On macOS, selecting venv interpreter actually selects system interpreter

[matangover]

Environment data

• VS Code version: 1.48.0
• Extension version: v2020.8.103604
• OS and version: macOS 10.14.6
• Python version: 3.8.1
• Type of virtual environment used: venv
• Value of the python.languageServer setting: Pylance

Steps to reproduce

1. Python: Select Interpreter -> Enter interpreter path... -> Find...
2. Browse to a venv bin directory, e.g. Documents/my-venv/bin
3. Select the python file (it's actually a symlink, because it's a venv)
4. Click Select Interpreter

Expected behaviour

The selected venv should show up in the interpreter status bar.

Actual behaviour

The system interpreter is selected instead. That is because the file chooser dialog follows the venv's python symlink and returns the path to the system python (or more accurately, to the Python used to create the venv).

Discussion

Electron has a noResolveAliases option for showOpenDialog, but seems like this isn't available in VS Code. One workaround is typing the path manually instead of browsing. This may be clarified to the user somehow.

[kimadeline]

Hi @matangover, thank you for reaching out!

I could reproduce your issue on a Mac as well, and this issue doesn't seem to be happening on Windows.

As you pointed out this is a property that isn't exposed by the VS Code API, so I created an issue upstream (microsoft/vscode#105455) for them to provide it.

[matangover]

Thanks @kimadeline :)

[jamilraichouni]

Hi!

Can confirm this or very similar behaviour also on macos

I use poetry that creates venvs with host-dependent names for the venv directories.

So that I do not need to touch all my path settings when switching to another dev machine I work with symlinks:

For example my project's settings.json may look like this:

always pointing to the symlinked venv dir.

But this is often not working and the Jupyter notebook and Python interactive fall back to my system python3.

When I change the interpreter to use the path
/Users/username/.venvs/dbatlassian-fp4Hgyxz-py3.8/bin

w/o using the symlink it is working and VSCode uses the correct and configured interpreter.

When using the symlink

/Users/username/.venvs/dbatlassian/bin

it is using the system Python interpreter.

Thanks,
Jamil