/vscode-python#22452.

[bpasero]

I have unfortunately no clue what this ask is about, maybe some of the assignees can chime in.

[connor4312]

For instance, here, the documentation says nothing about the name attribute in workspace folders

From the docs you linked, it says "By appending the root folder's name to a variable (separated by a colon), it is possible to reach into sibling root folders of a workspace. Without the root folder name, the variable is scoped to the same folder where it is used."

My reading of the following two documentation links does not contradict that; the first link is the canonical source.

Clarifying here that the name attribute in workspace folder is not used only for display in Explorer but also to resolve scoped ${workspaceFolder} variables.

Sure, a cross-link would make sense. PRs welcome for that 🙂

Provide a canonical way to resolve scoped workspace folder variables so that the behavior matches between VSCode and extensions. Could this be a resolveFolder() function in the WorkspaceFolder class?

Sounds like this issue is mainly about having an API to resolve variables for extensions. I think that's @alexr00's domain. Though people have already written npm packages to do this, such as https://www.npmjs.com/package/@c4312/vscode-variables

[vscodenpa]

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[vscodenpa]

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[vscodenpa]

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