Add a git extensions api to check for unsynced changes

[wangjaso]

Currently the git extensions api does not have a method to check if the user has unsynced changes. To achieve that I am doing a check like such

    git.onDidOpenRepository(async function(repo: Repository) {
        updateGitChanges(repo.state);

        repo.state.onDidChange(async function(this: any) {
            const repo: any = this;
            updateGitChanges(repo.state);
        }, repo);
    });

async function updateGitChanges(repoState: RepositoryState) {
    const hasChanges = !!(
        repoState.indexChanges.length !== 0 ||
        repoState.mergeChanges.length !== 0 ||
        repoState.workingTreeChanges.length !== 0 ||
        repoState.rebaseCommit !== undefined ||
        (repoState.HEAD?.ahead && repoState.HEAD?.ahead !== 0)
    );

    ...
}

Would be nice to have a api method that does this.
Thanks,
Jason

[jkeech]

Specifically, this would need to be a command so that we can execute it over a local -> remote connection.

[joaomoreno]

@wangjaso Your snippet shows that the git extension already exposes this information. What other information do you need?

Would be nice to have a api method that does this.

That would be a utility function, not exactly API. We don't really expose utility functions in our API.

---

@jkeech I don't understand what you mean by this. Given that the Git extension exposes this information via its API, you can just use the API.

[joaomoreno]

From @kieferrm:

Git runs as a workspace extension. They need this information on the UI side. Since we cannot call API across extension host boundaries, we could however expose a command that provides this functionality.

Got it. We could expose an internal command which returns a snapshot of RepositoryState, given a file path of a repo or inside a repo. @wangjaso @jkeech would that be enough?

[jkeech]

@joaomoreno, the Visual Studio Online Extension is a UI extension since it includes a remote resolver. In VS Code desktop, it runs on the local side, while the Git extension is a workspace extension that runs on the remote side. In this scenario, the Git extension is not visible to the VSO extension. Extension APIs are not remoted, but commands are. So we need the Git extension to also expose this functionality via commands.

[jkeech]

@wangjaso, do you think it would make sense to have two commands?

1. List all known/tracked repositories that VS Code is aware of, or at least the currently tracked one in the workspace
2. For a given repository, return the state snapshot.

I think we don’t know all of the interesting repos up front, so we’re relying on VS Code to provide that information, hence the need for the first command. Jason can confirm.

[wangjaso]

@joaomoreno @jkeech

That would make sense, since right now we can only know about #1 if user actively worked on it.

[joaomoreno]

OK, just pushed this. Here are the commands:

• git.api.getRepositories returns an array of string uris
• git.api.getRepositoryState returns the state of a repository, given a string uri. returns null if the repository is not found

Please give it a try in tomorrow's insiders. Let me know how it goes and if you need more data in the methods.

[joaomoreno]

Verification: please see comment above

[wangjaso]

@joaomoreno I verified that these 2 are working correctly. Thanks!

With these 2 apis I'm able to detect existing repo changes. But is there a way to know when a repo has been initialized? For example below:

git.onDidOpenRepository(async function (repo: Repository) {
        await updateGitChanges(repo.state);
}

[joaomoreno]

Thanks! No, there is currently no way to do that. Remember that the current solution is a hack: it just passes a JSON representation of the git model between the barrier... it doesn't really reproduce the model on the other side.