Autoimport always imports relative paths

[andrewAtPaymentRails]

• VSCode Version: 1.23.1
• OS Version: MacOS 10.13.4

Steps to Reproduce:

1. Try and import something using auto-import that is close to (near adjacent) to the file you're working in. That is to say, write the name of a class of function, then use the suggestions to add the import statement for you.

Expected behaviour:

Visual Studio Code offers the import to be relative to the project (baseUrl)

// from lib/actions/approval
import { processBatch } from 'lib/actions/batch';

Actual behaviour:

Visual Studio Code will preferentially import using relative paths with "./" and "../"

import { processBatch } from '../batch';

This is a huge problem for us because our coding convention bans relative imports. Part of the reason is there's quite a few files with the same name so an import from "bank" could refer to 4 different files. Relative imports make it impossible to tell which one you're importing at a glance. You need to consider where you are in the tree already, know where that file sits relative to the one you're importing and then doing the mental gymnastics to figure out how the paths resolve. Relative paths might as well be called obfuscated paths.

Does this issue occur when all extensions are disabled?: Yes

[vscodebot]

(Experimental duplicate detection)
Thanks for submitting this issue. Please also check if it is already covered by an existing one, like:

• Do not auto import relative paths ever (#46194)
• Organize imports should change relative to absolute imports or vica versa (#46699)
• Organize imports remove imports in usage (#48346)
• Using relative operator for es6 import path isnt followed by vs-code. (#45223)
• TypeScript Import Suggestion Doesn't work anymore (#47092)

[usernamehw]

In Insiders version there is a setting (TypeScript 2.9+):

"typescript.preferences.importModuleSpecifier": "non-relative",

[Frikki]

VSCode Version 1.25.0-insider auto-imports my node_modules using relative paths.

// Illustration
import { Foo } from '../../../node_modules/foo'