Git for Windows set VS Code as editor wrongly using exe instead of cmd

[segevfiner]

• I was not able to find an open or closed issue matching what I'm seeing

Setup

• Which version of Git for Windows are you using? Is it 32-bit or 64-bit?

$ git --version --build-options
git version 2.33.0.windows.2
cpu: x86_64
built from commit: 8735530946cced809cc6cc4c2ca3b078cdb3dfc8
sizeof-long: 4
sizeof-size_t: 8
shell-path: /bin/sh
feature: fsmonitor--daemon

• Which version of Windows are you running? Vista, 7, 8, 10? Is it 32-bit or 64-bit?

$ cmd.exe /c ver

Microsoft Windows [Version 10.0.19042.1237]

• What options did you set as part of the installation? Or did you choose the
  defaults?

# One of the following:
> type "C:\Program Files\Git\etc\install-options.txt"
> type "C:\Program Files (x86)\Git\etc\install-options.txt"
> type "%USERPROFILE%\AppData\Local\Programs\Git\etc\install-options.txt"
$ cat /etc/install-options.txt
Editor Option: VisualStudioCode
Custom Editor Path:
Default Branch Option:
Path Option: Cmd
SSH Option: ExternalOpenSSH
Tortoise Option: false
CURL Option: OpenSSL
CRLF Option: CRLFAlways
Bash Terminal Option: MinTTY
Git Pull Behavior Option: FFOnly
Use Credential Manager: Core
Performance Tweaks FSCache: Enabled
Enable Symlinks: Disabled
Enable Pseudo Console Support: Disabled
Enable FSMonitor: Disabled

• Any other interesting things about your environment that might be related
  to the issue you're seeing?

Pretty much a new computer and a clean install.

Details

• Which terminal/shell are you running Git from? e.g Bash/CMD/PowerShell/other

PowerShell 7.1.4

• What commands did you run to trigger this issue? If you can provide a
  Minimal, Complete, and Verifiable example
  this will help us understand the issue.

git commit

• What did you expect to occur after running these commands?

The VS Code editor will open with the COMMIT_EDITMSG file, and when the tab is closed, the commit will proceed.

• What actually happened instead?

The commit only proceeds when the window is closed, and I get strange debug messages from VS Code in the terminal.

• Why this happens?

The VS Code code CLI is not the Code.exe executable, rather it is a bin\code.cmd inside the installation folder. It is this bin folder that is added to the PATH.

Git for Windows' installer sets:

[core]
	editor = \"C:\\Users\\Segev\\AppData\\Local\\Programs\\Microsoft VS Code\\Code.exe\" --wait

But it should be:

[core]
	editor = \"C:\\Users\\Segev\\AppData\\Local\\Programs\\Microsoft VS Code\\bin\\code.cmd\" --wait

Or:

[core]
	editor = code --wait

• If the problem was occurring with a specific repository, can you provide the
  URL to that repository to help us with testing?

Any repo.

[rimrul]

Strongly related to #2616. We should probably also call the batch wrapper for VSCodium and VS Code Insiders.

[dscho]

I am worried about the implications, such as quoting paths containing spaces. The current contents of code.cmd seem to be:

@echo off
setlocal
set VSCODE_DEV=
set ELECTRON_RUN_AS_NODE=1
"%~dp0..\Code.exe" "%~dp0..\resources\app\out\cli.js" %*
endlocal

The "run Electron as node" setting is probably the thing that upsets your VS Code.

Or:

[core]
	editor = code --wait

That only works if the user chose to add it to the PATH, which not all users do. So that's not an option.

[segevfiner]

I am worried about the implications, such as quoting paths containing spaces. The current contents of code.cmd seem to be:

@echo off
setlocal
set VSCODE_DEV=
set ELECTRON_RUN_AS_NODE=1
"%~dp0..\Code.exe" "%~dp0..\resources\app\out\cli.js" %*
endlocal

Passing paths with spaces works correctly for me, so I assume %* is the correct incantation in cmd/batch to forward arguments.

