Can't resolve visual studio code variables

[agreedSkiing]

Could not find any issue about this but, when i'm using ${userHome}/eclipse-java-google-style.xml or any other variable that visual studio code provides (https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/reference/variables-reference) then the plugin/addon failes to find the formatter

[Error - 7:57:58 AM] Mar 11, 2025, 7:57:58 AM Illegal character in path at index 1: ${userHome}/eclipse-java-google-style.xml
Illegal character in path at index 1: ${workspaceFolder}/eclipse-java-google-style.xml
java.net.URISyntaxException: Illegal character in path at index 1: ${userHome}/eclipse-java-google-style.xml
    at java.base/java.net.URI$Parser.fail(URI.java:2995)
    at java.base/java.net.URI$Parser.checkChars(URI.java:3166)
    at java.base/java.net.URI$Parser.parseHierarchical(URI.java:3248)
    at java.base/java.net.URI$Parser.parse(URI.java:3207)
    at java.base/java.net.URI.<init>(URI.java:645)
    at org.eclipse.jdt.ls.core.internal.managers.StandardProjectsManager.getURIs(StandardProjectsManager.java:585)
    at org.eclipse.jdt.ls.core.internal.managers.StandardProjectsManager.registerWatchers(StandardProjectsManager.java:536)
    at org.eclipse.jdt.ls.core.internal.managers.StandardProjectsManager$1.run(StandardProjectsManager.java:140)
    at org.eclipse.core.internal.jobs.Worker.run(Worker.java:63)

Version

Name: Language Support for Java(TM) by Red Hat
Id: redhat.java
Description: Java Linting, Intellisense, formatting, refactoring, Maven/Gradle support and more...
Version: 1.40.0
Publisher: Red Hat
VS Marketplace Link: https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=redhat.java

Visual studio code

Version: 1.97.2 (system setup)
Commit: e54c774e0add60467559eb0d1e229c6452cf8447
Date: 2025-02-12T23:20:35.343Z
Electron: 32.2.7
ElectronBuildId: 10982180
Chromium: 128.0.6613.186
Node.js: 20.18.1
V8: 12.8.374.38-electron.0
OS: Windows_NT x64 10.0.22631

Maven and java version

Apache Maven 3.9.6 (bc0240f3c744dd6b6ec2920b3cd08dcc295161ae)
Maven home: /home/eriase/.asdf/installs/maven/3.9.6
Java version: 21.0.3, vendor: Oracle Corporation, runtime: /home/eriase/.asdf/installs/java/oracle-21.0.3
Default locale: en_US, platform encoding: UTF-8
OS name: "linux", version: "5.15.167.4-microsoft-standard-wsl2", arch: "amd64", family: "unix"

Ubuntu version

No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID: Ubuntu
Description:    Ubuntu 24.04.2 LTS
Release:        24.04
Codename:       noble

Windows subsystem for linux

WSL-version: 2.3.26.0
Kernelversion: 5.15.167.4-1
WSLg-version: 1.0.65
MSRDC-version: 1.2.5620
Direct3D-version: 1.611.1-81528511
DXCore-version: 10.0.26100.1-240331-1435.ge-release
Windows-version: 10.0.22631.4890

Remote (windows subsystem for linux) settings

  "java.jdt.ls.java.home": "/home/eriase/.asdf/installs/java/oracle-21.0.3",

[janderssonse]

I can verify, had the same problem.

[rgrunber]

We support this from the language server side, eclipse-jdtls/eclipse.jdt.ls#1735 (comment) . In other words, if a property or environment variable is defined within the Java process (eg. ${user.dir}, it will be resolved when used as a setting.

I think one way to support client-side variables would be to simply pass them in as system properties / environment variables to the language server at startup. Slight preference for using environment variables to populate them as that doesn't increase the size of the launch command :

vscode-java/src/javaServerStarter.ts

Line 42 in 6bba969

options.env = Object.assign({ syntaxserver : isSyntaxServer }, process.env);

Update: This is trickier than I thought. There are variables like active file/line that can change very often so it's not enough to just send them once. The language server needs to constantly receive their updated values. The other issue is there isn't a nice API to access the variable values. See microsoft/vscode#46471 . We'll have to just write/copy the class most other extensions use to evaluate the predefined variables.

[rgrunber]

I have a basic draft locally that will support things like "${userHome}", "${workspaceFolder}", "${workspaceFolderBasename}", using https://www.npmjs.com/package/vscode-variables (mentioned as a solution in the issue). I could also support many of the variables based on the active file, but for now I'd rather leave them out, as they would involve communication between the client/server at least every time the cursor position changes (eg. "${lineNumber}", "${columnNumber}"). It's less clear whether such variables would be that useful.