Sort go to definition results to show declarations inside the workspace first

[vinistock]

We're currently showing them in no particular order, but it's likely much more common for people to want to jump to declarations in their projects rather than the ones coming from gems or the standard library.

Since we know the file URIs, we should be able to sort results inside the workspace first.

[snutij]

I'll be happy to work on it @vinistock 👍 I wonder if we should create an issue for workspace_symbol order also, to address this one: #1277 (see last comment).

[vinistock]

I'm not sure if workspace symbol supports sorting though. But if it does, then indeed it would be great to sort that one too. I'll assign the issue to you!

[snutij]

Hello 👋. I have two questions regarding this issue:

• we know the file URI that trigger the request, but have to compare entries resolved with workspace URI, which is an attribute of the store. I could pass it from executor to the request, then listener, but is it an acceptable approach? Actually, we are not using workspace URI in request, so I ask to be sure.
• with VS Code, order seems not in our hand. Even when I reverse entries of definitions before returning Location to trigger an obvious change, it is still the same order. Someone can reproduce issue while definitions outside workspace returns first? I can reproduce with unitary test, but not with VS Code behavior, so i'm quite annoyed. 😔 IDK how other editors handle this.

Two issues & code from VS Code that seems related, but maybe I'm missing the point:

• Preserve the Location ordering in Definition from DefinitionProvider microsoft/vscode#104200 (comment)
• Allow file locations to be ordered in peek menu microsoft/vscode#202664 (comment)
• GotoReferencesModel where Location are sorted by uri & range.

[vinistock]

Hey, Justin. Yeah, it looks like we may not in fact be able to order things as intended. VS Code indeed merges responses coming from multiple sources, so if you have multiple language servers running you'll get the results from all of them.

It makes sense that in a scenario like that, you'd not be able to provide deterministic sorting since VS Code would not know how to order items coming from two different sources.

I think we may not be able to achieve what this issue originally intended, unfortunately. But thank you very much for looking into it!

Are you okay with closing this or is there anything else you'd like to research before?

[snutij]

👋 Yes I'm aligned with closing this issue, maybe there is room for improvement for other client, but as I said without more inputs on how they handle the server response it is hard to say. Thanks for taking time to answer!

[vinistock]

Thank you for looking into this!