Robotcode is always 'Collecting sources'

[Sparrel]

Hello,

Whenever I start vscode and open a robot framework file, I see Robotcode execute some sort of process which is 'Collect sources'. This never really seems to end for me (even if I have the same file open for about an hour).
What is the extension actually trying to do here?
From the general vscode output logging of the extension I can see at least something going wrong.
This is (part) of the output from the vscode 'Robotcode' tab:
'executeRobotCode: /../../.caddir/RHEL7/cadbin/python3 -u -X utf8 /../../.vscode/extensions/d-biehl.robotcode-0.82.3/bundled/tool/robotcode --format json --no-color --no-pager --default-path . profiles list
client for file:///../../.. running.
client for file:///../../.. started.
Error: Can't get items for keywords treeview: Error: Request canceled.'

Since I see the memory for vscode gradually increase in this virtual desktop environment I use (and this sometimes crashes due to memory issues), I wonder if this is actually caused by this extension.

Do you maybe have any information for me on this subject, or could you show me how to find out what it is actually doing?

Thanks in advance for any information you might have.

[d-biehl]

can you add the following to your settings.json of your project and restart vscode:

"robotcode.languageServer.extraArgs": [
        "--log",
        "--log-level",
        "DEBUG"
    ]

after enabling the log output you will find in the output view of vscode another entry called `RobotCode Language Server mode..."
here you can find some more informations what happens, maybe you can copy the output here, so that I can analyse it better.

[Sparrel]

Thanks for the quick reply.
After adding this to the settings.json and re-opening a .robot file in my repository in vscode, I get the following output:

removed output

[d-biehl]

is that all logging info?
How big is your project directory, do you have other files or directories in there, maybe the venv folder of your repo or what ever?
Robot Framework and also RobotCode tries to find every robot file that is in your project folder.

What you can do is, search in the vscode settings on the workspace/folder tab for the setting robotcode.workspace.excludePatterns and add all folders that do not contain robot files.

[Sparrel]

This seems to be all the output I get from the output window of vscode called "RobotCode Language Server mode=pipe for folder '..'".
My project folder is indeed quite large so I've added quite a few patterns to the workspace settings.json files robotcode.workspace.excludePatterns (e.g. '"/name1/name2/name3/folder_name/build/**").
The intellisense seems to be working fine already (except for the unknown keyword highlighting, which it does not seem to do yet), however, the 'Collect sources' seems to be endless.

[d-biehl]

Apologies for the late reply, I'm currently on vacation...

• I noticed there are many ../.. entries in your log. Did you replace something? Normally, full paths should appear here.

• Are you using any symbolic links in your repository (e.g., created with ln -s ...)?

• I see the ${workspaceFolder} variable in your Python path settings. Variables in settings are not supported by VSCode/RobotCode. Since RobotCode is always started in ${workspaceFolder}, it’s sufficient to specify the relative path ./com/int/tst/BDD/resources.

• I’m not sure what exactly you’re adding to the exclude patterns, but if you want to exclude entire directories, the pattern should end with a /. This works similarly to .gitignore files, as explained in the documentation.

• If the pattern ends with a /, it will only match directories. Without the /, the pattern can match both files and directories. In your example, every file is checked to see if it matches the pattern. If you remove the ** at the end, the algorithm will ignore the entire directory without collecting all files inside it.

• Also, the pattern should be relative, not absolute, meaning it should not start with a /.

[Sparrel]

No problem at all! Thanks for taking the time to help me on your holiday !

I noticed there are many ../.. entries in your log. Did you replace something? Normally, full paths should appear here.

• Indeed I manually replaced some folder names here.

Are you using any symbolic links in your repository (e.g., created with ln -s ...)?

• It seems that my project folder indeed uses some symlinks. However, I think the directories at which it uses the symlinks should be added to the exclude patterns list.

I see the ${workspaceFolder} variable in your Python path settings. Variables in settings are not supported by VSCode/RobotCode. Since RobotCode is always started in ${workspaceFolder}, it’s sufficient to specify the relative path ./com/int/tst/BDD/resources.

• I see, I was not aware of this. I've replaced entries that contained this variable with the relative path now (I assume this is relative to the folder that you've opened in vscode?)

I’m not sure what exactly you’re adding to the exclude patterns, but if you want to exclude entire directories, the pattern should end with a /. This works similarly to .gitignore files, as explained in the documentation.

• Thanks for this tip, I was also not fully aware of this.

If the pattern ends with a /, it will only match directories. Without the /, the pattern can match both files and directories. In your example, every file is checked to see if it matches the pattern. If you remove the ** at the end, the algorithm will ignore the entire directory without collecting all files inside it.

• I've removed the ** at the end of the exclude pattern list and corrected all paths added here to the relative path (example: "robotcode.workspace.excludePatterns": [ "./build/",].

Also, the pattern should be relative, not absolute, meaning it should not start with a /.

• Thank you

I hope I've configured my workspace.json settings correctly now. However, I still see the extension 'collect sources'. Is there a way to verify that these patterns are now configured correctly (verify that it is no longer collecting sources from these directories?)

[d-biehl]

I implemented the possibility that RobotCode respects a .gitignore file, maybe you want to checkout the new version?

see here 74fa480 for some informations

[Sparrel]

Thank you for taking the effort to update this !
I will checkout the new version.
Just to clarify, would it be sufficient to only have the robotcode.workspace.excludePatterns specified, or would I additionally need to add .robotignore files in each directory?

[d-biehl]

robotcode.workspace.excludePatterns should be enough. And if you want to use a .robotignore file, one in the root directory should be enough.