How do I create a custom editor for executables (Unix)

[eugeneo]

My team is working on an extension to show objdump output when an executable is opened in the editor.

The problem I am facing is how to assign custom editor to an executable. Executables on Unixes do not have set file extensions so glob patterns are not feasible.

[isidorn]

Maybe @lramos15 can help

[lramos15]

Your best bet would be to assign your custom editor to be the default binary editor and then have some sort of graceful fallback if it's not an executable.

workbench.editor.defaultBinaryEditor

[eugeneo]

@lramos For context - @aharbii is implementing an objdump display when opening an executable. Current implementation relies on the source editor facilities to provide highlight, code outline and such.

This is his current implementation: uchen-ml/codeart-binexplore#45

[aharbii]

WebView.webm

@lramos15 In this video you will be able to see the behavior I'm mentioning, when I open a custom webView editor, no symbols can be provided.

It's more obvious in the markdown, when I open the markdown file with the text editor, I can see text document symbols.

[lramos15]

Do you want something like the document symbol provider to make your extension aware of the symbols? https://stackoverflow.com/questions/73823139/vscode-extension-using-executedocumentsymbolprovider-api

There is no way to keep the symbols view in a custom editor. Maybe a good feature request that you could make and see if the community supports is that if a user assigns a default binary editor they no longer see the warning.

[aharbii]

We already have implemented our own document symbols provider. For context, in this image, we parsed the binary with objdump, created a new text editor document, and provided the symbols for it.

But yeah as you said 'There is no way to keep the symbols view in a custom editor', so the only option we have right now is to continue working with a text editor, not a custom editor.

I will try as you suggested and request the feature to bypass the warning. Thanks Logan!

[aharbii]

Feature Request