Use module such as 'fs' within a script?

[dandavison]

I'd like to create a statusbar command that displays some text returned by a function in the node fs module. Specifically, I'm trying:

"script": "statusBarItem.text = require('fs').readlinkSync('/tmp/mylink.txt')"

However, from experimenting, I believe that fs is not available in the script context and that require('fs') doesn't work (although I failed to catch the error when I tried using try...catch in the script).

Is it possible to do what I'm trying to do here, or what would it take to make it possible?

[AnWeber]

I currently use vm.runInNewContext. Here no access to the local scope or require is possible. I change it, but only within Trusted Workspaces.

[dandavison]

Fantastic, thanks again for the quick and very helpful response.

[AnWeber]

I have integrated an OutputChannel that would output errors in the script area. Did you find the channel

Also, it would be possible to debug that script. For this I have created a howto for vscode-httpyac. The principle is the same. .

[dandavison]

Hi @AnWeber, I don't think this is working for me. I've installed from a .vsix built on master c7ed250a71ccfaa1f66f2613f0fa9801a16c7712, and I'm doing the following experiments:

"script": "console.log(vscode.workspace.isTrusted); statusBarItem.text = 'hello'"

I see true in the developer tools JS console, and hello appears in the status bar.

"script": "console.log(vscode.workspace.isTrusted); require('fs'); statusBarItem.text = 'hello'",

I still see true in the dev tools console, but the status bar text is now whatever I have set in the "text" field of the "statusbar_command.commands" config entry.

[dandavison]

The output channel is emitting lines that look like "empty JS object" syntax. Thanks for your debugging tips above; I haven't looked into any of this properly yet! I'll try to follow your suggestions above when I get a bit more time.

[AnWeber]

@dandavison There were still a few small errors in the code. I have now created a test case (read package version) and tested it.

• output of {} was an error because of the execution with runInContext. Error Class is encapsulated in some kind of proxy and therefore instanceOf Error does not work correctly
• require is actually not directly available. I have now included the simple variant, but it resolves the require in the context of my extension. Meaning own dependencies in the current workspace are not available.
• Another error could be the execution directory of the script. This is not the current workspace but the location of my extension. For this reason absolute paths should be used for referencing files (${workspaceFolder.fsPath}/package.json) .

{
      "alignment": "left",
      "command": "workbench.action.terminal.toggleTerminal",
      "id": "sbc.packageVersion",
      "text": "Package Version",
      "scriptEvents": ["vscode.workspace.onDidChangeConfiguration", "vscode.window.onDidChangeActiveTextEditor"],
      "script": "workspaceFolder && (statusBarItem.text = (JSON.parse(require('fs').readFileSync(`${workspaceFolder.fsPath}/package.json`, 'utf8'))).version)"
    }

[dandavison]

Thank you very much, this is working perfectly for me now.