microsoft / microsoft/language-server-protocol

Annotate references with the name of the entity they occur in

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feature-request references
Dominant language
TypeScript
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Avg merge
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Merged PRs (30d)
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Description

The response to textDocument/references is currently just Location[] | null.

However, clients may want to show, for each reference, information such as the name of the entity (e.g. function or class) in which the reference occurs, which they cannot easily compute on the client side.

Could the protocol be extended so the response is something like Reference[] | null, where Reference contains both a Location and possibly extra information like the name of the containing entity?

Contributor guide

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First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Research direction

Start at the textDocument/references entry in the protocol specification and review its current Location[] | null response shape. Compare the proposed Reference object and its containing-entity information with existing protocol conventions; done means the extension is precisely specified and its compatibility implications are resolved.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
typescript
Domain
api, developer-experience
Issue type
Feature
Difficulty
5/5
Estimated time
Over a week
Activity status
Quiet
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
25/100

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