Tape for Visual Studio Code

Language support for Tape, a compiled language with a bytecode VM and native backends, components and source regions built in.

Features

• Syntax highlighting for every source region: #code, #view, #style, #resource, #test and #bytecode. String interpolation, #RRGGBB colour literals, @tape / @emit compile-time blocks and @ builtins are highlighted. Asset kinds such as icon and font are keywords only in #resource, and test / setup / teardown only in #test.
• Diagnostics as you type. These are the same errors tape check reports: syntax, types, profile rules (t0/t1/t2) and imported modules.
• Hover answers for every name the compiler resolves: locals and parameters in every scope (for variables, match bindings, or { err }), functions and methods (with *self or *const self), struct fields, enum variants with their values and descriptions, component props and events, module aliases, and another module's types, functions and constants (fb.Framebuffer, serial.write). Types come from the type checker, doc comments (// or /* */) from the declaring file. Built-in types get a one-line description.
• Go to definition, including into imported modules and the standard library.
• Completion for keywords and declarations in the file. After io. or ui., it lists that module's public declarations.
• Outline and breadcrumbs. Components list their props, events and methods.
• Folding for each source region, for blocks and for comments.

Requirements

Highlighting works on its own. Diagnostics, hover, completion and navigation come from tape-lsp, the language server that ships with tape. Install tape and the extension finds the server by itself:

The extension looks for the server in this order:

1. the tape.lsp.path setting
2. next to the tape found on PATH
3. tape-lsp on PATH

If none of these exists, the extension offers to open the install page.

Updating tape while VS Code runs

You can update or rebuild tape while VS Code is open. The language server restarts on the new version by itself.

• Windows locks a running .exe, so the extension never runs your tape-lsp.exe itself. It runs a copy kept in the extension's storage (for example %APPDATA%\Code\User\globalStorage\puida.tape-language\servers\tape-lsp-<hash>.exe, named by a hash of the file's contents) and tells it where your tape is (--home), so it still uses that tape's standard library. Every VS Code window running the same tape shares one copy. Old copies are deleted once no window runs them.
• Linux and macOS can replace a running program, so the extension runs tape-lsp from where it is installed.

On every platform the extension watches tape-lsp. When the file changes, it waits until the new file has been completely written, then restarts the server and notes this in the Tape output. Tape: Restart Language Server does the same on demand: it finds the server again and copies it again if it has changed. The same applies to a server you set with tape.lsp.path.

Settings

Modules of your own project

import fb from "fb"; finds fb.tape the way tape build does: in the include paths, then in the standard library, then next to the importing file. A project that builds with -I for its own directories should list them in tape.includePaths, for example in .vscode/settings.json:

{
  "tape.includePaths": ["kernel/dev", "kernel/mem", "lib/font"]
}

Without the setting, the language server looks for a module it cannot otherwise find in the workspace (the folder holding .git), and takes the file of that name nearest the importing file. A module named like a standard library module (process, io) is taken from the standard library unless the setting lists its directory, except in a t0 module, which cannot import the standard library's t1 modules.

Commands

• Tape: Restart Language Server: finds the server again and restarts it, for example after installing tape or changing PATH. Updates to a server already in use are picked up without it.
• Tape: Show Output: shows server logs and startup problems.

Feedback

Report bugs and send questions through tapelang.org/contact.