hrsh7th / vscode-anycode

Anycode

A language extension that inaccurately implements popular features like "Go to Definition", "Outline", or "Workspace Symbol Search". This extension should be used when running in enviroments that don't allow for running actual language services (like github.dev).

The services provided by this extension are meant to be better than full text search but fall short when compared to real language services. The table below shows what features have been implemented for what language (various levels of completness apply), the following paragrath outlines how things are implemented.

	c	cpp	csharp	java	php	rust	go	python	typescript	notes
Outline	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅
Workspace Symbol Search	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅	Anything that would show in outline can be found via workspace symbol search
Go to Definition	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅
Reference Search	⭕️	⭕️	✅	✅	⭕️	✅	✅	✅	✅
Document Highlights	⭕️1	⭕️1	✅2	✅2	✅2	✅2	✅2	⭕️1	⭕️1	1 Identifiers with the same value are highlighted 2 Local variables and parameters are highlighted correctly else identifer-based highlights are used
Completions	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅
Expand/Shrink Selection	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅
Folding	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅

For each file anycode creates a (Tree-sitter) syntax tree. All features are based on these syntax trees and there is no semantic information, e.g no guarantee for correctness. Syntax trees allow to identify declarations, e.g "these lines define a function named foo" and allow to identity usages, e.g "this is an invocation of function bar". In essence, anycode compares names of usages and declarations - go to definition will search for any declaration matching the word under the cursor, reference search finds all usages and declaration etc. The approach often yields surprisingly good results but can easily tricked be with repeated/shadowed names and declarations. Anycode is no replacement for a language service but better source code full text search.

There are two settings that define how anycode works: anycode.language.features controls what feature is avialable, either for all or specific languages and anycode.symbolIndexSize defines how many files should be eagerly fetched. This is important for cross file features like workspace symbol search or go to definition. The default is 100 and depending on your project higher values might be needed.

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Development

To compile tree-sitter languages you need docker or emscripten, follow these steps:

• have emcc on your path or docker running
• run npm install

There is a watch task to build TS, either npm run watch or "F1 > Run Task > npm: watch". The task will auto launch on next open if desired.

Push a tag to publish a new version to the marketplace:

• run npm version path and then
• run git push && git push --tag

Contributing

This project welcomes contributions and suggestions. Most contributions require you to agree to a Contributor License Agreement (CLA) declaring that you have the right to, and actually do, grant us the rights to use your contribution. For details, visit https://cla.opensource.microsoft.com.

When you submit a pull request, a CLA bot will automatically determine whether you need to provide a CLA and decorate the PR appropriately (e.g., status check, comment). Simply follow the instructions provided by the bot. You will only need to do this once across all repos using our CLA.

This project has adopted the Microsoft Open Source Code of Conduct. For more information see the Code of Conduct FAQ or contact [e-mail] with any additional questions or comments.