The "run Electron as node" setting is probably the thing that upsets your VS Code.

Or:

[core]
	editor = code --wait

The CLI entry point for VS Code is different from the GUI executable default entry point, launching the GUI executable directly will not give you the CLI. ELECTRON_RUN_AS_NODE is just an implementation detail of how this CLI script works. They need to run it with node.js rather than electron so they set this variable to use the node.js embedded in the Electron executable.

That only works if the user chose to add it to the PATH, which not all users do. So that's not an option.

Yep. And although VS Code does add itself to PATH (The bin sub-folder) on installation by default, it is likely more robust to resolve the path on installation.

[dscho]

Passing paths with spaces works correctly for me, so I assume %* is the correct incantation in cmd/batch to forward arguments.

Please be more precise: are you talking about manually launching the .cmd script? That's not my concern. My concern is how Git calls it.

[segevfiner]

Passing paths with spaces works correctly for me, so I assume %* is the correct incantation in cmd/batch to forward arguments.

Please be more precise: are you talking about manually launching the .cmd script? That's not my concern. My concern is how Git calls it.

Tested this as well just now by creating a repo with spaces in the path and trying to commit. VS Code opened correctly.

[dscho]

@segevfiner next step: find out how to change https://github.com/git-for-windows/build-extra/blob/4676f286a1ec830a5038b32400808a353dc6c48d/installer/install.iss#L1812 to pick up the .cmd instead of the .exe.

[segevfiner]

@segevfiner next step: find out how to change https://github.com/git-for-windows/build-extra/blob/4676f286a1ec830a5038b32400808a353dc6c48d/installer/install.iss#L1812 to pick up the .cmd instead of the .exe.

VisualStudioCodePath:=ExtractFileName(VisualStudioCodePath) + '\bin\code.cmd'?

[dscho]

@segevfiner next step: find out how to change https://github.com/git-for-windows/build-extra/blob/4676f286a1ec830a5038b32400808a353dc6c48d/installer/install.iss#L1812 to pick up the .cmd instead of the .exe.

VisualStudioCodePath:=ExtractFileName(VisualStudioCodePath) + '\bin\code.cmd'?

Is this robust, though? Have you found any official Visual Studio Code resources that talk about figuring out the path?

[segevfiner]

@segevfiner next step: find out how to change https://github.com/git-for-windows/build-extra/blob/4676f286a1ec830a5038b32400808a353dc6c48d/installer/install.iss#L1812 to pick up the .cmd instead of the .exe.

VisualStudioCodePath:=ExtractFileName(VisualStudioCodePath) + '\bin\code.cmd'?

Is this robust, though? Have you found any official Visual Studio Code resources that talk about figuring out the path?

Not really. I do remember that this is the path to this since evey version of VS Code that I used, but to be sure we might want to rope in someone from the VS Code team, though I'm not sure what the appropriate channel to contact them is.

[segevfiner]

@segevfiner next step: find out how to change https://github.com/git-for-windows/build-extra/blob/4676f286a1ec830a5038b32400808a353dc6c48d/installer/install.iss#L1812 to pick up the .cmd instead of the .exe.

VisualStudioCodePath:=ExtractFileName(VisualStudioCodePath) + '\bin\code.cmd'?

Is this robust, though? Have you found any official Visual Studio Code resources that talk about figuring out the path?

It appears VS Code actually does the same thing: https://github.com/microsoft/vscode/blob/ee1655a82ebdfd38bf8792088a6602c69f7bbd94/src/vs/platform/native/electron-main/nativeHostMainService.ts#L361

Whether they will ever change it or not, who knows...

[dscho]

Whether they will ever change it or not, who knows...

So for the moment, we can do the same. Up until it breaks, that is (iff it ever breaks).

Care to implement it and open a PR in build-extra?