Exact match in completion overrides CompletionItem.sortText

[renkun-ken]

• VSCode Version: 1.46.1
• OS Version: macOS 10.15.5

The completion items provider of a language server could specify CompletionItem.sortText (as defined in https://microsoft.github.io/language-server-protocol/specifications/specification-current/#textDocument_completion) to adjust the order of completion items. However, exact match in the completion list overrides the ordering specified by CompletionItem.sortText.

For example, the completion items are

label (sortText)
---------------
test (0-test)
tes  (1-tes)

If user types tes, both completion items appear but tes, as an exact match of current input, ranks higher than test even though test should rank higher in terms of its sortText.

Related:

• Show function parameters at the top of the autocompletion REditorSupport/languageserver#285
• Parameter autocompletion works until a call symbol match REditorSupport/languageserver#288

[jrieken]

That's the design. What a user types (the prefix) always counts more than what the extension wants

[renkun-ken]

In the example at REditorSupport/languageserver#288, the user is inputing the following function call:

sample(1, 1, rep|

where | stands for the cursor. While there's a function named rep, we actually want sample's argument replace to always rank higher than other symbols in this case.

In fact, we want to implement a principle to give different priorities to different category of completion items: from local to global. Is there a way we could ensure that some completion items always rank higher than others even if the current token under cursor has an exact match (which is in most cases not desired)?

[HaoboGu]

That's the design. What a user types (the prefix) always counts more than what the extension wants

I don't think this is a good design, look at the following example:

I have already typed Test, the suggestion of Test is meaningless: nothing will happen if I choose Test.

So I think the prefix matching, at least the exact matching(the suggestion is exact same as the prefix) should not override the sortText.