Allow `@link` to reference objects in other files

[WillsterJohnson]

In @type (and other type defining tags) it's possible to reference external JS objects by using import("./relative/path").objectName.

This should also be possible in @link both to avoid importing unexecuted code, and to avoid errors in common tools & frameworks regarding the unused imports.

Input code

/**
 * @see {@link import("./file.js").objectName} this thing may be of interest for reasons
 */
/* ... */

Expected behavior

The @link inline tag should provide a reference to the exported objectName in ./file.js

Current behavior

The @link tag does not provide any reference, and (at least when using VSCode to render) shows up as the plaintext import("./file.js").objectName instead of a clickable link

Your environment

Software	Version
JSDoc	(supplied with VSCode 1.67)
Node.js	18.2.0
npm	8.9.0
Operating system	Linux (Pop OS 21.10)

Why this functionality matters

I use TypeScript for pretty much everything I write at this point. I want my JS output to be the absolute minimum it needs to be, because my DTS will do all the in-editor documentation; I set removeComments = true for JS and = false for DTS.
However, because I have to import the objects I want to reference in @link, and because TypeScript is "helpful" and treeshakes unused imports, they've been removed by the time my DTS files are generated with JSDoc preserved. However, this now means that my @link tags no longer work.
There is a TypeScript issue to add support for @link targets being treated as "used" values, however it could be useful in many cases for JSDoc to support the import(file).member syntax in @link as well as TypeScript fixing it's own behavior.

---

If this is supposed to be possible, and is just VSCode not rendering JSDoc correctly, let me know and I'll bring up this issue over there instead

[ebenali]

bump?

[konrad-bak]

I have the same problem.

[mike-shea-jotform]

Any update on this??

[WillsterJohnson]

Folks I think jsdoc is just dying tbh, there are issues well over a decade old here which aren't fixed, and ones many years old which haven't been acknowledged. If jsdoc manages to stay afloat for that long, we can probably expect this to be implemented around 2030-2035.

Sad to see something so useful have so few maintainers.

[jfbrennan]

Need this too. I'm building an editor with ProseMirror and I have some utility functions that I would like to @{link exportedSchemaObjectInOtherFile} so my team can quickly find the relevant schema object.

[alphanull]

Might be fixable via plugin. Might add this to jsdoc-plugin-esnext if there is still interest. I just made a simple test version which should do the job (not released), so drop me a note if you want to try it.