Bring along imports when copy and pasting code across files

[patrick91]

Example:

import datetime
import json

def get_current_datetime_info() -> str:
    now = datetime.datetime.now()

    data = {
        "date": now.strftime("%Y-%m-%d"),
        "time": now.strftime("%H:%M:%S"),
        "message": "Hello, world!"
    }

    return json.dumps(data, indent=4)

if I copy this snippet or any line code that uses one some of the imports it would be nice to get the imports where we paste those lines.

There's the same request for TS here: microsoft/TypeScript#50187

[debonte]

Is this something that we could solve by implementing format on paste? #4342

[patrick91]

Is this something that we could solve by implementing format on paste? #4342

by finding the required imports? or by remembering the imports? the first one might be trickier since there might be multiple module exporting the same "name"

[mjbvz]

We just shipped this for JavaScript and TypeScript so I'd love to help get Python support too!

The VS Code API for this is still proposed but I'm tentatively planning to finalize it in January. It's also been relatively stable recently so you should be able to prototype using it.

One potential limitation is that this API is currently only implemented in VS Code and not in the LSP. I have a LSP proposal for this and have also implemented the feature in the markdown language server using custom requests

Let me know if you have any questions about trying the API. Would be really helpful to hear feedback on the API and VS Code UX too

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Here are some relevant code references to get started:

• Current proposal in VS Code

• VS Code Extension sample

• More complete example showing this API in used to update code on paste for markdown (extension side and server side)

• Video showing the whole update imports on paste flow in action for JS/TS in VS Code

• JS/TS implementation (extension and server)