CODEWITHSUNDEEP
visual-studio-codevscode-extensions
Ilia
Ilia

Reputation: 328

Visual Studio code extension - Getting active tab data for non-textual files

I have an extension in which I query the source path of the current active tab file.

For textual files, the following works great:

const activeEditor: TextEditor = window.activeTextEditor;
if (activeEditor && activeEditor.document && activeEditor.document.fileName) {
    return activeEditor.document.fileName;
}

Problem is, this doesn't work when the active file in the text editor is non-textual, for example an image file such as a .jpg.

For these types of files, window.activeTextEditor is undefined. Moreover, when I try running the following code:

const uri = Uri.file(<path_to_binary_file>);
workspace.openTextDocument(uri);

I receive the following error: "cannot open <path_to_file>. Detail: File seems to be binary and cannot be opened as text", and I don't see any similar API to openTextDocument that deals with non-textual files.

Is there any straightforward way of obtaining this data without using commands.executeCommand('workbench.action.files.copyPathOfActiveFile') and various clipboard manipulations?

Upvotes: 4

Views: 1631

Answers (2)

Alfred
Alfred

Reputation: 570

Here is a workaround:

const getSourcePathForNonTextFile = async (): Promise<string> => {
    // Since there is no API to get details of non-textual files, the following workaround is performed:
    // 1. Saving the original clipboard data to a local variable.
    const originalClipboardData = await vscode.env.clipboard.readText();

    // 2. Populating the clipboard with an empty string
    await vscode.env.clipboard.writeText("");

    // 3. Calling the copyPathOfActiveFile that populates the clipboard with the source path of the active file.
    // If there is no active file - the clipboard will not be populated and it will stay with the empty string.
    await vscode.commands.executeCommand("workbench.action.files.copyPathOfActiveFile");

    // 4. Get the clipboard data after the API call
    const postAPICallClipboardData = await vscode.env.clipboard.readText();

    // 5. Return the saved original clipboard data to the clipboard so this method
    // will not interfere with the clipboard's content.
    await vscode.env.clipboard.writeText(originalClipboardData);

    // 6. Return the clipboard data from the API call (which could be an empty string if it failed).
    return postAPICallClipboardData;
};

Upvotes: 0

Ilia
Ilia

Reputation: 328

It seems that this is a known open issue in VS code. The following Github issue discusses it.

Upvotes: 1

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