Allow use of integer variables in tasks.json

[dwilliamson]

I'm trying to call revealLine from a task input as that allows variable substitution (unlike keybindings):

    "inputs": [
        {
            "id": "RevealLine",
            "type": "command",
            "command": "revealLine",
            "args":{
                "lineNumber": "${lineNumber}",
                "at": "center"
            },
        }
    ]

Obviously this fails because the command revealLine expects an integer as the first command. It works fine if I substitute "${lineNumber}" with any old integer.

Of course, this is a valid JSON file with no pre-process and I anticipate you want to keep this concept. But it occurs to me that the type matching between strings an integers could be loosened a bit, allowing this conversion. I may be useful elsewhere.

Thanks again for this great tool.

[alexr00]

This would require that the variable substitution know something about where the variable substitution is happening. Instead, you could very easily write your own command that takes a string lineNumber and converts it to a number before calling the revealLine command.

[dwilliamson]

Sorry, I'm unsure what this means: doesn't the variable substitution already happen in tasks.json? So as far as I'm aware the above piece of code ends up being presented to the command as:

"args":{
                "lineNumber": "123",
                "at": "center"
            },

The problem is that the command itself wants a number type, not a string type:

vscode/src/vs/editor/browser/widget/codeEditorWidget.ts

Lines 579 to 590 in 7c17748

	private _revealLine(lineNumber: number, revealType: VerticalRevealType, scrollType: editorCommon.ScrollType): void {
	if (typeof lineNumber !== 'number') {
	throw new Error('Invalid arguments');
	}
	this._sendRevealRange(
	new Range(lineNumber, 1, lineNumber, 1),
	revealType,
	false,
	scrollType
	);
	}

I'm totally aware there are command extensions out there that can service my needs but I don't trust extensions as a rule and prefer to keep those installed to a minimum.

In this case a very simple addition would be to convert from string to integer but that may seem too specific. I've not dug any deeper into the code than this but I hand-wave assumed there'd be some higher level point (e.g.

vscode/src/vs/editor/browser/controller/coreCommands.ts

Line 1482 in a109b25

export const RevealLine: CoreEditorCommand = registerEditorCommand(new class extends CoreEditorCommand {

) that allowed you to be relaxed about the type of inputs you expect.

[alexr00]

@rebornix would you consider changing the reveal line command to handle a string for the lineNumber?

[rebornix]

@alexr00 we can support both number | string.

[rebornix]

Verifier, please test that you are not seeing warnings in keybindings editor when adding below

{
    "key": "cmd+i",
    "command": "revealLine",
    "args": {
      "lineNumber": "70",
      "at": "center"
    }

and also it works as expected

[weinand]

The title of this feature request no longer matches what was actually implemented to close the issue.

The feature "Allow use of integer variables in tasks.json" is still not supported.
But the command "revealLine" now supports a string and a number for the line number argument.

I've verified that "revealLine" now accepts a string argument.